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.
LOL
Too bad her message won't die with her.
Hey, who was the "famous feminist" (I like saying that)
who recently recanted the error of her ways?
I thought it was Betty Friedan.
I guess I was wrong.
That's a shame. Was she ever married? Did she have any children? grandchildren? greatgrandchildren???
I'm just as upset as the day Bella Abzug died.
Friedan managed to pull off one of the classic "cons" in American intellectual life when she posited herself and her feminist claptrap as the work of "just another average housewife in Levittown." In fact, she was a hardcore Stalinist cadre member since the 1930s in NYC, and, as far as I know, never renounced any of her Communist baggage. Ditto for her husband, another Red.
The original butt-ugly feminist.
Like all other feminists
This canard has always irritated me. Hello! "Educate a man and you have educated him, educate a woman and you have educated the next generation".
The idea that women who stay home with their children are "wasting" their education is one of feminisms greatest and dirtiest lies. What are children, chopped liver?
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. Everything else is chopped liver.
Excellent point.
Her married name was Friedman. She and her husband had a mutual hate relationship.
If her message hadn't resonated it wouldn't have been so widely embraced.
The solutions were harmful to society.
I'm reminded of the old saying, "If you can't say anything nice. . . ." So, my comments follow:
She now faces a Judge the democrats can't filibuster.
I wonder how she did, standing in front of Him?
If there is harm to women we need to look in the mirror and see why some followed a false prophet.
When her book came out, I was a mother of 4 little kids, all a year apart. I had a DH who was not a part-time Mom as is seen now. There was not talk-radio to rehash her book and decipher it. She was supposedly coming to the rescue of women like me.
So---- what was my reaction? I wondered who she was talking about. I remember very clearly my reaction. I already felt free! I already felt that I was an individual and had my own identity. So I quickly labeled her as someone who had her own needs and then went on with my life.
Looking back, I wonder just how far she would have gone, if the public knew of the woman behind the book.
Well put... she was a major part of 70's nonsense.
Women were not going to stay barefoot and in the kitchen, Friedan or no Friedan. She just anticipated the changing economics, and the advent of the pill, and gave it meaning. You can't go home to Kansas Dorothy. It isn't there anymore. The thought of strong independent, intellectual, and accomplished women, just drives some males nuts I guess. Not this one. Any other kind bore me.
There is more to staying home to raise your kids than "watching soap operas".
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