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If I were a man, I would strenuously object to the assumption that women have any moral or spiritual superiority as a class.

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
Just as darkness is sometimes defined as the absence of light, so age is defined as the absence of youth.
BETTY FRIEDAN

Absence Age Darkness Deep Defined Light Youth
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
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
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
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
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.
BETTY FRIEDAN

Acceptance Agony Decision Myself Straight Win
Who knows what women can be when they are finally free to become themselves? Who knows what women’s intelligence will contribute when it can be nourished without denying love?
BETTY FRIEDAN

Contribute Freedom Intelligence Love Nourish Women
The only way for a woman, as for a man, to find herself, to know herself as a person, is by creative work of her own.
BETTY FRIEDAN

Creative Equality Find Herself Know Man Person Way Women
You have to say no to the old ways before you can begin to find the new yes you need.
BETTY FRIEDAN

Acceptance Need Old Way Yourself
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
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
Diversity has got to be a part of modern feminism, and I think that my feminism is stronger because its an inclusive thing. I won’t be backed into a corner that polarizes me against other women. And I wished they wouldn’t be either.
BETTY FRIEDAN

Diversity Feminism Freedom Goal Modern Myself Part Polarizes Stronger Thinking Way
I love newspapers. I’ve worked on newspapers, all my life. I’ve always loved it.
BETTY FRIEDAN

Love Myself Work
Advice? I don’t offer advice. Not my business. Your life is what you make it.
BETTY FRIEDAN

Advice Business Empire Fortune Idea Life Offer Willing Power
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
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 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
Neither woman nor man lives by work, or love, alone … The human self defines itself and grows through love and work: All psychology before and after Freud boils down to that.
BETTY FRIEDAN

Alone Definition Growth Human Live Love Man Women Work
To protest free speech in the name of protecting women is dangerous and wrong.
BETTY FRIEDAN

Freedom Protest Speech Wrong
Getting older is an adventure, not a problem.
BETTY FRIEDAN

Adventure Old One Liner Perspective Problem
It is frightening when a woman finally realizes that there is no answer to the question ‘who am I’ except the voice inside herself.
BETTY FRIEDAN

Fear Head Realization Scare Voice 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
Dominance is a burden. Most men who are honest will admit that.
BETTY FRIEDAN

Admit Burden Dominance Honesty Men
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
Aging will create the music of the coming century.
BETTY FRIEDAN

Age Century Creation Music One Liner
I knew one thing. I did not want to be a mommy like mommy.
BETTY FRIEDAN

Desire Known Mom Myself Ordinary

If I were a man, I would strenuously object to the assumption that women have any moral or spiritual superiority as a class.

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If I were a man, I would strenuously object to the assumption that women have any moral or spiritual superiority as a class.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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