When She Stopped Conforming To The Conventional

Over And Over Again, Stories In Women's Magazines Insist That Women Can Know Fulfillment Only At The Moment Of Giving Birth To A Child. They Deny The Years When She Can No Longer Look Forward To Giving Birth, Even If She Repeats The Act Over And Over Again. In The Feminine Mystique, There Is No Other Way For A Woman To Dream Of Creation Or Of The Future. There Is No Other Way She Can Even Dream About Herself, Except As Her Children's Mother, Her Husband's Wife.

When One Begins To Think About It, America Depends Rather Heavily On Women's Passive Dependence, Their Femininity. Femininity, If One Still Wants To Call It That, Makes American Women A Target And A Victim Of The Sexual Sell.

Each Suburban Wife Struggles With It Alone. As She Made The Beds, Shopped For Groceries, Matched Slipcover Material, Ate Peanut Butter Sandwiches With Her Children, Chauffeured Cub Scouts And Brownies, Lay Beside Her Husband At Night- She Was Afraid To Ask Even Of Herself The Silent Question-- 'is This All?

We Need A New Political Movement Of Women And Men Toward A New Society.

Who Knows What Women Can Be When They Are Finally Free To Become Themselves? Who Knows What Women's Intelligence Will Contribute When It Can Be Nourished Without Denying Love?