The Feminine Mystique “is a powerful critique of women’s roles in contemporary American society. Drawing on new scholarship in the social sciences, Betty Friedan attacked a wide range of institutions—among them women’s magazines, women’s colleges, and advertisers—for promoting a one-dimensional image of women as happy housewives. This image, Friedan suggested, created a 'feminine mystique,' a belief that 'fulfillment as a woman had only one definition for American women after 1949—the housewife-mother.'”