betty friedan the problem that has no name

Man-eating was the term imposed on feminists. Since the era of first-wave feminism, feminists were reduced to just a group of women who wanted to be men and not desirable. In the second part, The Passionate Journey, Friedan gave unadorned opinion on those who were against feminists passionate journey in fighting for women’s rights. Very little of what I’ve done has been really necessary or important.” I wash the dishes, rush the older children off to school, dash out in the yard to cultivate the chrysanthemums, run back in to make a phone call about a committee meeting, help the youngest child build a blockhouse, spend fifteen minutes skimming the newspaper so I can be well-informed, then scamper down to the washing machines where my thrice-weekly laundry includes enough clothes to keep a primitive village going for an entire year. “ A film made of any typical morning in my house would look like an old Marx Brothers’ comedy. Friedan quoted a woman she interviewed to explain this phenomenon better: Better educational attainment of young American women in the 1960s, which raised self-aspirations among them, was suspected to cause it.

The problem still lingered, however, and women gradually grew a distance with themselves they became selfless and lost life purpose. Many, and women too, believed that women should bear no burden of such depression as they had been blessed by better standard of living than the rest of the world and husbands that supported their lives. Their life was confined to domestic work and childbearing while the husbands managing the world. Women were expected to conform to “standard” femininity, which final end is to becoming a dedicated housewife. The Problem That Has No Name particularly highlights the struggle of American women to handle the emptiness and sense of dissatisfaction during economic boom in the 1950s and 60s. Although second-wave feminism spread out across the Western world, the activities carried out in the United States has received, perhaps, more attention because the country was also experiencing major economic and social changes during the time. Second-wave feminism, as it is known as, generally include issues of family, the workplace, domestic violence, reproductive rights, among others.

The book has been credited with provoking American women to begin a period of discussing wider women’s issues beyond enfranchisement and equal property rights and fighting for gender equality in the increasingly industrialised world at that time. The Problem That Has No Name is a selection taken from Betty Friedan’s seminal book, The Feminine Mystique, which was published in 1963.

Betty friedan the problem that has no name