Betty Friedan Feminist Model Summary

Betty Friedan and the 1960’s Second Wave Feminist Movement
According to Microsoft Research, “By 2018, there will be 1.4 million open technology jobs in the U.S. and, at the current rate of students graduating with degrees in computer science, only 29% of applicants will be women.” The fight for women has been going on for more than 100 years and women today continue to face discrimination in daily lives. An important person in fighting for women’s rights was Betty Friedan, who was born on February 4, 1921 in Peoria, Illinois. A writer, feminist, and women’s rights activist published her book The Feminine Mystique in 1963 that began her journey of fighting for women’s rights. The idea behind the book Race presents important pillars that apply

very closely to specific gender roles that have been placed among society throughout time. After researching Betty Friedan’s role in the second wave feminist movement, by using personal experiences to influence women like her fight for their rights and seek new opportunities for themselves, she became one of the most important people during this time. By co-founding National Organization for Women and National Association for Repeal of Abortion Laws. Women were able to fight against the society ideas of specific gender roles to reflect Aronson’s second and fourth pillars of his text, Race.
The second wave feminist movement began in early 1960’s and lasted through early 1980’s. Women, during this time, fought hard for equal pay for women. “After World War II, the boom of the American economy outpaced the available workforce, making it necessary for women to fill new job openings; in fact, in the 1960s, two-thirds of all new jobs went to women” (The 1960s-70s American Feminist Movement: Breaking Down Barriers for Women). It’s not only just a few women who worked outside the home but many began to. This is what lead people like Betty Friedan to fight for women to be treated the same as men. Friedan was a stay a home mom but felt like her life had more potential than just staying at home with her kids, she wondered if other woman felt the same way as she did. Her wondering lead to the making of her book, The Feminine Mystique. “Friedan did more than write about confining gender stereotypes—she became a force for change. Pushing for women to have a greater role in the political process, she co-founded the National Organization for Women in 1966, subsequently serving as its first president. She also fought for abortion rights by establishing the National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws (now known as NARAL Pro-Choice America) in 1969” (Betty Friedan). Friedan helped many women during this time have a bigger purpose in their life. She knew from her personal experiences that she was more than just a stay at home mom. The survey of other women and writing of her book became a “force for change” in America for women.
The idea of gender roles and how woman are sought to be seen as just as housewives and nothing more, reflects heavily on the topics presented in Aronson’s book, Race. Presented through the pillars 2 and 4: “2. These differences in our bodies cannot change and 4. Each group has a distinct level of brain power and moral refinement, thus they are naturally and unchangeably ranked” (3). Society has created the idea that men and women are giving differences at birth that they cannot change. The idea of they are almost separated at birth because of physical differences that are given to them but that doesn’t mean that women are any less inside or how smart they are depending on their physical appearance. But that is what is always assumed by people. During the 1960’s women had less opportunities then men because of their gender. They got lower pay and were thought less of than men because they were believed to be not as smart. Which leads to pillar 4, that each group has a distinct level of brain power. Men were thought to be more advanced and they were able to go to school and get a higher education. They had a lot more of opportunities than women ever did. Even today women face challenges that men do not because of these pillars of race, that apply to gender, even without one knowing. “We know racism is bad… But that doesn’t mean we have scrubbed race out of our minds and hearts… The society we live in then shapes what form that instinct for prejudice takes. Are we encouraged to believe our biases or to doubt them?” (Aronson 267). We know everyone should be equal in life but that doesn’t stop us from discriminating women because of their gender. It’s like when people say to someone, “Oh, you throw like girl.” Why do girls have to be discriminated because of simple little things like the way you throw. Everyone is unique and should be accepted by society and not based on what you look like or how you do things. Everyone should be treated fairly and Betty Friedan wanted just that.
In 1948, Betty Friedan lost her job and was forced to stay home and take care of her children but she was tired of being just a homemaker and started to wonder if other women felt the same way as she did.

To get the answer to her question, she began to survey women of Smith College. Her findings lead to the writing of her first book, The Feminine Mystique. The book uses other women’s personal experiences along with her own experiences to describes the idea behind being a feminist. “At every step of the way, the feminists had to fight the conception that they were violating the God-given nature of woman… The image of the feminists as inhuman, fiery man-eater, whether expressed as an offense against God or in the modern terms of sexual perversion, is not unlike the stereotype of the Negro as a primitive animal or the union member as an anarchist” (86-87). That image of women that has been created by society and the same idea applies to race and how it is something that is so prone to society about things no one can change. Feminists were the ones who were able to fight for their rights even though some may believe that isn't what women are made to be but Betty Friedan did, which motivated her to fight for women’s rights in the second wave feminist movement. She was able to accomplish helping more women fight for their rights and set the ground for the women fighting

today.
While women still continue to fight with discrimination today, Betty Friedan provided the ground work for women of the future. Born less than an hour away from here, by using personal and other experiences, she became one of the most important people during the 1960’s second wave feminist movement. By raising awareness and creating groups to fight for women rights, Betty was able to begin to eliminated the ideas of specific gender roles that closely relate to the racial discrimination that is another major issue in society. According to Real Girls, Real Pressure: A National Report on the State of Self-Esteem, “62% of all girls feel insecure or not sure of themselves. 71% of girls with low self-esteem feel their appearance does not measure up, including not feeling pretty enough, thin enough or stylish or trendy enough.” Women are already told all the time they are not good enough. So, women will continue to fight for their rights until they get them.