Key Thinker - Betty Friedan

Question 1

Who was Betty Friedan

Answer 1

-born 1921 died 2006
-linked mainly to development feminist ideology via acclaimed work ‘the feminist mystique’
-but ideas also broaden to liberalism in equality of opportunity

Question 2

What lay at the hears of Friedan’s philosophy

Answer 2

-concern for individualism like all liberals
-insisting all individuals should be free to seek control over own lives + full realisation of their potential

Question 3

What did Friedan argue that was similar to Wollstonecraft

Answer 3

-argued that gender was a serious hinderance to all those individuals who were female

Question 4

What did Friedan argue that condemned most women

Answer 4

-argued illiberal attitudes in society rather than human nature that condemned all women to underachievement
-contested these attitudes were nurtured + transmitted via society’s ’cultural channels’ like schools, organised religion, media + mainstream literature, theatre + cinema

Question 5

How did these channels impact women

Answer 5

-these channels of ‘cultural conditioning’ left many women convinced their lot in life determined by human nature rather then their own rationality + enterprise
-Friedan sought to challenge this assumption

Question 6

What was Friedan’s reputation as a liberal + feminist underlined by

Answer 6

-underlined by her continuous disdaining of violence or illegality as a means of pursuing change
-argued signif progress possible via legal equality by procedures of the liberal state

Question 7

What did this underlining lead to

Answer 7

-Friedan acknowledging principles of US constitution + endorsed its capacity to allow continuous improvement to individuals lives

Question 8

What did Friedan consequently reject

Answer 8

-more radical feminist arg that the state was patriarchal c forever under control of dominant male gender in favour of a theory consistent with liberal constitutionalism