“The Feminine Mystique” is the book most credited with kick-starting Second Wave Feminism. Betty Friedan took aim at a number of targets, most of them to do with assumptions that the current roles of women in American society. Friedan disagreed with Freudian psychology and functionalism in sociology, pointing out how often each was used to suggest that societal roles were biologically determined.
Friedan received a huge number of letters from women, and as a result founded the National Organisation of Women (which she became the first president of), one of the most influential feminist organisations in America. It’s a damned shame that so much as what Friedan was criticising remains true in society.
