The day feminism died

Betty Friedan died on Saturday. When we heard the news on Sunday morning, my husband said, "Who's that?" Wow. He wasn't a Women's Studies major in college, but still -- she's a major cultural icon, a national icon. His excuse: "My mother wasn't a feminist." Well, whose was? I'm a little surprised that he's never even heard the name (but, on the other hand, he'd never heard of Frida Kahlo, or The Chronicles of Narnia, for that matter, so maybe he's just unusually culturally ignorant; though to be fair, I can't name anyone who played for the Yankees, ever, and he knows their names and their stats, going back at least 20 years). But in any case, his lack of awareness does say something about the profile of feminist leaders. We might shrug it off, but wouldn't we be shocked if he'd never even heard of the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr? She was that central. Her book, The Feminist Mystique, is generally credited with starting the women's rights movement, and, more to the point, though she was a homemaker and mother of four, she still dared to ask, can't women aspire to more? Radical is almost too mild a word. In this day and age, it's all taken for granted, but it really wasn't that long ago that a majority of the population didn't even consider the question. She was a very important historical figure and she's someone we should all be on a first name basis with!