Betty Friedan – On Empowerment and Motherhood

"What I’m saying now is really unfinished. Where it seemed in the first stage that self-fulfillment for women was opposed to the family, in the second stage I think because the evolution of the family is based on the strengthened self and autonomy of women, they are not opposed. I do not think you can see a full celebration of the personhood of woman if you divorce the woman from the family. But the strengthening of the family is made possible by the new autonomy of women." 

– Betty Friedan, from 'Particular Passions: Talk With Women Who Shaped Our Times', by Lynn Gilbert. The oral biography of Betty Friedan, who fueled the women’s liberation movement that continues to work toward equal rights for women around the globe.

This is one of 42 oral biographies from the late 1970s captured in Particular Passions. Enjoy the Betty Friedan Chapter with our compliments in celebration of Mother's Day. See the offer on our Facebook page through Mother's Day, Sunday, May 12, 2103.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg - On Working Mothers

"It wasn’t as hard to go to law school, being married and with a child, as people think. I thought it would be an overwhelming burden and when I became pregnant I began to think I would never earn a law degree. Early on, my father-in-law said to me that if I decided not to go to law school because of this baby, that would be fine. No one would think the less of me for making that decision. But if I really wanted to be a lawyer, having a baby wouldn’t stand in my way. I realized he was absolutely right and I think he gave me sound advice for most things in life. If you want to do something badly enough you find a way, somehow you manage."

— Ruth Bader Ginsburg, in Particular Passions: Talks With Women Who Shaped Our Times, by Lynn Gilbert.

Enjoy the oral interview of Ruth Bader Ginsburg from the later 1970s; one of 42 oral interviews captured in Particular Passions: Talks With Women Who Shaped Our Times

The oral biography of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who continues to contribute to civil and women’s rights as a U.S. Supreme Court justice. Available at Apple and Amazon.

Betty Friedan -- HERSTORY

“It changed my life.” That’s what women say about the women’s movement, “It changed my life, it changed my whole life.” When they said it in the beginning, they meant the book The Feminine Mystique. Now they mean the whole women’s movement. It did change everybody’s lives, including my own. But I don’t want there to be any danger this time of throwing the baby out with the bathwater. What I’m saying now is really unfinished. Where it seemed in the first stage that self-fulfillment for women was opposed to the family, in the second stage I think because the evolution of the family is based on the strengthened self and autonomy of women, they are not opposed. I do not think you can see a full celebration of the personhood of woman if you divorce the woman from the family. But the strengthening of the family is made possible by the new autonomy of women."

— Betty Friedan, in Particular Passions: Talks With Women Who Shaped Our Times.

The oral biography of Betty Friedan, who fueled the women’s liberation movement that continues to work toward equal rights for women around the globe.

Betty Friedan's oral interview from the late 1970s, available for $0.99, at Amazon and Apple.

Betty Friedan - On Motherhood

"My three kids are great. Who knows? They may think I would have been a better mother if it hadn’t been for the women’s movement, but I don’t think so. The way that you can have children now, when you’ve already started on your work and know what you can do, you are not subject to the guilts that women in my generation were. That was the worst, the guilts, the conflicts, the leaning over backwards against them. That put negative valences on one’s own enjoyment of motherhood. It’s such a short period. I wish that in the period when they were little, I wish I’d felt free to concentrate on them more. But when you’re under the aegis of the feminine mystique, there was the rebellion; and then to do anything at all, you’re going against the stream of society and you have your own guilts about what you’re doing."

— Betty Friedan, in Particular Passions: Talks With Women Who Shaped Our Times.

The oral biography of Betty Friedan, who fueled the women’s liberation movement that continues to work toward equal rights for women around the globe.

Available on Amazon and Apple.

Gloria Steinem - On Women in the Workforce

"You’ve got the hope that parenting can be equal and certainly you’ve got lots of women who are not having children until that’s true. They’re on kind of an unconscious baby strike. If we have to have two jobs while men have one, well, forget it. But we don’t have the structural change to make it happen. We don’t have parental leave instead of maternity leave. We don’t have shorter work days or work weeks for parents of young children, men and women. So I think we’re in a very uncomfortable period now because we’ve got lots of hopes and aspirations and changed ideas of what our lives could be, but not the structural change that would make it possible for most people."

— Gloria Steinem, in Particular Passions: Talks with Women Who Shaped Our Times.

Read the oral interview of Gloria Steinem from the late 1970s, available at at Amazon and Apple.

Betty Friedan - The Femine Mystique

"Today I see the same contradiction, in a way, between what almost becomes 'the feminine mystique' if we get locked into the reaction, the sexual politics of the women’s movement and the reality of women’s lives, including my own. Don’t forget that my own agony that led me to write The Feminine Mystique had to do with the mistaken choice: either/or. When I see us heading toward it again, when I see us denying the basic needs of women that do have to do with love and men and children, it denies a part of me, it denies a part of my personhood and what I am as a woman. I will not deny all that I am."

- Betty Friedan, in Particular Passions: Talks with Women Who Shaped Our Times.

The oral biography of Betty Friedan, who fueled the women’s liberation movement that continues to work toward equal rights for women around the globe. Available for $0.99 at Apple and Amazon.

WOMEN’S HISTORY MONTH: HAVING IT ALL?

Mary Cassatt - La Toilette (1891)

Thirty years ago, after Betty Friedan who set the second women’s movement in motion in the 1960’s, thought that the guilts of motherhood would have abated.

“The way... you can have children now, when you've already started on your work, and know what you can do, you are not subject to the guilts...That put negative valences on one's own enjoyment of motherhood… “  from "Particular Passions: Talks with Women who Have Shaped our Times"

Women, fifty-one percent of the population, are gaining greater equality. Much has changed, but dealing with the role of motherhood is moving at a snail’s pace. Life, now that women are part of the workforce has become even more complicated.  What can we learn from the woman who wanted women to have a choice in the kind of life they could have.

The oral biography and brief chapter of Betty Friedan from “Particular Passions:  Talks with Women who Have Shaped our Times.”  Friedan fueled the women’s liberation movement that continues today around the globe.

An excerpt from a review: "One of those rare, rare books that pick your life up, turn it around and point it in the right  direction." — K.T. Maclay

Available at Amazon and Apple for $0.99

MOTHERHOOD - AN EVOLVING ROLE

"Parenthood remains the greatest single preserve of the amateur." — Alvin Toffler.

Madonna and Child by Ghirlandaio.  

The cult for Madonna and child, seen in illustrious altarpieces and frescoes, in every church throughout Europe, started in the early 13th century.  A thousand years later at Christmas time the cult is still preserved on holiday cards.   But the venerated images of the past no longer reflect life as we live it now.

Betty Friedan spoke about her focus, her work, her life…and also her children in Particular Passions: Talks with Women who Have Shaped our Times: “my public life…has been exciting…my frivolous life has been fun too...and my three kids..they may think I would have been a better mother if it hadn't been for the women's movement, but I don't think so.”

Read the chapter, an oral biography of Betty Friedan, who fueled the women’s liberation movement that continues today around the globe. For just $.99 be inspired. Learn from her challenges, accomplishments and mistakes.

As one review said: "One of those rare, rare books that pick your life up, turn it around and point it in the right direction." — K.T.Maclay

This chapter is available on Amazon and Apple.