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When she stopped conforming to the conventional picture of femininity she finally began to enjoy being a woman.

Betty Friedan

Regardless of your age, you will always have adventures, unexpected joys and unexpected sorrows.
BETTY FRIEDAN

Adventure Age Expectation Inspirational Joy Regard Sorrow Yourself
We can no longer ignore that voice within women that says: ‘I want something more than my husband and my children and my home.’
BETTY FRIEDAN

Children Family Happiness Home Husband Ignorance Longer Silence Voice Woman
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
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
If you were very bright and you became head of a department, as I did, of the psychology department, you were encouraged to go on to graduate work. But as a women you didn’t even think about discrimination.
BETTY FRIEDAN

Bright Department Discrimination Education Encouragement Graduation Head Smart Thinking Yourself
I’m my age and I feel glorious.
BETTY FRIEDAN

Age Feeling Glorious Myself
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
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
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
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 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

Ability Aware Crime Discrimination Early Energy Episode Life Major Mom Myself Point Sexual Shame
You can have it all, just not all at the same time.
BETTY FRIEDAN

One Liner Patience Time Yourself
He’s a male chauvinistic piglet.
BETTY FRIEDAN

Insult Male
Protectiveness has often muffled the sound of doors closing against women.
BETTY FRIEDAN

Close Protection Sound Women
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
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
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
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

Fact Growth Mental Health Name Problem Simplicity 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
If women’s role in life is limited solely to housewife/mother, it clearly ends when she can no longer bear more children and the children she has borne leave home.
BETTY FRIEDAN

End Home Leaving Limitation Mom Responsibility Role Wife
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
I never set out to write a book to change women’s lives, to change history. It’s like, ‘Who, me?’ Yes, me. I did it. And I’m not that different from other women. Maybe my power and glory was that I could speak my truth as a woman and it was the truth of every woman.
BETTY FRIEDAN

Book Change Different History Live Myself Orthodox Set Women Writing
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
Who knows what women can be when they are finally free to become themselves?
BETTY FRIEDAN

Freedom Inspirational Women Women Empowerment
I knew one thing. I did not want to be a mommy like mommy.
BETTY FRIEDAN

Desire Known Mom Myself Ordinary
No woman gets an orgasm from shining the kitchen floor.
BETTY FRIEDAN

Cleaning Sex Shining Women
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.
BETTY FRIEDAN

Children Dreams Freedom Goals Guilty Herself Husband Reality Talk Woman

When she stopped conforming to the conventional picture of femininity she finally began to enjoy being a woman.

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When she stopped conforming to the conventional picture of femininity she finally began to enjoy being a woman.

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