Books like The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan


Published in 1963, *The Feminine Mystique* became a landmark study of the social and psychological forces that limited women’s opportunities. Friedan examined how cultural expectations and institutional practices eroded confidence in women’s intellectual and professional capabilities, leading many to abandon higher education and career aspirations. Her work blends rigorous social analysis with personal anecdotes, offering a clear look at the frustrations of a generation and a persuasive call for change. The book’s insights continue to influence feminist thought and discussions of gender equality in modern society.
First publish date: January 30, 1992
Genre: Psychology/Social Psychology
Authors: Betty Friedan
★ ★ ★ ★ ★ 3.6 (8 community ratings)

The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan

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Books similar to The Feminine Mystique (12 similar books)

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Backlash by 12673314|Susan Faludi book cover

📘 Backlash

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Women and economics by 8399622|Charlotte Perkins Gilman book cover

📘 Women and economics

Women and Economics is Gilman's most original and famous work of nonfiction. In it she examines the origins of women's subordination and its function in society. Woman, she argues, makes a living by marriage - not by the work she does - and thus man becomes her economic environment. As a consequence, her "female" attributes dominate her "human" qualities because they determine her survival. Gilman's thesis challenges both biological and theological arguments about women's innate passivity and defies the virtual exclusion of women in classical sociological theory. If women are to fully engage in domestic and public life, Gilman contends that their emancipation requires both economic participation and adequate child care. Gilman's argument in this classic work resonates today, as women continue their struggle to find a meaningful independent identity and to balance work and family. Here reprinted with a new introduction, Women and Economics belongs on the same shelf as works by Betty Friedan, Simone de Beauvoir, and other pioneering feminists.

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Betty Friedan and the Making of "The Feminine Mystique" by 6518397|Daniel Horowitz book cover

📘 Betty Friedan and the Making of "The Feminine Mystique"

Drawing on an impressive body of new research - including Friedan's own papers - Horowitz traces the development of Friedan's feminist outlook from her childhood in Peoria, Illinois, through her wartime years at Smith College and Berkeley, to her decade-long career as a writer for two of the period's most radical labor journals, the Federated Press and the United Electrical Workers' UE News. He further shows that even after she married and began to raise a family, Friedan continued during the 1950s to write and work on behalf of a wide range of progressive social causes. By resituating Friedan within a broader cultural context, and by offering a fresh reading of The Feminine Mystique against that background, Horowitz not only overturns conventional ideas about "second-wave" feminism but also reveals long submerged links to its past.

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Social history of women and gender in the modern Middle East by 6698120|Margaret Lee Meriwether book cover

📘 Social history of women and gender in the modern Middle East

"The book is organized along thematic lines that reflect major focuses of research in this area - gender and work, gender and the state, gender and law, gender and religion, and feminist movements - and each chapter is written by a scholar who has done original research on the topic. Although structured around the individual author's own work, the chapters also include overviews and assessments of other research, highlights of ongoing debates and key issues, and comparisons across regions of the Middle East. An insightful introduction centers the various chapters around key theoretical, methodological, and historical issues and makes connections with other areas of social historical research on the Middle East and with research on gender and women's history in other parts of the world."--BOOK JACKET.

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The second stage by 8197250|Betty Friedan book cover

📘 The second stage

Betty Friedan’s landmark analysis urges the women’s movement past factionalism and toward collaboration with men to reshape private and public life for equitable family support.

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Women's ways of knowing by 9760777|Mary Field Belenky book cover

📘 Women's ways of knowing

Drawing on 135 in‑depth interviews, the book explores why many women still feel silenced in family and school settings, even as the women’s movement advances.

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Revolution from within by 8790714|Gloria Steinem book cover

📘 Revolution from within

Spanish translation of "Revolution from within". A guide to reconstructing self esteem based on the author's personal experience.

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Women and gender in Islam by 6687103|Leila Ahmed book cover

📘 Women and gender in Islam


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Disorderly conduct by 2607230|Carroll Smith-Rosenberg book cover

📘 Disorderly conduct

A collection of essays examining feminist history, female friendships, and gender roles in nineteenth‑century America, with discussions of Davy Crockett, the feminine cycle, hysteria, abortion, and androgyny.

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Some Other Similar Books

The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir
The Beauty Myth by Naomi Wolf
Women, Race & Class by Angela Davis

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