Study Questions

1. What is “the problem that has no name” that Friedan discusses?

2. When did the media start focusing on the issue of women’s identities as housewives and the challenges of that role?

3. What advice were women given to address their dissatisfaction?

4. How did the media's portrayal of women’s roles change from the 1930s and 1940s to the 1950s?

5. What do the terms “Occupation: Housewife” and “the feminine mystique” mean according to Betty Friedan?

Answers

1. Women are unhappy with the prescribed notion that marriage, parenting, and housekeeping should bring them fulfillment. They are discouraged from intellectual pursuits or independence. The media promotes this lifestyle, assuming women have no interests beyond being wives and mothers.

2. According to Friedan, in 1960, the media began addressing the issue of women’s identities being confined to roles of mother, wife, and homemaker.

3. Women were advised to appreciate their protected status, as they did not have to compete in the world like men. Some suggested women would be more content with less education, arguing that women do not need higher education.

4. In the 1930s and early 1940s, women were depicted as “New Women”—career-oriented individuals striving to shape their futures. By 1949, their role was seen primarily as housewives. In the 1950s and early 1960s, women were portrayed as the “Happy Housewife Heroine”—content and enthusiastic about their domestic roles.

5. By the late 1940s, women’s magazines began addressing the mixed feelings some women had about being housewives. These publications often claimed that housework was noble and fulfilling, asserting there was nothing unstimulating about it. Friedan suggests that these magazines taught women that being a housewife was their duty and tried to make them accept this role.