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Friedan ignited 
American 
feminism with 
her book The 
Feminine 
Mystique. She 
argued that 
women are 
encouraged to see 
homemaking as 
the goal of their 
lives, and so are 
denied the 
opportunity to 
fulfil their 
potential outside 
the home in 
other ways
#
Friedan's book 
awakened the 
political 
consciousness of 
women across 
America and gave 
the movement a 
rallying-point.
"I believe that 
women can affect 
society, as well as 
be affected by it," 
she said. "In the 
end, a woman, as 
a man, has the 
power to choose, 
and to make
her own heaven 
or hell."
#
Domestic 
responsibilities, 
said Friedan, sap 
a woman's time, 
talent and energy. 
Twice in this 
century women 
have escaped the 
drudgery of the 
home by going 
out to work during
war, but were 
expected to 
return to the 
kitchen once the 
danger to the 
state had passed. 
Friedan pointed 
out the absurdity 
of this
#
The American 
women's lib 
movement 
gained momentum 
through the 
Sixties. In 1964 
the Civil Rights 
Act made it 
illegal to dis-
criminate on 
the grounds of 
race or sex. One 
year later Betty 
Friedan founded
the National 
Organisation
of Women (NOW)
#
In the Eighties 
Friedan was 
accused of 
turning her 
back on her 
earlier ideas. 
Her book, The 
Second Stage,
it was argued, 
denied the 
feminine mystique.
"I do not think", 
Friedan now said, 
"women's rights 
are the most 
urgent business 
for women."
#
Friedan was 
clearly dismayed 
by some of the 
consequences of 
the revolution 
she had unleashed.
But her biggest 
disappointment 
was the defeat in 
1982 of the Equal 
Rights Amendment 
which, had it 
succeeded, would 
have enshrined 
sex equality in 
the American
Constitution
@
The explosion of 
feminism in the 
Sixties, the 
women's lib 
movement, was a 
continuation of 
the struggle begun
by Emmeline 
Pankhurst. But 
this time, women 
were not fighting 
just for political 
rights: they 
challenged forms 
of discrimination 
which were more 
subtle and deeper-
rooted than those 
addressed by the 
suffragettes
#
The Civil Rights 
Act of 1964 was 
a great step 
forward for 
women as well as 
for African-
Americans. It is 
no coincidence 
that the black 
civil rights 
movement and 
the women's 
movement arose 
at the same time, 
for both had the 
same aim: an end 
to all forms of
discrimination 
#
In 1970, through 
the NOW, Friedan 
organised a house-
wives' strike to 
illustrate the 
point that 
housework is 
work too. NOW 
had a slogan: 
'politics is 
personal', meaning
that the struggle
for rights was 
concerned with 
the injustices 
experienced by 
women in their 
daily lives
#
"This uneasy 
sense of battles 
won, only to be 
fought over again, 
of battles that 
should have been 
won, according to 
all the rules, and 
yet are not, of 
battles that 
suddenly one 
does not really 
want to win, and 
the weariness of 
battle altogether 
- how many 
women feel it?"
asked Friedan
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