Episode Details

It’s been almost 50 years since Betty Friedan wrote “The Feminine Mystique,” forcing women to start re-examining their place in the world, their communities, and their families. Many of them were well educated, others less so, but they started to question whether cooking, cleaning, raising children and pleasing their mates would be the sum total of their lives. They may have had the vote, but by and large they didn’t feel empowered. Social historian Stephanie Coontz explores the lives of these women and the impact Freidan’s book had on them, with her new book, “A Strange Stirring: The Feminine Mystique and American Women at the Dawn of the 1960’s.” It’s just been published by Basic Books.

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