The Feminine Mystique | Betty Friedan Biography

Betty Friedan was born in Peoria, Illinois, on February 4, 1921. Friedan showed early writing talent, which she developed throughout high school and college. After graduating from Smith College, where she earned a psychology degree, she completed her master's degree in psychology at Berkeley. Friedan moved to New York, where she married Carl Friedan in 1947. She continued to use her writing talent in freelance articles, but ultimately she adhered to society's expectations and became a housewife in 1949.

Betty Friedan

During a fifteen-year reunion at Smith College, Friedan surveyed two hundred alumni and discovered that most were housewives who were unhappy with their lives. Friedan pursued the issue as her first book, which ultimately was published as The Feminine Mystique in 1963. The controversial book became an instant best-seller and inspired debates across the country. Following the success of the book, angry neighbors forced the Friedans to move out of their suburb and into the city. Friedan began writing and lecturing across the country on women's issues, then she realized that these separate acts were not enough to inspire change.

In 1966, she helped to found the National Organization for Women (NOW), where she served as president until 1970. That year, discouraged by the radical feminists who were beginning to gain influence in NOW, Friedan stepped down as president. However, she remained active in the women's movement. In fact, during her resignation speech, Friedan advocated a march on August 26, 1970, the fiftieth anniversary of women's suffrage. The resulting Women's Strike for Equality, which took place in several U.S. cities, was one of the largest demonstrations for women's rights in American history.

In the 1970s, Friedan helped to found other women's organizations, including the National Women's Political Caucus (1971), which encouraged women to run for political office. However, Friedan grew increasingly more disillusioned with the radical direction that the women's movement was taking. In 1976, she published It Changed My Life: Writings on the Women's Movement, a collection of her writings from the 1960s and 1970s. The book, which included retrospective commentary, examined her personal experiences with the women's movement and portrayed radical feminists in a negative way. Likewise, in 1981's The Second Stage, Friedan argued that the radical direction of the women's movement had established a new stereotype of women and their abilities.

In 1993, Friedan shifted her focus with the publication of The Fountain of Age, which examined U.S. views and stereotypes of the elderly. Friedan's most recent works include a new examination of feminism, Beyond Gender: The New Politics of Work and Family (1997) and an autobiography, Life So Far (2000). She lives and works in New York.