Logos in The Feminine Mystique

     In addition to strong appeals to pathos and ethos, Betty Friedan also utilized logos as a rhetorical tool to persuade her audience that the feelings of unfulfillment amongst women, living within their expected gender role as housewife, was an issue that both existed and needed to be addressed promptly. A major component of Friedan's persuasive power in The Feminine Mystique was her use of thoughtful organization and structure in her writing. The first section of this excerpt focused on making the reader aware that the general unhappiness amongst housewives was a widespread problem even if was not frequently spoken about. To do so, Friedan referenced statements various women has made about their current mental state including "I feel empty somehow...incomplete" or "I feel as if I don't exist". By placing the thoughts of real women experiencing the discontent firsthand, Friedan fortified her argument with tangible evidence. In the following section, Friedan widened the issue to a national scale. She explained how "if we continue to produce millions of young mothers who stop their growth and education short of identity, without a strong core of human values to pass on to their children, we are committing, quite simply, genocide, starting with the mass burial of American women and ending with the progressive dehumanization of their sons and daughters." This potent analogy equating feminine capabilities not being met to genocide very clearly demonstrated how urgently a change needed to be made.

-Taylor Rezeppa