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Jan 1, 1921 — Jan 1, 2006· 85 yrs

UNITED STATES AUTHOR · FEMINISM

Betty Friedan

Also known as: Betty Naomi Goldstein Friedan, Betty Friedman

10
BOOKS
3.8
AVG RATING (10)
4
READERS

Friedan graduated summa cum laude from Smith College and had begun graduate study in psychology at the University of California when she transferred her energies toward political activism, the cause of women's rights, and eventually publishing such works as The Feminine Mystique (1963), informed by her critique of Freudian theory. - [Smithsonian Institution on Flickr Commons]

Peoria, United States
Wikipedia

The problem lay buried, unspoken, for many years in the minds of American women.

— from The Feminine Mystique, 1992

Most acclaimed

#1

The Feminine Mystique

1992

3.6 (8)

Landmark, groundbreaking, classic―these adjectives barely do justice to the pioneering vision and lasting impact of The Feminine Mystique. Published in 1963, it gave a pitch-perfect description of “the problem that has no name”: the insidious beliefs and institutions that undermined women’s confidence in their intellectual capabilities and kept them in the home. Writing in a time when the average woman first married in her teens and 60 percent of women students dropped out of college to marry, Betty Friedan captured the frustrations and thwarted ambitions of a generation and showed women how they could reclaim their lives. Part social chronicle, part manifesto, The Feminine Mystique is filled with fascinating anecdotes and interviews as well as insights that continue to inspire.

#2

The second stage

1981

5.0 (1)

Warning the women's movement against dissolving into factionalism, male-bashing, and preoccupation with sexual and identity politics rather than bottom-line political and economic inequalities, Friedan argues that once past the initial phases of describing and working against political and economic injustices, the women's movement should focus on working with men to remake private and public arrangements that work against full lives with children for women and men both. Friedan's agenda to preserve families is far more radical than it appears, for she argues that a truly equitable preservation of marriage and family may require a reorganization of many aspects of conventional middle-class life, from the greater use of flex time and job-sharing, to company-sponsored daycare, to new home designs to permit communal housekeeping and cooking arrangements.

#3

The problem that has no name

1965

4.0 (1)

Books

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