Writing in longhand in makeshift workspaces at home while raising three young children, Friedan finally produced a 1,000-page manuscript. It took her five years.
Lacking faith in the book, Friedan's publisher, W.W. Norton, printed only a few thousand hardcover copies in 1963. Friedan did not experience the full force of fame until Dell issued the paperback in 1964. That year, "The Feminine Mystique" became the top-selling nonfiction book in the country.
Much of the initial reaction was hostile. Friedan was cursed, told to seek psychiatric help and accused of posing "more of a threat to the United States than the Russians." She was shunned by neighborhood women who had once been friendly, her children were kicked out of car pools, and her marriage began to crack under the weight of her growing celebrity.
The book's focus on the struggles of educated, middle-class white women was faulted by critics as a major shortcoming. To many black women, more concerned with survival than self-fulfillment, Friedan's emphasis on finding meaningful careers "seemed to come from another planet," according to historian Paula Giddings.
The personal narrative that gave "The Feminine Mystique" much of its power was misleading in another way: By omitting references to Friedan's earlier career as a left-wing journalist, she created the impression that she had never been anything other than a suburban matron.
Years later, biographer Daniel Horowitz would accuse Friedan of obscuring her past to sell books. But Friedan insisted she was only being politically savvy. "It was the McCarthy era ... and I didn't go around parading my left-wing background because it wouldn't have helped in organizing the women's movement," she told The Times in 2000. "On the other hand, I never kept it secret."
Friedan's radical past explains "how she came as a housewife to politicize so deftly the 'problems that have no name,' " said historian Ruth Rosen. "People in the old left got experience in naming things. That's not unimportant. It explains the power of 'The Feminine Mystique.' "
The book received many positive reviews and was excerpted by some of the leading women's magazines Friedan had attacked as messengers of the mystique.
Thousands of women wrote to her and stopped her in the street to pour out the details of their lives, beg for advice or just tell her, "You changed my life."
