Thank you, Betty Friedan
It's a shame that so many young women (and some older ones as well) don't know what broad shoulders they stand on. No pun intended. We just assume the rights we take for granted have always been there. A paragraph jumped out at me from Betty Friedan's NYT obit.
I remember those "Help Wanted - Men" "Help Wanted - Women" ads. Men got to be mechanics, carpenters, truck drivers, doctors, college professors. Women could be babysitters, nurses, secretaries and school teachers. All low paying jobs designed to tide her over until Prince Charming came along. And then welcome to second-class citizenship: if you were a married woman you couldn't own property in your own name, establish your own credit, etc. Even after a divorce, the law continued to give Prince Charming control over his ex-wife's life.
I remember my mother wanting to go back to her maiden name after divorcing my step-father and getting all manner of grief from the authorities about it. She was asked if she had her ex-husband's permission! This was in the early 70's. Holy Christ. They wouldn't let her do it. But, they would let her create a hyphenated version of her name using her maiden name and his. Gack. She did that for a few years and then quietly dropped the drunken bum's name.
I also remember how society looked at my mother, a divorced woman. Too bad she had to support those kids, all she needed was a good "servicing" and she would be fine.
It was women like Betty Friedan that helped open the door for my mother to become a computer programmer in the late 70's. She rode feminism's wave, though sadly, I doubt that she would verbally admit it now, but it's the truth. Yes, Mom got where she is on her own power, but if it hadn't been for women like Betty Friedan, there wouldn't have been a wave to ride. Submit To Propeller
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Though in later years, some feminists dismissed Ms. Friedan's work as outmoded, a great many aspects of modern life that seem routine today — from unisex Help Wanted ads to women in politics, medicine, the clergy and the military — are the direct result of the hard-won advances she helped women attain.
I remember those "Help Wanted - Men" "Help Wanted - Women" ads. Men got to be mechanics, carpenters, truck drivers, doctors, college professors. Women could be babysitters, nurses, secretaries and school teachers. All low paying jobs designed to tide her over until Prince Charming came along. And then welcome to second-class citizenship: if you were a married woman you couldn't own property in your own name, establish your own credit, etc. Even after a divorce, the law continued to give Prince Charming control over his ex-wife's life.
I remember my mother wanting to go back to her maiden name after divorcing my step-father and getting all manner of grief from the authorities about it. She was asked if she had her ex-husband's permission! This was in the early 70's. Holy Christ. They wouldn't let her do it. But, they would let her create a hyphenated version of her name using her maiden name and his. Gack. She did that for a few years and then quietly dropped the drunken bum's name.
I also remember how society looked at my mother, a divorced woman. Too bad she had to support those kids, all she needed was a good "servicing" and she would be fine.
It was women like Betty Friedan that helped open the door for my mother to become a computer programmer in the late 70's. She rode feminism's wave, though sadly, I doubt that she would verbally admit it now, but it's the truth. Yes, Mom got where she is on her own power, but if it hadn't been for women like Betty Friedan, there wouldn't have been a wave to ride. Submit To Propeller
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posted by cls at
2/05/2006
