Summary Of The Feminine Mystique

Through the whole book, The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan, gives numerous insights on how women were treated throughout the years and how their role in life, was to be a housewife and only a housewife. Although women enjoyed caring for their husbands and children, they often became sad, empty, and sometimes suicidal. Women wanted to work outside of their homes and pursue the dreams they always wanted, but it was frowned upon. This led to the founder of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud, creating the concept called “Penis Envy”. With this concept, it meant, “the literal explanation of all that was wrong with American women” (105). I do not believe women from the past were envious of men because of their penis but rather their freedom. Due
Seeing that Freud grew up in the Victorian era, his thoughts about women never left. Meaning that he believed, “It was woman's nature to be ruled by man, and her sickness to envy him” (109). Whilst, after reading the book, can you truly blame women in this time period? During this era, women were forbidden to take their intelligence to the next level, to have a career. Often times, women who continued their education and acquired careers outside of their homes, were divorced by their husbands. This shows how much society was against women in the workforce. Women fantasized to have the independence and identity that men had. They wanted more out of life, rather than being just a housewife. Due to the tight grasp, men had on women’s lives, directed women to become envious of men. They were envious of their freedom and their careers they were able to pursue. As stated, “She can find identity only through work that is of real value to society” (346). Without work, women were left with questions about who they really are. Which guided women in the direction of wanting to be a man. Despite the fact, Freud’s belief was women wanted the only thing that separated the two physically, the penis. “The desire after all to obtain the penis for which she so much longs may even contribute to the motives that impel a grown-up women to come to analysis, and what she quite reasonably expects to get from analysis, such as the capacity to pursue an intellectual career, can often be recognized as a sublimated modification of this repressed wish”