The Triumph and Tragedy of Betty Friedan | Time of Monsters with Jeet Heer
Betty Friedan, author of The Feminine Mystique (1963) and one of the founders of the National Organization for Women (NOW), was a hero of feminism, but a complicated and difficult hero. Her book and activism were pivotal for igniting second-wave feminism in the 1960s. But as head of NOW, her leadership was irascible and nettlesome, marred especially by her homophobic hostility towards lesbian activism.
In a recent review for The New Yorker looking at books about NOW and Friedan, Moira Donegan lays bare the contradictions of Friedan’s legacy, her world-changing importance but also the way she…
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