betty friedan's book the feminine mystique

She has stood by her 1973 statement that 'it is a decade now since the publication of the Feminine Mystique and until I started writing the book, I wasn't even conscious of the woman question.' (Friedan in The Feminine Mystique, 10th Anniversary Edition, New York, Dell Publishing Co.: 1974, p. Betty Friedan herself, however, has publicly rejected the story Horowitz tells in this biography. His unauthorized biography weaves the strands of these 'isms' into an compelling account that functions exceptionally well on many levels: as biography, as historiography of feminism, and as social movement history. Using an extensive collection of Friedan's papers archived at Smith College, Horowitz argues for a multi-causal view of second-wave feminism: 'Though most women's historians have argued that 1960s feminism emerged in response to the suburban captivity of white middle-class women during the 1950s, the material in Friedan's papers suggested additional origins-anti-fascism, radicalism, and labor union activism of the 1940s' (p. Daniel Horowitz's study suggests that, like the book she wrote, Friedan herself is far more complex than the persona she has created. While historians of post-war gender studies have argued that gender roles were far more complex than those portrayed in The Feminine Mystique, Friedan's personal narrative of the bored middle-class housewife turned activist has been accepted as a model for the evolution of feminist consciousness in the second-wave feminist movement.

Her passionate plea for expanded public roles for women was especially effective because she spoke as one who had been trapped and nearly suffocated by the role of the suburban housewife. In her 1963 feminist classic The Feminine Mystique Betty Friedan condemned the limited and unsatisfying gender roles of the post-World War II era.

Betty friedan's book the feminine mystique