Betty Friedan, in "The Importance of Work," an excerpt from her book The Feminine Mystique, makes the strong argument that women need to discover themselves through meaningful work. Friedan argues that if women fail to find such work and make such discoveries, not only will they suffer as a result of failing to live up to their full capacity, but their children and the entire society will suffer as well. While making this convincing argument, however, Friedan commits a number of fallacies which distract from and weaken her position.
In the first place, Friedan conveniently fails to describe precisely what sort of work would qualify as self-realizing for a woman. Would she consider it self-realizing for a woman to pursue a conservative activist agenda, for example, fighting against the right to have an abortion? Who is to determine what is "meaningful" work and who is going to decide if a woman has actually discovered herself through such work? If Friedan truly believes in the independence and freedom of woman, then she must be willing to leave these decisions up to individual women and not impose her own views in other women who might not agree with her.
In addition, Friedan makes outlandish statements about the traditional role of the housewife and mother. There is no doubt, as Friedan argues, that "We now know that the same range of potential ability exists for women as for men" (Friedan 633). However, Friedan then contradicts herself by limiting the range of possibilities available to women in terms of self-realizing work.
How can Friedan make the extreme statement that "A woman cannot find her identity through others---her husband, her children" (Friedan 633). Earlier, she declares that "real work" which allows a woman to discover her identity "serves a real purpose in the community" (Friedan 632). It would seem that serving others in the community is simply a grander expression of serving children and a husband in the ho...