Family Life as a Zero-Sum Game

The first appearance of the new definition of woman was not intended to disrupt family life. The writing of Betty Friedan, the first Statement of Purpose of NOW, the findings of Masters and Johnson, and even the recipes in The Joy of Sex did not imagine that an active and liberated woman would war on her husband or her children. On the contrary, they all believed that woman as person would be a better wife and mother. Her energy and activity would make the home a more interesting, more exciting, and more satisfying place.

To Friedan, the ideal feminist was both a working wife and a mother. Liberated women were “not battleaxes or manhaters,” and she noted with pride that “there are men in our own ranks.&#...