The Feminine Mystique

The Feminine Mystique is the title of a book written by Betty Friedan who also founded

The National Organization for Women (NOW) to help US women gain equal rights. She

describes the 'feminine mystique' as the heightened awareness of the expectations of women

and how each woman has to fit a certain role as a little girl, an uneducated and unemployed

teenager, and finally as a wife and mother who is to happily clean the kitchen and cook things all

day. After World War II, a lot of women's organizations began to appear with the goal of

bringing the issues of equal rights into the limelight.

        The stereotype even came down to the color of a woman's hair. Many women wished

that they could be blonde because that was the ideal hair color. In The Feminine Mystique,

Friedan writes that 'across America, three out of every ten women dyed their hair blonde '

(Kerber/DeHart 514). This serves as an example of how there was such a push for women to

fit a certain mold which was portrayed as the role of women. Blacks were naturally excluded

from the notion of ideal women and they suffered additional discrimination which was even

greater than that which the white women suffered from.

        In addition to hair color, women often went to great lengths to achieve a thin figure. The

look that women were striving for was the look of the thin model. Many women wore tight,

uncomfortable clothing in order to create the illusion of being thinner and some even took pills

that were supposed to make them lose weight.

        The role of women was to find a husband to support the family that they would raise.

Many women dropped out of college or never went in the first place because they were...