The Problem With No Name Summary

What is the "problem with no name" as described by Betty Friedan? How did people in the 50s and 60s try to downplay or trivialize this problem? How does this relate to the cult of domesticity? "The problem with no name" referes to a widescale mental health crisis in the United States in the 1950s and 60s. Many women had chosen to get married and start a family at a very young age, as early as 17 years old. These women had become the perfect models for feminine domesticity. Staying at home and tending to the household was the image they aspired to and tried their best to achieve. This decision did not come without consequence. A lot of women expressed discontent with their lives, but couldn't pinpoint the origin of their sorrow. Some would remark, that they felt as if they didn't exist or that there was something missing in their lives. This mental health pandemic was caused by the role of houswife women were coerced into playing, and the trivial work of tidying the house and preparing food for the working husband without any greater purpose. Women had been reduced to a household appliance, causing many of them a grief they could not explain. "I have no …show more content…
Women were told they didn't realize how lucky they were to not have a boss, scheduled shifts and no junior executive gunning for their job (Friedan 24). Housewives were lucky to have the stress-free lives they were supposed to enjoy, but evidently did not. Different magazines attributed the plight to the time needed to chaffeur children out of the suburbs, incompetent appliance repair-men, or just any other trivial matter that didn't have any real impact on the mental well-being of these women. Drastic solutions were brought up as a solution, further trivializing the issue. It was said that women need to be stripped of their education or their voting rights, eliminating any progress women fought for so