Posted on 02/04/2006 1:10:18 PM PST by GeneD
WASHINGTON - Betty Friedan, whose manifesto "The Feminine Mystique" became a best seller in the 1960s and laid the groundwork for the modern feminist movement, died Saturday, her birthday. She was 85.
Friedan died at her home of congestive heart failure, according to a cousin, Emily Bazelon.
Friedan's assertion in her 1963 best seller that having a husband and babies was not everything and that women should aspire to separate identities as individuals, was highly unusual, if not revolutionary, just after the baby and suburban booms of the Eisenhower era.
The feminine mystique, she said, was a phony bill of goods society sold to women that left them unfulfilled, suffering from "the problem that has no name" and seeking a solution in tranquilizers and psychoanalysis.
"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," Friedan said.
In the racial, political and sexual conflicts of the 1960s and '70s, Friedan's was one of the most commanding voices and recognizable presences in the women's movement.
As a founder and first president of the National Organization for Women in 1966, she staked out positions that seemed extreme at the time on such issues as abortion, sex-neutral help-wanted ads, equal pay, promotion opportunities and maternity leave.
I would have to respectfully say that every case of an abortion that I am familiar with was done for convenience sake. Sometimes they would come up with a creative rationalization(s). But the bottom line was that they did not want to have the responsibility for that child.
First Al Lewis, then her, I wonder if God will smote another loony liberal celebrity today.
She was a Stalinist and a professional communist propagandist for decades before hitting it big with "The Feminine Mystique." See her bio at DiscovertheNetwork.com...
The article said she was romantically involved with a Communist. You think Fridan's thoughts about woman are part of the Communist conspiracy? Whatever.
"Mother" Sheehan, must have done a good job, because her son died a hero. She is nuts now however.
I would have remembered Germaine Greer. I checked and it was Irina Dunn, who is little known here. There was an article here on FR or somewhere recently about it.
The quote was actually from Irina Dunn.
Well Greer is the feminist Aussie who is well known. It brings back memories of my youth. That is not all bad. :)
No, I said that she was a veteran communist and Stalinist before she became famous, which happens to be true.
"Yet Friedan was in fact no suburban housewife when she wrote those words; rather, she was a twenty-five-year veteran of professional journalism in the Communist Left, which promoted the idea that women were "oppressed." Friedan was familiar with the writings of Engels, Lenin, and Stalin on the subject, and had written about it herself as a journalist for the official publication of the IUE."
You'd probably have done better to actually read the article before dismissing it...
Yes, she is well known, and she was much more of an intellectual than most the known U.S. feminists.
And she was a looker to boot. I just looked up some more recent articles on her and she's still touting the same old junk; obviously wisdom doesn't always come with age, but, as a feminist, she was one of the best looking ones. As we've observed over the years, the majority of ardent feminazis are, shall we say, highly unattractive? I'm being kind.
as an educated woman who stays home and raises her children, i can assure you i do not stay home and watch soap operas... ick!
i married when i was 31, became a mother when i was 36... so yes, for 12-14 years, my career was outside the home... but now that i am home, i would never consider it a waste of my education...
I'm familiar with the writings of Marx/Engels, but not with Stalin and Lenin. What did they write about women? In fact, what did Marx/Engels write about women?
I disagree with about 90% of everything you post. This one bumps the percentage up higher.
My present wife is strong, independent, intellectual and has delighted me no end for nearly 35 years. But the woman I was married to in the 1960s who bore my 3 children bought Friedan's line of destructive anti-male bigotry all the way. It destroyed our marriage, her life, my children's lives and nearly cost me mine. Friedan and the male-hating Sisterhood have brought similar pain and desolation to countless thousands of marriages over the years.
Now, in middle age, my daughters realize all they ever really wanted out of life were good marriages, children and the kind of settled situations they're now finding -- after years of brainwashing to pursue "careers," abortions and the disillusionment of trying to 'have it all'. Friedan was cynical and political and I do not mourn her passing in the least. Good riddance!
What is the now less than 5% you still agree with me on?
If this makes you unhappy, as it would seem, I suggest you take it up with Horowitz.
By the way, I said "some" males. Lawyers almost never use the word "all."
No.
I don't want to go there.
Didn't the Man-Hating aspects of Feminism come later though with Gloria Steinam and her ilk? Friedan had expressed distaste for what the Feminist movement has become (Lesbian advocacy).
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