The Feminine Mystique

This phrase is a way to express the idea that in the nature versus nurture debate, nature wins; an individual’s biology determines their life course. As it relates to gender roles, the phrase signals the belief among some theorists Friedan discusses—Freud, most prominently—that women’s anatomy prescribes them the role of homebound mother. Friedan writes that the Freudian expression of this theory is that “the primitive instincts of the body determine[] adult personality“ (158). While most people classify Margaret Mead’s research as evidence that anatomy is not destiny because of its revelation that different cultures have different gender roles, Friedan sees evidence of the “anatomy is destiny” mindset in Mead’s insistence that women take pride in their childbirth abilities. 

Friedan draws on Bruno Bettelheim’s research on dehumanization, a process in which social forces prevent an individual from growing and developing to the extent their abilities allow. The result, according to Bettelheim, is “a personality arrested at the level of infantile phantasy and passivity” (343). Friedan makes the point that such characteristics are increasingly evident in the US’s youth, showing that dehumanized mothers tend to raise children with the same problem. 

Friedan offers many variations on a definition for the feminine mystique throughout the book, but one of the most direct definitions appears in Chapter 2:

The feminine mystique says that the highest value and the only commitment for women is the fulfillment of their own femininity. […] The mistake, says the mystique, the root of women’s troubles in the past is that women envied men, women tried to be like men, instead of accepting their own nature, which can find fulfillment only in sexual passivity, male domination, and nurturing maternal love (36).

The mystique is therefore a form of Western gender ideology that simultaneously idealizes women and relegates them to a subordinate social role. In this sense it resembles (and likely evolved from) 19th-century separate spheres ideology, which defined men and women’s roles as opposite and complementary.

Functionalism is a branch of sociology and cultural anthropology: “Functionalism began as an attempt to make social science more ‘scientific’ by borrowing from biology the idea of studying institutions as if they were muscles or bones, in terms of their ‘structure’ and ‘function’ in the social body” (140). The problem with this approach, in Friedan’s view, is that functionalists began to see “the way society operates” as “the way society should operate,” and therefore they became advocates for the status quo. This led to their prescription that women unhappy in their role as homemakers should “adjust” to society’s expectations of them. 

The stereotype of the man-eater is a feminist who advocates on behalf of women simply because she hates men and wants to exercise domination over them. Friedan explains in Chapter 4 that many people in her generation think of the feminist pioneers of the 19th century as man-eaters. She uses the chapter to dispel this notion, systematically explaining how the early feminists were interested in advancing human rights not only for themselves but also for other groups, such as enslaved people and low-wage laborers. In dispelling this myth, Friedan makes her arguments more palatable to a potentially conservative readership, just as she avoids criticizing marriage or family life except to the extent that they encompass a woman’s entire identity.

Friedan uses this term almost synonymously with “the feminine mystique” throughout the book. The only difference is that she uses “the feminine mystique” to refer to limitations put on women in the broadest sense, whereas she uses “occupation: housewife” as a shorthand to refer specifically to career limitations. The term refers to the designation that housewives write down on a census form. Friedan would argue that “housewife” is not, in fact, a legitimate “occupation” because housework is not a demanding or challenging enough task to be classified as such.

Penis envy is the Freudian theory that Friedan is most interested in debunking in Chapter 5. It is the belief that when young girls first realize that boys have penises and they themselves do not, their lack of a visible sex organ makes them envious. Freud maintains that while many women grow up and resolve this feeling through childbirth, some never do, which results in deviant, mentally ill behavior. Friedan argues that this theory is not credible and derives from Freud’s belief that “women were a strange, inferior, less-than-human species” (116).

Friedan frequently refers to society limiting women to a merely “sexual role.” By this she does not mean that society values women only for sexual intercourse (although sex does play an important part in many of her arguments throughout the book). She means instead that women are only valued for their reproductive organs—for their capacity to be mothers, in other words.