WHC is pleased to welcome author Rachel Shteir to our Amram Scholar Series on Sunday, March 3, 2024 at 10:30 am at Temple to discuss her book, Betty Friedan: Magnificent Disrupter.

This program is free and open to the entire community. RSVP is requested.

RSVP HERE

This lecture is sponsored by the Abraham & Freida Hochberg Creative Cultural Fund and presented in partnership with the Jewish Book Council.

About the Book:

The feminist writer and activist Betty Friedan (1921-2006), pathbreaking author of The Feminine Mystique, was powerful and polarizing. In this biography, the first in more than twenty years, Rachel Shteir draws on Friedan’s papers and on interviews with family, colleagues, and friends to create a nuanced portrait.

Friedan, born Bettye Naomi Goldstein, chafed at society’s restrictions from a young age. As a journalist she covered racism, sexism, labor, class inequality, and anti-Semitism. As a wife and mother, she struggled to balance her work and homemaking. Her malaise as a housewife and her research into the feelings of other women resulted in The Feminine Mystique (1963), which made her a celebrity.

Using her influence, Friedan cofounded the National Organization for Women, the National Women’s Political Caucus, and the National Association to Repeal Abortion Laws. She fought for the Equal Rights Amendment, universal childcare, and workplace protections for mothers, but she disagreed with the women’s liberation movement over “sexual politics.”

Shteir considers how Friedan’s Judaism was essential to her feminism, presenting a new Friedan for a new era.

Click here to purchase this book through WHC’s Mitzvah Mall

About the Author:

Rachel Shteir is the author of three pre­vi­ous books. She has writ­ten for many mag­a­zines and news­pa­pers includ­ing The New York Times and The Wall Street Jour­nal. She teach­es at DePaul Uni­ver­si­ty in Chicago.