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Betty Friedan

Betty Friedan Quotes

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Famous Betty Friedan Quotes

“Aging is not "lost youth" but a new stage of opportunity and strength.”

AgeOpportunityLostWomenInspiringStageStrengthYouthAgingOld AgeUpliftingBirthdayOld PeopleGetting OldGetting OlderYoung AgeGrowing OldAgeingLost FriendshipFunny AgingYoung And OldYouth And Old AgeAge And YouthAging GracefullySenior CitizenStages Of LifeStaying YoungInspirational AgeAging ProcessLost YouthGrowing Old GracefullyFeminine MystiqueWise AgeAge Of 20Aging Population
Author:Betty Friedan
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“The problem lay buried, unspoken for many years in the minds of American women. It was a strange stirring, a sense of dissatisfaction, a yearning that women suffered in the middle of the twentieth century in the United States. Each suburban housewife struggled with it alone. As she made the beds, shopped for groceries, matched slipcover material, ate peanut butter sandwiches with her children, chauffeured Cub Scouts and Brownies, lay beside her husband at night, she was afraid to ask even of herself the silent question - "Is this all?"”

YearsMindMadeStatesProblemAsksHouseUnitedUnited StatesWifeMiddleCenturyStrangeBedLongingLaysSilentBuriedYearning20th CenturyGroceriesDissatisfactionStirringUnspokenAmerican WomanMystiqueBrowniesFeminine Mystique
Author:Betty Friedan
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“In almost every professional field, in business and in the arts and sciences, women are still treated as second-class citizens. It would be a great service to tell girls who plan to work in society to expect this subtle, uncomfortable discrimination-tell them not to be quiet, and hope it will go away, but fight it. A girl should not expect special privileges because of her sex, but neither should she "adjust" to prejudice and discrimination.”

ShouldArtStillsWould BeGirlFightingSexClassPlansSpecialFieldsCitizensQuietPrejudicePrivilegeDiscriminationTreatedUncomfortableSubtleGoing AwayArt And ScienceGreat ServiceSecond Class CitizensFeminine MystiqueTell A Girl
Author:Betty Friedan
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“The only kind of work which permits an able woman to realize her abilities fully, to achieve identity in society in a life plan that can encompass marriage and motherhood, is the kind that was forbidden by the feminine mystique, the lifelong commitment to an art or science, to politics or profession. If divorce has increased by one thousand percent, don't blame the women's movement. Blame the obsolete sex roles on which our marriages were based.”

IfsKindArtAbleSexRealizingAbilityRolesPlansAchieveMovementIdentityThousandPercentCommitmentBlameDivorceMotherhoodProfessionFemininePermitForbiddenLifelongObsoleteMystiqueFeminine Mystique
Author:Betty Friedan
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“Each suburban wife struggles with it alone. As she made the beds, shopped for groceries, matched slipcover material, ate peanut butter sandwiches with her children, chauffeured Cub Scouts and Brownies, lay beside her husband at night- she was afraid to ask even of herself the silent question-- 'Is this all?”

ChildrenMadePurposeNightAsksParentStruggleWifeMaterialsBedHusbandLaysSilentParentingExistentialismSandwichesGroceriesDissatisfactionPeanutsMatchedPeanut ButterMystiqueCubsBrowniesFeminine MystiquePeanut Butter And JellyPeanut Butter SandwichesCub Scout
Author:Betty Friedan
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“Over and over again, stories in women's magazines insist that women can know fulfillment only at the moment of giving birth to a child. They deny the years when she can no longer look forward to giving birth, even if she repeats the act over and over again. In the feminine mystique, there is no other way for a woman to dream of creation or of the future. There is no other way she can even dream about herself, except as her children's mother, her husband's wife.”

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Author:Betty Friedan
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“The key to the trap is, of course, education. The feminine mystique has made higher education for women seem suspect, unnecessary and even dangerous. But I think that education, and only education, has saved, and can continue to save, American women from the greater dangers of the feminine mystique.”

ThinkingMadeSeemsCoursesGreaterDangerousDangerKeysHigherSavedSuspectsFeminineTrapsUnnecessaryHigher EducationAmerican WomanMystiqueFeminine Mystique
Book:the year's most controversial bestseller the feminine mystique
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“The real joke that history played on American women is not the one that makes people snigger, with cheap Freudian sophistication, at the dead feminists. It is the joke that Freudian thought played on living women, twisting the memory of the feminists into the man-eating phantom of the feminine mystique, shriveling the very wish to be more than just a wife and mother.”

PeopleMenRealMotherWishMemoriesWifeEatingJokesFeministFemininePhantomsSophisticationAmerican WomanMystiqueWives And MothersFeminine Mystique
Book:the year's most controversial bestseller the feminine mystique
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“Strange new problems are being reported in the growing generations of children whose mothers were always there, driving them around, helping them with their homework --an inability to endure pain or discipline or pursue any self-sustained goal of any sort, a devastating boredom with life.”

ChildrenSelfHelpingProblemPainMotherWomenGoalGrowingGenerationsStrangeDisciplineEndureDrivingPursueBoredomInabilityHomeworkMystiqueFeminine Mystique
Author:Betty Friedan
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