| In an excerpt from her book, "The Feminine | | | | beyond the cult of true womanhood. |
| Mystique", Betty Friedan defines women's | | | | If women expressed dissatisfaction with their |
| unhappiness during the Fifties as ''the problem that | | | | charmed lives, the experts blamed their feelings |
| has no name.'' She identifies "the problem that has | | | | on the higher education they received before |
| no name" as upper-middle classed suburban | | | | becoming a housewife. During the fifties, little girls |
| women experiencing dissatisfaction with their lives | | | | as young as ten years were being marketed by |
| and an unarticulated longing for something else | | | | underwear advertisers selling brassieres with false |
| beside their housewifely duties. She pins the blame | | | | bottoms to aide them in catching boyfriends and |
| on a media perpuated idealized image of | | | | American girls began getting married in high school. |
| femininity, a social construction that tells women | | | | America's birthrate during this time skyrocketed |
| that their role in life is catch a man, keep a man, | | | | and college educated women made careers out |
| have children and put the needs of one's husband | | | | of having children. The image of the beautiful, |
| and children first. | | | | bountiful Suburban housewife was accepted as |
| According to Friedan, women have been | | | | the norm and women drove themselves crazy, |
| encouraged to confine themselves to a very | | | | sometimes literally to achieve this goal. |
| narrow definition of "true" womanhood, forsaking | | | | Friedan ultimately concluded that "the problem |
| education and career aspirations in the process by | | | | that has no name" is not a loss of femininity, too |
| experts who wrote books, columns and books | | | | much education, or the demands of domesticity |
| that told women during that era that their | | | | but a stirring of rebellion of millions of women who |
| greatest role on the planet was to be wives and | | | | were fed up with pretending that they were |
| mothers. The role of a "real" woman was to have | | | | happy with their lives and that solving this problem |
| no interest in politics, higher education and careers | | | | would be the key to the future of American |
| and women were taught by these experts to | | | | culture. |
| pity women who had the nerve to want a life | | | | |