The Feminine Mystique

Friedan’s final chapter outlines solutions for the problem of the feminine mystique at both the individual and the societal levels. While she makes clear that her top priority is for women to get high-quality educations so that they can pursue careers, she also allows room for the possibility that a career will not be a cure-all and that others might find fulfillment in different ways. Like her opening chapter, her closing chapter contains ideas that apply largely to middle- or upper-class women, even though Friedan never states this explicitly. When she advises that women pursue not just any career but a career that meets and challenges their intellectual capacities, she ignores the millions of women who do not have this option because their financial precarity demands they take any job they can get. She also ignores the millions of women of color who would face significant, often insurmountable prejudice from hiring agents in intellectually stimulating white-collar fields.

Despite the limited field of women her suggestions apply to, many of Friedan’s proposals insist on bold, substantial changes in society—so bold, in fact, that they are still debated and contested today. For instance, Friedan’s proposal that colleges and universities let women enroll part-time shows an awareness that more robust options for childcare would be necessary if women were to enter the workforce. Decades later, many activists and legislators are still pushing for access to affordable childcare for all.

The Feminine Mystique catapulted Friedan to national prominence, which led to her tenure as the founder and first president of the National Organization for Women, an organization that continues to advocate for women’s rights and opportunities today. While many people in the contemporary feminist movement would quibble with some of its claims or question the scholars on which several of its chapters rely, the book’s role in energizing the feminist movement of the 1960s is undeniable.