Friedan, Betty | Research & Encyclopedia Articles

Betty Friedan

Born February 4, 1921
Peoria, Illinois

Writer, women's rights activist

The feminist movement began sweeping American society in the late 1960s and early 1970s. It consisted of people who believed in equal rights for both sexes. It might have come about without Betty Friedan, but her presence within and her impact on the movement were vast. Friedan's book The Feminine Mystique (1963) clearly defined many issues concerning women's rights. Such ideas were central to what came to be known as the Women's Liberation Movement.

Early Education and Work

Betty Friedan was born Betty (possibly Bettye) Naomi Goldstein in Peoria, Illinois, on February 4, 1921. Her birth was less than one year after the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which allowed women across the United States the right to vote. Her father, Harry, was a jeweler. Miriam (Horowitz), her mother, had quit her job as the women's page editor of a local newspaper upon her marriage and became a homemaker. Miriam Goldstein missed her former job and encouraged Betty to attend college and become a journalist.

Friedan majored in psychology at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts. She graduated summa cum laude, which is Latin for "with the highest praise," in 1942.

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