Betty Friedan

She married Carl Freidan, who was a theatre producer, in 1947. They had three children, Daniel, Emily and Jonathan, but she separated from Carl after twenty two years.

Freidan died of congestive heart failure on her 85th birthday, at her home in Washington D.C. She was given a fitting tribute at her funeral not only by her family members, but also by mourners from all over the world.

Betty Friedan, christened Bettye Naomi Goldstein, was born on February 4, 1921, in Peoria, Illinois, to Miriam and Harry Goldstein, who were Jews hailing from Russia and Hungary. Her father owned a jewellery store while her mother was a housewife who started to work after Harry fell ill.

She went to Peoria High School and soon became involved with the school newspaper. She was active in Jewish and Marxist circles and used the newspaper as a mouthpiece to express her feelings of injustice, especially from anti-Semitism.

She was very active, decisive, and rebellious right from her younger days. In school, when her request to start her own column was turned down, she retaliated by starting a magazine of her own called ‘Tide’ with six other friends.

She attended the prestigious ‘Smith College’ for girls, in 1938 and bagged a scholarship in the first year for outstanding academic performance. In the second year, she wrote poetry which got published in the college magazines.

As the editor-in-chief of the college newspaper, she used the medium to promote social and political issues such as anti-war and Marxist views. She graduated ‘summa cum laude’ in Psychology in 1942.

Betty Friedan began her career in journalism with ‘The Federated Press’ where she worked from 1943 to 1946. She moved on to ‘UE News’ and worked for six years before quitting when she was expecting her second child, after which she worked as a freelancer.

In 1957, as part of the 15th reunion at her alma mater college, she conducted a survey of college graduates. She focused on women’s thoughts on education and careers, and wrote articles that discussed the problems faced by them in daily life.

Women, who had to forego their education and career for the sake of families, identified with her survey. She researched more on the topic and authored her first book ‘The Feminine Mystique’ in 1963.

In 1966, she founded the ‘National Organization for Women’ (NOW) and became its first President. Through this organization, she campaigned fiercely for the equality of women and lobbied for legal rights.

In the 1970s, ‘NOW’, under her leadership lobbied strongly for the Equal Rights Amendment and brought it into implementation. Many women activists who had not supported the act came forward after Betty Friedan’s involvement in the movement.

Betty Friedan’s most popular book has been ‘The Feminine Mystique’, written in 1963, which revolved around women and the ‘problem that had no name’, which most women at that age were going through. In the book, she explores the lives of housewives who were largely unhappy in spite of leading comfortable lives and showed interest in education and careers of their own.

Her next book ‘The Second Stage’, published in 1981, dealt with the stage after feminism had been accepted as a change in the society, and had to be taken to the next level. The demand for feminism done with, she wanted the focus of feminism to shift to effective juggling of career and home, equal distribution of responsibilities and economic freedom.

‘Life So Far – A Memoir’ is her autobiography which was published in 2000. In the book, she wrote about how her life took its course and prompted her to adopt the path of feminism and fight for women’s liberty.