Essays
Betty Friedan
(February 4, 1921-February 4, 2006)
by Carrie Wheat
"A woman has got to be able to say, and not feel guilty,
'Who am I, and what do I want out of life?'"
-The Feminist Mystique
She was the original Desperate Housewife. Betty Friedan, catalyst for the second wave of feminism died on February 4th, her 85th birthday. Friedan was an integral part in organizing women to advance themselves and their place in American Society. Often controversial, she was not always on the same page as her fellow feminists. She believed in the love of a good man and in the institution of marriage; she just couldn't accept the role of women in these traditional relationships.
Friedan was born Bettye Naomi Goldstein in Peoria, Illinois in the early 1920s. Her father had a successful jewelry store and her mother was a housewife. Early on Friedan became interested in Marxist philosophy and radical politics. She attended Smith College in 1938 where she edited the campus newspaper and graduated summa cum laude in 1942. Soon after graduation, she continued her schooling at The University of California at Berkley; she studied psychology. This path proved disagreeable, so she began a journalism career with a leftist union newspaper. After marrying Carl Friedman (the m dropped after their marriage), Friedan was forced to leave her journalism job when she found out she was pregnant with her second child.
Probably most revered for her 1963 book The Feminist Mystique, which criticized the role of educated women in marital institutions in the Industrial Age, Friedan became interested in the topic when she found out at a reunion for Smith graduates that many of the bright and talented women who were her classmates were disenchanted with their lives of dedication to husbands and children. Friedan recognized that these women needed an outlet for their intellect and their educations, an outlet that was ignored by doctors and psychologists of the time who often prescribed tranquilizers.
In today's age of multitasking and do-it-all moms, the idea of women's autonomy to pursue their dreams of education and career seems a given, yet Friedan's ideals were wildly radical in the baby and suburban booms of the Eisenhower era. She gave a name to a problem that had none before and believed that women should be able to say... 'Who am I and what do I want out of life?'" Kim Gandy, the current president of the National Organization of Women (NOW), which was founded by Friedan and other likeminded women, says of The Feminine Mystique that it "...changed women's lives. It opened women's mind to the idea that there might be something more. And for women who secretly harbored such unpopular thoughts, it told them that there was other women out there like them who thought there might be something more to life."
Although a radical thinker and pioneer, oftentimes Friedan clashed with other members of the women's movement for her ideals that the movement must stay in the mainstream, that men had to be accepted as allies, and that the family should not be rejected. Because of these opinions, she sometimes alienated women in alternative lifestyles. Friedan was thought to be "hopelessly bourgeois" by Susan Brownmiller, a radical lesbian feminist of the time. However, a woman of contradictions, Friedan backed a resolution on protecting lesbian rights at a National Women's Conference in 1977.
Late into life, Friedan moved from challenging the status of women in society to challenging the status of the elderly. Her book The Fountain of Age was published in 1993 and spoke of the patronizing and lack of compassion and understanding that faced people as they aged. She believed that the plight of the elderly was much like that of women and she wanted to be a voice for both. To date Friedan's books have sold in the millions and The Feminine Mystique was listed in New York University's Survey of the Top 100 examples of the best journalism of all time.
Even though later in life Friedan turned her focus to concerns of the elderly, she would be the first to admit that there are still a plethora of issues in gender that have yet to be put forth and conquered. Unfortunately, women still make less than men for similar work, traditionally female jobs are still the lower paid occupations, and many fields are still greatly male dominated. Women now feel the pressure to "do it all" and are worn out as a consequence; the media still prioritizes women's physical appearance with eating disorders and poor body image as consequences. Women today are still out of touch with how their bodies function and their physical and mental problems are still often written off with pills and little explanation. We have "Come a Long Way, Baby" with the help of our foremothers like Betty Friedan. One can only hope that as women today, we are not afraid to use our experiences as reason for change and our education and voices as a catalyst for the improvement of women's lives.
read past essays:
Dreaming in Pink and White by LorSandro
Redefinition or Dismissal? The Evolution of Feminism on College Campuses by Sandra Cunningham
On & Off the Field: Finding Faith in Rugby
by Becky Fall