Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Betty Friedan: Magnificent Disrupter

Betty Friedan: Magnificent Disrupter

Shteir, Rachel

Hardcover

Series: Jewish Lives

Biographies GeneralWomen's Studies

Currently unavailable to order

ISBN10: 0300220022
ISBN13: 9780300220025
Publisher: Yale Univ Pr
Published: Sep 12 2023
Pages: 384
Weight: 1.32
Height: 1.10 Width: 6.32 Depth: 8.53
Language: English
A new portrait of Betty Friedan, the author and activist acclaimed as the mother of second-wave feminism

Finalist, 2024 National Book Critics Circle Awards in Biography - A New Yorker Best of the Week Pick

A lucid portrait of Friedan as a bold yet flawed advocate for women's equality.--Publishers Weekly

The feminist writer and activist Betty Friedan (1921-2006), pathbreaking author of The Feminine Mystique, was powerful and polarizing. In this biography, the first in more than twenty years, Rachel Shteir draws on Friedan's papers and on interviews with family, colleagues, and friends to create a nuanced portrait.

Friedan, born Bettye Naomi Goldstein, chafed at society's restrictions from a young age. As a journalist she covered racism, sexism, labor, class inequality, and anti-Semitism. As a wife and mother, she struggled to balance her work and homemaking. Her malaise as a housewife and her research into the feelings of other women resulted in The Feminine Mystique (1963), which made her a celebrity.

Using her influence, Friedan cofounded the National Organization for Women, the National Women's Political Caucus, and the National Association to Repeal Abortion Laws. She fought for the Equal Rights Amendment, universal childcare, and workplace protections for mothers, but she disagreed with the women's liberation movement over sexual politics. Her volatility and public conflicts fractured key relationships.

Shteir considers how Friedan's Judaism was essential to her feminism, presenting a new Friedan for a new era.

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