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Marilyn French, Novelist and Champion of Feminism, Dies at 79
NYT ^ | 05/03/09 | A. G. SULZBERGER and HERBERT MITGANG

Posted on 05/04/2009 12:34:54 PM PDT by Borges

Marilyn French, a writer and feminist activist whose debut novel, “The Women’s Room,” propelled her into a leading role in the modern feminist movement, died on Saturday in Manhattan. She was 79 and lived in Manhattan.

The cause was heart failure, said her son, Robert.

With steely views about the treatment of woman and a gift for expressing them on the printed page, Ms. French transformed herself from an academic who quietly bristled at the expectations of married women in the post-World War II era to a leading, if controversial, opinionmaker on gender issues who decried the patriarchal society she saw around her. “My goal in life is to change the entire social and economic structure of Western civilization, to make it a feminist world,” she once declared.

Her first and best-known novel, “The Women’s Room,” released in 1977, traces a submissive housewife’s journey of self-discovery following her divorce in the 1950s, describing the lives of Mira Ward and her friends in graduate school at Harvard as they grow into independent women. The book was partly informed by her own experience of leaving an unhappy marriage and helping her daughter deal with the aftermath of being raped. Women all over the world seized on the book, which sold more than 20 million copies and was translated into 20 languages.

(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society
KEYWORDS: 2009obituary; allmenarerapists; feminazis; feminazism; savethemales; sexist; thewomensroom
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To: a fool in paradise

Nothing relevant (no quotes regarding those events) in the first page of google matches:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22Marilyn+French%22+%22bill+clinton%22&aq=f&oq=


21 posted on 05/04/2009 1:53:01 PM PDT by a fool in paradise (IRONY - we know more about the First Dog's historical papers than we do of President Barack.)
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To: socialismisinsidious

Isn’t Andrea Dworkin another one of the “all sex is rape” feminiminists? With “friends” like that, the average woman needs no enemies.


22 posted on 05/04/2009 1:58:47 PM PDT by fleagle ( An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last. -Winston Churchill)
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To: a fool in paradise

As of now she’s really good at sleeping.


23 posted on 05/04/2009 2:08:10 PM PDT by Slings and Arrows (Israel is built on rock. Arabia is built on sand.)
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To: Borges
I'm sure her life could have been saved or prolonged, if it were not for the backward policies of pro-life republicans.
24 posted on 05/04/2009 2:17:42 PM PDT by smokingfrog ( Don't mess with the mockingbird! /\/\ http://tiny.cc/freepthis)
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To: fleagle

Dworkin died a few years ago.


25 posted on 05/04/2009 3:26:08 PM PDT by Borges
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To: Borges

She is no doubt mourned by a house full of cats.

SnakeDoc


26 posted on 05/04/2009 3:27:55 PM PDT by SnakeDoctor ("The night is darkest just before the dawn -- but I promise you, the dawn is coming." -- Harvey Dent)
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To: Borges
a leading, if controversial, opinionmaker on gender issues who decried the patriarchal society she saw around her.

In other words, she was a sexist hatemonger.

27 posted on 05/04/2009 4:19:40 PM PDT by TChad
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To: gun_supporter

It’s good when powerful people doing evil die and are dead.


28 posted on 05/05/2009 10:32:59 AM PDT by mbarker12474 (If thine enemy offend thee, give his childe a drum.)
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