The feminist revolution had to be fought because women quite simply were stopped at a state of evolution far short of their human capacity.

If I were a man, I would strenuously object to the assumption that women have any moral or spiritual superiority as a class.

The only kind of work which permits an able woman to realize her abilities fully, to achieve identity in society in a life plan that can encompass marriage and motherhood, is the kind that was forbidden by the feminine mystique, the lifelong commitment to an art or science, to politics or profession. If divorce has increased by one thousand percent, don't blame the women's movement. Blame the obsolete sex roles on which our marriages were based.

Feminism or the family? Carried to excess maybe. I have insisted that women cannot be defined solely in those terms. But for a great many women - not all, because we are only beginning to realize and affirm the diversity of women themselves - choosing motherhood makes motherhood itself a liberating choice.

I didn't want to be in a situation where I was broader than the boys, which I was, in the academic world.

American women were frustrated in just the role of housewife - but they also managed to enlarge it. And they weren't just housewives, they were community leaders.

When [the] life span of America women is approaching eighty years having kids is not going to take it up.