Includes bibliographical references (p. 191-208) and index.

The unliberated 1960s -- Naming the problem: Friedan's message to American housewives -- After the first feminist wave: women from the 1920s through the 1940s -- The contradictions of womanhood in the 1950s -- "I thought I was crazy" -- The price of privilege: middle-class women and the feminine mystique -- African-American women, working-class women, and the feminine mystique -- Demystifying the Feminine mystique -- Women, men, marriage, and work today: is the feminine mystique dead?

Challenging both conservative and liberal myths about Betty Friedan's bestselling book,The Feminine Mystique, historian Stephanie Coontz re-examines the dawn of the 1960s (when the sexual revolution had barely begun) and brilliantly illuminates how a generation of women came to realize that their dissatisfaction with domestic life didn't reflect their personal weakness but rather a social and political injustice.