Books like Betty Friedan and the Making of "The Feminine Mystique" by Daniel Horowitz

A powerful anthology of essays by Audre Lorde that traces her intellectual evolution, highlights her advocacy for minority women writers, and examines the intersections of sex, race, and class.

Betty Friedan’s 1963 classic uncovers the invisible barriers that kept women confined to domestic roles, sparking a cultural awakening that reshaped ideas about equality and personal fulfillment in the United States.

Judith Butler’s seminal text challenges essentialist views of sex and gender, proposing that identity is constructed through repeated social performances.

Jessica Valenti’s memoir, "Sex Object," recounts her New York City adolescence and young adulthood, exposing the everyday and extreme ways sexism shapes women’s lives through stories of harassment, assault, and personal struggle.

There is no one in the women's movement more renowned or pervasive in her presence, more long-lasting - or more contentious - than Betty Friedan. But what sort of person is she, really? Judith Hennessee has dug deep and come up with a story of a woman of many paradoxes, a woman who survived disastrous moments and who continues to this day to lead, to find new energies and crusades. Before feminism, she focused her activism on fighting for the cause of labor unions against big business. She wanted to be an actress. Her female friends notwithstanding, she was known as the feminist who didn't like women. A champion of the family, she had a lusty and violent marriage. Her husband, Carl, was the first to realize that The Feminine Mystique would be a success - but it was the book and his wife's fame that precipitated the breakup of their marriage. NOW, the first feminist organization she founded, was never meant to be all-inclusive. Friedan envisioned it as a group that would be able to work things out with those in power. Even though she was a founder of three of the most important organizations of the women's movement - NOW, NWPC, NARAL - two of them shunted her aside. And she continually confronted Gloria Steinem, her archrival, over the movement's direction.