Rachel Shteir on Betty Friedan in conversation with Katha Pollitt

Thursday, September 14, 6:30 pm

The Segal Theatre, the Graduate Center

 

The feminist writer and activist Betty Friedan (1921–2006) was powerful and polarizing. Born Bettye Naomi Goldstein, Friedan chafed at society’s restrictions from a young age. As a journalist she covered racism, sexism, labor, class inequality, and anti-Semitism. Her malaise as a housewife and her research into the feelings of other women resulted in the revolutionary The Feminine Mystique (1963), which made her a celebrity.

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 present a new Friedan for a new era.

 

Rachel Shteir is an award-winning essayist, writer, and critic whose work has been published in many newspapers and magazines including The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. In addition to Betty Friedan: Magnificent Disrupter, she is the author of Striptease: The Untold History of the Girlie Show, Gypsy: The Art of the Tease and The Steal: A Cultural History of Shoplifting. She is founder and head of the Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism Program at the Theatre School at DePaul University.

 

Katha Pollitt is a poet, essayist and columnist for The Nation. She has written for many magazines and published numerous books, most recently Pro: Reclaiming Abortion Rights and The Mind-Body Problem (poems).

 

Register for this in-person event here (NB: the event is not sold out, whatever it may say): https://www.eventbrite.com/e/690133988337?aff=oddtdtcreator

 

Register for the Zoom Livestream here: https://gc-cuny-edu.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_lS2FvpvhS2eIjIJuzlXRkQ#/registration