![]() Bureau of Labor Statistics, women now make up nearly half of the workforce. Times have changed since the publication of “The Feminine Mystique.” However, Friedan’s words still resonate today. As she made the beds, shopped for groceries, matched slipcover material, ate peanut butter sandwiches with her children, chauffeured Cub Scouts and Brownies, lay beside her husband at night–she was afraid to ask even of herself the silent question–‘Is this all?'” ![]() ![]() Each suburban wife struggled with it alone. It was a strange stirring, a sense of dissatisfaction, a yearning that women suffered in the middle of the twentieth century in the United States. Wrote Friedan: “The problem lay buried, unspoken, for many years in the minds of American women. Friedan called this lack of fulfillment “a problem that has no name.” Through her research, Friedan discovered that many of the stay-at-home wives and mothers who were her peers felt dissatisfied and unhappy adhering to the traditional and domestic roles pushed by society. ![]() In it, Friedan questions the expectations women of her time faced in becoming housewives and choosing marriage and family over a continued education or career. ![]() Published in 1963, this book has been credited with sparking the start of the second-wave feminist movement. This week marks the 50th anniversary of “The Feminine Mystique,” the groundbreaking book by one of NOW’s founders and its first president, Betty Friedan. ![]()
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