Sigmund Freud was unquestionably one of the most influential thinkers of the twentieth century, yet over the last few decades his theory about women has suffered severe criticism from feminists and many psychoanalysts. How could this great genius have been so wrong about women? In The Freudian Mystique, Samuel Slipp, a training and supervising analyst, offers an explanation of how such a remarkable and revolutionary thinker for his time could formulate such incorrect theories about female development. Tracing the gradual evolution of patriarchy and phallocentrism in Western society, Slipp examines the stereotyped attitudes toward women that were taken for granted in Victorian culture and strongly influenced Freud's thinking on feminine psychology. Of even greater importance was Freud's relationship with his mother who emotionally abandoned him, the loss of his nanny, and the death of his brother Julius - all before the age of three. These losses occurred during the separation-individuation phase, disrupting the normal differentiation from his mother and consolidation of his gender identity. Slipp examines not only Freud's preoedipal but also the continuing postoedipal conflicts with his mother from both an object relations and family therapy perspective. He shows how Freud's unconscious ambivalence toward his mother influenced his personal relationships with women and shaped his theory of child development. Freud emphasized the role of the father and the oedipal period, while excluding the mother and the preoedipal and postoedipal periods. Not limited to one perspective, The Freudian Mystique analyzes how the entire contextual framework of his family relations, anti-Semitism, politics, economics, science, and culture affected Freud's work in feminine psychology. The book not only looks backward but also looks forward to formulating a modern biopsychosocial framework for female gender development.

The book that changed the consciousness of a country—and the world. Landmark, groundbreaking, classic—these adjectives barely describe the earthshaking and long-lasting effects of Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique. This is the book that defined "the problem that has no name," that launched the Second Wave of the feminist movement, and has been awakening women and men with its insights into social relations, which still remain fresh, ever since. A national bestseller, with over 1 million copies sold.

In 1963, Betty Friedan unleashed a storm of controversy with her bestselling book, The Feminine Mystique. Hundreds of women wrote to her to say that the book had transformed, even saved, their lives. Nearly half a century later, many women still recall where they were when they first read it. In A Strange Stirring, historian Stephanie Coontz 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. Based on exhaustive research and interviews, and challenging both conservative and liberal myths about Friedan, A Strange Stirring brilliantly illuminates how a generation of women came to realize that their dissatisfaction with domestic life didn't't reflect their personal weakness but rather a social and political injustice.

A fiftieth anniversary edition of the trailblazing women's reference shares anecdotes and interviews that were originally collected in the early 1960s to inspire women to develop their intellectual capabilities and reclaim lives beyond period conventions.

'What if she isn't happy - does she think men are happy in this world? Doesn't she know how lucky she is to be a woman?' The pioneering Betty Friedan here identifies the strange problem plaguing American housewives, and examines the malignant role advertising plays in perpetuating the myth of the 'happy housewife heroine'. Penguin Modern: fifty new books celebrating the pioneering spirit of the iconic Penguin Modern Classics series, with each one offering a concentrated hit of its contemporary, international flavour. Here are authors ranging from Kathy Acker to James Baldwin, Truman Capote to Stanislaw Lem and George Orwell to Shirley Jackson; essays radical and inspiring; poems moving and disturbing; stories surreal and fabulous; taking us from the deep South to modern Japan, New York's underground scene to the farthest reaches of outer space.

This book describes how Freud attempted to chart hysteria, yet came to a standstill at the problem of woman and her desire, and of how Lacan continued along this road by creating new conceptual tools. The difficulties and upsets encountered by both men are examined. This lucid presentation of the dialectical process that carries Lacan through the evolution of Freud’s thought offers profound insights into the place of the “feminine mystique” in our social fabric. Patiently and carefully, Verhaeghe applies the Lacanian grid to Freud’s text and succeeds in explaining Lacan’s formulations without merely recapitulating his theories. The reader is informed, along the way, not only of Lacan’s take on Freudian ideas, but also of the array of interpretations emerging from other trends in post-Freudian literature, including feminist revisionism.

"If you’ve never read it, read it now." —Arianna Huffington, O, The Oprah Magazine Landmark, groundbreaking, classic—these adjectives barely do justice to the pioneering vision and lasting impact of The Feminine Mystique. Published in 1963, it gave a pitch-perfect description of “the problem that has no name”: the insidious beliefs and institutions that undermined women’s confidence in their intellectual capabilities and kept them in the home. Writing in a time when the average woman first married in her teens and 60 percent of women students dropped out of college to marry, Betty Friedan captured the frustrations and thwarted ambitions of a generation and showed women how they could reclaim their lives. Part social chronicle, part manifesto, The Feminine Mystique is filled with fascinating anecdotes and interviews as well as insights that continue to inspire. This 50th–anniversary edition features an afterword by best-selling author Anna Quindlen as well as a new introduction by Gail Collins.