10.2: Betty Friedan: The Feminine Mystique (1963)

During the 1950s, America was caught in an intense Cold War with the Soviet Union. Americans sought stability in a volatile Cold Warworld. The conuict profoundly impacted people’s lives and attitudes, even if Americans did not realize it at the time. As Betty Friedan notes in this excerpt, many women married at young ages and had lots of children. Children born in this period would come to be called “Baby Boomers” because of the rash of births from the late 1940s through the early 1960s. The GI Bill of 1944 provided many Americans with a new path to the emerging middle class. And the development of suburbs enabled people to move away from cities and extended families and focus on the nuclear family. In this case “nuclear” means one’s immediate family members (e.g., parents and children). Consumerism also encouraged many people to look for new products that would improve their lives. Large numbers of women focused on their homes and personal lives, then, rather than on professional opportunities.