Feminist Pioneer Betty Friedan
I am getting to feel like an old-timer as the greats pass. This is my 3rd eulogy - Hunter S. Thompson, Eugene McCarthy, now Betty Friedan. My reaction is the same as for many, which is to reflect on my exposure to the person, and the connection with the rest of my life context. I imagine many women, and also some men, are doing the same today.
By 18, I had seen my mother support three children when my father was hospitalized with PTSS. I had seen posters on the walls of the Post Office which showed separate minimum wages for men and women. I had worked the summer at Shell Oil, where there was a rule that women who became pregnant had to stop working. I started college but dropped out and got married. Against the odds, I returned and soon after, was handed a copy of the first issue of "MS" magazine. I read "The Feminine Mystique," by Betty Friedan. Then came Germaine Greer, Gloria Steinem and a consciousness raising group. I dared think I could combine home and career, and I ended up doing it, but with some sacrifices. There are still obstacles for women and we are still fighting for our rights.
Betty Friedan, a pioneer for women’s rights, died at age 85. She wrote after World War II and changed the lives of women everywhere, not just in her home country but all over the world. Her assertion that women needed more than a husband and children was a radical break from the thinking of those times. She encouraged women to develop their own life. She wrote, “A woman has got to be able to say, and not feel guilty, ‘Who am I, and what do I want out of life?' She mustn't feel selfish and neurotic if she wants goals of her own, outside of husband and children.''
Betty studied psychology and journalism and was later fired as a reporter because she was pregnant with her second child. She was married for 22 years and allegedly a survivor of domestic abuse. The was the mother of 3 children, one of whom is a noted physicist. When she attended her 15th Smith College reunion, she surveyed her classmates and no women's magazine would print her findings. She reworked and expanded them into "The Feminine Mystique," which depicted the roles of women in industrial societies, including ways in which women were stifled. The first printing of 3000 for "The Feminine Mystique" eventually grew to 600,000 hardcover and more then 2,000,000 paperback. Betty wrote "The Second Stage" in 1981 and “The Fountain of Age” was her last book.
Betty Friedan opened doors for women of my generation, including Hillary Clinton, who said Friedan “opened doors and minds, breaking down barriers for women and enlarging opportunities for women and men for generations to come. We are all the beneficiaries of her vision.'' Eleanor Smeal, of MS magazine and Kim Gandy of NOW described how Betty was a catalyst for improving status of mens and womens lives worldwide. Friedan was the first president of NOW in 1966. At the time, the ideas of equal pay and maternity leave were quite radical. Yet some of the more radical feminists considered Friedan "bourgeois" because of her contention that men should be allies and that the home remained important. She came to respect lesbian rights as part of women's rights, and later moved on to the rights of the elderly.
Friedan worked to have the federal government enforce the Civil Rights Act as it applied to sex, race, religion and national origin. Friedan founded NOW in response to federal inaction. Women came out across the country on the 50th anniversary of women's suffrage, in 1970. She founded the National Conference for Repeal of Abortion Laws, whch became the National Abortion Rights Action League. She founded the National Women's Political Causus in 1971. She began working to have the federal government enforce the Civil Rights Act as it applied to sex and not only to race, religion and national origin.
Founding NOW was a response to federal inaction. The finale of Friedan's presidency was the national women's strike of August 1970, which brought women out across the country on the 50th anniversary of women's suffrage. She also was a founder in 1968 of the National Conference for Repeal of Abortion Laws, which became the National Abortion Rights Action League, and of the National Women's Political Caucus in 1971. She taught at NYU and Univ. of Southern California and travelled to women's conferences around the world. She helped get the Democratic Party to give women half the delegates at its nominatng convention and was a delegate in 1984 when Geraldine Ferraro was nominated for vice president.
Quote
"The problem that has no name — which is simply the fact that American women are kept from growing to their full human capacities — is taking a far greater toll on the physical and mental health of our country than any known disease."
- Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique, 1963. NY: Dell Publ., 1974.
Friedan, Betty. Fountain of Age, Paperback Edition, Simon and Schuster 1994 ISBN 0671898531
Friedan, Betty. It Changed My Life: Writings on the Women's Movement, Hardcover Edition, Random House Inc. 1978 ISBN 0394463986
Friedan, Betty. Life So Far, Paperback Edition, Simon and Schuster 2000 ISBN 0684807890
Friedan, Betty. The Feminine Mystique, Hardcover Edition, W.W. Norton and Company Inc. 1963 ISBN 0393084361
Friedan, Betty. The Second Stage, Paperback Edition, Abacus 1983 ASIN B000BGRCRC
Hennessee, Judith. Betty Friedan: Her Life, Hardcover Edition, Random House 1999 ISBN 0679432035
Henry, Sondra. Taitz, Emily. Betty Friedan: Fighter For Women's Rights, Hardcover Edition, Enslow Publishers 1990 ISBN 089490292X
Meltzer, Milton. Betty Friedan: A Voice For Women's Rights, Hardcover Edition, Viking Press 1985 ISBN 0670807869
Taylor-Boyd, Susan. Betty Friedan: Voice For Women's Rights, Advocate of Human Rights, Hardcover Edition, Gareth Stevens Publishing 1990 ISBN 0836801040
Obituaries
Betty Friedan, philosopher of modern-day feminism, dies - CNN, February 4, 2006.
Betty Friedan, Who Ignited Cause in 'Feminine Mystique,' Dies at 85 - The New York Times, February 5, 2006.
“Voice of Feminism's 'Second Wave',” The Washington Post, February 5, 2006.
“Betty Friedan, Philosopher Of Modern-day Feminism, Dies,” Los Angeles Times, February 4, 2006.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betty_Friedan
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uslatest/story/0,,-5595423,00.html
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