Friedan, Betty. The Feminine Mystique. New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1963. 150-181.

Call#: HQ1420 .F7

    In The Feminine Mystique, author Judy Friedan uses a feminist lens to evaluate the woman's role in the twentieth century. The chapter entitled "The Sex-directed Educators" focuses on women in American colleges and universities in the 1950's and 60's. Friedan finds that although more women are attending college than ever before, fewer are actually pursuing careers that require "more than a casual commitment." Two out of three women are dropping out of college, and the end of the all-women university is in the near future. Friedan and other sociologists attribute this phenomenon to the woman's need to act and appear feminine, get married, have children, and raise a family. Certain schools were "not educating women to be scholars; [they] are educating them to be wives and mothers."
     In an intense scene in The Graduate when Benjamin demands he and Mrs. Robinson converse before making love, he asks about her past and how she started her family. She reveals that she and Mr. Robinson met in college while she was majoring in Art. However, she became impregnated and had to leave school in order to take care of Elaine, her daughter. Mrs. Robinson's life is now very dull as a housewife. Similar to the women described in Friedan's book, Mrs. Robinson is very passive and never finished her degree in college. It's unclear whether or not she wanted to be independent in life; however, she never even had the chance. This part of Mrs. Robinson's character perhaps gives some insight to her predatory nature late in life.