Study Questions

1. How does consumerism play a crucial role in the feminine mystique?

2. Advertisements claim that women should purchase timesaving home products. Why is this problematic for both advertisers and women?

3. In what ways does a housewife's work expand to fill her available time? What did Friedan discover about the time housework takes for women who have jobs or significant outside interests?

4. How do "open plan" architecture and the rise of the suburbs mirror the role of the housewife in American society during the 1940s and 1950s?

5. Why does the feminine mystique transform women into "sex seekers"?

Answers

1. Advertisers understand that women can be influenced and manipulated into purchasing household items. They recognize that mothers can be guilt-tripped into buying products they believe will make them better parents, and that young brides think owning the right products will help them keep up with other families.

2. Advertisers need to keep selling products to women because housework is never-ending. However, marketing timesaving products is tricky. Women want to be "modern," but they also take pride in doing the work themselves. Both advertisers and women wonder what women will do with their newfound free time, and advertisers hope they don't have enough free time to pursue careers. Advertisers suggest using their free time for community duties while still maintaining their roles as dutiful housekeepers using the latest products.

3. Friedan notes that women often make housework take longer to justify their roles as housewives or because they are bored and unmotivated by the repetitive tasks. Women with jobs or serious outside interests tend to finish housework quickly, likely so they can return to more fulfilling activities.

4. "Open plan" homes lack doors, allowing children to come and go freely and create messes that the mother must constantly clean, reinforcing her role. These homes also offer little privacy for adults. Suburbs, as artificial communities far from vibrant city centers, became retreats from reality for the women who "settled" them rather than places for meaningful community involvement.

5. Without opportunities for education or careers and finding little fulfillment in housework, women turn to sex for identity and excitement. They become more aggressive in their sexual demands and seek more pleasure from it, but their neediness often repels the men from whom they seek gratification.