Friedan as the original girlboss

Reading The Feminine Mystique as a proto‑managerial manifesto shows second‑wave feminism promoted a specific model: the college‑educated, life‑of‑the‑mind, middle‑class woman as the normative subject of emancipation. That framing both propelled gains (work and autonomy) and sidelined working‑class and nonwhite women's concerns by equating progress with particular classed credentials and aspirations. — Reframing Friedan this way clarifies why many modern feminist debates turn on class, professionalization, and which women's experiences count — affecting policy, movements, and institutional reform.