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Aging is not “lost youth” but a new stage of opportunity and strength.

Betty Friedan

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 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
I knew one thing. I did not want to be a mommy like mommy.
BETTY FRIEDAN

Desire Known Mom Myself Ordinary
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 situation of women and men is not comparable to worker-boss or black and white.
BETTY FRIEDAN

Black Compare Men Situation White Women Work
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
This idea that the employment of women, the movement of women outside the home into the work world, and their demand for equality is somehow responsible for increasing juvenile delinquency or the increase in divorce rate, is just so much bullshit.
BETTY FRIEDAN

Divorce Employment Equality Home Ideas Responsible Security Support Women Work World
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
Most of the people in the workforce today will spend some years when they also have children and family responsibilities.
BETTY FRIEDAN

Children Day Family Force People Responsibility Time Work
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
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
Aging is not “lost youth” but a new stage of opportunity and strength.
BETTY FRIEDAN

Age Lost Opportunity Stage Strength Youth
Each 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 FRIEDAN

Cross Feeling Feminine Herself 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
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

Class Man Moral Myself Object Spiritual Women
I love newspapers. I’ve worked on newspapers, all my life. I’ve always loved it.
BETTY FRIEDAN

Love Myself Work

Aging is not “lost youth” but a new stage of opportunity and strength.

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Aging is not “lost youth” but a new stage of opportunity and strength.

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