maarmie's musings

Monday, February 06, 2006

A Death in the Family

Feminist and NOW founder Betty Friedan died of congestive heart failure Saturday at her home in Washington. She was 85. Following are some quotes by the author of "The Feminine Mystique."

"Men are not the enemy, but the fellow victims. The real enemy is women's denigration of themselves."

"When she stopped conforming to the conventional picture of femininity she finally began to enjoy being a woman."

"Each suburban wife struggled with it alone. As she made the beds, shopped for groceries, matched slipcover material, ate peanut butter sandwiches with her children, chauffered Cub Scouts and Brownies, lay beside her husband at night — she was afraid to ask even of herself the silent question — 'Is this all?' "

"No woman gets an orgasm from shining the kitchen floor."

"If divorce has increased by one thousand percent, don't blame the women's movement. Blame the obsolete sex roles on which our marriages were based."

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