Betty Friedan

At 85 years old, Betty Friedan has this physical status:

Betty Friedan (February 4, 1921 – February 4, 2006) was an American feminist writer and activist.

Her 1963 book The Feminine Mystique, a leading figure in the women's movement in the United States, is often credited with triggering the second wave of American feminism in the twentieth century.

Friedan co-founded and was elected the first president of the National Organization for Women in 1966, aiming to bring women "into the mainstream of American life [in] a truly equal partnership with men." Friedan, the nation's first president, on August 26, the 50th anniversary of the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution granting women the right to vote.

The national strike was more fruitful in broadening the feminist movement; Friedan's march in New York City alone attracted over 50,000 people.

Friedan formed the National Women's Political Caucuses in 1971, alongside other leading feminists.

Following intense pressure from women's organizations led by NOW in the early 1970s, Friedan was also a strong promoter of the pending Equal Rights Amendment to the United States Constitution, which passed the House of Representatives (354–24) and Senate (886–8).

Friedan argued for the amendment's ratification in the states and promoted other women's rights reforms; she founded the National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws in the 1980s, but later became dissatisfied with many liberal feminist positions. Friedan, who was regarded as a leading author and scholar in the United States, remained active in politics and advocacy until the late 1990s, authored six books.

Friedan was critical of polarized and extreme feminism, which threatened groups such as women and homemakers as early as the 1960s.

The Second Stage, one of Friedan's later books, criticized what Friedan viewed as the radical excesses of certain feminists.

Early life

Friedan was born Bettye Goldstein, 1921, in Peoria, Illinois, to Harry and Miriam (Horwitz) Goldstein, whose Jewish families came from Russia and Hungary. Harry owned a jewellery store in Peoria, and Miriam wrote for a newspaper's society page when Friedan's father died. Her mother's new life outside of the home seemed much more gratifying.

Friedan, a young woman, was active in both Marxist and Jewish circles, and she later described how she felt alienated from the latter group at times and that her "senteration against injustice... stemmed from my experiences of anti-Semitism's injustice." She went to Peoria High School and became interested in the school newspaper. Tide, a literary journal that focused on home life rather than school life, was rejected by her attempt to write a column.

Friedan attended Smith College for the Women in 1938. In her first year, she was recognized for her academic achievement. She became interested in poetry in her second year and had several poems published in campus journals. She became SCAN's editor-in-chief in 1941 (Smith College Associated News). The editorials became more political under her leadership, adopting a more pro-war record and occasionally sparking controversy. Summa Cum lauded and Phi Beta Kappa in 1942 with a major in psychology. During her time at Smith, she lived in Chapin House.

Erik Erikson spent a year at the University of California, Berkeley, on a fellowship for graduate work in psychology. She became more politically involved, beginning to mix with Marxists (many of her acquaintances were investigated by the FBI). She argued that her boyfriend at the time compelled her into dropping a Ph.D. fellowship for further study and ending her academic career.

Personal life

Carl Friedman, a theater designer who worked at UE News, married her husband Carl Friedman (né Friedman), a theatre designer, in 1947. She continued to work after marriage, first as a salaried employee and then as a freelance journalist after 1952. Carl died in December 2005 after the couple divorced in May 1969.

Friedan said in her book Life So Far (2000) that Carl had assaulted her during their marriage; friends such as Dolores Alexander recalled having to cover up black eyes from Carl's cruelty in time for press conferences. p. 70). In an interview with Time magazine shortly after the book was published, Carl denied insulting her, referring to the allegation as a "complete fabrication." "I almost wish I hadn't even written about it," she later told Good Morning America, because it has been sensationalized out of context. My husband was not a wife beater, and I was not a passive victim of a husband beating. We fought a lot, and he was bigger than me."

Daniel, Emily, and Jonathan were three children of Carl and Betty Friedan. She was raised in a Jewish family but was an agnostic. Friedan, a 1973 graduate of the Humanist Manifesto II, was one of the signers.

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Writing career

Betty left Berkeley and became a writer for leftist and labour union newspapers. She wrote for Federated Press from 1943 to 1952, and then for the United Electrical Workers' Union (UE News). One of her duties was to report on the House Un-American Activities Committee.

Friedan was fired from the union newspaper UE News in 1952 because she was pregnant with her second child by then married. After leaving UE News, she became a freelance writer for various publications, including Cosmopolitan.

Friedan began as a labor journalist when she first became aware of women's oppression and exclusion, according to Friedan's biographer Daniel Horowitz, although Friedan's own defense denied this interpretation of her work.

Friedan conducted a poll of college graduates, focusing on their education, subsequent experiences, and content with their new lives. She began releasing articles about "the problem that has no name" and found a vociferous response from many housewives who were relieved that they were not alone in facing this challenge.

Friedan then decided to rework and broaden this subject to The Feminine Mystique, a book. It was published in 1963 and depicted the roles of women in industry, particularly the full-time homemaker position, which Friedan referred to as stifling. Friedan's book compared a depressed suburban housewife who dropped out of college at the age of 19 to marry and raise four children. She referred to her own 'terror' at being alone, and she said she had never once in her life seen a positive female role-model who lived outside the house and then kept a family. She cited several instances of housewives who were eerily trapped. She criticized Freud's penis envy theory, noting a number of paradoxes in his work, and giving some advice to women desirous of further education.

Friedan's "Problem Has No Name" was the subject of the book's introduction: "Problem Has No Name" is the protagonist.

Friedan argued that women are as able as men for any kind of occupation or career path, in defiance of mass media, educators, and psychologists' arguments to the contrary. Her book was important not only because it challenged hegemonic sexism in US society, but also because it was different from the general emphasis on women's education, political rights, and participation in social movements from the 19th and early twentieth century. Although feminist feminists had often shared an essentialist interpretation of women's existence and a corporatist interpretation of society, Friedan's belief that increased the risk of marriage, make women better wives and mothers, and increase national and international health and safety can be achieved. The 1950s, as well as the often-incarcerated, prisoned feeling of many women being forced into these careers, attracted a lot of women who then began attending consciousness-raising sessions and advocated for the reform of oppressive legislation and social convictions that barred women.

Many scholars believe the book was the catalyst for the "second wave" of the women's revolution in the United States and that has greatly influenced national and international affairs.

Friedan had intended to write a sequel to The Feminine Mystique, but instead, she wrote an article by that name, which appeared in the Ladies' Home Journal in June 1964.

Friedan has written six books. Her other books include: The Second Stage, It Changed My Life: Women's Movement, Beyond Gender, and The Fountain of Age. Life so Far, her autobiography, was released in 2000.

She also wrote for journals and a newspaper.

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Awards and honors

• Honorary doctorate of humane letters from Smith College (1975)
• Humanist of the Year from the American Humanist Association (1975)
• Mort Weisinger Award from the American Society of Journalists and Authors (1979)
• From 1981 to 1983, Bonnie Tiburzi put on three “Women of Accomplishment” luncheons for the Wings Club honoring certain women, including Friedan.
• Honorary doctorate of humane letters from the State University at Stony Brook (1985)
• Eleanor Roosevelt Leadership Award (1989)
• Honorary doctorate of humane letters from Bradley University (1991)
• Induction into the National Women's Hall of Fame (1993)
• Honorary doctorate of letters from Columbia University (1994)
• "The 75 Most Important Women of the Past 75 Years" – Glamour magazine listed Friedan as one of them (2014)