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.
Most of the "career housewives" I am personally aquainted with spend their empty nest years involved in community building as volunteers and fundraisers. A good many care for aged parents also.
The idea that housewives are mind numbed Stepford robots is just silly. Having an intellectual life is not precluded by raising a family.
Thanks Ms. Friedan for making us women who choose being a wife and homemaker as our "career" feel ridiculed, uninformed, ignorant, and stupid. I personally love being a wife and get total fulfullment out of this. It makes me so sad that I continually get flack for this.
Somehow, I never pictured Jesus sounding like a Canadian redneck.
Reading this far into the thread, it would seem that you're wrong. Looks more like a small minority recognize it as a human loss at all.
So I guess she got her chance to tell God that he is a sexist. (SARC)
I think she looks like an old Patricia Ireland. I don't know what it is about these feminazis but they all look alike. Maybe its the cold eyes.
nor the word, "never" without "almost" in front of it!
don't let her and others make you feel less than because of your choices... be confident in knowing that you've chosen a noble path... and try to surround yourself with like-minded people... less flack that way...
I got left out, too. Oh well the days still young. Maybe they will continue the thread.
i plan to go on the "homeschool speaking circuit," write a book or two, and a friend and i plan to develop and sell our own curriculum--which is in the works now--very early stages of development... and then perhaps i can help homeschool my grandchildren... a friend and i want to offer our help to women who would like to homeschool but think they cannot do it... not sure how we would go about this... and i would likely continue my work with the Crisis Pregnancy Centers...
i would also like to somehow do something to promote adoption... all in good time... i will be a very young 53 when our youngest is 18
Lower if your birthday is Feb. 29.
What's really amazing, though, is how many people die less than 6 months from their birthday.
And something like 2 out of 3 die in months with an R in them.
Sounds like a plan to me!
i believe men tend to die right before their birthdays, and women tend to die right after their birthdays... (i believe both are w/in two weeks of the birthday... two weeks before for men and two weeks after for women)...
So what you're saying is . . . I'm gonna get screwed out of some cake?
yes--unless you get in touch with your feminine side and just suck it up for one more birthday... ;-)
All you guys are getting it wrong. It was Andrea Dworkin, and the quote was; "A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle."
There was a lot of truth in her early ideas.
%%
Huh? Not really.
...Raising one's children well, is one of the greatest personal and public achievements there is, despite what communists, feminists and their ilk tell you. ...
&&
Thank you. Thank you. Your response is excellent.
Drives me crazy when people speak of child rearing as if it's just piecework that can be handed off to anyone for a fee. I wonder if these same women with their all important careers would be happy if their husbands spent time being nurtured by other women the way their children are force to spend their days with strangers.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.