The Feminine Mystique is the title of a book written by Betty Friedan who also founded The National Organization for Women (NOW) to help US women gain She describes the "feminine mystique" as the heightened awarenessof the expectations of women and how each woman has to fit a certain role as alittle girl, an uneducated and unemployed teenager, and finally as a wife andmother who is to happily clean the kitchen and cook things all day. After WorldWar II, a lot of women's organizations began to appear with the goal of bringingthe issues of equal rights into the limelight.The stereotype even came down to the color of a woman's hair. Manywomen wished that they could be blonde because that was the ideal hair color.In The Feminine Mystique, Friedan writes that "across America, three out ofevery ten women dyed their hair blonde " (Kerber/DeHart 514). This serves asan example of how there was such a push for women to fit a certain mold whichwas portrayed as the role of women. Blacks were naturally excluded from thenotion of ideal women and they suffered additional discrimination which was evengreater than that which the white women suffered from.In addition to hair color, women often went to great lengths to achievea thin figure. The look that women were striving for was the look of the thinmodel. Many women wore tight, uncomfortable clothing in order to create theillusion of being thinner and some even took pills that were supposed to makethem lose weight.The role of women was to find a husband to support the family that theywould raise. Many women dropped out of college or never went in the first placebecause they were lead to believe that working outside of the home was for menand that it would not be feminine for them to get jobs and be single without ahusband or children to take care of.An enormous problem for women was the psychological stress of dealingwith this role that was presented to them. The happily married, perpetually...
