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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

Some people think I’m saying, ‘Women of the world unite — you have nothing to lose but your men. It’s not true. You have nothing to lose but your vacuum cleaners.
BETTY FRIEDAN

Lose Men People Thinking Unity Women World
Men weren’t really the enemy – they were fellow victims suffering from an outmoded masculine mystique that made them feel unnecessarily inadequate when there were no bears to kill.
BETTY FRIEDAN

Enemy Fellow Male Men Mystic Suffering Victim
By now, abortion should be obsolete. And I – and probably a lot of other feminists – wish it were obsolete, because abortion, in itself, is not a value – it is simply the right to chose, which is an essential value.
BETTY FRIEDAN

Abortion Choice Essential Myself Necessary Women
Men are not the enemy, but the fellow victims. The real enemy is women’s denigration of themselves.
BETTY FRIEDAN

Enemy Fellow Men Victim Women
life lived only for oneself does not truly satisfy men or women. There is a hunger in Americans today for larger purposes beyond the self. That is the reason for the religious revival and the new resonance of ‘family.
BETTY FRIEDAN

Beyond Life Live Men Purpose Satisfaction True Women
Women, because they are not generally the principal breadwinners, can be perhaps most useful as the trail blazers, working along the bypaths, doing the unusual job that men cannot afford to gamble on.
BETTY FRIEDAN

Earn Gamble Job Men Principal Support Women Work
I love newspapers. I’ve worked on newspapers, all my life. I’ve always loved it.
BETTY FRIEDAN

Love Myself Work
Protectiveness has often muffled the sound of doors closing against women.
BETTY FRIEDAN

Close Protection Sound Women
Who knows what women can be when they are finally free to become themselves?
BETTY FRIEDAN

Freedom Inspirational Women Women Empowerment
Whatever I wrote was heretical. It offended the editors of the women’s magazines.
BETTY FRIEDAN

Hereditary Magazine Myself Offend Women Writing
I wouldn’t be satisfied with a life lived solely on the barricades. I reserve my right to be frivolous.
BETTY FRIEDAN

Frivolous Life Live Reserve Right Satisfaction
I realized that what I was saying was threatening, somehow, to the editors of women’s magazines. That it threatened the very world they were trying to paint, what I then called the “feminine mystique.”
BETTY FRIEDAN

Editor Feminism Magazine Myself Realization Threatening
I understood somehow my mother’s frustration. And that it was no good not only for her, but for her children or her husband, that she didn’t have a real use of her ability.
BETTY FRIEDAN

Ability Children Frustration Goodness Husband Mom Understand
Instead of fulfilling the promise of infinite orgasmic bliss, sex in the America of the feminine mystique is becoming a strangely joyless national compulsion, if not a contemptuous mockery.
BETTY FRIEDAN

Bliss Fulfill Happiness Infinite Promise Strange
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.
BETTY FRIEDAN

Academic Active Decision Easy Education Enough Myself Top World
We need to see men and women as equal partners, but its hard to think of movies that do that. When I talk to people, they think of movies of forty-five years ago! Hepburn and Tracy!
BETTY FRIEDAN

Equality Hard Men Movie Need Partner Thinking 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.

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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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