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Betty Friedan

Betty Friedan Quotes

Writer

Betty Friedan was an American writer renowned for her groundbreaking work, 'The Feminine Mystique,' which had a profound impact on the women's liberation movement of the 20th century. Her writing exposed the dilemmas faced by women in society, the family, and the workplace, sparking a reevaluation of their status and rights.

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Famous Betty Friedan Quotes

“I'm against suppression of pornography. If you suppress guns - yes; if you want to suppress poverty - yes. These are the obscenities, the real brutalization of people. I am almost more outraged by ads for blue jeans or cars that sort of blatantly depict women not only as sex objects, but women that look younger than the age of consent, looking like they've just been raped or asking to be raped-utterly passive sex objects.”

People Ifs Want Looks Real Age Sex Poverty Car Objects Gun Asking Blue Ads Passive Consent Jeans Pornography Suppression Outraged Obscenity Blue Jeans Age Of Consent

Author:Betty Friedan

“Being Jewish, you didn't get into a sorority. So I really was much more outgoing and gregarious. I really didn't want to spend an Emily Dickinson adolescence reading poetry on gravestones, which I did.”

Want Reading Adolescence Emily Outgoing Gravestone Gregarious Reading Poetry Sorority

Author:Betty Friedan

“I knew one thing. I did not want to be a mommy like mommy.”

Author:Betty Friedan

“I won a really big fellowship to go straight on to get my Ph.D. And I went through agonies of indecision, and then I decided not to accept it. I just decided I didn't want to be an academic.”

Want Bigs Accepting Decided Academic Agony Fellowship Indecision

Author:Betty Friedan

“I didn't want to be in a situation where I was broader than the boys, which I was, in the academic world.”

World Want Situation Boys Academic

Author:Betty Friedan

“I just decided that I didn't want to be in the academic world, because it was [really] too easy for me at the top. But also it wasn't active enough for me.”

World Want Enough Easy Decided Active Academic

Author:Betty Friedan

“It was the era that I later analyzed, the "feminine mystique" era, [when] "career woman" was a dirty word. And so I didn't want a career anymore. [But] I had to do something. So I started freelancing for women's magazines.”

Want Careers Magazines Eras Dirty Feminine Mystique Dirty Words Career Women Feminine Mystique

Author:Betty Friedan

“We can no longer ignore that voice within women that says: 'I want something more than my husband and my children and my home.'”

Want Children Home Voice Husband My Children My Husband Want Something Feminine Mystique

Book:The Feminine Mystique

Source: The Feminine Mystique

“A woman has got to be able to say, and not feel guilty, 'Who am I, and what do I want out of life?' She mustn't feel selfish and neurotic if she wants goals of her own, outside of husband and children.”

Ifs Want Feels Children Able Goal Husband Selfish Guilty Neurotic

Author:Betty Friedan

“When one begins to think about it, America depends rather heavily on women's passive dependence, their femininity. Femininity, if one still wants to call it that, makes American women a target and a victim of the sexual sell.”

Ifs Thinking Want Stills America Depends Victim Sells Target Passive Dependence Femininity American Woman

Book:The Feminine Mystique

Source: The Feminine Mystique

About the Author

Born: February 4, 1921
Died: February 4, 2006
Known for: Writer
Quotes: 124

Related Topics

Feminine Mystique Men Mystique Feminism Ifs Children Women Feminine Age Want Years Movement World American Woman Feminist Home Mother People Thinking Housewife

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Books & Sources

The Feminine MystiqueRelated source material

Fountain of AgeRelated source material

the year's most controversial bestseller the feminine mystiqueRelated source material

It Changed My Life: Writings on the Women's MovementRelated source material

Life So Far: A MemoirRelated source material

The Second Stage: With a New IntroductionRelated source material

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