A Strange Stirring: The Feminine Mystique and American Women at the Dawn of the 1960s

Description

Challenging both conservative and liberal myths about Betty Friedan's bestselling book, The Feminine Mystique, historian Stephanie Coontz re-examines the dawn of the 1960s (when the sexual revolution had barely begun) and brilliantly illuminates how a generation of women came to realize that their dissatisfaction with domestic life didn't reflect their personal weakness but rather a social and political injustice Abstract: "An illuminating analysis of the book that helped launch the movement that freed women to participate more fully in American society."--Wall Street Journal  Read more... Content: The unliberated 1960s -- Naming the problem: Friedan's message to American housewives -- After the first feminist wave: women from the 1920s through the 1940s -- The contradictions of womanhood in the 1950s -- "I thought I was crazy" -- The price of privilege: middle-class women and the feminine mystique -- African-American women, working-class women, and the feminine mystique -- Demystifying the Feminine mystique -- Women, men, marriage, and work today: is the feminine mystique dead?.