Playboy September 1992
by Janann Sherman
Category: Biography & Autobiography

Through these interviews Betty Friedan speaks fervently and combatively for herself and the momentous causes she has fought for. In 1963 Friedan's The Feminine Mystique was published, and since that time this writer, teacher, public intellectual, and passionate advocate of social and economic justice in America has remained in the public spotlight. Transforming her into the mother of modern feminism, her landmark book challenged the prevailing gender ideology in the country and ultimately led to one of the most profound movements for social change in American history. In these interviews her arguments about equity and fairness -- as well as the striking consistency of her views about men, women, and the American family -- provide a rich resource for scholarly research. The interview genre captures Friedan's immediacy, her passion, her wit, her candor, and her contradictions. In showing her political and philosophical development, they reveal her to be one of the twentieth century's most significant thinkers. Book jacket.