Betty Friedan’s biography

In the 1960s, when Betty Friedan was born, the whole world was experiencing great social and ideological shocks. At that time, the civil rights movement in the United States had blossomed and the slogan of "equality" was deeply rooted in the hearts of the people. Therefore, her 1963 book The Feminine Mystique (the title of the traditional Chinese translation by Li Lingyi is used here) is almost ready to be published. The appeal of this book is to express dissatisfaction with the situation that women are imprisoned in family life, simply being wives and mothers, and suffering from a "nameless problem" (the problem that has no name), and to encourage women to leave their husbands and mothers. Children, seek self-actualization without feeling guilty.

Although the first edition of "The Myth of Women" only printed 3,000 copies, it quickly sold astronomical sales of 600,000 hardcover copies and 2 million paperback copies, becoming the bible of the surging feminist movement.

Taking to the streets seemed to be the inevitable path for all ideological movements in the 1960s, and Friedan was no different. In 1966, she led the establishment of the National Organization for Women (NOW) and took to the streets to protest. A large banner with the words "Women, unite!" written in handwriting, urged women to "join the mainstream immediately" and asked Congress to legislate. End all practices that discriminate against women and strive for equal employment, equal pay for equal work, free abortion and women's suffrage.

NOW’s most spectacular appearance was the “Women’s Strike for Equality” held in New York on August 26, 1970, with the slogan “No dinner – let the house rats starve today!” In addition , Friedan also helped found the short-lived "First Women's Bank and Trust Company" in 1973 to promote economic independence for women.

Chinese women who were detached from the world in the 1960s obviously missed—perhaps forever—the Friedan-style women’s liberation movement. In China, she is still relatively unknown. Even if her works are occasionally translated into Chinese, they only remain on a narrow theoretical level and have absolutely no impact on ordinary women.

On the surface, her call to bid farewell to "housewives" will not be anything new to Chinese women who are confident that they have "held up half the sky." In fact, even in the United States, her "Female Myth" was regarded as outdated by later feminists. Because of Friedan's demands, it has become the norm in today's society-the revolution is over.

But is the revolution really over? Ms. Friedan was born short, but had amazing vitality. She had big watery eyes, bright and clear, and passionate. Until her death, she regarded liberating women in the world as her own mission. Although people from within the camp also criticized her for her short temper and arbitrary arrogance, compared to the radical feminists who will never stop talking about things in the future, her feminist advocacy can be described as "gentle". Although she Women's housework has also been compared to the life of animals.

Her real name was Betty Naomi Goldstein, born on February 4, 1921 in Peoria, Illinois. My mother was the editor-in-chief of the women's section of the local newspaper and was good at all the talents that society allowed women to do at that time: golf, tennis, bridge, mahjong and shopping. She was dominated by her husband at home - Friedan called her mother's frustration A "powerless rage." When someone later asked her why she joined the women's movement, Friedan replied that she could not remember any instances of sexism in her early years, but she knew very well how her mother wasted her talents.

She studied at the University of California, Berkeley, and worked for left-wing and union newspapers. In 1947, she married theater director Carl Friedan. She was fired from the newspaper in 1952 when she was pregnant with her second child. In 1957, she attended an alumni reunion, during which she distributed a questionnaire to her female classmates. The answers were consistent with her own feelings: something was missing in their lives. So based on this and subsequent investigations, the landmark book "The Myth of Women" was finally published. The "nameless problem" written in the book has become an iconic term of the feminist movement, just like Simone de Beauvoir's "The Second Sex" in 1949.

In 2000, Simon and Schuster published her memoir "Life So Far", in which she revealed that her husband had beaten her, leaving her with black circles under her eyes. She had to cover it up with heavy makeup while on TV. But her ex-husband, who died in December 1999, denied the allegation, saying that Ms. Friedan was telling the truth. "I was an innocent bystander struck by a violent driver who was targeting all men savagely," he said.

Betty Friedan had three children and divorced Carl Friedan in 1969. After "The Feminist Myth", starting from the late 1960s and throughout the 1970s, the feminist movement experienced a period of great development. Its influence penetrated into all fields of politics, society, culture and art, and the movement itself was divided into many camps. The so-called liberal feminism, radical feminism, Marxist feminism, socialist feminism, etc. are dizzying.

In June 1998, Time magazine published a cover story titled "Is Feminism Dead?" And in November 2005, another well-known feminist fighter, Phyllis Che Phyllis Chesler simply published the book "The Death of Feminism: What's Next in the Struggle for Women's Freedom", directly declaring that this movement is dead. She said that feminism has reached a dead end in which there is no room for free thinkers who oppose the party line. To be a feminist, one must be anti-capitalism, anti-war, and regard religion as the embodiment of patriarchy. In short, the feminist movement has become authoritarian and oppressive.

Under this situation, a proposition called "Choice Feminism" began to emerge, claiming that returning to the family, raising a husband and raising children was also one of the options for feminists. In this regard, feminist scholar Linda Hirshman published an article titled "Homeward Bound" in The American Prospect magazine on December 20, 2004. Said that this argument is really a perfect satire of Betty Friedan’s radical call. She mocked "choice feminism" by quoting Mark Twain: "A person who chooses not to read is as ignorant as a person who cannot read."

In the smoke of this series of polemics , Betty Friedan was forced to explain her position over and over again during her lifetime. "Some people think I said, 'Women of the world, unite—all you have to lose is your men,'" she told Life magazine in 1963. "That's not right, (I said All you have to lose is your vacuum cleaner."