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By now, abortion should be obsolete. And I - and probably a lot of other feminists - wish it were obsolete, because abortion, in itself, is not a value - it is simply the right to chose, which is an essential value.

Betty Friedan

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Betty Friedan
Age: 85 †
Born: 1921
Born: February 4
Died: 2006
Died: February 6
Feminist
Journalist
Psychologist
Sociologist
Writer
Peoria
Illinois
Betty Naomi Goldstein
Bettye Naomi Goldstein
Right
Feminist
Essential
Essentials
Value
Simply
Feminists
Probably
Obsolete
Values
Chose
Wish
Abortion

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Aging will create the music of the coming century.
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Today the problem that has no name is how to juggle work, love, home and children.
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life lived only for oneself does not truly satisfy men or women. There is a hunger in Americans today for larger purposes beyond the self. That is the reason for the religious revival and the new resonance of 'family.
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Development can indeed continue beyond childhood and youth, beyond the seventies. It can continue until the very end of life, given purposes that challenge and use our human abilities. . . . In sum, our development does not necessarily end at any age. We can continue to develop into our eighties, even to our nineties.
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I have discovered that there is a crucial difference between society's image of old people and 'us' as we know and feel ourselves to be.
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A good woman is one who loves passionately, has guts, seriousness and passionate convictions, takes responsibility, and shapes society.
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I just decided that I didn't want to be in the academic world, because it was [really] too easy for me at the top. But also it wasn't active enough for me.
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Diversity has got to be a part of modern feminism, and I think that my feminism is stronger because its an inclusive thing. I won't be backed into a corner that polarizes me against other women. And I wished they wouldn't be either.
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Women, because they are not generally the principal breadwinners, can be perhaps most useful as the trail blazers, working along the bypaths, doing the unusual job that men cannot afford to gamble on.
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There is absolutely no evidence that it is harmful to children if their mother's health, well-being and autonomy and control of her own destiny is maximized by work outside the home.
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I never set out to write a book to change women's lives, to change history. It's like, 'Who, me?' Yes, me. I did it. And I'm not that different from other women. Maybe my power and glory was that I could speak my truth as a woman and it was the truth of every woman.
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If you were very bright and you became head of a department, as I did, of the psychology department, you were encouraged to go on to graduate work. But as a women you didn't even think about discrimination.
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Why the increasing emphasis by professional age experts and the media on - and public acceptance of - the nursing home as the locus of age when, in fact, more than ninety percent of those over sixty-five continue to live in the community?
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Who knows what women can be when they are finally free to become themselves?
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Advice? I don't offer advice. Not my business. Your life is what you make it.
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Some people think I'm saying, 'Women of the world unite -- you have nothing to lose but your men. It's not true. You have nothing to lose but your vacuum cleaners.
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The feminist revolution had to be fought because women quite simply were stopped at a state of evolution far short of their human capacity.
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Who knows what women can be when they are finally free to become themselves? Who knows what women's intelligence will contribute when it can be nourished without denying love?
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The media and even, to some degree, leaders of women's organizations don't understand that the women's movement is an absolute part of society now. It is in the consciousness, it is taken for granted. It is part of the way women look at themselves, and women are looked at.
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Aging is not lost youth but a new stage of opportunity and strength.
Betty Friedan