Feminism and Feminist Theory

Simone DeBeauvoir once wrote: "One is not born, but becomes a woman". What she has outlined is what Betty Friedan popularized: that there is more to a woman and her role in society than to be "feminine". After World War II, Ms. Friedan points out, a "feminine mystique" came to be accepted: marriage at an early age, children at an early age- and then growing old with grace and dignity, keeping house for the working husband and the demanding children. In fact, she begins her book by stating: "I came to realize that something is very wrong with the way American women are trying to live their lives today...The problems and the satisfactions of their lives...and the way education had contributed to them, simply did not fit the image of the modern American woman, as she was written about in women's magazines, studied and analyzed in classrooms and clinics." (Friedan, p. 9) There was a strange discrepancy between the reality and the image. And, it was growing more and more difficult to live up to the image. The rest of the book really makes the point that women should not have to live up to any sort of image, real or imagined, but learn to live their lives in a way that provides satisfaction. "The feminine mystique has succeeded in burying millions of American women alive."