The Feminine Mystique

This seminal and classic volume, widely credited with sparking the second-wave feminist movement, attacked the popular notion that women of that time could only find fulfillment through childbearing and homemaking. The author interviewed her former college classmates fifteen years after graduation and, from her findings, hypothesized that women were victims of a false belief system that required them to find identity and meaning in their lives through their husbands and children. Such a system caused women to completely lose their identity in that of their family, but nonetheless, most women were unfulfilled in their daily lives and unprepared to voice their dissatisfaction.