rachel shteir is an author and a recent book is "betty friedan" magnificent disrupter and our moderator is sub gioia diliberto the other seven historical novel sent by perfect radar riding focuses on women's lives has been praise for combining rich storytelling and literary briefs with deep research to provide, tods bring alive -- the 19th

century chicago and disco era manhattan. her books are then translated into several languages and she has been adjudged for prominent literary content. as a journalist gioai is has written for many publications including "the new york times" "the wall street journal" the "chicago tribune"'s los angeles times as the sun in and town and country. rachel's book will be available for -- for purchase outside the curtain h afterwards and will he a signing and altering the program up to you. >> thank you. can everybody hear me? you for coming. betty for dan is aa monumental figure in the entered string of feminism but her best-selling book feminine mystique was widely credited with sparking them that someone was published in 1963 and sold more than 1 million copies but she

cofounded the national organization for women and the national women's caucus. she was also a difficult person with an personality and in her lifetime she was a very controversial figure. her life after the feminist battle of the 1970s is less well-known but she continued to fight for women's causes until the end of her life. rachel's book is the first betty friedan biography in 25 years and it's based on rachel's intense exhaustive research in the archives and more than 80 interviews. it will be officially published on tuesday and all of the prepublication reviews has been raised. i'd likeke to start with rachel

reading a little bit from the book to giveo gi you a taste oft it's about. >> thank you somewhat for that introductiondu and the introduction to betty. the section that i'm going to read from as gioai mentioned that he was one of the cofounders of the national organization for women which is the largest women's organization in america and also still exist today and also is one that tried to unite them in from diverse backgrounds. that backgrounds. it was that these and other people's vision for it. so this is a scene in washington d.c. at a conference where betty

wasn't attending the conference as a participant. it was a conference for women who worked for women's rights but also were part of the government. betty was there as a journalist covering c this conference. this is the story of the founding of now and this is in 1966. at the washington hilton between june 28 and the 30th, this conference targets for action aimed and to continue the work done by the present commission on the status of women under jfk. the first day discourage the female delegates and friedan who katharine is the co-authored the commission reported had lighted the journalist. late in the afternoon it started to rain so the group convened in the east room instead of the rose garden. standing next to a lady for

president johnson began by addressing the distinguished and very attractive delegates. he took credit for title vii recommended that the women expanded their volunteerism and choked about his wife's interest in the grass in the rose garden. the list of accomplishments from the commission is women's equality had been achieved end quote figuratively padded their heads friedan recalls. the next day the national women's party alice paul's organization tried to introduce a resolution to bring the equal rights amendment under consideration. they were refused. irritated friedan invited polly murray and group of women to meet at the helton that night. she joined as the cartagena and carolyn davis at the women's department of united autoworkers. friedan met them while researching her on concluded secondte book.

there was catherine claire and ike had to doth this to the stas ofy, women married eastwood and catherine conroy who worked for the committee patients union. conway and claire and back wanted to work through existing channels by introducing a motion condemning the equal opportunity commission. murray armed with a gala we both had sided with friedan's activist approachm. by 11:00 p.. nancy matt lee young teen at the university of wisconsin sitting on the floor dared to wonder if the world needed a new women's organization. friedan shouted to invited you? get out, get out. this is my room and my liquor. >> thank you rachel. you can see where people very often did not like eddie fred

and -- friedan. why should we care about betty friedan today? >> as you enumerated in your introduction that he wrote "the feminine mystique" which is one of the most important feminist books of the 20th century if not the most important one.as "the feminine mystique" was as you noted a huge, huge bestseller but what it did was it established women as a category which at the time simply did not exist. you could say that betty threw the first shot which many other people then picked up so that's number one "the feminine mystique" and theme n number two the national organization for women as i said this was an amazing organization, nothing like it existed in the goal was

to again to unite women as a category and have women be able to agitate for a quality of pay, equality of representation and other things like that. also betty went on for the rest of her life to sound many other organizationsd devoted to women and women's rights including the national women's political caucus which was solely devoted to getting women into government but she also been founded women's bank, a women's pink tank. shes was tireless in her pursut of women's rights and trying to get equality for women. she is important because we need to remember how long the struggles for women's rights have been going on in this country and its summer being

turned back. it's also important because i think what people pay attention to most of all is her temper and not thes things that she achied and the ideas that she had. >> do you find that young women that you meet don't think about her and in some cases have not even heard of her? yes, so in general betty is much less read in "the feminine mystique" is much less red and universitiese now than even 10 years ago. "the feminine mystique" was written in 63 as you said so at 60 years old this year. but many women and gender not teach itams do or they teach one chapter of it.

it's sometimes taught in history or grams but then it's really taught and i'vee talked a lot at talked a lot of the stories about this and is often taught in conjunction with the later book as a collective so to show what daddy did that was wrong. as i said to me the most important thing is she showed to a a mass audience how important women's rights were. >> what do the current gender studies people think she got wrongwh and did wrong? >> many things. most of all though i would say the lack of, "the feminine mystique" was a book about white house lives. it was about the suburbs and how

women felt existentially trapped in thehe suburbs. there had been a number of books and famous books and famous essays talking about how betty should have been more inclusive in her construction of women. if course she was riding back this book in the late 50's was one thing and i would say i do want to say defense. my response is that no one was writing about race and class in that way and the way that we consider normal. the one thing is her lack of talking about race and also she didn't really talk about poor p women. she thought the revolution of women had to start with the

middle class and that was her argument. another problem with the book that a lot of critics have pointed out is that it also you could argue you could say it's. there were certain passages of it. take a 1950s freudian approach to game and specifically and that criticism dr.. >> do you think the gender studies crowd are engendering a disrespect for betty and is that a dangerous thing. >> in my opinion itt is. i don't think we can use the standard today to judge a work that was written civil rights priest for revolution that's why think that he threw the per shot.

and that was extraordinarily difficult to do. i think you can tell i read this passage and it's funny but i believe she acted in this way because she was intent on getting people to hear her message. she told us the only way to do that was to gala or to scream. that's what she believed. she had a righteousness to her about this. she was just not going to back down and she was not going to be polite but she was not going to be civil and she wasn't going to obey robert's rules in the meeting. i think she felt like she could not do that. she could not. >> a lot of young women to today 02 betty friedan. when you think about 60 years ago and the women couldn't open a bank account by themselves and there was a whole long list. there wasti discrimination and b

hiring and obviously widespread sexism in office culture and workplace culture. betty was constantly fighting this idea that women don't need to be equal. why do you even need that and why do you can want that quick she would go on these talk shows in the early 60s at the advent of television, and the announcersst would just ridicule her and humiliate her. >> that's terrible. all the writing about betty before yourr book, what was the tone of it and how was your book different on betty. >> i really tried, i think the main thing is the other two major biographies were written in the 1990s. it was written -- one written up

by journalists and one written by a scholar and the one written by the scholars both of them were critical of her in a place that i'm describing and what i tried toto do was to be fair to her. i would say they were writing in the 1990s when she was still alive. they had to interview her and anybody who writes a biographer will say it's a mixed losing. the subject is still alive so both of them did both interview her and they had struggled. she had a clear idea about how she wanted to be remembered and what her legacy was and if you did not fall into line with that she would really give it to you. and i read these transcripts. several people after these biographers gave up riding biographers about her because she was so difficult. >> where the men biographers?

one of them was a man in some of the others were women. so the main thing that i tried hard to do in the book was to be fair to her and to not judge her outburst. she had these outbursts and i tried to ride back about those and i try to understand them as opposed to judging them which i think the job of a biographers. >> did she respond badly to what you have written about her? >> she had different responses to the biographies because they are different for the biography about the scholar which isil vey detailed and very meticulous, he had a specific theory about her which is the she suppressed, when she was riding "the feminine mystique" she called housewife. she wasn't just writing about other people.

she also called herself a housewife and the problem it had no name is what shes c called . she described herself as having this problem in this biographer claimed that she exaggerated the extent to which she was a housewife. he pointed out that she had been a radical journalist in the 40s. she had been a writer for women's magazines in the 50s. according to him she covered up her career to exaggerate her identity of as a housewife and she did not like that at all. she did not care for that at all and she tried to sue him. she tried to stop the book and she did not succeed. the book came out and she became worried about her legacy she published a memoir which was really bad. it's not a great memoir. it's not insightful that you

want to do more to be that the purpose of the memoir was to show that this particular biography had gotten it all wrong a about her and she was really housewife. >> she was a housewife. she was a radical journalist and she was a writer for women's magazines and she was active however she felt like a housewife and she was moving to upstate new york and rocklin county and she had three children and she has an enormous house. her husband went to the city so despite the fact she had the somewhat active career at the time she was being asked to be housewife and it was stoked find to live in a suburb. so to me with the previous biographer mrs. was what she felt which was trapped.

>> like a lot of women at the time. she interested those women. >> interested them and voice what they were feeling. the reason the book was a hit was because women read for the first time this amazing paragraph describing what it's like being her of wrapping peanut butter sandwiches and to send your kid off to school or whatever and how mindnumbing that is. the last thing is, and you are notu' alone. women read that and they felt seen. she coined that phrase. >> she coined it. she had a gift for that kind of snappy thing. >> rachel do you think that her brand of feminism is still valid today. >> yes. >> why do you think it is. >> because i think the things that she fought for like quality

of pay and equality in political representation and childcare, universal federally funded childcare and reproductive rights those are all things that we don't have. rito me she had it right actual. she had a lot right although she was not perfect and she was not a saint but she had this idea that women were equal and they deserve equal of everything and we still don't have that. >> what was her relationship with gloria steinem and the others? >> glory is still around. have you talked to gloria. >> very briefly. gloria did not want to participate in the book the reason being gloria and betty did not speak after 19 -- after

the national organization for women was founded it very quickly became radicalized and a lot of younger women flooded into it and they were interested in what we would call fenau identity politics and what betty called politics. they were less interested in betty's vision feminism and equality and bourgeois. theywe were radical's and betty was alienated fromom this. glory was 12 years younger than betty. she was interested in identity politics and i would be remiss if i didn't mention a women's struggle to come out and to be counted in the women's movement. betty did not support that. she thought that it would weaken the w women's movement. this was around 1969 whereas

gloria kate millete and a lot of younger feminists did support that. that he found herself on the other side and a more conservative i guess i would say place. >> with the housewives wrapping peanut butter sandwiches. >> exactly, right. >> was there a blowup with gloria steinem and can you tell us about the blowup. >> yes. there were a number of things. betty one of her i guess i would say less attractive things that she would speak to the media disparagingly about other people including gloria and this began to happen in 1971 in 1972. betty went on the record as saying gloria steinem has no ideas. she is a phony and that kind of

thing.' and gloria obviously didn't like that in gloria never responded. she took the high road i guess i wouldd say. obviously they could work together as allies. >> gloria never denounced betty. >> that he denounced gloria and that boomeranged on betty. >> can you tell us about some of the other controversies that betty was involved with. >> probably the two that are the best-known and the most likely or whatever the one that i mentioned about women and that erupted in 1969 and betty used the phrase lavender menace at a national organization for women meeting. another word she thought women who wanted to be counted equally for who wanted their identity to be brought more to the forefront

of the national organization for women she called them lavender and i'm laughing. i know it's not funny in the sense that it's not very nice but what she was concerned about was the women's movement being weekend. the other big controversy erupted when did later apologize for the lavender menace but the other big controversy was in 1972 when she was working as a delegate for shirley chisholm and she talked about, she wrote a press release and she told everybody that they were going to have a traveling watermelon feast inin harlem. this leaked to the media and it was a disaster because it's terrible that she would say that. really bigwo

horrifying things that she did. >> those are pretty big and horrifying. how did she get involved in writing this book. >> it was a commission. gayle asked me to do it but how i got involved in it was on the 50th anniversary of "the feminine mystique" i wrote an article for the chronicle of higher education which was the newspaper for scholars and the article was about, i had never read the feminine mystique as a student. i read it for the first time then and at the time there were a number of books coming up like one of them was the end of men by hodder rosen and another one by naomi wolf. i reads these books and i felt those books took from betty's

ideas are reputed betty's ideas but without ever mentioning betty's name. and then i read "the feminine mystique" and i was blown away by this gorgeously written, although as i said it had its problems but very gorgeously written. i wanted to write something about that about how betty has been erased despite having written this powerful book and people liked the essay. so they asked me to write for the series this book and that's how it happened. >> what was your idea of betty when he started the book and how did it evolve and change when you were writing yet? .. by them. and then i think the first thing that happened was i started to interview people and had a negative story to tell about. betty. and if you're you know, i was i

felt a little bit defensive of her because there were people remember and had held grudges that were 60 years old. and had held grudges that were 60 years old. i was very interested in this. obviously again she had, what do i want to call it, a knack really making people upset. she has a knack for upsetting peoplele getting her own way. or whatever. and so those stories accumulated. the event is alluded to the archives us on the other side of her there is a generous side. she could be extraordinarily generous specially to younger women she had some women who were her surrogate daughters who she really helped in many, many

ways. she could be very generous and very kind. i began to get a fuller picture of her as someone who was uncomfortable with other. i although she was in the public eye all the time i don't think she liked being in the public eye.to he was asked to lead to be the first president of south. she said she had a writer's temperament and did not want to do it. and many of the women who are trying to get a women's thing started wanted her to do because she was a huge name. but she hesitated. she thought her self mostly as a writer. quick she thought of herself as a writer and journals for short. quick so it was her relationship right with their own family with her husband and children?

>> her marriage was very tempestuous, also violent. she married someone i would say he was not really her intellectual equal. who's a brilliant person. it was in school she won all of the warm. she went to barkley for one year to grad school to get a phd and dropped out to become a radical journalist. but in those days she was 25 or something and you had to get married. i was very hard for what you could not get married. she was this guy, it was not a good match.ey i don't know what kind of guy but they fought all the time. and they drank a lot everyone

drank. it was violent and everyone knew that. this was a tragic thing about her. she worried, worried, worried this would come out. they learn frome violence and discredit the women's movement. she had her and he went both ways their stories in the media going back to 1970s but it's it'sreally quite amazing. it was known cutesy >> drop and people wouldn't really talk about it. one time there is a protest at the oak room in new york and she had a black eye and so she was late. the environment she had a friend help her with her makeup she got there she was late and terrified people would see it.

and again should be discredited and everything they work so hard would fall apart. their marriage was tempestuous. i was very painful to her that it failed but shehe got divorced in 1971 she had several lovers but she never married anybody. what was alive her children? what she had three children. they allay are very successful. i will say that. there are certain things this is true for her there friday get to put that in a backdrop. but also there are certain ways that were amazing parents. they would look at >>. look at the >> launch they were intellectually curious parents

there are other ways she was a terrible mother by many standards. she sent to the kids to school and a taxi. it's a famous story all the time. she would never take them to school. when she was writing should close the door there knock on the door mommy, mommy she would not answer because she was writing. [laughter] that kind of thing. ir, don't to paint her a complee terrible mother thereg were alo these amazing things. she allowed them to be themselves to be their own people. it was not in fashion than at all. i think each of them reflect that now. quick search of a good relationship with them when they grew up?me >> later. it was difficult. in the early years they would eat a lot of tv dinners, that kind of thing.

>> it's a great thing for kids. i would love that. [laughter] one of them is a very successful physicist and a doctor. next one is a award winning awag grant physicist one is an engineer and architect another is a doctor they're all very successful. all have their own children. >> quick said they cooperate with you on this biography? >> i interviewed all of them. i think if they have their own, like the children of many well known people they have their own ideas about what to be told and what should not be told big back to the help you and thinking about betty? >> somewhat accustomed point i knew more than they did. they were there children and

that at the forefront. i don't know, i don't know. >> is interesting tow know if u change their view of their mother. >> indeed. >> so much as happened recently. >> yes, yes. >> what was betty think of all this? >> at the end of her life she was upset at the end of her life there is so much work to be done and she knew it. she died in 2006 so there had tibeen big setbacks and the '90s. during the bush and reagan years. i'm too is very set upset about that i could not feel that should be very upset now i'm not a day goes by that i don't read something like i just read five

female professors suing vassar college for gender discrimination. there is the un report we don't gender equality by 2030. or not a day goes by i don't read something that proves we have not done that, we have failed. quick said she continued writing until the end of her life? >> yes breadbox of the nature of her writing toward the end of her life? >> at the end of her life she, in the 70 she wrote a collection called it changed my life which a lot of people did not like because they felt she had hogged a credit for the women's movement. and then in 1982 she wrote something called the second stage which is about how the women's movement has to become humanism. the women's movement as it was was too radicalal and she wanted

to partner with men. she wanted it to be more economically based and so on. people also did not like that book. r it was widely denounced people called her a neocon and stuff. then she had a big big book and 93 about aging. she really wanted that to be a paradigm change her. i havee a very mixed feelings about that book it's really gigantic for one thing. it has some amazing things and points out one and things that's really changes people living longer and that changes a gendea gender dynamic she's very good on them. there are certain sections of the book where she talks about people having third acts in their lives if they live long

enough and are in good health health. it was okay received not tremendously celebrated or endorses a number of reasons for that but she had accumulated all of this and baggage herself would be impossible for a known quantity you have a second big success. but by 1993 she herself was not in good health. she had a number of different health problems and as that book was coming out it was ironic this book on aging and how she could have a third act in all of that. she was really struggling should open valve replacement heart valve replacement. >> did she soften her views on gayin and lesbian radical feminists at all? >> and no.

>> in 1977 she apologize for the phrase the lavender menace but until the end of her life i think she believed identity politics was not the way to go for women and that there should be more economic base of feminism that would be the correct thing to do. i do not know about softening it. i do know people who knew her or had to deal with her after open heart surgery valve replacement and they did say she was nicer after the valve surgery. i think she had to valve replacement she did not have just one. i think a one was a teenage boy so after that according to some people she change her personality quite a bit. >> became interested in playing video games? >> she became nicer some peoples did say that.

>> are there a young feminists today who do celebrate her and embrace her in her brand of feminism? >> i have been writing about, i've met a few people who are reading the book the feminine mystique for one reason or a another who are very excited n about it. they tend to not be in the academy they are journalists or just ordinary people. yes i think people read the feminine mystique and they get excited by the language, the strengths of the book and stuff likebu that. i don't know if it's a widespread movement. >> the femininee mystique i spet a long time since i have read it. but it seemed to me very welcoming and very inviting. >> it is. >> althat is very different from betty's personality. >> yes, yes.

she kind of indicts herself in the feminine mystique. she talks about she was in part to blame for some of the things that happened because as a journalist she had done what editors wanted to narrow out some of her story so they would appeal to housewives and that kind of thing so she put yourself right at the center ofo it. that strategy makes it very inviting. >> we would love to hear your questions. i'm sure rachel would be eager to answer any questions you have. >> i am old enough to have seen the term feminism and feminist evolve. where do you think it is today? are people using -- office of there's eight movement and things but the term itself. >> the phrase of feminism?

i think it is mixed honestly. i am not sure. sometimes i feel like that phrase is in repute people don't want to be characterized as feminists. and then other times i feel like there are feminists and they are talking about feminism. but i don't feel it strong the way i read about betty in the 60s and 70s and what that was like. i don't feel like it is like that. >> i don't if they still think of the bra burning men hating, i can consider myself one since the lateu 70s. but i've seen that term remic i'm all for this but i'm not using that term. >> betty never burn her bra she got very upset whenever anyone would talk about them. c and she loved it men also she could be quite flirtatious.

and i wanted i meant to be part of the women's movement but not every feminist it is you're yourpointing out the many radicl feminists or separatists or other things. effects of the other questions? stepped to the microphone. >> thank you. what a wonderfulfu discussion. could you say something about her as a writer and her style? and what propelled her with her writing and clicks with readers? and may be in that, this might be out of lef' field but thereer is a kind of growing a literature about america suburbia there's a gentlemen's agreement this revolutionary road. and taking on suburbia for.yo

>> yes. you mean in the 1950s? in general not just for women there was a general idea the suburbs was a deadening place and we had to escape it to be individuals. yes she was influenced by a lot of those people. she was very influenced by hiroshima also. that book she actually wanted the feminine mystique to be like hiroshima she wanted to be this very granular account of how women were suffering because of the existential problem. that was one of her models. i mean the feminine mystique is a strange book because it has that side of its the critique of

suburbia but it also has a more memoir and self-help kind of. sometimes those two sides seem and opposition. great question. >> one more question no? [laughter] we need to be done. >> we need to be done. [laughter] sorry.ra we have run out of time but rachel would be delighted to sign your book. >> i would for. >> they are for sale outside on the table oute there she will e at the table right there to sign for you. thank you so much. >> thank you so much. >> thank you. [applause] ♪ c-span that was a free mobile app featuring what's happening in washington live and on-demand for keep up with the day's biggest events with live streams of floor proceedings of hearings

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it could neverpr hap n