When one begins to think about it, America depends rather heavily on women's passive dependence, their femininity. Femininity, if one still wants to call it that, makes American women a target and a victim of the sexual sell.
Betty FriedanRead
Men weren't really the enemy - they were fellow victims suffering from an outmoded masculine mystique that made them feel unnecessarily inadequate when there were no bears to kill.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote highlights that men, shaped by outdated societal expectations, are also victims of the pressures of masculinity.
Betty Friedan's quote examines the idea that men are often portrayed as aggressors or enemies, yet they too are victims of a restrictive societal construct known as the 'masculine mystique.' This concept pressures men to conform to an outdated definition of masculinity that emphasizes strength and dominance, leaving them feeling inadequate and trapped when such expectations are unrealistic or irrelevant, especially in a modern context where traditional roles are evolving.
Themes
MasculinitySocietal ExpectationsVictimInadequacyFeminism
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about gender roles during a seminar.
More from Betty Friedan
All quotes βOver and over again, stories in women's magazines insist that women can know fulfillment only at the moment of giving birth to a child. They deny the years when she can no longer look forward to giving birth, even if she repeats the act over and over again. In the feminine mystique, there is no other way for a woman to dream of creation or of the future. There is no other way she can even dream about herself, except as her children's mother, her husband's wife.
Betty FriedanRead
Advice? I don't offer advice. Not my business. Your life is what you make it.
Betty FriedanRead
We need to see men and women as equal partners, but it's hard to think of movies that do that. When I talk to people, they think of movies of forty-five years ago! Hepburn and Tracy!
Betty FriedanRead
No woman gets an orgasm from shining the kitchen floor.
Betty FriedanRead
It is easier to live through someone else than to complete yourself. The freedom to lead and plan your own life is frightening if you have never faced it before. It is frightening when a woman finally realizes that there is no answer to the question 'who am I' except the voice inside herself.
Betty FriedanRead
Similar quotes
But when from a long-distant past nothing subsists, after the people are dead, after the things are broken and scattered, taste and smell alone, more fragile but more enduring, more unsubstantial, more persistent, more faithful, remain poised a long time, like souls, remembering, waiting, hoping, amid the ruins of all the rest; and bear unflinchingly, in the tiny and almost impalpable drop of their essence, the vast structure of recollection.
Marcel ProustRead
Originality is a thing we constantly clamour for, and constantly quarrel with.
Thomas CarlyleRead
A performer may be taken in by his own act, convinced at the moment that the impression of reality which he fosters is the one and only reality. In such cases we have a sense in which the performer comes to be his own audience; he comes to be performer and observer of the same show. Presumably he introcepts or incorporates the standards he attempts to maintain in the presence of others so that even in their absence his conscience requires him to act in a socially proper way.
Erving GoffmanRead
Show my head to the people. It is worth seeing.
Georges DantonRead
The Bible says that God has a reason for keeping us here; if He didn't, He would take us to Heaven far sooner.
Billy GrahamRead
The most important relationship we can all have is the one you have with yourself, the most important journey you can take is one of self-discovery. To know yourself, you must spend time with yourself, you must not be afraid to be alone. Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.
AristotleRead