Examines the dawn of the 1960s, when the sexual revolution had barely begun, newspapers advertised for "perky, attractive gal typists," but married women were told to stay home, and husbands controlled almost every aspect of family life.
Chapter 1: The Unliberated 1960s
Chapter 2: Naming the Problem: Friedan’s Message to American Housewives
Chapter 3: After the First Feminist Wave: Women from the 1920s to the 1940s
Chapter 4: The Contradictions of Womanhood in the 1950s
Chapter 5: “I Thought I Was Crazy”
Chapter 6: The Price of Privilege: Middle-Class Women and the Feminine Mystique
Chapter 7: African-American Women, Working-Class Women, and the Feminine Mystique
Chapter 8: Demystifying The Feminine Mystique
Chapter 9: Women, Men, Marriage, and Work Today: Is the Feminine Mystique Dead?