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
Men are not the enemy, but the fellow victims. The real enemy is women's denigration of themselves.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote emphasizes that men are not the true adversaries; rather, the internal struggles of women against their self-image are the main issue.
In this quote, Betty Friedan highlights the idea that conflicts between men and women should not be seen as direct antagonism but rather as a shared plight resulting from societal norms. Friedan argues that women's self-denigration and failure to recognize their worth contribute significantly to the challenges they face, framing the struggle for gender equality as one that is rooted in self-perception and societal expectations rather than in male hostility.
Themes
Gender EqualitySelf-WorthWomen'S RightsEmpowermentSelf-Perception
In practice
Example use cases
In a seminar about gender roles, this quote can illustrate how societal expectations shape women's self-image.
More from Betty Friedan
All quotes →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.
Betty FriedanRead
Advice? I don't offer advice. Not my business. Your life is what you make it.
Betty FriedanRead
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!
Betty FriedanRead
No woman gets an orgasm from shining the kitchen floor.
Betty FriedanRead
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.
Betty FriedanRead
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I want a future where women and girls get to be the subject of their own sexuality, not the object of somebody else’s. That we are the main characters in our own play, not props in somebody else’s—which is how women’s sexuality is treated now. Whatever the outside attitudes about sexuality it’s always about somebody’s agenda for us, and I want a world where we can have our own.
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To call woman the weaker sex is a libel; it is man's injustice to woman.
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The concern was that if a woman was doing gender equality, her chances of making it to tenure in the law school were diminished. It was considered frivolous.
Ruth Bader GinsburgRead