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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

…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
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
When one begins to think about it, America depends rather heavily on women’s passive dependence, their femininity. Femininity, if one still wants to call it that, makes American women a target and a victim of the sexual sell.
BETTY FRIEDAN

Beginning Call Dependent Feminism heavy Passive Sexuality Target Thinking Victim Women
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
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
We need a new political movement of women and men toward a new society.
BETTY FRIEDAN

Men Movement Politics Society 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 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
While I had been, I guess, quite brilliant, academically, in my college years, I also had been editor of the paper, and I loved that. And, that was a much more active thing. And I missed it when I was doing graduate work.
BETTY FRIEDAN

Academic Brilliant College Graduation Love Myself Newspaper Quite
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
Regardless of your age, you will always have adventures, unexpected joys and unexpected sorrows.
BETTY FRIEDAN

Adventure Age Expectation Inspirational Joy Regard Sorrow Yourself
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
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
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
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
It is perhaps beside the point to remark that bowling alleys and supermarkets have nursery facilities, while schools and colleges and scientific laboratories and government offices do not.
BETTY FRIEDAN

Facilities Government Nursery Point Remark School Supermarket

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.

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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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