Betty Friedan turned the world topsy-turvy, with her landmark book “The Feminine Mystique. Women viewed themselves from a new perspective setting in motion changes for themselves and between the sexes that were unthinkable. Fifty years has seen more radical changes in women’s identity, how women function, women’s relationship with men, than going back to the beginning of time. We haven’t achieved complete success in our goals which are constantly changing, but the massive machinery Friedan set in motion has great staying power and will help us get there... wherever "there" is.
As she said in my book, Particular Passions: Talks With Women Who Have Shaped our Times “The way... you can have children now, when you've already started on your work, and know what you can do, you are not subject to the guilts. That was the worst, the guilts, the conflicts... That put negative valences on one's own enjoyment of motherhood. It's such a short period. I wish I'd felt free to concentrate on them more.”
To put our lives in historical perspective read Friedan in her own words in a chapter from Particular Passions. You'll find things like the guilt about motherhood remains the same, but others that have changed dramatically… for the better.
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"Every woman owes it to herself to look up Particular Passions—borrow the volume from your public library. Or, better still, buy it and put it with your favorite novel or poetry collection to sustain you. Every story in the book is an inspiration. This book is a joy and a tonic." — Pioneer Press and Dispatch.