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.
LOLOL!! Some of you FReepers should do stand-up. I can't wait to read the responses when Ted Kennedy kicks the bucket.
Riverside Chapel isn't Jewish, is it?
My question was answered in Post 150. Thanks.
Friedan just didn't believe in Satan, I would imagine. She saw "good" as "evil" and "evil" as "good," like so many today.
Greer:
"I couldn't believe that Betty Friedan said Clinton hasn't done anything wrong. Here he is fucking the faces of little girls and she says she doesn't care! She says Clinton's good on women's issues. Like access to abortion? Gee, thanks, that's all we ever wanted, to be scraped out."
You can send in your tribute here:
http://www.now.org/history/friedan-tribute.html
You are absolutely right that raising children is the greatest and best of life's work. But children grow up. And women live to be 85.
What are they supposed to do for the rest of their life?
That said, I cannot find a single good word to speak of her.
Another rich commie bites the dust.
Goodbye, Betty you had a good life.
We won't have to see your ugly mug anymore.
Has the NYT published their usual "she was the greatest women who ever lived" Obit yet?
While not "glad" Friedan is gone, I am not "sad," either. She left a legacy that has screwed up so many women.
In fairness, the "women's movement" had healthy beginnings. There were injustices to women, and many intellectual women had trouble adjusting to traditional roles & expectations. Thanks to feminism, these women could find other avenues of expression, creatively & professionally. Some women really are happier being in careers than maternity outfits.
Unfortunately, the story of the feminist movement became the tail wagging the dog. As Friedan herself had said, the kooks took over. These women, who were a minority comprised of lesbians & misfits, thought they could represent all women. And they inculcated many with the vilest ideas.
Maybe had Friedan not been so roaring secular & leftwing, she would have appreciated the traditional woman's role more. Maybe now, wherever she is, she has seen the light.
Can't be. No way.
That's an ugly bald New York man with a wig.
The odds are pretty low. What's really amazing, though, is how many people die less than 6 months from their birthday.
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