Bibliofemme News
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06/02/2006
Feminist icon Betty Friedan dies, aged 85
American feminist writer Betty Friedan, whose 1963 bestseller The Feminine
Mystique was credited with giving voice to modern feminism, has died aged
85.
Friedan died at her home in Washington, DC of congestive heart failure on
Saturday, her birthday.
Friedan's assertion that having a husband and babies were not everything,
and that women should aspire to separate identities, was almost
revolutionary just after the post-war baby boom.
The Feminine Mystique helped reshape American attitudes toward women's
aspirations and rights.
Friedan went on to found the National Organization for Women (NOW) in 1966
and fought for equal pay, gender-free job ads, maternity leave and legal
abortion.
She also insisted the women's movement had to remain in the mainstream and
that men had to be accepted as allies.
"Don't get into the bra-burning, anti-man, politics-of-orgasm school,"
Friedan told a US college audience in 1970.
Activists and politicians paid tribute to Friedan on Sunday, saying that the
founder of the modern feminist movement was a force in their own lives.
"Through a life of social activism and powerful writing, she opened doors
and minds, breaking down barriers for women and enlarging opportunities for
women and men for generations to come," said Democratic Senator Hillary
Rodham Clinton of New York. "We are all the beneficiaries of her vision."
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