186 Quotes by Betty Friedan

American women were frustrated in just the role of housewife - but they also managed to enlarge it. And they weren't just housewives, they were community leaders.

A woman has got to be able to say, and not feel guilty, 'Who am I, and what do I want out of life?' She mustn't feel selfish and neurotic if she wants goals of her own, outside of husband and children.

If you were very bright and you became head of a department, as I did, of the psychology department, you were encouraged to go on to graduate work. But as a women you didn't even think about discrimination.

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.

I would have much rather been in the jalopy with the kids, going to Hunt's for hamburgers. But, when I entered high school, all my friends got into sororities and fraternities and I didn't.

There is absolutely no evidence that it is harmful to children if their mother's health, well-being and autonomy and control of her own destiny is maximized by work outside the home.

Most of the people in the workforce today will spend some years when they also have children and family responsibilities.

When I was in high school, even in college, I didn't have any real image of a career woman or a professional woman.

There's increasing consciousness that a "command and control" style of management which one associates with a male model isn't necessarily what works anymore, especially with small to medium sized companies. There's increasing evidence that a more flexible management style, where responsibility is distributed up and down the line, is what works best. And that kind of management style is one that will allow individual workers more flexibility - men and women.