Sexy from the start: The Earl Y Years of Second-Wave Feminism

Abstract

Abstract When people think about the early years of the second wave of feminism, many believe, simply, that “Betty Friedan did it all, with maybe a little help from Gloria Steinem.” Until Betty Friedan wrote The Feminine Mystique, the story goes, no one, not even women themselves, understood that sexism existed or that women could make a variety of choices about their lives. In recent years historians have begun to unravel the complexities of the feminists and feminisms that circulated in the 1960s and 1970s, but few acknowledge—never mind consider— Helen Gurley Brown. Yet Sex and the Single Girl, like Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique, introduced feminist thinking to millions of readers, documented both women’s aspirations and their discontents, and refused to apologize for its bold demands for women.