Betty Friedan: Getting older is an adventure, not a problem.

Who knows what women can be when they are finally free to become themselves?

Betty Friedan

social-justice knows justice

A good woman is one who loves passionately, has guts, seriousness and passionate convictions, takes responsibility, and shapes society.

Betty Friedan

good-woman passionate responsibility

A woman has got to be able to say, and not feel guilty,

Betty Friedan

selfish husband children

In almost every professional field, in business and in the arts and sciences, women are still treated as second-class citizens. It would be a great service to tell girls who plan to work in society to expect this subtle, uncomfortable discrimination-tell them not to be quiet, and hope it will go away, but fight it. A girl should not expect special privileges because of her sex, but neither should she "adjust" to prejudice and discrimination.

Betty Friedan

girl sex art

A girl should not expect special privileges because of her sex, but neither should she "adjust" to prejudice and discrimination.

Betty Friedan

women girl sex

Aging is not "lost youth" but a new stage of opportunity and strength.

Betty Friedan

strength inspiring birthday

The feminist revolution had to be fought because women quite simply were stopped at a state of evolution far short of their human capacity.

Betty Friedan

feminist revolution states

Men are not the enemy, but the fellow victims. The real enemy is women's denigration of themselves.

Betty Friedan

women real memorable

It is easier to live through someone else than to complete yourself. The freedom to lead and plan your own life is frightening if you have never faced it before. It is frightening when a woman finally realizes that there is no answer to the question 'who am I' except the voice inside herself.

Betty Friedan

freedom strength motivational

When she stopped conforming to the conventional picture of femininity she finally began to enjoy being a woman.

Betty Friedan

lost-youth being-a-woman women

Regardless of your age, you will always have adventures, unexpected joys and unexpected sorrows.

Betty Friedan

inspirational-birthday joy adventure

Who knows what women can be when they are finally free to become themselves? Who knows what women's intelligence will contribute when it can be nourished without denying love?

Betty Friedan

knows

Some people think I'm saying, 'Women of the world unite -- you have nothing to lose but your men. It's not true. You have nothing to lose but your vacuum cleaners.

Betty Friedan

men people thinking

No woman gets an orgasm from shining the kitchen floor.

Betty Friedan

kitchen feminist shining

Today the problem that has no name is how to juggle work, love, home and children.

Betty Friedan

names home children

The feminists had destroyed the old image of woman, but they could not erase the hostility, the prejudice, the discrimination that still remained.

Betty Friedan

discrimination prejudice feminist

Over and over again, stories in women's magazines insist that women can know fulfillment only at the moment of giving birth to a child. They deny the years when she can no longer look forward to giving birth, even if she repeats the act over and over again. In the feminine mystique, there is no other way for a woman to dream of creation or of the future. There is no other way she can even dream about herself, except as her children's mother, her husband's wife.

Betty Friedan

mother dream children

I never set out to write a book to change women's lives, to change history. It's like, 'Who, me?' Yes, me. I did it. And I'm not that different from other women. Maybe my power and glory was that I could speak my truth as a woman and it was the truth of every woman.

Betty Friedan

different writing book

We need a new political movement of women and men toward a new society.

Betty Friedan

family political men

Protectiveness has often muffled the sound of doors closing against women.

Betty Friedan

diversity justice doors