The Feminine Mystique (50th Anniversary Edition)

In 1963, Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique gave both an identity and a shape to the "problem that has no name" among U.S. housewives: the vague, nagging feeling that there must be more to life than keeping house and raising children, coupled with the uncertainty of knowing where or how to begin seeking it. By doing so, Friedan blew the lid off modern life in an intense, deeply personal way.

This 50th-anniversary edition of The Feminine Mystique contains Friedan's original text, plus her introduction to the 10th-anniversary edition and her 1997 essay "Metamorphosis: Two Generations Later." It also has a new introduction by New York Times columnist Gail Collins and a new afterword by Anna Quindlen. Like the book they discuss, Collins's and Quindlen's contributions are, as the former puts it, "supremely, specifically personal." While both acknowledge the book's impact on the culture at large, they also emphasize how The Feminine Mystique changed their own lives and the lives of their mothers. These additions enhance the original text without obscuring its value, retaining the strength of its original publication and in some ways transcending it. In the context of the women's liberation movement, the resulting backlash, and the emergence of third-wave feminism, The Feminine Mystique at 50 only highlights how far we have come--and how far we have yet to go. --Dani Alexis Ryskamp, blogger at The Book Cricket

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