Farewell Mother Betty

Fellow readers, I have bad news. Betty Friedan, the mother of second wave feminism passed away two weeks ago on her 85th birthday. If you happen to follow feminist media, you already knew this, but unless you clicked on MSN.com shortly before midnight on Feb. 4th, this piece of news probably slipped by. It’s been two weeks, and the media attention I expected for the woman who first posed the question, “Why can’t women have a say in their own destinies?” has been absent.

Maybe it’s due to the fact that she died within a few days of Martin Luther King’s widow, who was an amazing woman in her own right. Perhaps the excitement over the Olympics overshadowed the death of the woman, who in the heyday of The Feminine Mystique caught a world of shit for stating that not all women are cool with getting married, having kids, and living their lives as suburban housewives. Either way, I’m more than a bit pissed at the lack of even just one measly CNN retrospective about Betty’s life.

I’m also surprised at the lack of attention given the fact that there are more women working in the media now than there ever has been. Maybe we should all inform our sisters in media jobs that one of the reasons they are able to collect their 401K benefits is due to Betty raising a ruckus. Nowadays it’s nothing for a woman to proclaim that she has the right to choose a career over family, or decide to be happily married, but childfree, but in the ‘60s when Betty first started voicing her opinion, it was very uncool. That uncoolness often translated into threats of violence, and public hostility.

Let me put it in perspective. Prior to Betty, women who felt unhappy about their lives or felt unfulfilled just being known as some guy’s wife and some kid’s mom were told that the feelings they had were all their own fault. If a woman was unhappy with her marriage, it was her fault. If a woman felt her life could be more than driving the kids to softball practice and making costumes for the school play, she had a mental problem. Before Mother Betty stepped in, women were pigeon-holed into a social role, and were told that if they weren’t happy in that narrow role, they were fucked up, and on top of that, should feel guilty for being fucked up.

Yet, the very act of speaking out against this social attitude and launching the entire second wave movement that allowed women to begin the fight for equal pay, advancement in the workplace, and respect in society, wasn’t worth a lousy Larry King Live featuring guests who knew Betty personally, while taking your phone calls. The Kingster, instead, thought it was more relevant to have a reunion with the cast of Growing Pains. What a crying shame!

I loved Betty for a few reasons, mainly that she was a mouthy Jewish broad who wasn’t about to back down. Even in her advanced age, I saw some sort of debate where she put one of the young, neo-con bucks from Fox right in his place, and by the look on the anti-choicer’s face, he wasn’t expecting it either. I like the fact that she chose to leave this life on her birthday, the very day she started her life 85 years prior. Like everything Betty did, coming full circle in something as basic as the lifecycle, was done so eloquently with precision and poetry.

I know there were criticisms against Betty by other feminists who claim that she didn’t champion the rights of lesbians as well as she could have, or that she seemed to soften a bit in her old age, but give Mother Betty a break; you fight the exact same fight, and only get a few yards rather than a mile, and it’s going to wear you down.

Sadly, Betty ended up passing away in a time where the highest court in the land is stacked to either overturn Roe v. Wade or restrict it so heavily that it might as well never existed. She died knowing that the majority of Bush voters were women, and those ladies who work the same jobs as their male counterparts are still being paid 12 cents less per hour. Betty had an amazing spirit, but as a fellow feminist, I wondered if during her last few years, she just got completely sick of fighting the same fucking fight. Women have so many new and different needs right now, and we can’t address any of them, because we still have to spend all of our time, energy, and financial resources keeping a woman’s right to choose legal. During the duration of my life, now going into its 33rd year, I have never known a time when abortion wasn’t in question, and that’s really pathetic.

I wish Betty could have left this world during a better time for women, when the future looked brighter, but she didn’t. However, I hope, on her deathbed, she was able to look around and realize that asking that simple question, “Why can’t women decide their own destinies?” gave all of the women who came after her amazing opportunities to make of their lives what they wanted. We are able to have a say in our own destinies, and although it’s unfortunate that I don’t speak for all women, on behalf of my like-minded sisters, I wish you a peaceful afterlife, Mother Betty. You will be missed.