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Sunday, January 18, 2015

The Feminine Mystique Review


As part of a book club, my friends and I read The Feminine Mystique, a book about female emancipation back in the 50s, questioning the amount of freedom of women and the decision to become housewives.

  The term "feminine mystique" is referring to the behaviors of women, and the mysterious problem many were suffering from because of their femininity.
  Feminism/sexism is a strong recurring theme, along with questioning a woman's abilities, attempting to discover the correlation between women's lack of emancipation and their emotional woes. 

  Although the book is entirely out of context today, with many women seeking to be single in their late teens/early 20s, there are still underlying themes which I found struck true to me. It brings up the impact of boredom on a persons psyche, the differences and similarities between men and women, and encourages women to grow to more than housewives. (Yes, slightly irrelevant today, but I found striking similarities between my boring life working a dead end job and the plight of the housewife back then)

  It encourages women to be brave, take on jobs or education that are seen as "masculine", to question the ideas of "femininity", and most importantly, do something with their lives, while giving an insight into the shocking realities of women not all too long ago. It has inspired me greatly and I sincerely recommend every girl/woman read it, regardless of it's irrelevance today

             

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