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Feb 3, 2021 · If she were alive today, the feminist Betty Friedan would turn 100 this year. It has been 15 years since she died on her birthday, Feb. 4, 2006, at age 85, and on Thursday there’ll be a...
- Rachel Shteir
Sep 17, 2023 · Betty Friedan. (AP Images) Betty Friedan, author of The Feminine Mystique (1963) and one of the founders of the National Organization for Women (NOW), was a hero of feminism, but a complicated and ...
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Feb 5, 2006 · Betty Friedan, the feminist crusader and author whose searing first book, "The Feminine Mystique," ignited the contemporary women's movement in 1963 and as a result permanently transformed the...
- Impact
- Early life
- Early career
- Personal life
- Research
- Influence
- Philanthropy
- Criticisms
- Later years
Journalist, activist, and co-founder of the National Organization for Women, Betty Friedan was one of the early leaders of the womens rights movement of the 1960s and 1970s. Her 1963 best-selling book, The Feminine Mystique, gave voice to millions of American womens frustrations with their limited gender roles and helped spark widespread public act...
Bettye Naomi Goldstein was born on February 4, 1921 in Peoria, Illinois, the oldest of three children of Harry Goldstein, a Russian immigrant and jeweler, and Miriam Horowitz Goldstein, a Hungarian immigrant who worked as a journalist until Bettye was born.
A summa cum laude psychology graduate of Smith College in 1942, Friedan spent a year on a graduate fellowship to train as a psychologist at the University of California Berkeley. There, she dropped the e from her name. As World War II raged on, Friedan became involved in a number of political causes. She left the graduate program after a year to mo...
In 1947, Friedan married Carl Friedan, a would-be theater producer and advertising maven. Friedan had three childrenin 1948, 1952, and 1956continuing to work throughout. In 1956, the couple moved from Queens, New York, to suburban Rockland County, where Friedan became a housewife, supplementing her familys income with freelance writing for womens m...
Friedan also began the research for what would become The Feminine Mystique in the late 1950s. After conducting a survey of her Smith classmates at a 15-year reunion, Friedan found that most were, as she was, dissatisfied with the limited world of suburban housewives. She spent five years conducting interviews with women across the country, chartin...
Published in 1963, The Feminine Mystique hit a nerve, becoming an instant best-seller that continues to be regarded as one of the most influential nonfiction books of the 20th century. Women everywhere voiced a similar malaise from what Friedan dubbed, the problem that has no name. The book helped transform public awareness and brought many women i...
A busy activist throughout the 1960s and 1970s, Friedan helped found the National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws in 1969, later renamed National Abortion Rights Action League and more recently NARAL Pro-choice America. She organized the Womens Strike for Equality on August 26, 1970 on the 50th anniversary of womens suffrage, to raise a...
As more diverse voices emerged within the womens movement, Friedan not only struggled to retain her leadership but was criticized by other feminists for focusing on issues facing primarily white, middle-class, educated, heterosexual women. Radical feminists also blasted Friedan for referring to lesbian women in the movement as the lavender menace, ...
Friedan nonetheless remained a visible, ardent, and important advocate for womens rights who some dubbed the mother of the modern womens movement. Since the 1970s, she published several books, taught at New York University and the University of Southern California, and lectured widely at womens conferences around the world. Friedan died in 2006 of ...
Mar 8, 2024 · Friedan died of heart failure on February 4, 2006, in Washington, D.C. Today, Friedan is remembered as one of the leading voices of the women's rights movement of the 20th century.
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Feb 4, 2006 · Betty Friedan, whose manifesto "The Feminine Mystique" became a best seller in the 1960s and laid the groundwork for the modern feminist movement, died Saturday, her birthday. She was 85....
Died: February 4, 2006, Washington, D.C. (aged 85) Founder: National Organization for Women. Notable Works: “It Changed My Life: Writings on the Women’s Movement”. “The Feminine Mystique”. “The Fountain of Age”. “The Second Stage”.
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