Devoir de Philosophie

The 1960’s and the American Woman: the transition from the “housewife” to the feminist

Publié le 03/05/2015

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  Introduction:  In 1960, the world of American women was limited in almost every respect, from family life to the workplace. A woman was expected to follow one path: to marry in her early 20s, start a family quickly, and devote her life to homemaking.  Imagine the life of a woman before the 1960s. Her life had been difficult– denied basic rights, trapped in the home her entire life and discriminated against in the workplace. Per example, in the 1960s, a bank could refuse to issue a credit card to an unmarried woman; even if she was married, her husband was required to cosign. The 38 percent of American women who worked in 1960 were largely limited to jobs as teacher, nurse, or secretary. Women were generally unwelcome in professional programs. Working women were routinely paid lower salaries than men and denied opportunities to advance, as employers assumed they would soon become pregnant and quit their jobs, and that, unlike men, they did not have families to support. So, we can see the discrimination between men and women. Then, the 1960s came along with it, women began to fight for their rights because they were tired of the discrimination and began to band together in defense of their rights. The 1960s ...

« beyond traditional roles.

She was a bright student, Friedan excelled at Smith College, graduating in 1942 with a bachelor's degree in psychology.

Although she received a fellowship to study at the University of California.

In New York, Friedan worked for a short time as a reporter.

She was a strong supporter of the proposed Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution.

In 1966, Friedan founded and was elected the first president of the National Organization for Women (NOW), which aimed to bring women “into the mainstream of American society now fully equal partnership with men».

In 1947, she married Carl Friedan.

The couple went on to have three children.

She published The Second Stage in 1982 and The Fountain of Age in 1993.

And then, she died in 2006, in Washington, D.C.   II.

The Feminine Mystique For her 15th college reunion in 1957 Friedan conducted a survey of college graduates, focusing on their education, subsequent experiences and satisfaction with their current lives.

She started publishing articles about what she called "the problem that has no name", and got passionate responses from many housewives grateful that they were not alone in experiencing this problem. Friedan then decided to rework and expand this topic into a book, The Feminine Mystique.

Published in 1963, it depicted the roles of women in industrial societies, especially the full-time homemaker role which Friedan deemed stifling.

In her book, Friedan claimed she was a depressed suburban housewife who dropped out of college at the age of 19 to get married and raise four children.

She spoke of her own 'terror' at being alone, wrote that she had never once in her life seen a positive female role-model who worked outside the home and also kept a family, and cited numerous cases of housewives who felt similarly trapped. The "Problem That Has No Name" was described by Friedan in the beginning of the book: "The problem lay buried, unspoken, for many years in the minds of American women.

It was a strange stirring, a sense of dissatisfaction, a yearning that women suffered in the middle of the 20th century in the United States. Each suburban housewife struggled with it alone.

As she made the beds, shopped for groceries, she was afraid to ask even of herself the silent question: Is this all?" The book became a bestseller, which many historians believe was the impetus for the "second wave" of the. »

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