Thinkers and political figures
Portrait: Photograph, 1960, via Wikimedia Commons (opens in a new tab) · Public domain
Betty Friedan
- Country
- United States
- Era
- 1921–2006
- Tradition
- Liberal feminism
Writer and organiser whose account of the unhappiness of educated American housewives launched second-wave feminism, and who founded the National Organization for Women to pursue it through law and lobbying.
01
Documented positions
Documented positions come from the sources listed. Similarity is this project’s inference from those positions, and is a much weaker claim.
- Argued that confining educated women to domesticity produced a widespread and unnamed unhappiness
- Founded the National Organization for Women in 1966 to press for equal treatment through legislation and the courts
- Campaigned for the Equal Rights Amendment, equal pay, and an end to sex-segregated job advertising
- Supported legal abortion and co-founded the organisation that became NARAL
- Argued that men should be allies rather than the enemy, and criticised what she called sexual politics that alienated them
- Later argued that feminism had underrated family and caregiving, and called for restructuring work around them
02
Where it sits on each dimension
Wealth and inequality
34
RedistributionMarket outcomes
Evidence: Documented
The state in the economy
42
Active stateLimited state
Evidence: Documented
Personal liberty
78
Collective orderIndividual freedom
Evidence: Well documented
Tradition and change
92
ContinuityReform
Evidence: Well documented
Power and its limits
78
Concentrated authorityChecks and pluralism
Evidence: Documented
Dimensions left unscored, for want of evidence: Nation and the world, Religion and the state, Environment and growth, Crime and punishment
Sources
- Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique · 1963
- Betty Friedan, The Second Stage · 1981
Last verified: