""(Chafe: 219). In addition to these subconscious beliefs, women became the mothers and housewives, and were left with little ambition to be anything else. If a woman tried to move beyond that status - most of which never thought beyond the realm due to overwhelming peer-pressure and sense of responsibility to the family - then they were socially exiled and deemed as a failure (Chafe: 220).
As this social doctrine continued, women were left with more and more time to themselves when timesaving inventions. Things like the washing machine, refrigerator, automobile, radio, and television - invented shortly after WWII - tremendously saved time in suburban families (Reynolds). With less effort spent on being a mother and a wife, women looked to other means of entertainment. This resulted in the overwhelming popularity of Betty Friedan's A Feminine Mystique (1963). She pled to the housewives across America, appealing to their confining social responsibilities. She described the reaction to these responsibilities as "a strange stirring, a sense of dissatisfaction, a yearning that women suffered in the middle of the twentieth century in the United States As she [the housewife] made the beds, shopped for groceries, matched slipcover material, ate peanut butter sandwiches with her children, chauffeured Cub Scouts and Brownies, lay beside her husband at night, she was afraid to ask even of herself the question " Is this all?'-(Women's 1960s).
There was an enormous response to the book. More and more women sought employment, most to provide additional income for their families, but not without the influence of Mystique. When women joined the workforce, they were met with contempt by the male company, and also were faced with lower pay scale and social dilapidation. Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, banning any form of discrimination on the basis of race or gender (Reynolds). Many women took this legislation to heart, and with it, were motivated to start banding together to fight for equality in the workplace and in American society.
