The Impact of The Feminine Mystique: How One Book Can Change Society

Books have an immense power that people may not realize. They can change how people think, control a society, and spread ideas and beliefs. People have died or been killed because of books. Books can spread social change or start a revolution. A book that has had an unexpected lasting historical impact is Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique. This paper will look into how the publishing of The Feminine Mystique affected life not just during the 1960s, but how it continues to be relevant in today’s society. How much can one book impact an entire nation and spread a movement? This paper will also look into how that book sparked the second wave of feminism across the United States. The materials I will be using to look into this topic will be primary sources that show the initial reaction to The Feminine Mystique in the decade after it came out, such as newspaper articles, photographs, and reviews. I will also be looking at secondary sources that explore the impact it has made. The methods I will be employing are to look at the topic from all angles, such as the negative and positive reactions to the book, and look at how this book specifically affected the feminist movement. This paper will show that the ideas and beliefs that can come from books can spark movements and have a bigger impact on society and the world than what people may think