Friedan`s concern about those aspects of American society that were preventing women achieving their potential was arguably not dissimilar to the growing concern expressed in a range of places and by a range of means with other forms of restriction, repression and injustice in US society. One reader of the Mystique made the link explicitly when she commented on her sense of guilt at feeling miserable when `there were negroes being beaten in the South... and children with bellies swollen from hunger in Appalachia`. Thus, one reason for the book`s impact is that it was part of a strengthening counter-culture that was reaching beyond university campuses into the consciousness of mainstream Americans. Rather than a lone voice seeking to challenge established attitudes, Friedan then, perhaps not wittingly, belongs to a powerful movement for change that was sweeping across the country.
One additional way in which The Feminine Mystique is connected to its context is related to its use of an approach and discourse drawn from the post-War humanistic psychology movement, especially the work of Abraham Maslow, whose ideas about the possibility of relatively affluent westerners being in a position to satisfy their higher needs - those for self-esteem, self-respect and self-actualisation - are present both implicitly and explicitly in Friedan`s analysis of the situation of American women; hence, words and phrases such as `self-fulfilment` and `self-realization` are common in the text. Thus, at least part of the explanation of the book`s success in intellectually and emotionally engaging its female readers comes from the way in which it relates to material that is both new and familiar. Friedan may want to provoke, and even shock, but she knows she can only do this and communicate effectively, if her audience are on a similar wave-length.
A few years earlier or a few years later, and Friedan`s ideas would have been seen as either too extreme or too dated; she both reflected and spoke to the moment. However, context alone does not account for the book`s widespread popularity and considerable influence. We also have to recognise its particular qualities to properly appreciate why it should have made such an impact and achieved such significance.
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