why it seems so radical and stirred up so much emotion on both sides of the story for friedan to say as she previewed an excerpt from her book and good housekeeping back in 1961 and you know how the magazines like to use, generate the most provocative titles ever well, this was a really provocative one. the title said women are people, too. today that doesn't sound particularly provocative page turner titles, but at the time this wasn't considered self-evident. in fact it was considered a terrible mistake leading experts explicitly argued because this is a direct quote for the society to regard its citizens as people rather than as primarily male and female who occupy different roles and have completely different natures. so sometimes today, you know, we get kind of worn down by the stress of juggling work and family like a lot of people in this room but we forget the price people pay when they didn't have to balance work and family, and in fact when they were penalized when they tried to do so, when women who wanted a meaningful work life were accused of suffering from a bad case th

betty friedan said the life of a wife and mother was living in a comfortable concentration camp. that was their attitude. the social degradation of women was really a major goal of the feminist movement. and it wasn't -- they were really not using the argument that it takes two incomes to support the family. that really wasn't why they wanted to get her out of the home. they wanted to get her out of the home, not for economic, but for social and cultural reasons because they tried to tell women that you are just a parasite, your life is not accomplishing anything, the only way to have fulfillment is to be independent of men and have your own career. it's kind of interesting when they have a divorce, you know, while they are married, they are all the time griping because the men aren't changing half of the diapers and washing half of the dishes and getting up half of the time in the middle of the night. they want him to do 50/50. once they have a divorce, they think only the mother can handle it. they want sole and exclusive custody and the father to become a visitor in the child'

tom friedan. he could not be with us here today, but when we have met, whether it's in atlanta or here, i can tell you that he is also, as is everyone else is here been absolutely focused and committed to reducing this problem that we're going to talk about for a few minutes. tom, of course, as you know is the director of the center for disease control and prevention. he is represented here today of the cdc is represented by the director of the cdc's national center of injury prevention control. let me start by talking about what i think is a startling fact and as a long-time police chief in what caused harm in my city in seattle was one that was startling to me and i think it's startling still to a lot of people in this country. and that is that america is in the midst of a public health epidemic driven by prescription drug abuse. prescription drug abuse is our nation's fastest growing drug problem. according to the cdc, it is an epidemic. and that is not a word that i or the nation's public heal

[laughter] >> they are so wrong when betty friedan said in a debate she'd like to burn me at the stake, i thought are you trying to make me into joan joan of arc? you know, they are so wrong and so foolish and put out so much nonless. i'm not going to let the slobs ruin my day. >> i will say she's extra thick skin. >> i had to learn it though. >> that's true. my experience has been the exact same as hers from that angle. and it does get easier over time, for sure. but you get to the point where when the accusations are so outrageous. i got an e-mail yesterday that said i'm worse than hitler -- not yesterday, last week. and it takes you back for a moment. it does. then eventually you realize who thinks like that? how can you -- do you really mean what you are saying? when you realize the kind of mentality that you are dealing with, the worse thing it does is tell you how many people there are like that out there. that's awful. that's the worse part. just in the last few weeks alone, the attacks on me because of the boston university article where i went to school. it was a interview wit

betty friedan said the wife and mother was living in a comfortable concentration camp. that was their attitude. the social degradation of women was really a major goal of the feminist movement, and they were really not using the argument that it takes to win comes to support the family. that really wasn't why they wanted to get out of the home. they wanted to get it for not for economic reasons but social and cultural reasons because they tried to tell women you're just a parasite, your life is not accomplishing anything, the only way to have fulfillment is to be independent of men and have your own career. >> you can watch this and other programs on linus booktv.org >> katella swa you chose football to show the racial tension in georgia. >> rachel, first of all, thanks to you and c-span for taking the time to talk to me today. this book may have broken football and survival has been out a few years, but one of the important components of it is that i interviewed the first black player who played on the old white albany high school and albany georgia football team and t