Writer and feminist leader, born in Peoria, Illinois, USA. A summa cum laude graduate from Smith (1942), she was awarded fellowships for working toward a doctorate in psychology, but abandoned this under the influence of what she would later call the feminine mystique. She married in 1947, and for almost the next 20 years lived the life of a conventional suburban housewife and mother. (She had three children and was divorced in 1969.) As a result of surveys of female college graduates, she came to identify certain problems that women were experiencing in their lives, and after several years of research she published The Feminine Mystique (1963), an exposé of the traditional roles assigned to women in modern industrial societies. Although not an especially profound critique, it became an international best-seller and is credited with generating the so-called second wave of modern feminism. In 1966 she co-founded the National Organization for Women (NOW) and served as its first president (196670), moving on to other activities promoting the advancement of women. Through her writings, lecturing, organizational work, and outspokenness, she became one of the most influential feminist leaders of the late 20th-c. In 1981, feeling that some individuals and elements of the feminist movement had moved off into extreme positions, she published The Second Stage, calling for a more balanced approach in the women's movement, and in 1993 she published The Fountain of Age about the ways that older people can find satisfaction in their lives. A memoir, Life So Far, appeared in 2000.
Betty Friedan (February 4, 1921 – February 4, 2006) was an American feminist, activist and writer.
Education and family
Friedan was born Bettye Naomi Goldstein on February 4, 1921 in Peoria, Illinois. Betty realized how frustrated her mother had been as a housewife when her mother took over the family shop after Betty's father fell ill.
When Betty was young, she was active in Marxist and Jewish radical circles.
She married Carl Friedan, a theatre-producer, in 1947 (the "e" was dropped after they were married). Betty Friedan continued to work after marriage (at a time when most women did not), first as a paid employee and after 1952, as a freelance journalist. Betty claimed in her memoir, Life So Far (2000), that Carl had beaten her during their marriage; Carl Friedan denied abusing Betty in an interview with TIME magazine shortly after the book was published, describing the claim as a "complete fabrication" , and asserted that the bruises Betty took at his hands were from self-defense during fights. Carl Friedan died in December, 2005. One of their sons, Daniel Friedan, is a noted theoretical physicist.
Friedan died at her home in Washington, D.C.
Career
In 1952, Friedan was fired from the union newspaper UE News when she was pregnant with her second child.
For her 15th college reunion in 1957, Friedan conducted a survey of Smith College graduates, focusing on their education, their subsequent experiences and satisfaction with their current lives. It was rejected by all editors to whom it was submitted, even after Friedan rewrote portions at the request of some of the editors.
The Feminine Mystique
Friedan then decided to rework and expand the article into a book. It depicted the roles of women in industrial societies, and in particular the full-time homemaker role, which Friedan saw as stifling.
Other works
Friedan's other books include The Second Stage, It Changed My Life: Writings on the Women's Movement, and The Fountain of Age.
NOW
Friedan co-founded the US National Organization for Women with 27 other women and men. Friedan was its first president, serving from 1966 to 1970. NOW statement on Friedan's death
NARAL and abortion
Friedan helped found NARAL (originally National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws) in 1969 together with Bernard Nathanson and Larry Lader.
Controversy over gay and lesbian rights
One of the most influential feminists of the late 20th century, Friedan opposed "equating feminism with lesbianism."
However, Betty Friedan subsequently switched positions. When Betty Friedan took the microphone to pledge her support for the lesbian rights motion, women cheered, some cried, and all around the venue, thousands of lavender balloons rose from the floor, drifting triumphantly towards the ceiling. This was a defining moment for the US Women's Movement, for lesbian rights, and for Betty Friedan.
Temperament
The New York Times obituary for Friedan noted that she was "famously abrasive" and that she could be "thin-skinned and imperious, subject to screaming fits of temperament." And in February 2006, shortly after Friedan's death, the controversial feminist writer Germaine Greer published an article in Guardian , in which she described Friedan as egotistic, personally demanding, and often selfish, focusing on repeated incidents during a tour of Iran in 1972. Greer wrote of her outbursts,
Betty Friedan "changed the course of human history almost single-handedly." Her ex-husband, Carl Friedan, believes this;
—Germaine Greer, "The Betty I knew," The Guardian (February 7, 2006)
Indeed, Carl has been quoted as saying "She changed the course of history almost single-handedly. [Ginsberg L., "Ex-hubby fires back at feminist icon Betty," New York Post, 05 July 2000]
Books
The Feminine Mystique (1963) The Second Stage (1981)First published in 1981, The Second Stage is eerily prescient and timely, a reminder that much of what is called new thinking in feminism has been eloquently observed and argued before. 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. The problem Friedan identifies is as real now as it was years ago: "how to live the equality we fought for," and continue to fight for, with "the family as new feminist frontier."
The Fountain of Age (1993) Life So Far (2000)
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