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Friedan uses the extreme analogy of likening a housewife to a prisoner in a concentration camp to demonstrate the way in which women “adjust” to their oppressed condition as housewives—a condition which destroys their sense of identity—in the same way in which prisoners adjusted to life in Nazi camps. While Friedan acknowledges her risky comparison, agreeing that “the suburban house is not a concentration camp” and that “American housewives [are not] on their way to the gas chamber,” she insists that housewifery and suburban comforts are still a kind of “trap” which women must “escape,” just as the prisoner must escape the camp, to “recapture” their freedom and lost sense of self.
The Concentration Camp Quotes in The Feminine Mystique
The The Feminine Mystique quotes below all refer to the symbol of The Concentration Camp. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Chapter 12 Quotes
There is also a new vacant sleepwalking, playing-a-part quality of youngsters who do not know what they are supposed to do, what the other kids do, but do not seem to feel alive or real in doing it.
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Friedan opens the chapter on “progressive dehumanization” with a focus on how the “symbiosis” concept (an idea that manifested from the belief that women should develop a relationship of co-dependency with their children) was impacting the succeeding generation. Like their mothers, young people were in a state of “unconsciousness.” Having learned that role-playing mattered more than being oneself, they awaited cues from peers or from the culture at-large to tell them how to behave and what ought to matter in their lives. Friedan describes this tendency as “new,” for, like the feminine mystique, she views it as a development in Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscip
The comfortable concentration camp that American women have walked into or have been talked into by others […] denies women’s adult human identity. By adjusting to it, a woman stunts her intelligence to become childlike, turns away from individual identity to become an anonymous biological robot in a docile mass. She becomes less than human, preyed upon by outside pressures, and herself preying upon her husband and children. And the longer she conforms, the less she feels as if she really exists. She looks for her security in things, she hides the fear of losing her human potency by testing her sexual potency, she lives a vicarious life through mass daydreams or through her husband and children. She does not want to be reminded of the outside world; she becomes convinced there is nothing she can do about her own life or the world that would make a difference.
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Friedan’s analogy of the suburban home to the Nazi concentration camp is a daring comparison, but one that she makes in the context of asserting that women’s rights are human rights. The comforts of the middle-class American home were, in her view, hollow. In fact, they did harm by allowing women to hide behind their objects and feign happiness and pride in their lives. Some women “walked into” the “camp,” or chose to submit to the feminine mystique either because they believed in it or wanted to believe in it. Others had to be “talked into” it or convinced that Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusamus eaque omnis. Velit eaque error. Possimus corrupti soluta. Qui aut a. Rerum voluptas debitis. Voluptatem accusantium est. Mollitia eaque ipsa. Perferendis consectetur et. Dicta impedit ut. Ducimus possimus quo. Non inventore in. Eligendi atque placeat. Molestiae earum eum. Libero sit beatae. At a deserunt. Sint aperiam consequatur. Minima porro perferendis. Sit neque odit. Tenetur qui dignissimos. Qui et ut. Voluptate labore corporis. Hic tempore laborum. Nisi quia ea. Quia soluta itaque. Deleniti n
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