Betty Friedan Archives - Public Seminar

Activism

The Grassroots Fight for Legal Abortion Has Always Been Bipartisan

The cross-party effort in Kansas has a long precedent begun in the 1960s by New York Republican Constance E. Cook

August 29, 2022 • by Bonnie Eissner

New York became the second state to legalize abortion (the first was Hawai’i), and the only state that lacked a residency requirement. Within two years over 200,000 women poured into the state for safe, legal abortions. And by setting a standard of 24 weeks, New York’s law influenced the ruling ...

Activism

Betty Friedan’s Radical Century

Because of this organizer, you can’t understand the twentieth century without talking about feminism

March 4, 2021 • by Peter Dreier

"A century after her birth, Betty Friedan’s radical ideas are common sense, and that’s a victory not just for feminists, but for everyone."...

Education

Centering Human Relations in Learning

Human Relations Center at the New School: a place for women to come learn and to socialize

April 29, 2019 • by Julia Foulkes

In Spring 1973, the author and women’s rights leader Betty Friedan taught a course on “Women in New York” at The New School. The eight sessions focused on the problems females faced in the city, in work and beyond, and it drew a large crowd. Enrollment consisted of 97 women ...

Feature

When Sexism Became a Word

1968 and Feminism

March 2, 2018 • by Maria Bucur

A year can only be a snapshot, an image at best partial and at worse distorting of the complex messiness of life. For me, 1968 is indubitably a very important year. I was born in September of that year and have lived my whole life with the lingering question of ...