Betty Friedan and the Making of "The Feminine Mystique"

Drawing on an impressive body of new research - including Friedan's own papers - Horowitz traces the development of Friedan's feminist outlook from her childhood in Peoria, Illinois, through her wartime years at Smith College and Berkeley, to her decade-long career as a writer for two of the period's most radical labor journals, the Federated Press and the United Electrical Workers' UE News. He further shows that even after she married and began to raise a family, Friedan continued during the 1950s to write and work on behalf of a wide range of progressive social causes. By resituating Friedan within a broader cultural context, and by offering a fresh reading of The Feminine Mystique against that background, Horowitz not only overturns conventional ideas about "second-wave" feminism but also reveals long submerged links to its past.

First sentence: Bettye Goldstein's childhood, youth, and adolescence in Peoria powerfully influenced her adult life.

Year

1998

Language

English

Publisher

University of Massachusetts Press

Editions

1

Pages

384

ISBN

9781558492769

Data source: Wikidata