"It Changed My Life": Writings on the Women's Movement, with a New Introduction

Betty Friedan was a pivotal figure in the "second wave" women's movement of the 1960s and 70s. The publication of her book, _The Feminine Mystique_ in 1963 catapulted her into international celebrity. The book was a catalyst of change. Fueled by an economic boom in which a single wage-earner could provide a satisfactory standard of living for an entire family, post World War II women had been pressured to abandon the workplace in order to bury their identities in housekeeping and motherhood. Many middle class women felt stifled by the false feminine ideals and enforced domesticity of this era, and it was their frustration and anger to which Friedan's writing resonated. She was an educated Jewish woman with three children, a journalist, who had lived the suburban lifestyle, but who was propelled by her sense of injustice to speak to the larger world._It Changed My Life_ is a compilation of old and new writings, interviews, magazine articles, and recollections ten years after Friedan and a handful of other women founded the National Organization for Women (NOW) in a Washington hotel room. This book was published in 1976, at a time when the original energy of the "second wave" women's movement had been submerged in pro-lesbian, anti-family rhetoric, and the futile struggle to pass the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) had many people questioning whether feminism was dead.Her exceptional and powerful writings prove Friedan to be an outspoken radical, a true leader of our times. She is a spokeswoman for the heterosexual woman who loves her children, but who also wants to be valued by the human race. Friedan spoke out against social and economic powerlessness for women, as well as false standards of "machismo" for men. Her goal was cooperation, not separatism.For instance, here is Friedan's interesting definition of feminism:"My definition of feminism is simply that women are people, in the fullest sense of the word, who must be free to move in society with all the privileges and opportunities and responsibilities that are their human and American right. This does not mean class warfare against men, nor does it mean the elimination of children, which denies our human future."It seems to me that _all_ the women's movement ever was, or needs to be, is a stage in the whole human rights movement - bringing another group, a majority this time, into the mainstream of human society, with all the perils and promises and human risks this involves. No more, no less. " (p. 317, paperback)Some of the most compelling writing in this book comes from a column originally published in _McCall's_ magazine between 1970-73. "Betty Friedan's Notebook" is a readable, page-turning narrative of Friedan's travels around the globe to spread the world of the women's movement. She was a busy speaker, much in demand, a dynamic personality in the lecture hall. The accounts of the public's response to her message in places like Brazil and It