A study on female graduates of Southern colleges and universities during the postwar period is presented. The focus is on how their experiences match the assertions of Betty Friedan in her book "The Feminine Mystique." Interviews were done with graduates of public and private, coeducational and women's, and black and white colleges. Factors examined to determine the variables explaining the degree to which the interviewees accepted the feminine mystique included the following: social class and race; parental education, employment, and expectations; choice of college and major; college experiences; role models; career expectations; and age of marriage. Role models and mentors played a major part in shaping many of the interviewees' lives. Some factors that caused college women during this time to ignore the calls of domesticity and pursue non-traditional graduate study are family support, socioeconomic background, desire to use education for social mobility, and sense of purpose instilled by the family. These interviews show several discrepancies with Friedan's study due to Friedan's perspective. For example, she tended to interview women from affluent and intellectual backgrounds who went to elite colleges. Though Friedan's book provides a rebuttal of the "sex is destiny" theme prevalent in the first two decades after World War II (thus reigniting the flames of feminism), many of its ideas that all women suffer from the feminine mystique (due to the bonds of domestic expectations) are grand generalizations according to this study. A copy of the interview questionnaire is provided along with statistical data. Contains 7 references. (SM)