The Second Stage: With a New Introduction

by Betty Friedan

Overview

First published in 1981, The Second Stage is eerily prescient and timely, a reminder that much of what is called new thinking in feminism has been eloquently observed and argued before. Warning the women's movement against dissolving into factionalism, male-bashing, and preoccupation with sexual and identity politics rather than bottom-line political and economic inequalities, Friedan argues that once past the initial phases of describing and working against political and economic injustices, the women's movement should focus on working with men to remake private and public arrangements that work against full lives with children for women and men both. Friedan's agenda to preserve families is far more radical than it appears, for she argues that a truly equitable preservation of marriage and family may require a reorganization of many aspects of conventional middle-class life, from the greater use of flex time and job-sharing, to company-sponsored daycare, to new home designs to permit communal housekeeping and cooking arrangements.

Called "utopian" fifteen years ago, when it seemed unbelievable that women had enough power in the workplace to make effective demands, or that men would join them, some of these visions are slowly but steadily coming to pass even now. The problem Friedan identifies is as real now as it was years ago: "how to live the equality we fought for," and continue to fight for, with "the family as new feminist frontier." She writes not only for women's liberation but for human liberation.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780674796553
Publisher:	Harvard University Press
Publication date:	04/01/1998
Edition description:	1ST Harvard University Press Paperback E
Pages:	396
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 7.50(h) x 0.88(d)

About the Author

Betty Friedan was a founder and first president of the National Organization for Women and convener of the National Women’s Political Caucus and the National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL). She was author of The Feminine Mystique and The Fountain of Age.

Table of Contents

Introduction, 1998

Introduction

End of the Beginning

End of the Beginning

The Half-Life of Reaction

The Family as New Feminist Frontier

The Quiet Movement of American Men

Reality Test at West Point

The Second Stage

The Limits and True Potential of Women's Power

The New Mode

Take Back the Day

The House and the Dream

Human Sex and Human Politics

Afterword: How to Get the Women's Movement Moving Again

Editorial Reviews

The right book at the right time. The Second Stage is intelligent, compassionate, and pertinent. It's an education. And it provides a course of action.

Washington Post Book World