When one begins to think about it, America depends rather heavily on women's passive dependence, their femininity. Femininity, if one still wants to call it that, makes American women a target and a victim of the sexual sell.
Betty FriedanRead
The key to the trap is, of course, education. The feminine mystique has made higher education for women seem suspect, unnecessary and even dangerous. But I think that education, and only education, has saved, and can continue to save, American women from the greater dangers of the feminine mystique.
Interpretation
Education empowers women against societal misconceptions.
In this quote, Betty Friedan emphasizes the importance of education for women, arguing that it serves as a crucial tool to combat the limiting beliefs perpetuated by the feminine mystique, which presents higher education as unnecessary or even harmful. Friedan believes that through education, women can break free from these constraints and gain the power to shape their own lives, suggesting that knowledge and learning are essential for achieving personal and societal progress.
In practice
During a women's empowerment seminar, a speaker can quote this to inspire attendees to pursue education.
When one begins to think about it, America depends rather heavily on women's passive dependence, their femininity. Femininity, if one still wants to call it that, makes American women a target and a victim of the sexual sell.
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.
Advice? I don't offer advice. Not my business. Your life is what you make it.
We need to see men and women as equal partners, but it's hard to think of movies that do that. When I talk to people, they think of movies of forty-five years ago! Hepburn and Tracy!
No woman gets an orgasm from shining the kitchen floor.
It is easier to live through someone else than to complete yourself. The freedom to lead and plan your own life is frightening if you have never faced it before. It is frightening when a woman finally realizes that there is no answer to the question 'who am I' except the voice inside herself.
Never regard study as a duty, but as the enviable opportunity to learn
Be ruthless about protecting writing days, i.e., do not cave in to endless requests to have "essential" and "long overdue" meetings on those days.
When I was 13, I started working in a nightclub with Ray Charles. That's the greatest school in the world, the school of the streets. Ray taught me how to read in Braille. He was only two years older than me, but it was like he was 100 years older.
I believe there should be breakfast, lunch and afternoon snack, all for free and for every child that goes to school. And all food that is good, clean and fair.
As a people, we value family, education and success. Hunger is an enemy to all three. Scientific studies have demonstrated that even brief periods of hunger can permanently inhibit a child's mental, emotional and physical growth. Kids who are hungry do poorly in school and are unlikely to grow into productive adults. For families, experiencing hunger means living in a world of isolation and shame. Caring citizens must put an end to this disgrace.
The future belongs to young people with an education and the imagination to create.
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