Betty Friedan's The Importance Of Work By Betty Friedan
In her essay, “The Importance of Work,” from The Feminine Mystique published in 1963, Betty Friedan confronts American women’s search for identity. Throughout the novel, Betty Friedan breaks new ground, concocting the idea that women can discover personal fulfillment by straying away from their original roles. Friedan ponders on the idea that The Feminine Mystique is the cause for a vast majority of women during that time period to feel confined by their occupations around the house; therefore, restricting them from discovering who they are as women. Friedan’s novel is well known for creating a different kind of feminism and rousing various women across the nation.
In 1942, Friedan graduated from Smith College with a bachelor’s degree in psychology and took off to New York City to fulfill her dream of becoming a reporter. It was at this time that she married and had three children. The vast majority of her remaining time was spent at home to provide her family’s necessities. Her role as a housewife became so tough that she began to feel as if she had lost her purpose in life. Friedan eventually discovered that she was not the only woman that felt this way, and she swore to stop at nothing in order to support other women in her situation. She composed a novel that urged women across the country to search for opportunities and discover their individual beliefs as endure everyday life. Throughout the novel, Friedan entwines work and identity by utilizing the methods of
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1454 Words | 6 PagesThe search of identity is an issue familiar to contemporary society as well as to the society of 1963 when Betty Friedan published her feminist manifesto The Feminine Mystique. The main idea of Friedan 's article, "The Importance of Work," is the question of how individuals can recognize their full capacities and achieve identity. She argues that human identity is meaningful purposeful work, and individuals are not identified as women or men, just human based upon their work. Friedan believes work is what an individual does in his or her life; for example, snowboarding, songwriting, hockey, football etc. Friedan was an author, an activist, and the first president of the National Organization for Women.
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917 Words | 4 PagesIn Friedan’s piece she stated, “And the women’s magazines, deploring the unhappy statistics about these young marriages, urged that courses on marriage, and marriage counselors, be installed in the high schools” (p. 10). This shows that America was pushing for women in this age to marry young and produce children even if she is unhappy with her marriage. Betty Friedan’s stance on this lifestyle for women was that is was destructive to a woman’s identity and belief in herself. In her piece she interviewed a woman who stated, “I begin to feel I have no personality. I’m a server of food and a putter-on of pants and a bedmaker, somebody who can be called on when you want something.
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