Betty Friedan - Biography

Last Editor: rabudanii				Betty Friedan Biography -   Name : Betty Friedan Profession : American feminist, social activist and writer Date of birth : 4 February 1921 Place of birth : Peoria, Illinois, USA Date of death : 4 February 2006 Place of death : Washington, District of Columbia, USA. (congestive heart failure) Birth name : Betty Naomi Goldstein Friedan

Betty Friedan Trivia -

Born at 4:0am-CST Graduated from Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts. [1942] Founded the National Organization for Women (NOW). Inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame in 1993. Her book "The Feminine Mystique" (1963) helped mobilize the modern feminist movement. Died on the same day she celebrated her 85th birthday Her 1963 book "The Feminine Mystique" became the cornerstone of one of the 20th century's most profound movements unleashing the first full flowering of American feminism since the mid 1800's. Her emphatic belief that women should have equal rights but not at the expense of alienating men distinguished her from many feminist leaders who emerged later. Was a classmate of future First Lady Nancy Reagan at Smith College.

Betty Friedan Detailed Biography -

Betty Friedan (February 4, 1921 – February 4, 2006) was an American feminist, social activist and writer. Friedan was born Bettye Naomi Goldstein in Peoria, Illinois. Her father was once a button hawker, but eventually owned a jeweler's shop; her mother quit a job as a newspaper's women's page editor to become a housewife. When Betty was young, she was active in Marxist and Jewish radical circles. She went to high school in Peoria, finishing in 1938. She attended Smith College, where she edited a campus newspaper and graduated summa cum laude in 1942. After graduation, she spent a year at the University of California, Berkeley, doing graduate work in psychology, but declined a scholarship for further study, and left Berkeley to work as a journalist for leftist and union publications. She married Carl Friedman, a theatre-producer, in 1947 (the "m" was dropped after they were married). They divorced in May 1969. Betty stated in her memoir, Life So Far (2000), that Carl had beaten her during their marriage; friends such as Dolores Alexander recalled having to cover up black eyes from Carl's abuse in time for press conferences (Brownmiller 1999, p. 70). Carl Friedan denied abusing Betty in an interview with TIME magazine shortly after the book was published, describing the claims as a "complete fabrication," and claimed that the bruises Betty took at his hands were from self-defense during fights[citation needed]. Betty later said on Good Morning America, "I almost wish I hadn't even written about it, because it's been sensationalized out of context. My husband was no wife-beater, and I was no passive victim of a wife-beater. We fought a lot, and he was bigger than me." Carl Friedan died in December, 2005. The Friedans had three children. One of their sons, Daniel Friedan, is a noted theoretical physicist. Betty died at her home in Washington, D.C. on February 4, 2006 of congestive heart failure. It was her 85th birthday. In 1952, Friedan was fired from the union newspaper UE News when she was pregnant with her second child. For her 15th college reunion in 1957, Friedan conducted a survey of Smith College graduates, focusing on their education, their subsequent experiences, and the satisfaction with their present lives. Her article on the survey, which lamented the lost potential of her classmates and present-day women college students, was submitted to women's magazines in 1958. It was rejected by all editors to whom it was submitted, even after Friedan rewrote portions at the request of some of the editors.