Allan Wolf, in The Mystique of Betty Friedan writes: “ She helped to change not only the thinking but the lives of many American women, but recent books throw into question the intellectual and personal sources of her work .” Although there have been some debates on Friedan ’ s work in The Feminine Mystique since its publication, there is no doubt that her work for equality for women was sincere and committed.

Horowitz explored Friedan ’ s engagement with the women's movement before she began to work on her book, The Feminine Mystique and argues that Friedan ’ s feminism did not start in the 1950s but rather before that in the 1940s.

Lisa Fredenksen Bohannon in Woman ’ s work: The story of Betty Friedan goes deep into Friedan ’ s personal life and writes about her relationship with her mother.

" Friedan also points out that Freud's unproven concept of " penis envy " had been used to label women who wanted careers as neurotic, and that the popularity of Freud's work and ideas elevated the " feminine mystique " of female fulfillment in housewifery into a " scientific religion " that most women were not educated enough to criticize.

Friedan says that women need meaningful work just as men do to achieve self-actualization, the highest level on the hierarchy of needs.

Friedan ends her book by promoting education and meaningful work as the ultimate method by which American women can avoid becoming trapped in the feminine mystique, calling for a drastic rethinking of what it means to be feminine, and offering several educational and occupational suggestions.

" The work focuses specifically on the similarities and differences of these political philosophies, by critically examining the liberal feminist writings of John Stuart Mill, Betty Friedan, Simone de Beauvoir and Janet Radcliffe Richards, especially focusing on the issues of employment, education, marriage and the family, and governmental politics.

In 1970, after stepping down as NOW's first president, Friedan organized the nation-wide Women's Strike for Equality on August 26, the 50th anniversary of the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution granting women the right to vote.

" And in February 2006, shortly after Friedan's death, the feminist writer Germaine Greer published an article in The Guardian, in which she described Friedan as pompous and egotistic, somewhat demanding, and sometimes selfish, as evidenced by repeated incidents during a tour of Iran in 1972.

Carl Friedan denied abusing her in an interview with Time magazine shortly after the book was published, describing the claim as a " complete fabrication ".

" Friedan received hundreds of letters from unhappy housewives after its publication, and she herself went on to help found the National Organization for Women, an influential feminist organization.

Friedan stated in her memoir Life So Far ( 2000 ) that Carl had beaten her during their marriage ; friends such as Dolores Alexander recalled having to cover up black eyes from Carl's abuse in time for press conferences ( Brownmiller 1999, p. 70 ).

She claimed that women could have it all, " love, sex, and money ", a view that even preceding feminists such as Betty Friedan and Germaine Greer did not support at all and has been met with notable opposition by advocates of grass-roots devotion of women to family and marriage.

Chapter 1: Friedan points out that the average age of marriage was dropping and the birthrate was increasing for women throughout the 1950s, yet the widespread unhappiness of women persisted, although American culture insisted that fulfillment for women could be found in marriage and housewifery ; this chapter concludes by declaring " We can no longer ignore that voice within women that says: ' I want something more than my husband and my children and my home.

Chapter 7: Friedan discusses the change in women's education from the 1940s to the early 1960s, in which many women's schools concentrated on non-challenging classes that focused mostly on marriage, family, and other subjects deemed suitable for women, as educators influenced by functionalism felt that too much education would spoil women's femininity and capacity for sexual fulfillment.

In 1966, Friedan founded and was elected the first president of the National Organization for Women, which aimed to bring women " into the mainstream of American society now fully equal partnership with men ".

At its first conference in October 1966, Friedan was elected NOW's first president, and her fame as the author of the bestselling book The Feminine Mystique helped attract thousands of women to the organization.

Betty Friedan became its first president.

The Feminine Mystique is a nonfiction book by Betty Friedan first published in 1963.

The myth of the origin of the phrase " Lavender Menace " is that it was first used in 1969 by Betty Friedan, president of NOW, to describe the threat that she believed associations with lesbianism posed to NOW and the emerging women's movement.

Friedan was dismissed from the union newspaper UE News in 1952, because she was pregnant with her second child.

Daniel Horowitz, a Professor of American Studies at Smith College points out that although Friedan presented herself as a typical suburban housewife, she was involved with radical politics and labor journalism in her youth, and during the time she wrote The Feminine Mystique she worked as a freelance journalist for women's magazines and as a community organizer.

After leaving Berkeley, Friedan became a journalist for leftist and union publications.

NWPC was founded in 1971 by Gloria Steinem, Bella Abzug, Shirley Chisholm, Betty Friedan, Myrlie Evers, several congresswomen, heads of national organizations, and others who shared the vision of gender equality including Dolores Delahanty of Kentucky and writer and journalist Letty Cottin Pogrebin.

The term female chauvinism has been adopted by critics of some types or aspects of feminism ; second-wave feminist Betty Friedan is a notable example.

* 2006 – Betty Friedan, American feminist ( b. 1921 )

Betty Friedan, in the Feminine Mystique, openly criticizes Mead for contributing to infantilizing women through functional anthropology, in Chapter 6, " The Functional Freeze, The Feminine Protest, and Margaret Mead.

Betty Friedan and other liberal feminists often see precisely the radicalism of radical feminism as potentially undermining the gains of the women's movement with polarizing rhetoric that invites backlash and hold that they overemphasize sexual politics at the expense of political reform.

O ' Leary was referring to the Lavender Menace, a description by second wave feminist Betty Friedan for attempts by members of the National Organization for Women ( NOW ) to distance themselves from the perception of NOW as a haven for lesbians.

Gregory was an outspoken feminist, and in 1978 he joined Gloria Steinem, Betty Friedan, Bella Abzug, Margaret Heckler, Barbara Mikulski, and original suffragists to lead the National ERA March for Ratification and Extension, a march down Pennsylvania Avenue to the United States Capitol of over 100, 000 on Women's Equality Day ( August 26 ), 1978 to demonstrate for a ratification deadline extension for the proposed Equal Rights Amendment to the United States Constitution, and for the ratification of the ERA.

In this position, Ephron made a name for herself by taking on subjects as wide-ranging as Dorothy Schiff, her former boss and owner of the Post ; Betty Friedan, whom she chastised for pursuing a feud with Gloria Steinem ; and her alma mater Wellesley, which she said had turned out a generation of " docile " women.

Notable alumnae include Catharine MacKinnon, Nancy Reagan, Barbara Bush, Betty Friedan, Gloria Steinem, Julia Child, Madeleine L ' Engle, Sylvia Plath, Sherry Rehman, Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, Rochelle Lazarus, Laura D ' Andrea Tyson and Yolanda King.

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

The national strike was successful beyond expectations in broadening the feminist movement ; the march led by Friedan in New York City alone attracted over 50, 000 women and men.

In 1971, Friedan joined other leading feminists to establish the National Women's Political Caucus.

Friedan was also a strong supporter of the proposed Equal Rights Amendment to the United States Constitution that passed the United States House of Representatives ( by a vote of 354-24 ) and Senate ( 84-8 ) following intense pressure by women's groups led by NOW in the early 1970s.

Following Congressional passage of the amendment Friedan advocated for ratification of the amendment in the states and supported other women's rights reforms.

Friedan founded the National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws but was later critical of the abortion-centered, politicized tactics of many liberal and radical feminists.

Regarded as an influential author and intellectual in the United States, Friedan remained active in politics and advocacy for the rest of her life, authoring six books.

As early as the 1960s Friedan was critical of polarized and extreme factions of feminism that attacked groups such as men and homemakers.

One of her later books, The Second Stage, critiqued what Friedan saw as the extremist excesses of some feminists who could be broadly classified as gender feminists.

Friedan was born Bettye Naomi Goldstein on February 4, 1921 in Peoria, Illinois, to Harry and Miriam ( Horwitz ) Goldstein, whose Jewish families were from Russia and Hungary.

In this magazine, Friedan and her friends talked about home life as opposed to school life.

Friedan claims in her memoirs that her boyfriend at the time pressured her into turning down a Ph. D fellowship for further study and abandoning her academic career.

"' o suppress free speech in the name of protecting women is dangerous and wrong ,' says Friedan.