BETTY FRIEDAN, 1921-2006: A LEADER IN THE MODERN WOMEN'S RIGHTS MOVEMENT
I'm Faith Lapidus. And I'm Steve Ember with PEOPLE IN AMERICA in VOA Special English. Today we tell about Betty Friedan. She was a powerful activist for the rights of women.
Betty Friedan is often called the mother of the modern women's liberation movement. Her famous book, "The Feminine Mystique," changed America. Some people say it changed the world. It has been called one of the most influential nonfiction books of the twentieth century.
Friedan re-awakened the feminist movement in the United States. That movement had helped women gain the right to vote in the nineteen twenties. Modern feminists disagree about how to describe themselves and their movement. But activists say men and women should have equal chances for economic, social and intellectual satisfaction in life.
Fifty years ago, life for women in the United States was very different from today. Very few parents urged their daughters to become lawyers or doctors or professors. Female workers doing the same jobs as men earned much less money. Women often lost their jobs when they had a baby. There were few child care centers for working parents.
Betty Friedan once spoke to ABC television about her support for sharing responsibility for the care of children:
"If child-rearing was considered the responsibility of women and men or women and men and society, then we really could pull up our skirts and declare victory and move on."
Betty Friedan was born Betty Goldstein in nineteen twenty-one in Peoria, Illinois. Her immigrant father worked as a jeweler. Her mother left her job with a local newspaper to stay home with her family.
Betty attended Smith College in Northhampton, Massachusetts. It was one of the country's best colleges for women. She finished her studies in psychology in nineteen forty-two.
After college