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The problem that has no name-which is simply the fact that American women are kept from growing to their full human capacities-is taking a far greater toll on the physical and mental health of our country than any known disease.

Betty Friedan

We broke through the feminine mystique and women who were wives, mothers and housewives began to find themselves as people. That didn’t mean they stopped, or had to stop, being mothers, wives or even liking their homes.
BETTY FRIEDAN

Beginning Break Feminism Finding Home Mom Mystery People Stop Wife Women
American women were frustrated in just the role of housewife – but they also managed to enlarge it. And they weren’t just housewives, they were community leaders.
BETTY FRIEDAN

America Community Dependant Frustrate Frustrated Husband Leader Life Role Self Women
When she stopped conforming to the conventional picture of femininity she finally began to enjoy being a woman.
BETTY FRIEDAN

Beginning Confront Enjoyment Feminine Photograph Stop Women
I have discovered that there is a crucial difference between society’s image of old people and ‘us’ as we know and feel ourselves to be.
BETTY FRIEDAN

Age Crucial Differences Discover Feel Image Know Ourselves People Society
A woman is handicapped by her sex, and handicaps society, either by slavishly copying the pattern of man’s advance in the professions, or by refusing to compete with man at all.
BETTY FRIEDAN

Competition Handicapped Man Pattern Profession Sex Slave Society Women
Protectiveness has often muffled the sound of doors closing against women.
BETTY FRIEDAN

Close Protection Sound Women
When I was in high school, even in college, I didn’t have any real image of a career woman or a professional woman.
BETTY FRIEDAN

College Image Myself Professional School
A girl should not expect special privileges because of her sex, but neither should she “adjust” to prejudice and discrimination.
BETTY FRIEDAN

Adjust Discrimination Expect Girl Life Privilege Sex
The feminine mystique has succeeded in burying millions of American women alive.
BETTY FRIEDAN

Alive Burying Feminism History Lost Youth Millions Mystique Succeeded Women
Who knows what women can be when they are finally free to become themselves?
BETTY FRIEDAN

Freedom Inspirational Women Women Empowerment
A good woman is one who loves passionately, has guts, seriousness and passionate convictions, takes responsibility, and shapes society.
BETTY FRIEDAN

Goodness Love Passionate Responsibility Shape Society Women
…women who ‘adjust’ as housewives, who grow up wanting to be ‘just a housewife,’ are in as much danger as the millions who walked to their own death in the concentration camps…they ate suffering a slow death of mind and spirit.
BETTY FRIEDAN

Adjust Ambition Death Growth Slow Suffering Wife Women
There is absolutely no evidence that it is harmful to children if their mother’s health, well-being and autonomy and control of her own destiny is maximized by work outside the home.
BETTY FRIEDAN

Children Control Evidence Harm Health Home Mother
Why the increasing emphasis by professional age experts and the media on – and public acceptance of – the nursing home as the locus of age when, in fact, more than ninety percent of those over sixty-five continue to live in the community?
BETTY FRIEDAN

Acceptance Age Expert Media Nurse Home Professional Public
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.
BETTY FRIEDAN

Blame Divorce Increase Justice Marriage Percent Reason Role Sex
Whatever I wrote was heretical. It offended the editors of the women’s magazines.
BETTY FRIEDAN

Hereditary Magazine Myself Offend Women Writing

The problem that has no name-which is simply the fact that American women are kept from growing to their full human capacities-is taking a far greater toll on the physical and mental health of our country than any known disease.

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The problem that has no name-which is simply the fact that American women are kept from growing to their full human capacities-is taking a far greater toll on the physical and mental health of our country than any known disease.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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