TOW #4: The Feminine Mystique (IRB)

The most difficult part about reading The Feminine Mystique is that it was written in the 1960's for an audience living in the 1960's. Many times, I almost wished I could back to the 1960's and read Friedan's book then, so that I would feel just how enormous her impact was. For most of the book, I find myself nodding along in agreement, but I imagine that Friedan's words would have been earth-shattering to the many burdened housewives 50 years ago. Then, of course, Friedan reminds me that even professors and college presidents thought education and careers would "unsex" women, and I decide that maybe it's better to stay in 2015.

That being said, I must analyze Friedan's rhetoric with the perspective of readers in the 1960's. The people reading The Feminine Mystique when it was first published had little to no background in feminism or sociology. The mere idea that something was even wrong in society was ludicrous. Friedan had an enormous obstacle to overcome: the predispositions of her audience. So many people believed that women were happy as housewives; careers were unsuitable for women; or that women couldn't possibly be interested in anything beyond the household. For this reason, Friedan relied more heavily on appeals to logos and ethos than to pathos. (Friedan had every right to be an angry, impassioned feminist. But even more than they are today, angry, impassioned feminists were scorned in the 1960's.) Friedan includes extensive quotes from research papers, magazine editors, and housewives themselves. She weaves all of these elements together with calm and cool analysis. For example, when explaining how the fields of psychology, sociology, and anthropology have limited women, she tells a hypothetical anecdote:

"If an old-fashioned grandfather frowned at Nora, who is studying calculus because she wants to be a physicist, and muttered, 'Woman's place is in the home,' Nora would laugh impatiently, 'Grandpa, this is 1963.' But she does not laugh at the urbane pipe-smoking professor of sociology, or the book by Margaret Mead, or the definitive two-volume reference on female sexuality, when they tell her the same thing. The complex, mysterious language of functionalism, Freudian psychology, and cultural anthropology hides from her the fact that they say this with not much more basis than grandpa" (141).  

Friedan's collected and blunt tone does not dramatize her findings, but presents them in a plain light. Without adornments or embellishments, readers are forced to confront her conclusions. There is no hiding behind figurative language or complex syntax. Armed with her research, it is difficult to deny Friedan's positions on the how's and why's of society.