Word: friedans
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1970-1979
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...woman "is emerging from the feminine mystique to full personhood," says Friedan. "Unconscious historical forces made it possible for women in large numbers to move into society as full human beings and not to be considered solely in sexual terms...
According to Friedan, the movement for equality, initiated by women, was the first stage of a profound sex-role revolution. But that revolution was an unusual one, she says, in that there were no enemies, no win-lose situations. She believes the women's movement is entering a new stage where women and men, working in concert, will break down obsolete sex stereotypes, thereby effecting a human liberation. Friedan says the movement no longer requires an exclusively female orientation. Its present focus should be restructuring social institutions from within, and thus its concerns include both sexes...
NEVERTHELESS, FRIEDAN believes she is still in the mainstream of feminist thought. "One cannot deny that there is an open ideological split in the women's movement," says Friedan. "The media have co-opted the man-hating exhibitionistic image of the movement. Yet there is at the same time, a mainstream activist group, of which I consider myself a part...
...Friedan decries the "radical feminist rhetoric" which repudiates a woman's sexuality and right to motherhood. The mother of three, Friedan regards motherhood as an inherent and fulfilling part of womanhood...
...addition, she believes the "radical fringe" has been too willing to isolate women in their relationships to men and to society, and that it has wrongly applied the concepts of race-separatism and class warfare to its own situation. Extremist rhetoric, says Friedan, denies a woman's personhood and fails to affirm her full identity...