Betty Friedan
Betty Friedan includes herself in her novel as her connection to other women is that she shares the same fate of repression as they do. Friedan conducts numerous interviews throughout the country to learn about how women feel. She also talks about her own experience as a housewife forced to give up her education and career; Friedan gave up her degree in psychology to raise her family. She argues that women should be able to mold an identity for themselves as well as a career, just as men did.
Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud was known as the father of psychoanalysis and tried to create social codes for men and women simply on the basis of sex and sexuality. He thought women were childlike and weak, and that their role was to raise the family and stay in the home. His ideas were extremely influential in American society and he was essentially the opposite of Betty Friedan and what she was trying to do.
Abraham Maslow
Abraham Maslow was a famous American psychologist. He is a shortish man with a thick mustache and is well-known for his hierarchy of needs, his theory of how humans should achieve mental health and fulfill their needs. Betty Friedan goes on great lengths about Maslow's hierarchy and uses his ideas to describe how women are at the bottom of the hierarchy, while men have been allowed to reach the top of the hierarchy.
A. C. Kinsey
A. C. Kinsey was an American sex researcher who published numerous studies concerning the genders and their sexual roles. However, his work was often misinterpreted by the mainstream media and used incorrectly to promote certain social ideals. An example of this occurrence taking place is when one of the early results of his studies said that women with college degrees tend to have less fulfilling sexual roles, a result that was later proved wrong by the remainder of his study. However, by then, the American public had already used this as a means to make sure women stayed at home.
