(b. February 4, 1921) Influential feminist, author of The Feminine Mystique.

Bettye (later changed to Betty) Naomi Goldstein was born on February 4, 1921, in Peoria, Illinois, to a jewelry store owner and a society page editor. She graduated from Smith College in 1942 and went on to study psychology at Berkeley. Saying she did not want to become "an old maid college teacher," she quit graduate studies after a year to become a staff writer for the left-wing Federated Press from 1943 to 1946. She married Carl Friedman (later Friedan) in 1947 and had three children; the couple divorced in 1969. In the early 1960s Betty Friedan became one of the nation's most influential activists on behalf of women. Female involvement in World War II, the expansion of the middle class and consumer society following the war, and the expanded role of women in politics and the economy during the Cold War (1946– 1991) had created...