Betty Friedan Quotes

Sex role training becomes divorce training.

My observation is that women are merely waiting for their husbands to assume leadership.

90% of the divorces are initiated by women. That is really odd. Why? What's going on? What's the great discontent at the heart of it?

Men enter local politics solely as a result of being unhappily married.

The first big impact that feminism in the 1960s and '70s had was a big divorce boom in the '70s and '80s. That, in part, had an impact on how the children of that divorce boom viewed marriage.

By demanding more from men and from marriage, it's single women who have perhaps played as large a part as anyone in saving marriage in America.

I've been married twice, and I can tell you this right now: no one wants their mother in law all up in their business. Especially if you're a woman and you have your own mind.

The idea of men earning and women waiting at home for them, is over.

This idea that the employment of women, the movement of women outside the home into the work world, and their demand for equality is somehow responsible for increasing juvenile delinquency or the increase in divorce rate, is just so much bullshit.

Women have become so highly educated... that nothing should surprise us nowadays, except happy marriages.

I believe the decree should be repealed. It is extremely humiliating for women to be treated as criminals. The decree only gives men more legal weapons to use against women in case of marital problems.

I have strayed from my marriage.

The institution of marriage is not under attack as a result of the President’s words. Marriage was under attack years ago by men who viewed women as property and children as trophies of sexual prowess. Marriage is under attack by low wages, high incarceration, unfair tax policy, unemployment, and lack of education. Marriage is under attack by clergy who proclaim monogamy yet think nothing of stepping outside the bonds of marriage to have multiple affairs with “preaching groupies.” Same-gender couples did not cause the high divorce rate, but our adolescent views of relationships and our inability as a community to come to grips with the ethic of love and commitment did. We still confuse sex with love and romance with commitment.

The modern individual family is based on the open or disguised domestic enslavement of the woman.

Before, back in the '50s, women didn't have as many rights as men, so they had to be that stay-at-home wife and take care of the kids all day. But now, with marriage, it's a partnership. It's not like this old traditional marriage that it once was.

Businesswomen are fine. But they shouldn't be forced to pay for the raising of the family. It's the husband's job. That's the way I see it.

To understand the fanatic rejection of women's liberation in the Muslim world, one has to take into account the time factor. Most of us educated women have illiterate mothers. The conservative wave against women in the Muslim world is a defense mechanism against profound changes in both sex roles and the touchy subject of sexual identity.

Since the Second World War, as female expectations and opportunities have risen, becoming a royal woman - and remaining a royal woman - has seemed less and less an attractive proposition.

The dominance of daughters in the country has started rising. This is a good social change.

In many households today, the woman is also a bread winner and with this financial independence comes the power of making choices.

There are a lot of reasons why marriages don't continue.

I personally think the male and female roles have changed dramatically in the past few decades. Men are no longer the breadwinners. Financial independence for a woman is a huge thing.

My mom and dad weren't together, so I never thought I would get married.

In marriage, a woman becomes the weaker sex, even if her husband doesn't want her to be. This happens because of the way society has built the institution.

I came from a matriarchal family, and was always treated as an individual.