Publish to Newswire
Add an EventFrom the Open-Publishing Calendar
From the Open-Publishing Newswire
Indybay Feature
NOW Honors Betty Friedan: Groundbreaking Author, NOW Founder
Today the National Organization for Women (NOW) and the nation celebrate the life and legacy of Betty Friedan, one of the founders of NOW and the modern women's rights movement.
For Immediate Release
Contact: Lisa Bennett, 202-628-8669, ext. 123; cell 202-641-1906
In Memoriam: Betty Friedan
Honoring Groundbreaking Author, a NOW Founder and First President
Today the National Organization for Women (NOW) and the nation celebrate the life and legacy of Betty Friedan, one of the founders of NOW and the modern women's rights movement.
"Freidan wrote The Feminine Mystique in 1963, and it opened women's eyes," said NOW President Kim Gandy. "Betty recognized a longing in the women of her generation, a longing for something more -- opportunity, recognition, fulfillment, success, a chance to live their own dreams beyond the narrow definition of 'womanhood' that had limited their lives."
In June, 1966, Betty Friedan and 27 other women and men founded NOW, which has grown into the United States' largest feminist organization. Later that year she was elected NOW's first president, and her fame as an author helped attract hundreds of thousands of women to the new organization. Friedan and Dr. Pauli Murray co-authored NOW's original Statement of Purpose, which began, "The purpose of NOW is to take action to bring women into full participation in the mainstream of American society now, exercising all the privileges and responsibilities thereof in truly equal partnership with men."
Friedan was NOW's president from 1966 to 1970. During that time we lobbied the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to enforce laws against sex discrimination in employment, and to ban ads that were segregated by sex. We forced airlines to change their policies that permitted only female flight attendants, and required them to resign once they married or turned 32. And in a key achievement, NOW convinced President Johnson to sign an Executive Order barring sex discrimination by federal contractors. In 1968, NOW became the first national organization to endorse the legalization of abortion.
Gandy remembers that time: "Betty led NOW through those first few turbulent years after our founding in 1966, when we were challenging every orthodoxy about what it meant to be a woman -- about what it would mean to have control over your own body and your own life, and not be limited by other peoples' stereotypes."
Latifa Lyles, elected a national Vice President of NOW last year at age 29, says of Friedan,"The movement that was sparked by The Feminine Mystique continues today to inspire women of my generation to take action to achieve full equality."
The organization she led celebrates its 40th anniversary this year. Gandy says, "She sparked a movement that is larger and stronger than ever –- made up of women who expect equality and equal opportunity for ourselves and our daughters, and the men who stand with us."
Add Your Comments
Comments
(Hide Comments)
Have as much fun as possible! You've earned it. RIP
It's important to note that while Betty Freidan did play an important role in white middle-class feminism, there are a lot of perspectives that she may not have been accountable to - namely, the Feminisms of poor women, women of color, and those that were not necessarily heterosexual, to list a few.
Some important authors you should read:
bell hooks
Audre Lorde
Combahee River Collective
Gloria Anzaldua
Betita Martinez
Some important authors you should read:
bell hooks
Audre Lorde
Combahee River Collective
Gloria Anzaldua
Betita Martinez
"I see you as an egotistic, racist , anti-semitic woman hater"
That's because you've bought into a whole array of identity bullshit talking points that enable you to play the underdog and claim the moral high ground in any number of situations. Also, you just simply don't want to face thet your whole position on Israel is bullshit. Meanwhile, I've completely seen through all that bullshit, it don' work on me no mo'. "Identity politics" is just a clever game played by people who are themselves the nastiest most brazen bigot assholes around.
I bring the same mind to bear on this stuff as on environmental subjects. It all comes out of a unitary viewpoint, and I can do it because I *reject* assumptions. You really don't understand what this means. You've claimed I'm "more educated" than you. That's not it at all. Lots of absorbed doctrine would only interfere.
There is no such thing as "identity," it's a politically useful fallacy. Everything is integral to everything else, and ancient people KNEW THIS!!
Chief Luther Standing Bear (Oglalla Lakota; 1868-1939):
"True, the white man brought great change. But the varied fruits of his civilization, though highly colored and inviting, are sickening and deadening. And if it be the part of civilization to maim, rob, and thwart, then what is progress? I am going to venture that the man who sat on the ground in his tipi [the home of one's inner spirit] meditating on life and its meaning, accepting the kinship of all creatures, and acknowledging unity with the universe of things, was infusing into his being the true essence of civilization. And when native man left off this form of development, his humanization was retarded in growth."
Black Elk (Oglala Lakota holy man; 1863-1950)
Speaking of the final crushing of the Sioux Nation at Wounded Knee, 1890:
"...we broke camp next day and went down from the O-ona-gazhee to Pine Ridge, and many, many Lakotas were already there. Also, there were many, many soldiers. They stood in two lines with their guns held in front of them as we went through to where we camped.
And so it was all over.
I did not know then how much was ended. When I look back now from this high hill of my old age, I can still see the butchered women and children lying heaped and scattered all along the crooked gulch as plain as when I saw them with eyes still young. And I can see that something else died there in the bloody mud, and was buried in the blizzard. A people's dream died there. It was a beautiful dream.
And I, to whom so great a vision was given in my youth,--you see me now a pitiful old man who has done nothing, for the nation's hoop is broken and scattered. There is no center any longer, and the sacred tree is dead."
Poetry was not just showy word-games for them. It was their intellectual-emotional frame for everything. In a left-brained way we've left them far behind, but in a right-brained sense they were giants walking the earth compared to the weird mutants we've become. This has been our unbearably tragic loss
They were also tribalists, to be sure, but in their world this was completely adaptive. In ours it's not. Our power has made it omnicidal.
I can see these things, Tia, and it is from this place that I see your bigot religion as the foul toxin, the black deadly kool-aid, that it truly is. You simply don't want to face this. I see these things through the window of my Ancient Soul. Jews understand and value this dimension of the mind, do they not?
That's because you've bought into a whole array of identity bullshit talking points that enable you to play the underdog and claim the moral high ground in any number of situations. Also, you just simply don't want to face thet your whole position on Israel is bullshit. Meanwhile, I've completely seen through all that bullshit, it don' work on me no mo'. "Identity politics" is just a clever game played by people who are themselves the nastiest most brazen bigot assholes around.
I bring the same mind to bear on this stuff as on environmental subjects. It all comes out of a unitary viewpoint, and I can do it because I *reject* assumptions. You really don't understand what this means. You've claimed I'm "more educated" than you. That's not it at all. Lots of absorbed doctrine would only interfere.
There is no such thing as "identity," it's a politically useful fallacy. Everything is integral to everything else, and ancient people KNEW THIS!!
Chief Luther Standing Bear (Oglalla Lakota; 1868-1939):
"True, the white man brought great change. But the varied fruits of his civilization, though highly colored and inviting, are sickening and deadening. And if it be the part of civilization to maim, rob, and thwart, then what is progress? I am going to venture that the man who sat on the ground in his tipi [the home of one's inner spirit] meditating on life and its meaning, accepting the kinship of all creatures, and acknowledging unity with the universe of things, was infusing into his being the true essence of civilization. And when native man left off this form of development, his humanization was retarded in growth."
Black Elk (Oglala Lakota holy man; 1863-1950)
Speaking of the final crushing of the Sioux Nation at Wounded Knee, 1890:
"...we broke camp next day and went down from the O-ona-gazhee to Pine Ridge, and many, many Lakotas were already there. Also, there were many, many soldiers. They stood in two lines with their guns held in front of them as we went through to where we camped.
And so it was all over.
I did not know then how much was ended. When I look back now from this high hill of my old age, I can still see the butchered women and children lying heaped and scattered all along the crooked gulch as plain as when I saw them with eyes still young. And I can see that something else died there in the bloody mud, and was buried in the blizzard. A people's dream died there. It was a beautiful dream.
And I, to whom so great a vision was given in my youth,--you see me now a pitiful old man who has done nothing, for the nation's hoop is broken and scattered. There is no center any longer, and the sacred tree is dead."
Poetry was not just showy word-games for them. It was their intellectual-emotional frame for everything. In a left-brained way we've left them far behind, but in a right-brained sense they were giants walking the earth compared to the weird mutants we've become. This has been our unbearably tragic loss
They were also tribalists, to be sure, but in their world this was completely adaptive. In ours it's not. Our power has made it omnicidal.
I can see these things, Tia, and it is from this place that I see your bigot religion as the foul toxin, the black deadly kool-aid, that it truly is. You simply don't want to face this. I see these things through the window of my Ancient Soul. Jews understand and value this dimension of the mind, do they not?
What you see as identity politics is me simply responding to a series of personal attacks. You attack me as a woman, I respond as a woman. You attack me as a Jew, I respond as a Jew. I know that I am more than the sum of my parts. You don't seem to.
You exhibit an unusual clarity of vision when you discuss the environmental issues that are close to my heart. But is difficult for me to work through the tremendous personal animosity of our past interactions... for me the moral high ground is an aspiration, not a achievement. I'm not there yet.
You exhibit an unusual clarity of vision when you discuss the environmental issues that are close to my heart. But is difficult for me to work through the tremendous personal animosity of our past interactions... for me the moral high ground is an aspiration, not a achievement. I'm not there yet.
We are 100% volunteer and depend on your participation to sustain our efforts!
Donate
$140.00 donated
in the past month
Get Involved
If you'd like to help with maintaining or developing the website, contact us.
Publish
Publish your stories and upcoming events on Indybay.
Topics
More
Search Indybay's Archives
Advanced Search
►
▼
IMC Network