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The Woman Question
The Concentration Camp
Friedan uses the extreme analogy of likening a housewife to a prisoner in a concentration camp to demonstrate the way in which women “adjust” to their oppressed condition as housewives—a condition which destroys their sense…
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The Feminine Mystique
The “feminine mystique” was the idea that women were most content as wives, mothers, and homemakers. The “mystique,” as Friedan sometimes calls it, was a ploy to convince women—many of whom had worked in factories…
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The Problem That Has No Name
Friedan uses this phrase to describe a chronic sense of dissatisfaction among white, middle-class women in the postwar era. Toward the end of the book, she explicitly defines “the problem” as “simply the fact that…
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