Protectiveness has often muffled the sound of doors closing against women.
BETTY FRIEDANProtectiveness has often muffled the sound of doors closing against women.
BETTY FRIEDANThe feminist revolution had to be fought because women quite simply were stopped at a state of evolution far short of their human capacity.
BETTY FRIEDANWhen she stopped conforming to the conventional picture of femininity she finally began to enjoy being a woman.
BETTY FRIEDANIt is frightening when a woman finally realizes that there is no answer to the question ‘who am I’ except the voice inside herself.
BETTY FRIEDANWe can no longer ignore that voice within women that says: ‘I want something more than my husband and my children and my home.’
BETTY FRIEDANI can’t point to any major episodes of sexual discrimination in my early life. But I was so aware of the crime, the shame that there was no use of my mother’s ability and energy.
BETTY FRIEDAN[Feminist:] One who believes in the liberation of that which has been suppressed as female in a man.
BETTY FRIEDANThe 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 FRIEDANYou have to say no to the old ways before you can begin to find the new yes you need.
BETTY FRIEDANAging will create the music of the coming century.
BETTY FRIEDANYou can have it all, just not all at the same time.
BETTY FRIEDANI 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 FRIEDANWho 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 FRIEDANEach woman is made to feel it is her own cross to bear if she can’t be the perfect clone of the male superman and the perfect clone of the feminine mystique.
BETTY FRIEDANToday the problem that has no name is how to juggle work, love, home and children.
BETTY FRIEDANA good woman is one who loves passionately, has guts, seriousness and passionate convictions, takes responsibility, and shapes society.
BETTY FRIEDAN