Obit: Betty Friedan 1921-2006

Subject: Obit: Betty Friedan 1921-2006
From: bobad
Date: 05 Feb 06 - 09:21 AM

Betty Friedan dies on 85th birthday
Sun, February 5, 2006
The philosopher of feminism is best known for her bestseller The Feminine Mystique.
By AP
                        

WASHINGTON -- Betty Friedan, whose manifesto The Feminine Mystique became a bestseller in the 1960s and laid the foundations for the modern feminist movement, died yesterday on her birthday.

She was 85.

Friedan died at her home of congestive heart failure, said a cousin, Emily Bazelon.

Friedan's assertion in her 1963 book that having a husband and babies was not everything and 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 phoney bill of goods society sold to women that left them unfulfilled, suffering from "the problem that has no name" and seeking a solution in tranquillizers 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, equal promotion opportunities and maternity leave.

But at the same time, Friedan insisted the women's movement had to remain in the U.S. mainstream, that men had to be accepted as allies, and the family should not be rejected.

"Don't get into the bra-burning, anti-man, politics-of-orgasm school," Friedan said in 1970.

To more radical and lesbian feminists, Friedan was "hopelessly bourgeois," Susan Brownmiller wrote at the time.

Friedan, deeply opposed to "equating feminism with lesbianism," conceded later she had been "very square."

Subject: RE: Obit: Betty Friedan 1921-2006
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 05 Feb 06 - 10:44 AM

She was a very important woman in in my formative early adult years. Thanks, Bobad.

Re the last couple of sentences, Friedan was right, it's bigger than just one faction of feminists, and Brownmiller is the one who evolved into more than a bit of a crank.

SRS

Subject: RE: Obit: Betty Friedan 1921-2006
From: katlaughing
Date: 05 Feb 06 - 10:53 AM

She was very inmportant in my young adult years and beyond, too. Thank goodness for her and her pioneering for us all.

Rest well, Sister.

kat

Subject: RE: Obit: Betty Friedan 1921-2006
From: Bonnie Shaljean
Date: 05 Feb 06 - 01:45 PM

Amen to that -

Subject: RE: Obit: Betty Friedan 1921-2006
From: Susanne (skw)
Date: 05 Feb 06 - 08:15 PM

At the time I didn't manage to read her book through, but I believe she has had a tremendous influence and I agree that she helped save the women's movement from a faction that thought lesbians were the better women. A life well lived, so rest in peace, Betty.

Subject: RE: Obit: Betty Friedan 1921-2006
From: Bat Goddess
Date: 06 Feb 06 - 07:37 AM

What you said.

I read "Feminine Mystique" for the first time, I think, in the late '60s (I turned 20 in 1969). Very very influential.

Linn

Subject: RE: Obit: Betty Friedan 1921-2006
From: Janie
Date: 06 Feb 06 - 09:11 AM

What the others have said.

May she rest in peace.

Janie

Subject: RE: Obit: Betty Friedan 1921-2006
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 06 Feb 06 - 10:10 AM

There was a nice rememberance of Friedan on NPR's Morning Edition this morning.

SRS

Subject: RE: Obit: Betty Friedan 1921-2006
From: gnu
Date: 06 Feb 06 - 08:03 PM

RIP.

Subject: RE: Obit: Betty Friedan 1921-2006
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 06 Feb 06 - 11:31 PM

I suspect Betty, like Bella Abzug and Gloria Steinem, was pretty tough. She had to be to get past the derision from classic attacks like those we've seen here. More power to her.

SRS

Subject: RE: Obit: Betty Friedan 1921-2006
From: Joe Offer
Date: 07 Feb 06 - 02:14 AM

This is an obituary thread. Martin Gibson is not welcome to post here. If he does, please do not reply to him. His messages will be removed.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Obit: Betty Friedan 1921-2006
From: Alba
Date: 07 Feb 06 - 05:59 AM

A remarkable Woman, remarkable.
I was given the Feminine Mystique as a gift (and what a Gift it turned out to be!) after a Friend of mine saw I was reading Simone de Beauvoir's, The Second Sex.

Betty Freidan opened my, what was at the time, young mind.

A tireless Pioneer who will always have my gratitude and respect.
As was posted previously and is so apt "A Life well Lived" indeed.
Go peacefully and rest well Betty Friedan.
With Love and Light,
Jude.

Subject: RE: Obit: Betty Friedan 1921-2006
From: katlaughing
Date: 07 Feb 06 - 07:15 AM

Thank you, Joe.

Subject: RE: Obit: Betty Friedan 1921-2006
From: Once Famous
Date: 07 Feb 06 - 12:01 PM

why should obituary threads be censored? or opinions about the one who died be suppressed?

will it be the same way for Osama's obit?

Do we have to honor everyone who died with fluff?

---

If you want to post a reasoned disagreement, that's fine. If you want to post attacks and ridicule in an obituary thread, your messages will be deleted - even in an Osama bin Laden obituary.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Obit: Betty Friedan 1921-2006
From: Emma B
Date: 10 Feb 06 - 11:19 AM

A fitting tribute on BBC's Radio 4 new "Obit" programme this afternoon with a contribution from author Fay Weldon.

Subject: RE: Obit: Betty Friedan 1921-2006
From: David C. Carter
Date: 10 Feb 06 - 11:51 AM

I read-"The Second Sex"-Simone de Beauvoir,then sometime later, read-"The Feminine Mystique",or it could have been the other way round.It does'nt matter anyway.
Tuesday's Guardian had an article by Germaine Greer.A bit of a diatribe really.
I got some stick from a few of the "Guys" where I worked,for having the book with me but.......

David