The Beauty Myth

Betty Friedan (1921-2006) was one of the leading American feminists in the 20th century. Her most famous book, The Feminine Mystique, is considered seminal to the feminist movement and, according to some, inspired second-wave feminism.

Betty Friedan earned a degree in psychology from Smith College and attended Graduate School at the University of California at Berkley. Upon marrying Carl Friedan, she became a suburban housewife outside New York. Betty Friedan produced a questionnaire for her college friends and learned about their dissatisfaction with their lives. As a result, she studied the subject of women’s societal roles and published The Feminine Mystique in 1963. The book analyzed the entire value system applied to women in their traditional, domestic roles and the consequences thereof. Friedan went on to co-found the National Organization for Women (NOW) in 1966. From then on, she championed women’s rights in different ways, such as organizing the Women’s Strike for Equality (1970).

In The Beauty Myth, Wolf defers to Friedan’s expertise on numerous occasions, from her discussion of housewives being trapped by domesticity in the 1950s to the question of female identity in general.

Germaine Greer (born 1939) is an Australian journalist and scholar. She is considered one of the key second-wave feminists and has primarily lived and worked in the UK. Greer became well-known after publishing The Female Eunuch (1970). The book examined a variety of issues including legal discrimination and reproductive rights. Greer’s other books include Sex and Destiny: The Politics of Human Fertility (1984), Slip-shod Sibyls: Recognition, Rejection, and the Woman Poet (1995), and Shakespeare’s Wife (2007). She has remained outspoken about other issues she considers critical, such as restoring rainforests.

Wolf mentions Greer throughout The Beauty Myth. For example, she reframes Greer’s famous second-wave question, “What will you do?” to a third-wave question, “What will we see?” (291).