Feminine Mystique Essay, Research Paper

The Feminine Mystique

The first couple of chapters of The Feminine Mystique basically points out that there was a major problem that was plaguing America’s female population during the 1950’s. The main idea behind this problem was that women were raised to basically become housewives. During that time women had no aspirations to have a career, further their education, and fill their lives with new experiences. The aspirations of women during the 1950’s were geared towards getting married, having children, being a good mother and wife, and getting a house…basically taking care of their family. However, as the end of the 50’s grew near, women were unhappy about their “Ozzie and Harriet” life. Women begin to feel like they have no personality, individuality, and are becoming ever so dissatisfied with who they are. This problem and these feelings, however, were continually dismissed as being not serious.

The problems that these women had were also handed down to their daughters, the next generation of women to answer to the feminine mystique. Early in life show interest in worldly matters, creative activities, and showed an interest in school. Being unpopular, however, was too big of a price to pay. Their generation knew that they didn’t want to be like their mothers, yet they were still left without a self-image that they could latch onto as a building block for the future. They began to only be interested in becoming popular and being “one of the girls.” Some of the girls were so terrified of being like their mothers that they couldn’t see themselves at all. Thus, they had to copy the composite image of the popular girl, denying what was best in them out of fear of femininity as they saw it in their mothers.