The Second Sex And The Feminine Mystique, By Betty Friedan

Male versus female During the nineteenth and early twentieth century, the first-wave feminism was transpiring. The preeminent ambition was achieving women’s suffrage, and was mainly fixated on legal and political affairs. In particular, the resistance to chattel marriage, advocacy of equal contract, and property claims for women. The influential works of Simone de Beauvoir and Betty Friedan with The Second Sex and The Feminine Mystique, sought to explain issues in relation to women and gender disparity. Total authority belonged to men; women couldn 't do anything independently for themselves. Men were categorized as more dominant, while women were considered submissive. Women also didn 't have the right to an education, the right to better …show more content…
Her work is extensively considered as one of the most momentous books of the century, she is also universally regarded with sparking the inauguration of the second-wave feminism. Friedan desired to disclose in her book why American women backtracked to their traditional roles of home-makers post World War II, after achieving significant development. The fundamental subject of her book is the the exasperation of married women of the 1960s. Betty Friedan detected that the resentment these women felt was very much all over the place. Her determination at that point was to pinpoint and precisely delineate the dilemma that was affecting married women. Through countless interviews, surveys, and research Friedan found that the majority of married women were dissatisfied with their lives, even though they were expected to feel fulfilled by their family life. “Each suburban wife struggles with it alone. As she made the beds, shopped for groceries, matched slipcover material, ate peanut butter sandwiches with her children, chauffeured Cub Scouts and Brownies, lay beside her husband at night- she was afraid to ask even of herself the silent question-- 'Is this all?”. She even went on to say that these women were dehumanized, and no different than the Jews a concentration camp during the Holocaust. She also explained how the only dream women of that time had was to be the quintessential wife and mother; their biggest aspiration was to stay at home and build a perfect life. Friedan deliberates that women were discovering their identities through their family. Seemingly, the goal of the first wave feminism was for women to discover their true selves, through satisfaction in their education and career. Feminists hoped for women to not be labelled as simply the ‘property’ of their husbands, but rather an autonomous