Hyewon Nam
Professor Amy Goldman
GPS Writing Workshop Section010 3:15PM
13 March, 2014
Reckoning with Research—Final Draft

The Double-sided Blade: Gender Stereotype
Often times, the word “gender discrimination” brings out the image as women being the victims and men as the attackers. Such notion is proven by the simple fact that the word “feminism” is known and used every day while “masculinism” is not. In this context, Betty Friedan, author of the Feminine Mystique, raises question on stereotypes based on gender. She fiercely argues for the housewives whose lives are mainly comprised of being mothers and housewives. Freidan expresses her central issue by asking the question “these women have no dreams of career, no visions of a world larger than the home; their only ambition, their only dream is realized [as mothers and housewives]. But were they fulfilled women?” (Friedan, 225). Friedan’s text is a representation of people’s perception of gender discrimination—women kept in households with their world revolving around domestic matters rather than the world outside of their homes. Although it is true that women did and still do suffer these tilted standards of society, a more holistic view should be sought in terms of acknowledging the suffering of both genders.
Betty Friedan, in her writing The Feminine Mystique, identifies how gender stereotypes have confined women by examining the white, American, middle-class housewives in the suburbs. The time frame is limited to the late 1960’s, a period of time after the Second World War during which many soldiers yearned to return to the suburbs to find a peaceful living environment. In the beginning of her work, Friedan elaborates on the social atmosphere that tends to treat women as domestic beings that ought to focus entirely on doing house chores and taking care of their family rather than participating in