Friedan, Betty (1921—2006)
American feminist, political activist, and co-founder of the National Organization for Women (BWO). Her book, The Feminine Mystique (1963), a huge bestseller, is generally credited with initiating so-called Second Wave feminism. Friedan’s book spoke of that claustrophobic existence of the suburban ‘housewife’ and as later feminist critics would point out she seems to have been oblivious of class, ethnicity, race, and the other cultural and legal barriers to equality that women face. Nevertheless, her book was a rallying cry for women to demand the right to define their own social role. The feminine mystique she spoke of was the social role constructed for women by men that women have been persuaded or coerced into accepting, namely that women are caregivers, that they are nurturers and so on, by reason of biology, and therefore better suited to jobs in fields like nursing and teaching. She wrote a number of other works, but none that had the effect of her first book.