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BETTY FRIEDAN'S ROLE AS REFORMER IN THE

WOMEN'S LIBERATION MOVEMENT, 1960-1970

Glenda F. Hodges

Submitted to the Graduate College of Bowling Green State University in partial fulfillment of < the requirements for the degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

June 1980

Approved:

Advisor VITA

April 12, 1951...... Born - Selma, North Carolina

1972 ...... B.A. - Virginia State College, Petersburg, Virginia

1972 - 1973 ...... Research Assistant - National Institute for Automotive Service Excellence, Washington, D.C.

1975 ...... M.A. - Howard University, Washington, D.C.

1975 - 1977 ...... Instructor, Tuskegee Institute, Tuskegee, Alabama

1977 - 1979 ...... Assistant Director, Basic Speech Course, Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, Ohio

FIELDS OF STUDY

Major Field: Interpersonal and Public Communication

Studies in Interpersonal Communication. Dr. James Wilcox

Studies in Public Address. Dr. Raymond Yeager

Studies in Persuasion. Dr. John Rickey

Studies in Rhetoric. Dr. Donald Enholm

Studies in Human Communication and Research Design. Dr. Raymond Tucker

Studies in Business Management. Dr. William Hoskins Ill

ABSTRACT

The activities of the sixties that addressed the issue of women’s rights have been given considerable attention by historians. These activities called for justice and equality for women through legal reform.

Betty Goldstein Friedan, noted women's rights advocater, has been regarded by some historians as one of the leaders that attempted to change status-quo conditions of the sixties, relative to women's equal­ ity. Friedan's publication of The Feminine Mystique, in 1963, cautioned women that they did not have to adhere to society's image that supposedly prescribed their lifestyles. Betty Friedan noted that there is often a discrepancy between what women feel they want to achieve and what society has mandated that they attempt to achieve. This "problem that has no name" has beset women of all educational and income levels and walks of life.

Friedan's rhetoric challenged women to organize their efforts and mobilize for collective action by initiating a movement that would have as its goals, justice and equality for women. The temper of the times of the early sixties provided the impetus that allowed women to proclaim their outcry for equality. As founder and first president of the

National Organization for Women (NOW), Betty Friedan was able to pro­ mote her moderate ideology and espouse through her speeches, the cause of women's justice and equality.

The decade upon which this study focuses represents an era in which women of America forged their own theory of direct action against the establishment. It also represents a period in which Betty Friedan IV

attempted to articulate the ill-defined problems of American women.

Friedan's rhetorical strategies, during the decade, attempted to call

for change through legal reform. As facilitator, mediator and con­

temporary rhetor, Betty Friedan gained national prominence through

her efforts in the struggle for women's rights.

The study seeks to examine the strategies and tactics that Friedan

utilized during the women's liberation movement. Eleven of Friedan's

manuscripts provide the background materials that are used for rhetori­

cal analysis. The manuscripts, obtained from the Arthur and Elizabeth

Schlesinger Library at Radcliffe College, provide valuable insight

relative to Friedan's particular style of speaking. Such an examina­

tion of Friedan's manuscripts will aid in determining major propositions

advocated by Betty Friedan as well as assessing her impact as reformer

on the.movement for women's rights.

The method of,critical analysis used in this study is an assess­

ment of the text of 11 of Friedan's manuscripts relative to the follow­

ing factors: audience, occasion, purpose, major/minor propositions,

strategy, attitudes toward traditional women and traditional men. This

examination enhances the determination of Friedan's role as reformer in

the women's rights movement. The confrontative and agitative strategies

that were advocated by Friedan are given considerable attention in the

s tudy.

During the decade of this study, Betty Friedan challenged women to

assist her in her rhetorical efforts for women's equality. She examined what she believed were the injustices accorded the sex that constitutes

53 per cent of the world's population. Friedan's abilities as a com­ V

municator aided her in expressing the feelings of women of America.

As a result of this ability, she became one of the leaders of the movement for women’s rights. To gain some insight into the transforma­ tion which occurred in the lives of American women from 1960 to 1970, it is necessary to critically examine Friedan’s persuasive discourse and her role as reformer as she attempted to effect change through the women’s liberation movement. vi

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

My sincere thanks and appreciation to my friend and advisor,

Dr. James R. Wilcox, for his consistent direction, assistance and understanding that have been demonstrated over the last three years of my doctoral study. I also extend thanks to the members of my dissertation committee, Dr. Donald Enholm, Dr. William Hoskins and

Dr. Raymond Yeager, for their insights that caused this project to realize fruition.

To my mother, I am eternally greatful for your "long distance" loyalty and support. To my four brothers and two sisters, your genuine inspiration and encouragement have made all my academic efforts worthwhile.

I express my gratitude to Ms. Kathy Kraft at the Schlesinger

Library at Radcliffe College, for directing me to Betty Friedan’s manuscripts. Appreciation is also extended to Ms. Sheila Hess at the National Organization for Women, Washington, D.C., for her valuable information.

Thanks to Ms. Debbie Magrum for her excellent editorial and typing assistance.

Most important of all, I thank God for his strength and guidance that have brought me to this point. Vil

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

CHAPTER I...... 1

INTRODUCTION ...... 1

Establishment of Betty Friedan as Spokesperson of Contemporary Movement ...... Z 3

Establishment of Rhetoric of Confrontation vs. Traditional Rhetoric ...... Z 9

JUSTIFICATION OF THE STUDY ...... 12

PURPOSE AND NEED FOR THE STUDY ...... 15

RESEARCH QUESTIONS ...... 16

METHODOLOGY ...... , 18

RESEARCH PROCEDURE ...... , 22

REVIEW OF LITERATURE ...... 23

CHAPTER II VARIED MEANS TOWARD A COMMON END ...... 27

Early Feminist Movement...... 27

And Justice For All - Instrumental Change Agents .... 29

Sarah and Angelina Grimke...... 29

Stone - Stanton - Anthony...... 31

The Seneca Falls Convention - July 19 and 20, 1843 ... 34

The Civil War to 1900 35

Twentieth Century Movement ...... 'S' 39

Early Symptoms: The Idea...... 41

Organization of NOW...... 44

Radical Women Organize ...... 47 Vili

Consciousness Raising ...... 49

Summary ...... 51

CHAPTER III BETTY FRIEDAN: A PARTICULAR WOMAN ...... 57

Roots...... 58

Education...... 60

Elementary-Secondary ...... 60

College Years ...... 61

Marriage and Family...... 62

The Problem That Has No Name ...... 64

Friedan of the Sixties ...... 65

Ideas - Issues - Goals ...... 65

Philosophy of Life...... 68

Summary ...... 73

CHAPTER'IV ARTICULATING A POSITION: CONFRONTATION . . . . 78

The Pace Is Set...... 79

A Matter of Persuasion ...... 80

Audiences: A Body of Listeners ...... 82

Occasion-Purpose: A Time And A Reason ...... 85

Propositions - Strategies ...... 88

Attitudes: Predispositions Toward Men and Traditional Women ...... 92

Rhetoric — Something Old, Something New...... 95

Summary ...... 98 IX

CHAPTER V TOWARDS TOTAL RHETORICAL ACTION: THE WOMEN'S LIBERATION MOVEMENT ...... 104

Theories of Women's Liberation ...... 105

Women's Rights Feminism ...... 106

Radical Feminism ...... 110

Socialist Feminism ...... 112

From Ideology to Action ...... 113

Changing the Image...... 117

Issues and Demands...... / 120

Employment...... V 120

Equal Rights Amendment...... 121

Abortion...... 122

Child Care...... ^123

Rape...... \f 124 Medical Self Help...... ^125

Friedan's Outcry for Equality...... ^125

Summary...... 126

CHAPTER VI "IT CHANGED MY LIFE"...... 132

Summary...... >S 132

Implications of the Study...... 139

Future Research ...... 141

It Changed My Life...... 142

BIBLIOGRAPHY ...... 144

APPENDIX A 151 X

APPENDIX B...... 152

APPENDIX C...... 159

APPENDIX D...... 157

APPENDIX E...... 181

APPENDIX F...... 189

APPENDIX G...... 198

APPENDIX H...... 206

APPENDIX I...... 210

APPENDIX J ...... 218

APPENDIX K...... 233

APPENDIX L...... 242 1

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

In the past few years, the increased activity in the new feminist movement has resulted in a mass of literature about women activists who have been regarded as change agents in the struggle for women’s liberation. This literature has helped to reveal the inequities of the present system, relative to the social, economic and political status of women. Hahn and Gonchar contend that participants revolt and move­ ments happen as a result of perceived inequity in the system.^

The purpose of this study is to render an analysis of the rhetori­ cal role of Betty Goldstein Friedan in the women's liberation movement.

During the decade of 1960-1970, Friedan espoused a position of a strong reformist, articulating goals and ideas that were moderate in nature, yet supportive of change within the system. She urged a direct con­ frontation of society’s beliefs and values, in order to ensure women’s equality. Herbert Simons contends that the ideology of the moderates utilizes a persuasion that attempts to influence within the system:

To the extent that moderates are successful at garnering mass support for their positions, their actions might well threaten those in power and might thus constitute a kind of combative persuasion, but their threats are generally muted or implied, and they always operate within limits prescribed by ’The System.’2

When the early American feminist movement emerged in the 1800’s, it was a time of geographic expansion, industrial development, a philo- 3 sophical emphasis on individual freedom and universal education. Since that time, numerous feminist leaders have made brutal and unceasing 2

attacks on the nature and extent of women's subservient role in society.

From 1848 until the beginning of the Civil War, Woman's Rights Conven­

tions were held nearly every year in different cities in the East and

mid-West. When the Civil War began in 1861, woman's rights advocates

were urged to abandon their cause and support the war effort/ The end J of the Civil War witnessed an upsurge in the momentum of the women's

rights movement. The ratification of the 19th Amendment in 1920 basically

ended the first drive for women's equality, and with the exception of

a few organizations, the feminist movement was to lie dormant for 40 4./ years./

The late 1940's witnessed a renewed public articulation regarding / the image of women. Because of advertising and women's magazines, the temper of the times dictated that the role of women was that of a full­ time homemaker and mother. This prevailing assumption regarding woman's proper social role carried over into the 1950's. Consequently, the uniformly low status of women workers was accepted without question.

A handful of women's rights advocates emerged during this period who believed that the low status of women workers was a result of dis­ crimination. These fighters began including the Equal Rights Amend­ ment (introduced into every session of Congress since 1923) in the platforms of both political parties from 1940 to 1960. / /The so-called silent fifties had ended with the beginnings of t f confrontation politics in the early 1960'sZ This politics called for / equality in areas such as education, labor forces and political arenas.

Women were now charged with a wariness of traditional political rhetoric 3

and tactics. Their new politics was one of total involvement in and

commitment to changing through direct' participation what they con­

sidered to be unjust and inequitable social realities. / The sixties witnessed several pieces of legislation that provided

ideal conditions for women to seriously undertake'their confrontation

politics. /On December 14, 1961, President John F. Kennedy signed an

Executive Order, with a mandate to examine and recommend remedies to

combat the "prejudices and outmoded customs that act as barriers to the

full realization of women's basic rights . . .On June 10, 1963,

President Kennedy signed the Equal Pay Act, the first piece of federal

legislation prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sex. Title VII,

the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission section of the 1964 Civil

Rights Act, prohibited discrimination based on race, color, religion, national origin, or sex by private employers, employment agencies and

unions.

The publication of feminist literature in the 1960's such as The

Feminine Mystique, Born Female: The High Cost of Keeping Women Down,

The Dangerous Sex: The Myth of Feminine Evil, After Nora Slammed the

Door, The Natural Superiority of Women and the founding of organizations such as National Organization for Women (NOW), Witches International

Conspiracy from Hell (WITCH) and Women's Equity Action League (WEAL) helped women all over America realize the seriousness of the struggle for women's rights.

Establishment of Betty Friedan as Spokesperson of Contemporary Movement

Joseph R. Gusfield defines a movement as "socially shared beliefs directed toward the demand for change in some aspect of the social 4

order.The mother of the current feminist movement in America is

Betty Goldstein Friedan.? Through her best-selling and much publicized

1963 book, The Feminine Mystique, this ex-suburban housewife prompted

women to examine their role in society by confronting advertisers,

educators, sociologists and psychologists who had aided in reinforc­

ing the image that dictated that women could only find fulfillment in

childbearing and housewifery.

/ The rhetoric of the present feminist movement has waged protest

against the dual application of the salient American values, equality

and justice, as they apply to male and female citizens of America. .For

some women, this protest came about as a result of the realization that

their lives could not be explained in conventional terms. Still another

segment found it necessary to engage in personal consciousness-raising.

Others sought what they defined as "personal truths." Betty Friedan 8 labelled this quest as the feminine mystique. This mystique most suc­

cessfully represented the image to which women were trying to conform.

The traditional label of housewife and mother had so thoroughly exhausted

the American woman that she had become engulfed with the need for effect­

ing change in her life. The common thread that united American women and forced them to act has been termed by Betty Friedan as "the prob­ lem that has no name."

To gain some insight into the transformation which occurred in the lives of American women during the decade upon which the study focuses, it is necessary to critically examine the rhetorical strategy utilized

that attempted to effect change through the women’s liberation movement. 5

Leland Griffin suggests that the scholar of rhetorical criticism should

focus attention on those elements in social movements which attempt to

effectuate change. Through evaluating, "the pattern of public discus­

sion, the configuration of discourse, the physiognomy of persuasion pecu- 9 liar to the movement," the rhetorical critic can determine the effect

of the movement upon the social order.

The rhetorical critic may assess the significance of Friedan’s

role upon the social movement for women’s liberation by isolating,

analyzing, describing and evaluating the suasive elements that Betty

Friedan employed to induce women of America to act. From the per­

spective of former rhetors who had pleaded in vain for over a half

century for goals of justice and equality for women, it is quite

understandable why, in 1966, Betty Friedan carried her fight against

the feminine mystique into activism. The selected vehicle, NOW, was a

hierarchically structured organization of professional women and house­

wives that accepted as its main purpose "to take action to bring women

into full participation of American society now, assuming all the

privileges and responsibilities thereof in truly equal partnership "10 with men.

With 300 charter members, male and female, NOW announced its incor­

poration at a press conference in Washington, D.C. on October 29, 1966.

Betty Friedan was elected the first president. With NOW’s inception,

Friedan arose as the leader and spokesperson for "the uninstitution­ alized collectivity that mobilized for action to implement a program for reconstitution of social norms and values.Friedan was able to 6

articulate the feelings and aspirations of American women who refused

to allow the feminine mystique to dominate their lives any longer.

Friedan's persuasive messages reflected an avowed feminist position as

well as a flamboyant and combative personal style. In an attempt at

one time to offer a solution to the feminine mystique, Friedan declared:

Who knows what women can be when they are finally free to become themselves? Who knows what women's intelligence will contribute when it can be nourished without denying love? Who knows of the possibilities of love when men and women share not only children, home and garden, not only the fulfillment of their biological roles, but the responsibilities and passions of the work that creates the full human knowledge of who they are? But the time is at hand when the voices of the feminine mystique can no longer drown out the inner voice that is driving women on to become complete.12^/

« Friedan's method of posing rhetorical questions was designed to

challenge the thinking of all women. Friedan further believed that

there existed a schizophrenic split in the lives of women. The contra­

diction presented itself in the reality of women's lives and their need

to conform to society's image of how their lives should. Speaking of

this malaise that plagued American women, Marya Mannes, in the New York

Herald Tribune Books, called it "a damning indictment of the social,

educational, and commercial pressures in the past fifteen years particu­ larly, which have caused a harmful discrepancy between what women are 13 and what they are told they should be."

Through her writings and speeches, Friedan suggested that the only strategy that women could use to gain support for their cause was con­ frontation of society's values and beliefs. She appealed to the need for personal fulfillment in women of America to utilize confrontation 7

as a direct action protest against inequality and injustice. "The name of the game is confrontation and action, and equal employment is 14 the gut issue. The legal fight is enormously important."

Throughout the persuasive campaign of the women's liberation movement, Friedan cautioned that the battle she intended to wage against the "feminine mystique," that set of implicit images about traditional femininity and to which most people presumably subscribed, was not going to be an easy one. She admonished her followers to become aware of the task upon which they were about to embark. Speaking in 1964, at the

University of California, San Francisco, she commented to her followers:

Your presence here today, however, is a testament to the fact that you are beginning to become conscious of the task that is before you. You are beginning to become conscious of the moment in history in which you stand, and this consciousness is what we need now. I think, however, if we break through that denigrating image of women enshrined in the feminine mystique and take our­ selves seriously, then society may begin to take us ser­ iously. Of course, if the revolution is going to be so massive, there is going to be resistance to it. In the last year or so, the problem of women in Amefica has been put on the table. The President's Commission on the Status of Women has made its report. My book and others like it have stimulated discussions among women who have too long suppressed their own aspirations as people and we are beginning to see some resistance . . .15

Through her efforts with NOW, Friedan confronted the establishment of the desire for change, meeting the requirements that Golden, Berquist and Coleman maintain in their text, The Rhetoric of Western Thought, that in order for a social movement to occur, the dissatisfaction with the status quo must be communicated to the establishment. "Thus, a social movement is dependent upon a generalized feeling of unrest which is then translated into a call for change. Furthermore, the agitator's 8.

demand for change must be met by resistance from the establishment."^^

Combining concepts offered by Herbert Simons, an uninstitutionalized collectivity attempting to effect a shared goal for social and politi­ cal change, characterizes a social movement.

During the decade upon which the study focuses, 1960-1970, Betty

Friedan challenged women from all walks of life to assist her in her rhetorical efforts to gain equality for women. She examined what she believed were the injustices accorded the sex that constituted 53 per cent of the world’s population. Betty Friedan’s abilities as a communi­ cator aided her in expressing the feelings of the women of America. As a result of this ability, she became leader of a loosely knit coalition of women’s groups. She organized her followers into units, the main­ tenance of which was intended to promulgate her rhetorical positions.

In many respects, social movements must satisfy the same require­ ments as formal organizations. The procedure requires setting of goals, attending to organizational matters and establishing a spokes­ person on policies and procedures. Based on these requirements,

Herbert Simons contends that movements can be viewed from the perspec­ tive of a leader-centered concept and approach to persuasion. An eval­ uation of the oratory of the leading spokesman, his style, strategies and audience adaptations, facilitates the assessment of his persuasive campaign.

A user of expressive verbal symbols and persuasive acts, Friedan was instrumental in orchestrating the contemporary women’s liberation movement to crescendo in the early sixties. Combining concepts offered 9

by Judith Hole, Ellen Levine and Barbara Deckard, the women’s rights movement of the sixties included the entire spectrum of women’s groups who had engaged in activities to redefine the role of the woman in

society. The terms, women’s rights movement and women's liberation movement, are used interchangeably in this study.

Establishment of Rhetoric of Confrontation vs. Traditional Rhetoric

Despite the fact that Betty Friedan was instrumental in orchestrat­

ing the contemporary women's liberation movement, there has been no

in-depth research conducted dealing with the critical analysis of her impact on the movement for women's rights. Friedan's rhetorical efforts qualify as exemplary of Bowers' and Ochs' concept of agitation, which exists when people outside the normal decision-making establishment advocate significant social change. Mary G. McEdwards contends that agitation is part of the rhetoric whose end is a movement away from the status quo. By evaluating the strategy Friedan employed to carry her agitative rhetoric to fruition, the rhetorical critic can assess her role in the women's liberation movement. By virtue of the fact that

"persuasive discourse which accompanies any significant social movement is unique in several aspects,"I? this author asserts that careful analy­ sis be given the speaking style and strategy of Betty Friedan in order to exemplify the possible uniqueness of such discourse. An analysis of the characteristics and themes of Friedan's discourse will illuminate the uniqueness of the persuasive discourse that she utilized.

Karlyn Kohrs Campbell asserts that "traditional or familiar defini­ tions of persuasion do not satisfactorily account for the rhetoric of 18 of women's liberation." The rhetorical critic is able to assess the 10

significance of Friedan’s rhetorical efforts upon the social movement

for women’s liberation by isolating, analyzing, describing and evaluat­

ing the ideology she promoted in the movement. Campbell further states

that the rhetoric of this movement "transforms traditional argumenta­

tion into confrontation that persuades by violating the reality struc- 19 ture." Scott and Smith suggest that the rhetoric of confrontation

stems from the "have and the have-not" syndrome. The strategy, accord­

ing to these authors, utilizes the rhetoric of social welfare. Scott

and Smith further suggest that this nontraditional rhetoric presents a

complete calling into question of the situation. According to Bowers

and Ochs, the confrontation (nontraditional) rhetoric has fundamental

concerns pertaining to the social welfare of a group desirous of imme­ diate action. The values of the "haves" become social policy to which all should aspire. The have-not leaders and theorists challenge exist­ ing institutions questioning the mode and operation of society and 20 become as termed by Leland Griffin, aggressor orators.

Through her persuasive discourse in the women's liberation move­ ment, Friedan found it necessary to move away from the traditional rhetoric characterized by conciliation, adaptation and minimization of differences. She rather accepted a nontraditional rhetoric charac­ terized by direct confrontation of ideas and values of the establish­ ment of the "haves." Such confrontation would possibly lead to the enactment of legal reforms that would improve the conditions of women.

Speaking to a group of followers in Washington, D.C., Friedan stated:

Our tactics and our strategy and, above all, our ideology must be firmly based in the historical, biological, eco­ 11

nomic and psychological reality of our own two-sexed world ... We can only transcend the reality by confronting it in our actions: confronting reality, we change it . . . And now, we must confront, in our deliberation on employ­ ment and legislation, the fact that for each woman to walk with equality and human dignity, not just a few but all women must be able to do so . . . We will find some way to confront and break through the travesty of women visible in American political conventions ... We have to confront with concrete action the image of woman, not just talk about it . . .21

Friedan protested and endeavored to change the image of women that had become prevalent in society by confronting society and demanding action

through legal reform. Her rhetorical discourse challenged an indiffer­ ent and unconcerned society to rise from its lethargy to recognize the battle for women's rights. 12

JUSTIFICATION OF THE STUDY

The decade on which this study focuses represents an era in which

women of America forged their own theory of direct action against the

establishment. It also represents a period in which Betty Friedan

attempted to articulate the ill-defined problems of American women.

Friedan maintains that she did not deliberately intend to start a

women’s movement, however, history had presented an opportune time for

action. Friedan observed in her book, It Changed My Life:

Reflecting, I see now that our movement needs no mystique. It happened at this moment in time from historical neces­ sity; the evolution of society, and the technology made by man, had brought women to this jumping off point: a massive crisis of identity in my mother’s generation came to a head in my generation of American women. And a certain combination of circumstances in my own life confronted me very sharply with this crisis — and gave me the ability finally to understand it and to put into words what other women were experiencing.^

By 1960, the assumption that woman by nature was destined to be a full-time homemaker and mother was so widely believed to be true that it was as if there had never been a feminist movement in America which had questioned that assumption. In 1963, Betty Friedan began to analyze the "feminine mystique" that was lulling women into giving up their search for individual identity and achievement to submerge themselves in husband, home and children. Friedan first became aware of the prob­ lem as a result of a personal analysis of her own life:

Gradually, without seeing it clearly for quite awhile, I came to realize that something is very wrong with the way American women are trying to live their lives today. I sensed it first as a question mark in my own life, as a wife and mother of three small children, half-guiltily, and therefore half-hearedly, almost in spite of myself, using my abilities and education in work that took me 13

away from home. It was this personal question mark that led me, in 1957, to spend a great deal of time doing an intensive questionnaire of my college classmates, fifteen years after our graduation from Smith. The answers given by 200 women to those intimate open-ended questions made me realize that what was wrong could not be related to edu­ cation in the way it was then believed to be. The problems and satisfaction of their lives and mine, and the way our education had contributed to them, simply did not fit the image of the modern American woman as she was written about in women’s magazines, studied and analyzed in classrooms and clinics, praised and damned in a ceaseless barrage of words ever since the end of World War II. There was a strange discrepancy between the image to which we were trying to conform, the image that I came to call the feminine mystique.23

The tragic result of that spurious "feminine mystique," Friedan con­ tended, "could be seen in the lives of countless American women, who were experiencing a sense of emptiness and lack of identity because they had abandoned their own self-realization to live through their families."

Numerous feminist organizations were formed following Friedan’s challenge of the feminine mystique. These organizations began to involve themselves in confrontation politics in the early sixties — marches, sit-ins and pickets. In October, 1966, convinced that the need for a woman’s civil rights movement had "reached the point of subterranean, 25 explosive urgency," Betty Friedan founded the National Organization for Women and became its first president. The dynamism and fortitude that Friedan possessed in promoting her ideology in the women’s rights movement merits consideration.

Another reason for studying the persuasive discourse of Betty

Friedan may be attributed to the fact that she gained respectability and support for women’s rights by attracting a cross-section of followers from all segments of society. Consequently, she was able to reach women 14

in academic, business and social arenas. Betty Friedan’s persuasive abilities and tactics were designed to bridge the gap that attempted to wedge itself between women of varying economic classes. Through her rhetorical efforts, Betty Friedan protested and endeavored to change the traditional image of women that had become prevalent in society.

It is the attempt of this dissertation to render an analysis that will assess the impact of Friedan’s role in the women’s liberation movement. 15

PURPOSE AND NEED FOR THE STUDY

The purpose of this study is to analyze, interpret and evaluate

the rhetorical efforts of Betty Friedan as she attempted to gain jus­

tice and equality for women through the women’s liberation movement.

The study is specifically concerned with Betty Friedan as the genera­

tor of messages and persuasive appeals during the decade upon which it

focuses. It is extremely important to recognize that Friedan alone did not organize the movement, but rather that she was instrumental in cre­ ating public awareness of it.

Utilizing a co-active approach to persuasion, characterized by 2 6 moving toward her receivers and bridging psychological distances,

Friedan waged a battle against society and its adherence to the feminine mystique. Delving into fields of modern thought such as psychology, sociology and anthropology, Friedan came to reckoning with the indict­ ment, created by awareness of the feminine mystique, that had engendered contradictions in the lives of many American women. Friedan maintained that the significance of the struggle that could possibly lead to the demise of the feminine mystique, should not be minimized:

As women begin moving into public, professional and politi­ cal life — and as men begin to share child care, cooking, cleaning — the whole story is clearly more than a few women reversing roles with men or having a piece of the action, a chance at the jobs only men had before. Some­ thing else begins to happen — a bridging, a transcending of the polarization between masculine and feminine, between the abstract and the concrete, between external values and grubby, sweaty, everyday realities. It will not be a sepa­ rate story very long. The rights were won after a century of struggle, and then there was a half century of sleep and now the women’s movement is changing "society so women can use those rights.2? 16

RESEARCH QUESTIONS

Karlyn Kohrs Campbell maintains that the rhetoric of women’s liberation belongs in a category, marked by nontraditional, stylis­ tic features. Cambell contends:

The rhetoric of women’s liberation is distinctive stylis­ tically in rejecting certain traditional concepts of the rhetorical process — as persuasion of the many by an expert or leader, as adjustment or adaptation to audience norms, and as directed toward inducing acceptance of a specific program or a commitment to group action.28

Assuming, for the moment, along with Campbell that the rhetoric of women’s liberation is nontraditional, this study attempts to answer the following questions:

1. What have been the characteristics of that category of

nontraditional rhetoric of the women’s liberation move­

ment and to what degree does Friedan appear to be a

representative example?

2. What basic ideas and sub-ideas (issues and sub-issues,

goals and sub-goals) were characteristic of Friedan’s

speaking career through the period of 1960-1970 and were

these representative or typical of basic ideas of the

movement?

3. How did Friedan adapt her ideas, issues and goals to her

audience?

4. What changes in ideas, messages and strategies can be

detected over the period and where do Friedan’s rhetori­

cal efforts best "fit" in the period under analysis? 17

5. What overall contributions did Friedan make to the

movement? Were her rhetorical efforts of any signifi­

cance? If so, what? 18

METHODOLOGY

In this study, the author follows the eclectic approach to

criticism. The origin of this technique is derived from the eighteenth

century synthesizers who attempted to combine the best principles of each

period for the purpose of improving rhetorical theory. According to

Scott and Brock, electicism represents the selection of the best stand- 29 ards and principles from various systems of ideas. Bormann supports the idea of combining several methods and tech­

niques of criticism for the purpose of adding to rhetorical theory.

He contends that these synthesizing standards and methods of evalua­

tion are particularly useful in determining the persuasive appeals in 30 movement studies. Karlyn Campbell, like many other contemporary

rhetorical critics, agrees with those who argue for a pluralistic

approach to criticism. She contends that the rhetorical critic should

apply the organic approach to criticism:

The organic approach to criticism is concerned with the specific goals of particular persuaders in specific con­ texts; it views rhetorical acts as patterns of argument, and interaction that flow out particular conditions. In such an approach, the critic applies the discourse, and adapts the critical system to reveal and respond to the peculiarities of the discourse . . . Good criticism is the result of selection and application of the formula most suitable to the discourse under consideration.31

The background materials used for rhetorical analysis were 11 of

Betty Friedan’s speeches that were provided by the Arthur and Elizabeth

Schlesinger Library at Radcliffe College. These speeches represent an exhaustive collection of Friedan’s recorded speeches during the decade of this study. Because of omissions in transcribing, some of the manu­ 19

scripts are fragmented in form. The speeches cover the years of 1963-

1971. In an attempt to render a rhetorical analysis of Friedan’s

manuscripts, it was necessary to become immersed in her rhetorical

efforts. The consequences of this examination were brought to fruition

by the following process: (1) extracting of major propositions stated

in each manuscript, (2) establishing a logical sequence for the develop­

ment of Friedan’s ideas and (3) summarizing the effects of audience,

occasion and purpose in oder to determine their significance.

The respective titles and dates of the speeches used for analysis

are: (1) Betty Friedan, AWRT Meeting, November 14, 1963; (2) National

Organization for Women (NOW) Second National Conference, Washington,

D.C., Report of the President, November 18, 1967; (3) Beyond the

Feminine Mystique — A New Image of Woman, March 21, 1968; (4) Presi­

dent's Report to the National Conference of NOW — Our Revolution is

Unique, December 6, 1968; (5) Tokenism and the Pseudo Radical Cop-Out:

Ideological Traps for New Feminists to Avoid, January 25, 1969; (6) Abor­

tion: A Woman's Civil Right, February 14, 1969; (7) The Sexual Revo­

lution and Women's Right to Abortion, November 4, 1969; (8) Statement of Betty Friedan Before the Senate Judiciary Committee Condemning the

Appointment of Judge Carswell to the U.S. Supreme Court, January 28,

1970; (9) Women's Lib, Fordham Speech, April 10, 1970; (10) War Between the Sexes, September 29, 1970 and (11) The Next Step: Women's Partici­ pation — Human Liberation, Opening Remarks to the Organizing Confer­ ence of the National Women's Political Caucus, July 10, 1971.

The author's assessment of the text of the 11 manuscripts was based on the following factors: audience, occasion, purpose, major/minor 20

propositions, strategies, attitudes toward traditional women and atti­

tudes toward men. Rebirth of Feminism by Judith Hole and Ellen Levine

and The Women's Movement by Barbara Deckard were used to provide supple

mentary information for some manuscripts. It became the goal of this

critic, through this analysis to (1) describe and evaluate the suasive

elements utilized in the speeches in order to assess the significance

of Friedan’s rhetorical efforts upon the social movement for women's

liberation and (2) to provide criteria, relative to Friedan’s rhetori­

cal discourse, for the following generalizations: (a) importance of

key themes as action-indueing agents and (b) establishment of her role

as a key reformer and rhetor in the movement.

Combining concepts from Mary G. McEdwards, as well as Bowers and

Ochs, the author was able to analyze Friedan’s persuasive efforts in

the women's rights movement. These authors maintain that instrumental,

symbolic behavior and/or discourse based in social psychology whose end results are a complete calling in question of the existing situa­

tion, in the hope of effecting desired change, characterizes the non­ traditional rhetoric of confrontation.

As well as establishing Friedan’s ideology in the women's rights movement, this study attempted to offer insight into the rhetoric of confrontation, for the rhetorical scholar. Such insight might advance the study of rhetorical criticism. Scott and Smith maintain:

The rhetoric of confrontation has presented new problems for rhetorical theory. Since the time of Aristotle, aca­ demic rhetorics have been for the most part instruments of established society, presupposing the 'goods' of order, civility and decorum of civil law. But the contemporary rhetoric of confrontation is argued by theorists whose 21

aspirations for a better world are not easily dismissed, and whose passions for action equals or exceeds their passion for theory.32

Franklyn Haiman maintains that even if the presuppositions of civility and rationality underlying the old rhetoric are sound, they can no 33 longer be treated as self-evident. 22.

RESEARCH PROCEDURE

The author received the primary source materials for the study

from the Arthur and Elizabeth Schlesinger Library at Radcliffe College.

Through this library, the author was able to receive a wealth of valu­

able speeches and biographical information on Betty Friedan. The

Library of Congress and the national office of the National Organiza­

tion for Women provided insightful material germane to the study. In

addition, the Thomas Jefferson Building of the Library of Congress

provided useful information from periodicals such as The New Washington Post,

The New York Herald Tribune and The New York Times Magazine. The author

wanted to visit the Schlesinger Library which houses the personal col­

lection of Betty Friedan, but at the time of this research, the collec­

tion was not yet open for public display.

The author gained valuable assistance in preparing the research

from telephone conversations with Kathy Kraft, resource librarian at

the Schlesinger Library, Sheila Hess, director of Washington, D.C.'s extension of NOW, Nancy Holly, Betty Friedan’s personal secretary and

Betty Friedan. Several attempts were made to schedule an interview with Betty Friedan during the time of this research, but they were to no avail. 23

REVIEW OF LITERATURE

Although there are numerous dissertations and theses that deal with various aspects of the women’s rights movement, none of them between the years of 1960-1970, focus on Betty Friedan and her leadership style.

The Comprehensive Dissertation Index and Dissertation Abstracts Inter­ national are composed of monthly compilations of abstracts of doctoral dissertations. Neither of these sources lists any studies conducted on

Betty Friedan during the decade of this study. Especially helpful infor­ mation was obtained from Britannica Book of the Year, 1971, Current

Biography, 1970 and Who’s Who of American Women, 1974-75. Betty Friedan's books, The Feminine Mystique, The Feminine Mystique, The Tenth Anniver­ sary Edition and It Changed My Life, provided substantive information that proved useful in assessing the pulse and effectiveness of the women’s movement on her life. Two books that provided immeasurable insight into the history of women’s rights were Rebirth of Feminism by Judith Hole and Ellen Levine and The Women's Movement by Barbara Deckard. The

Rhetoric of Agitation and Control by John W. Bowers and Donovan J. Ochs was of valuable assistance in analyzing the rhetorical strategy of con­ frontation. In addition. Perspectives on Communication in Social Con­ flict , edited by Gerald Miller and Herbert W. Simons helped to further clarify the essential nature of confrontation situations. Useful insight into rhetorical theory and criticism was obtained from Rhetorical Criti­ cism: A Study in Methods by Edwin B. Black and Methods of Rhetorical

Criticism: A 20th Century Perspective by Robert L. Scott and Bernard L.

Brock. The Rhetoric of Western Thought, edited by James L. Golden, 24

Goodwin F. Berquist and William E. Coleman was also useful in construct­ ing a rhetorical methodology. 25

FOOTNOTES

^Dan F. Hahn and Ruth M. Gonchar, "Studying Social Movements: A Rhetorical Methodology," Speech Teacher, pp. 44-52.

2 Herbert W. Simons, Persuasion: Under s t and in g, Practice, and Analy­ sis, p. 277.

3 Judith Hole and Ellen Levine, Rebirth of Feminism, p. 84.

4 Ibid., p. 86.

^Ibid., p. 92.

g Joseph R. Gusfield, Protest, Reform and Revolt: A Reader in Social Movements, p. 2.

7Current Biography, pp. 146-148.

g Betty Friedan, It Changed My Life, pp. 146-148.

9 Leland Griffin, "The Rhetoric of Historical Movements," QJS, 38 (April 1952), pp. 184-188.

^Judith Hole and Ellen Levine, Rebirth of Feminism, p. 92.

11 Leland Griffin, "The Rhetoric of Historical Movements," QJS, 38 (April 1952), pp. 184-188.

12 Betty Friedan, It Changed My Life, p. xv.

13 Current Biography, pp. 146-148.

14Ibid., pp. 146-148.

^Barbara Deckard, The Women1s Movement, p. 46.

^Golden, Berquist and Coleman, "The Rhetoric of Social Protest," The Rhetoric of Western Thought, p. 242.

17 Ibid., p. 242. 26

18 Karlyn Kohrs Campbell, "The Rhetoric of Women’s Liberation: An Oxymoron," QJS, 59 (February 1973), p. 84.

19 Ibid., p. 86.

20 Leland Griffin, "The Rhetoric of Historical Movements," QJS, 38 (April 1952), pp. 184-188.

21 Betty Friedan, Our Revolution is Unique, President’s Report to the National Conference of NOW, Atlanta, Ga., December 6, 1968.

22 Betty Friedan, It Changed My Life, pp. 146-148.

23Ibid., p. 147.

24 Current Biography, pp. 146-148.

25Ibid., pp. 146-148.

2 6 Herbert W. Simons, Persuasion : Understanding, Practice, and Analy­ sis, p. 134.

27 Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique, p. 6.

28 Karlyn Kohrs Campbell, "The Rhetoric of Women’s Liberation: An Oxymoron," QJS, 59 (February 1973), p. 84.

29 Robert L. Scott and Bernard L. Brock, Methods of Rhetorical Criticism, p. 15.

30 Ernest G. Bormann, Theory and Research in Communicative Arts, p. 227.

31 Karlyn Kohrs Campbell, Critique of Contemporary Rhetoric, p. 14.

32 Robert L. Scott and Donald K. Smith, "The Rhetoric of Confrontation," QJS, 55 (1969), pp. 1-8.

33 Franklyn Haiman, "The Rhetoric of the Streets: Some Ethical Con­ siderations," QJS, 55 (1969), p. 34. 27

CHAPTER II

VARIED MEANS TOWARDS A COMMON END

Early Feminist Movement

During the decade of the current study, 1960-1970, American

women set forth collective efforts to redefine their roles in society.

A variety of strategies and tactics were utilized in order to adequately

bring to the surface their causes and concerns. In order for the

rhetorical critic to offer an analysis of Friedan’s rhetorical efforts

as they were dramatized during the contemporary women’s movement, it

is necessary to have some perspective of the characteristics of the

early feminist movement.

The contemporary women’s movement is not the first such movement

in America to offer a wide-ranging feminist critique of society.

Both the early and the contemporary feminists have engaged in a fun­ damental re-examination of the role of women in all social, political and economic institutions. Both have defined women as an oppressed group and have traced the origin of women’s subjugation to male- 2 defined and male-dominated social institutions and value-systems.

The 1800’s brought America its introduction to the women’s move­ ment . Laws concerning women were similar to those in the early Ameri­ can South that governed the conduct of slaves. Barbara Deckard sug­ gests that the ideology of this period reinforced the subordinate status of women: 28

The subordinate status of women was supported by the dominant ideology of the period, the strongest medium of which was religion. In this very religious atmosphere, all of the sects preached ’that woman’s place was deter­ mined by limitations of mind and body, a punishment for the original sin of Eve. However ... to fit her for motherhood, the Almighty had . . . endowed her with such virtues as modesty, meekness . . . piety.'3

From 1820-1920, women all over America waged a verbal battle

against society in order to attain women's equality in social, politi­

cal and economic institutions. During this period, it was held against women that they were not educated, but the doors of all institutions of

learning were closed against them; that they were not taxpayers, although money-earning occupations were barred to them and if married,

they were not permitted to own property. They were kept in subjection by authority of the Scriptures and were not permitted to expound the

Scriptures from a women's point of view; also, they were prevented from pleading their cause on the public platform. When they had largely overcome these handicaps, they found themselves facing a political 4 fight without political power.

The purpose of this chapter is to illuminate the historical move on the part of feminist rhetors in the United States who attempted to share in the benefits of their rightful justice and equality, as offered by society. The chapter further attempts to present former rhetors who utilized the nontraditional rhetoric of aggressive con­ frontation of ideas*and values of the establishment, which categorized the contemporary movement. This presentation will yield characteris­ tics which may determine the significance of early rhetorical efforts on Friedan's rhetorical efforts in the contemporary women's movement. 29

And Justice For All -Instrumental Change Agents

Using the rhetoric of equality, several movements emerged in the

1800’s that gave every oppressed group an opportunity to stir American

society. The abolitionist movement, which claimed as its goal abolish­

ing slavery, became the most important direct cause of the upsurge of

the women's liberation movement that occurred in the 1830's and 1840's.3

Barbara Deckard recognized yet another contributing source:

One other immediate source of the women’s movement was the militant unionism in which working women participated during the 1840's. Unionism was, of course, another natural result of the spread of industry throughout the northern United States.6

With the advent of the Female Anti-Slavery Society, formed in 1833, women began to speak out publicly on the abolition issue as well as

the women's rights issue. Women who had long been uninvolved and uncom­ mitted gained added energy as they realized that the issues of freedom

for slaves and freedom for women were inextricably linked. This reali­ zation ignited a spark that spread to women in all walks of life as

they began calling the whole equality issue into question.

Sarah and Angelina Grimke

The earliest women to provide political origins for the women's rights movement were Sarah and Angelina Grimke.? As daughters of a

South Carolina slaveholding family, their hatred of slavery was based on personal knowledge. After moving to the North very early in their lives, the sisters quickly realized that they were waging an uphill bat­ tle for women's rights. They received brutal and unceasing attacks from male abolitionists and other sectors of society. A Pastoral let- 30

ter from the Council of the Congregationalist Ministers of Massachu­

setts typified the attack:

The appropriate duties and influence of women are clearly stated in the New Testament . . . The power of woman is her dependence, flowing from the consciousness of that weakness which God has given her for her protection . . . When she assumes the place and tone of man as a public reformer . . . she yields the power which God has given her . . . and her character becomes unnatural.®

In an 1837 letter to the President of the Boston Female Anti­

Slavery Society, Sarah Grimke addressed herself directly to the ques­

tion of women’s status:

All history attests that man has subjugated woman to his will, used her as a means to promote his selfish gratifi­ cation, to minister to his sensual pleasures, to be instru­ mental in promoting his comfort; but never has he desired to elevate her to that rank she was created to fill. He has done all he could to debase and enslave her mind; and now he looks triumphantly on the ruin he has wrought, and says, the being he has thus deeply injured is his inferior ... But I ask no favor for my sex . . . All I ask of our brethren is, that they will take their feet off our necks and permit us to stand upright on that Ground which God has designed us to occupy.9

The Grimkes challenged both the assumption of the "natural superiority of men" and the social institutions predicated on that assumption.

They attacked as well the manifestations of male superiority in the employment market. In her "Letters on the Equality of the Sexes,"

Sarah Grimke confronted society and argued against both religious dogma and the deterrence of women in the institution of marriage. The

Grimkes had in their rhetorical efforts, set the pace that other women were beginning to follow. Of the followers, three women were the most important personalities in the early women’s movement:

Lucy Stone was considered its most gifted orator; Elizabeth Cady 31

Stanton, its best philosopher and program writer; Susan B. Anthony, its best organizer.10 Consideration of the rhetorical efforts of

these three women is noteworthy.

Stone - Stanton - Anthony

Lucy Stone’s upbringing on a poor Massachusetts farm seems to

have turned her into a feminist.At an early age, Stone became

increasingly aware of the ideology of male dominance and female sub­

jugation. However, she was not handicapped by her upbringing. She

taught school for seven years in order to earn enough money to attend

Oberlin, where she later became one of its first women graduates.

Lecturing for the woman’s rights movement from 1847 to 1857, Stone

was given the title of "morning star" of the woman’s rights movement.

In her rhetorical efforts, she issued the call for the First National

Woman’s Rights Convention, while organizing a nationwide association

in which women could work together to attain equality for all. The

breadth of issues with which the early women’s movement was concerned

is shown by Stone’s three stock lectures on women. One was on women’s

social and industrial disabilities, another on legal and political 12 handicaps and the third on moral and religious discrimination.

The marriage of Lucy Stone and Henry Blackwell in 1855 received wide public attention because of the statement they incorporated into

the ceremony. In this statement, Blackwell repudiated the superior status of law granted him as husband and the couple declared themselves equal partners in the marriage. Lucy Stone was the first woman to 13 retain her maiden name throughout life. She continued her rhetori- 32

cal efforts through the nineteenth century. As an early feminist,

she "disarmed prejudice and converted even opposition into advocacy."^

Elizabeth Cady Stanton arose as the early women’s movement’s

philosopher. She called for equality in all spheres; she advocated

marriage and law reform as well as strongly criticized the Bible for

its statements on women’s inferiority. At the 1840 World Anti-Slavery

Convention in London, she was denied a seat because of her sex.

Despite being married and having seven children, she was one of the

originators of the early movement. Eight years after the Anti-Slavery

Convention, she would be a moving force in calling the first women’s rights convention. Her rhetorical efforts would later introduce a reso' lution calling for women’s suffrage.

Susan B. Anthony, Stanton’s life-long friend and co-worker, arose as the organizer of the early women’s movement. In 1854, Anthony led a petition campaign in New York for women to control their own wages, to have guardianship of their children after divorce and to be allowed to vote. Along with 60 other women, Anthony collected 6,000 signatures in ten weeks. Upon presentation of the signatures to the

Joint Judiciary Committee of the State Legislature, she was ridiculed and turned down with humorous arguments. The Committee presented their rebuttal which said:

. . . the ladies always have the best seat . . . They have their choice on which side of the bed they will lie . . . if there is any inequity or oppression . . . the gentlemen are the sufferers.13

Continuous struggle brought about success for Anthony. In 1860,

Stanton addressed a joint session of Congress and the state legisla- 33

ture passed a law giving women control over their own wages, allow­

ing them to sue in court, and giving them inheritance rights similar

to their husbands.

Never having married, Anthony realized the brunt of the travel­ ing and lecturing when her married cohorts could not travel. Anthony and Stanton agreed in theory that real equality for women would require many social and legal reforms. Anthony felt that the vote was the pre­ requisite to other reforms. Consequently, she concentrated much of her rhetorical efforts on suffrage. Through her lectures, she indi­ cated that women would not be free until they could support themselves, until marriage became a luxury and not a necessity for women as for men. She advocated coeducation because she believed that sex-segregated education would cause inequality to continue.

As pioneers of the early women's rights movement, Stone, Stanton and Anthony explored the inequalities that society posed for all women.

Their rhetorical efforts were characterized by a non-acceptance of status-quo conditions and a desire to alter those conditions by

(1) becoming politically accepted by their male abolitionists counter­ parts and (2) utilizing traditional legal avenues in order to carry their feelings of dissatisfaction into general causes for reform.

Simons contends that the generalized attitude of unrest creates the basis for a movement:

. . . However, it should be obvious that the general cause of any reform movement can be traced to a growing feeling of dissatisfaction on the part of a group or segment of society. When such a feeling takes hold in the disciple's ranks, a generalized attitude of unrest is fostered. Fur­ thermore, if the established powers fail to deal with this 34

dissatisfaction, an organization of the frustrated or disfranchised begins. Thus, a movement is born. A strategy for change emerges. The establishment is chal­ lenged. The ’haves’ are confronted publicly by the ’have-nots.’

Treading on ground already broken by Sarah and Angelina Grimke, Lucy

Stone, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony combined their

rhetorical efforts and laid the foundations for the contemporary women’s movement

The Seneca Falls Convention - July 19 and 20, 1843

Although the early feminists had discussed the idea of calling a public meeting on women’s rights, the idea did not reach fruition until July of 1848. Some three hundred interested women and men crowded into a small Wesleyan Chapel in Seneca Falls, New York, and approved a Declaration of Sentiments (modeled on the Declaration of

Independence) and twelve resolutions. The delineation of issues in the Declaration resembles contemporary feminist writings. Some excerpts are noteworthy:

We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men and women are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of hap­ piness ;

. . . The history of mankind is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations on the part of man toward woman, having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over her. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world ...

He has compelled her to submit to laws, in the forma­ tion of which she has no voice ... He has made her, if married, in the eye of the law, civilly dead . . .17

The Seneca Falls Convention was particularly significant because it is considered the official beginning of the women’s suffrage move- 35

18 ment. Far more important to most of the women at the convention

than suffrage, was their desire to gain control of their property

and earnings, guardianship of their children and their rights to

divorce. Even though the convention brought about disparity between

some of the women, its historical significance should not be minimized.

According to Flexner:

. . . The women themselves were fully aware of the nature of the step they were taking; today’s debt to them has been inadequately acknowledged . . . Beginning in 1848, it was possible for women who rebelled against the cir­ cumstances of their lives, to know that they were not alone—although often the news reached them only through a vitrolic sermon or an abusive newspaper editorial. But a movement had been launched which they could either join, or ignore, that would leave its imprint on the lives of their daughters and of women throughout the world. 3-9

Thus the early feminist fighters had made noticeable strides towards collective action to mobilize the masses of women to the call for change. The nontraditional rhetorical efforts of the early femi­ nists served as sufficient agitation for women in all walks of life.

From 1848 until the beginning of the Civil War, Woman’s Rights

Conventions were held nearly every year in different eastern and midwestern cities.

The Civil War to 1900

The early women’s movement was confined to the northern regions.

Before the Civil War, southern women had not taken a stand on the inequities that prevailed in society. When the Civil War began in

1861, several women’s rights advocates abandoned their cause to sup­ port the war effort. After the War and the ratification of the 36

13th Amendment abolishing slavery, abolitionists began to work for

the passage of the 14th Amendment which would secure rights, privi­

leges and immunities for the new freedmen. Much to the dismay of the

active feminists, the 14th Amendment was to include the word "male,"

which would for the first time, introduce a sex distinction into the

Constitution.

Enraged women’s rights advocates fought to eliminate the pro­

posed terminology in the amendment. However, they were disappointed

to find that they could find no one to support their cause. The authors of History of Women’s Suffrage analyzed the women’s situa­ tion :

During the six years they held their own claims in abey­ ance to the slaves of the South, and labored to inspire the people with enthusiasm for the great measures of the Republican party. They were highly honored as ’wise, loyal and clear-sighted.' But again when the slaves were emancipated and they asked that women should be recognized in the reconstruction as citizens of the Republic, equal before the law, all these transcedent virtues vanished like dew before the morning sun and thus it ever is as long as woman labors to second man’s endeavors and exalt his sex above her own, her virtues pass unquestioned; but when she demands rights and priv­ ileges for herself, her motives, manners, dress, per­ sonal appearance, character, are subjects for ridicule and detraction.

A similar response was accorded women’s rights advocates when they cam­ paigned to get the word "sex" added to the proposed 15th Amendment which would prohibit the denial of suffrage because of race. As a result of these setbacks, the women’s movement then assumed as its first priority, the drive for suffrage. 37

Because of disagreements relative to major ideological and tacti­

cal questions, in 1869, the movement split into two factions. The

National Women Suffrage Association (NWSA) headed by Stanton and

Anthony embraced the broad cause of women’s rights, of which the vote

was simply a means of achieving those rights, while Stone and others

organized The American Women Suffrage Association (AWSA) limiting its

activities to the idea of giving "respectability" to suffrage. The

two suffrage organizations co-existed for over twenty years, inter­

changing tactics and campaigns. Consequently, the ideological dis­

parity did not deter the progress of the early women’s rights movement.

After two decades, "respectability" won out and the broad ranging

issues of NWSA had been largely subsumed by suffrage. In 1890, NWSA and

AWSA merged to become The National American Women Suffrage Association

(NAWSA), electing Stanton as its first president. As the suffrage movement gained acceptability, Stone, Stanton and Anthony realized that the main obstacle to woman’s equality was organized religion.

Perhaps the most consistent argument rendered by anti-feminists was that the subjugation of women was divinely ordained by the Bible.

Attacking the argument head-on, Stanton and a group of twenty-three women, including three ordained ministers, produced The Woman’s Bible.

The manuscript presented a systematic critique of woman’s role and image in the Bible. It was Stanton’s intent to come to reckoning with the indictment of female-inferiority, male-superiority. She further maintained that the sole basis of this ideology rested in Eve’s cor­ ruption: 38

Take the snake, the fruit-tree and the woman from the tableau, and we have no fall, nor frowning Judge, no Inferno, no everlasting punishment, - hence no need of a Savior. Thus the bottom falls out of the whole Christian theology. Here is the reason why in all the Biblical researches and higher criticisms, the scholars never touch the position of women.21

Even though The Woman's Bible was never given serious consideration by

the public, Stanton had taken measures to identify and endeavor to

change the one belief that was deeply rooted in the minds of anti­

feminists.

Nearly three-quarters of a century had passed since the demand for woman suffrage was initiated at the Seneca Falls Convention. Because of the unceasing rhetorical efforts of the early organizers, the woman suffrage amendment (known as the "Anthony Amendment") was finally rati­ fied on August 26, 1920. The 19th Amendment had finally given women the right to vote. This was a struggle which had far-reaching impact, one in which, to achieve the vote alone, took:

. . . fifty-two years of pauseless campaign . . . fifty- six campaigns of referenda to male voters; 480 campaigns to get Legislatures to submit suffrage amendments to voters; 47 campaigns to get State Constitutional conven­ tions to write woman suffrage into state constitutions; 277 campaigns to get State party conventions to include woman suffrage planks; 30 campaigns to get presidential party conventions to adopt woman suffrage planks in party platforms; and 19 campaigns with 19 successive Congresses.

With the passage of the 19th Amendment, the majority of the women’s rights advocates assumed that the vote had virtually given women equality.

It is extremely important, however, to consider that the early movement had not viewed the vote as an all-inclusive goal, but as a means toward achieving equality. The confronting of society relative to the inequi- 39

ties it posed in social, political and economic institutions had been

originally targeted as the catalyst for the early movement. During

the entire period of protest through the 1800’s, women attempted to

change their existing conditions. Their rhetoric was characterized

by bold, outspoken demands, well-structured orations that were not

always solicited and a tireless desire to be regarded as equal to

their male counterparts. They waged a war; they organized their ideas

and they called for change. With the exception of a few minor organi­ zations and activities, women’s rights advocates literally "rested their case" for equality.

Twentieth Century Movement

Between 1920 and 1960, for all intents and purposes, public interest in women’s rights had vanished. By the late 1940’s, adver­ tising began to renew public articulation of women’s rights. Feminist literature such as Betty Friedan’s, The Feminine Mystique, Shulamith

Firestone’s, The Dialectic of Sex and Kate Millett's, Sexual Politics, also added to the newly formed momentum. The time had come once again when women were questioning their prevailing image in society.

This image dictated that a woman’s reach need not exceed that of full­ time wife and mother. Women came to realize that the time had come to 40

initiate change. Malcolm X described the situation as it might have been for blacks as well as women, in the early sixties:

You can’t give the people a program until they realize they need one, and until they realize that all existing programs aren’t . . . going to produce . . . results. What we would like to do ... is to go into our problems and just ana­ lyze . . . and question things that you don’t understand so we can . . . get a better picture of what faces us. If you give people a thorough understanding of what it is that con­ fronts them, and the basic causes that produce it, they’ll create their own program; and when the people create a pro­ gram you get action.23

The new women’s movement was to be one with a program. The temper of the times in the sixties invited action on all fronts of society.

The feminine mystique had to be curtailed as American women became cognizant of their respective identities. As the 1960’s progressed, the myth of the American woman as the "happy housewife heroine" con­ flicted increasingly with reality. Betty Friedan’s 1963 publication of The Feminine Mystique helped to initiate the confrontation politics of the sixties.

The numbers of working women increased in this period. Twenty- three million women, 36 per cent of all women 16 and older worked for pay, and by the end of the 1960’s, a majority of women between 24 18 and 64 worked at paid jobs. Educationally, relative to men, women were not doing as well as they had in 1930, since in 1960, 35 per cent of all B.A.’s went to women; in 1930, women had received

/a 4-25 40 per cent.

In the public spheres, women’s position was statistically worse than in education. Forty years jifter winning the vote, women were barely represented in government decision-making positions. The 1960 41

elections_brought_the highest number of women ever into Congress;

15 out of 435 in the House of Representatives and two out of 100 in the 26 Senate. State level government showed that by 1967, only about four 27 per cent of state legislative seats were held by women. Local level government showed much better representation. In 1966 there were 100 28 women mayors, however, none of these served as mayor of a major city.

As the 1960's began, then, women were a discontented, powerless majority. The prime propagandizers of the feminine mystique, the women’s magazines, came to recognize the symptoms that Betty Friedan had so eloquently articulated in her manuscript, It Changed My Life:

For me it began in the late 1950’s with the gradual reali­ zation, that my own life and those of other women, didn’t fit, couldn’t even be understood in the abstract terms of the conventional or sophisticated thought which then defined women and by which we defined ourselves. The unraveling of what I called the feminine mystique from the actual fabric of women’s life was my personal consciousness-raising, though I didn’t call it that, in the five years it took me to write that book. But those words were rooted in my per­ sonal truth, truth that had been hidden by the mystique. The public sharing of women's experience led us to a new understanding that its limitations and urgent necessities were more than uniquely personal: they were political. And this new consciousness inexorably led to action: the women’s movement. Then women's experience began to be analyzed by new abstractions borrowed from the ideologies of past revolutions.29

Early Symptoms: The Idea

In order to trace the women's movement to the point where Betty

Friedan became its major spokesperson, it is necessary to understand the early symptoms that signaled the movement’s forthcoming. One such signal occurred on December 14,„. 1961,~ when.. John Ke.nn.edy„established ^a

Presidential Committee on the Status of Women. Ester Peterson, a mem- 42

ber of Kennedy’s campaign, was instrumental in Kennedy’s decision

to establish the Commission. Late 1963 was the time when the Commis­

sion’s report was released. It is also significant that The Feminine

Mystique was published in the same year.

The Equal Pay Act was passed by Congress in 1963, giving women the

right to be paid equally with men for doing the same job. The Act was

initially introduced in Congress in 1955 and reintroduced in every

session since that time. In essence, this was the first piece of fed- 30 eral legislation prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sex.

During this period, women had become engulfed with a desire to

effect change. The results of the President’s Commission on the

Status of Women brought to the surface the seriousness of the women's

equality situation. The recommendations made by the Commission

included greater availability of child care services, greater oppor­

tunities for women in politics and employment. While outward appear­

ances proved the Commission's efforts worthwhile, the fact that no

enforcement procedures were attained cast serious doubt on the validity of their attempts.

Recommendations were made by the Commission, that the President

issue in 1963, an Executive Order which would embody equality in employment. Such an order was to be adhered to by voluntary compli­ ance. By the end of 1963, several states had followed the example set by the federal government and established similar commissions studying the status of women. 43

By 1964, the drive for women’s equality was growing more intense.

Women in all areas of life had become extremely aware of the need to

diminish the feminine mystique. A major weapon in the fight for

equality came into being in 1964 when women were included under

Title VII, the equal employment section of the Civil Rights bill,

introduced into Congress. On February 8, 1964, Congress’s vote of

168-133 marked the passage of the comprehensive civil rights bill,

as well as the Title VII amendment.

In July of 1965, the mandate of Title VII made it illegal to dis­

criminate against women in hiring and promotion. The Equal Employment

Opportunity Commission (EEOC) was set up to enforce Title VII, the

sex provision of the bill. The seriousness of the provision, however,

was somewhat questionable:

Most of the commissioners seemed to consider the provi­ sion at best a joke, at worst a distraction from their work in behalf of black men.31

This sentiment caused serious unrest for concerned women:

It became clear to interested women that, given this attitude, little could be expected of the EEOC unless pressure was applied. A particular danger lay in the provision that made it legal to discriminate if sex were a bona fide occupational qualification (bfoq) for the job in question. Interpreted loosely, this could nullify the act.32

The struggle for women’s rights had now come to a point of serious urgency. Women were beginning to offer rhetoric that verbalized a growing frustration with the feeble attempts that society had initiated to realize equality. The time for action had indeed arisen! 44

Organization of NOW

The advent of the mid-sixties witnessed a much more aggressive move towards securing equality for women. Betty Friedan, along with others, were opting for more forceful tactics and techniques to meet the exigencies facing women during this period. Because of her dis­ agreement with the methods of conciliation and accommodation advocated by society earlier in the attempts of the women’s struggle, Betty

Friedan began to organize to seek different strategies of protest.

Her attempts led to the organization of the National Organization for

Women (NOW), which highlighted as its goal:

... to take action to bring women into full participa­ tion in the mainstream of American society now, exercis­ ing all the privileges and responsibilities thereof in truly equal parnership with men.33

Friedan, convinced that her personal convictions could no longer allow her to tolerate society's inequities, combined her efforts to subsequently organize the women’s movement:

Because words of mine, based on personal truth, led me and others to organize the women’s movement, I feel a terrible responsibility, as well as an exultant elation, for the transforming, transcendent actions of the move­ ment., and for its personal reality in every woman’s life, including my own. I feel a new urgency to test the words against personal truth again, lest we bind and blind our­ selves by a new mystique, in our feminist reaction against the old one.34

Friedan had mobilized for collective action to initiate change. Her protest had been signaled to the establishment. The need for action was imperative.

Through her rhetorical efforts with NOW, Friedan issued "a per­ sistent and uncompromising statement of grievances through all availa- 45

ble communication channels, with the aim of creating public condition 35 favorable to a change." This, then, was the sentiment that was

prevalent among NOW's 300 charter members when Betty Friedan announced

its^incorporation on October 29, 1966, and arose as its first President 36 NOW is the oldest and the largest of the women’s rights__grouj?s.

It represents the spectrums of characteristics found in other women’s

groups and is consistently used as a vehicle to advoca.tewchang.e. Upon

its inception, Friedan and the other organizers vowed that the organi­

zation would work for the interest of all women, inside and outside

of the home. The charter members of NOW, in their approach to solving

problems that had been posed to women, felt it necessary to establish

programs at the local and national level. Consequently, by the end

of 1967, NOW had 14 local chapters; by the middle of 19,72,^,200 chapters

and by February of 1973, 365 chapters, j

The approach NOW utilized in initially ensuring immediate action was rooted in legal reform. The resistance that the establishment posed to the change advocated by NOW, precipitated the pragmatic approach upon which the foundation of the organization was laid:

NOW’s appraoch to social problems is pragmatic. Ideally NOW members would like to transform or even eliminate societal role expectations for women and men but they do not believe they can achieve this goal directly: instead they work for change by exerting pressure on the establish­ ment. 3 7

Towards the end of 1960, the women’s rights movement began to attract a variety of women who utilized varying strategies for change.

It is significant to note that even though NOW was the first contempo­ rary organization of its kind, its policies and procedures did not 46.

encompass the sentiments of all the women who felt desirous of initiat­

ing change in the status quo. Betty Friedan advocated the confronta­

tion politics that NOW chose to embrace. Speaking directly of the

women’s right struggle itself, Friedan contended that it:

. . . clearly emerges as the major movement for basic social change in this decade and possibly the most far- reaching revolution of all time. It affects our daily personal lives immediately, women, men and children; per­ vades all our institutions, office and home; confronts the economy, politics of right and left, theology, sexu­ ality itself, in unpredictable ways.38

NOW’s original platform addressed the following issues: Equal

Rights Constitutional„Amendmgnt,...Enforcement of Laws_B,anBing....S.ex_ Dis­

crimination in Employment, Maternity Leave Rights in Employment and in

Social Security Benefits, Tax Deduction for Home and Child Care Expenses

for Working Parents, Child Care Centers, Equal and Unsegregated Edu­

cation, Equal Job Training Opportunities and Allowances for Women in 39 Poverty, and The Right of Women to Control Their Reproductive Lives.

As the movement flourished, major controversies arose in the ranks

that caused bitter fights to ensue. The result of the controversies

resulted in the founding of more radical groups. Even though by 1973,

NOW had grown to 30,000, women were continuing to lend their support

to other groups that were able to embody their respective priority platforms. Groups that offered platforms similar to NOW included

The Women’s Equity^Action League (WEAL), incorporated on December 1,

1968, and Federally Employed Women (FEW). 47

Radical Women Organize

The first efforts to organize radical women occured in the spring

of 1967 when two women held a seminar on women’s issues, under the

auspices of a free university program. As a result of the seminar, a

few interested women formulated a list of resolutions to be presented

at an upcoming convention of New Left groups. Jo Freeman and Shulamith

Firestone, two of the originators of the resolutions, decided to wage

utter protest when they were told that "their trivial business was not

going to stop the conference from dealing with the important issues of the world."40

The denial of an opportunity to explain their issues and concerns

led radical women to the emergence of two groups that ventilated their

sentiments: Women’s Radical Action Project (WRAP) and Westside Group.

These groups believed that before women could hope to influence public

policy, they had to overcome their own subjugation and realize that the

problem of women in America was social and not personal. They further

stated that ", . .we cannot hope to move toward a better world or even a truly democratic society at home until we begin to solve our own problems."41

It was at this time that the women’s movement was experiencing internal conflict. Women were agreeing in theory that the equal rights problem was important but disagreeing in their tactics and proposed solutions. There were questions concerning whether women’s inferior place was due to the system or to the male’s psychological need to dominate. The rhetoric of both factions of the movement aimed at 48

equalizing existing inequities while advocating pluralistic strategies.

The radical women’s groups were calling for a complete upheaval of the system to adequately expose the women’s situation while the moderate groups believed that the differences could be equalized through com­ pliance to legal reform. Paul Brandes contends that "revolt rhetoric" destroys existing institutions and "openly advocates lawlessness."

Its basic premise advocates that "the old regime is not to be amended 42 peacefully, it is to be amended by force." Simons adds:

Here is discourse which openly calls for a total revolu­ tion or overthrow of the existing power centers. Indi­ viduals in this camp are not satisfied with mere ’signi­ ficant social change.’ They demand a complete and total upheaval: revolution.^3

Friedan’s tactics and strategies called for a channeling of ener­ gies, not into bitter hatred and rage as was seemingly advocated by the radical approach but a constant searching and analysis arising from personal confirmation that something is wrong, missing and needed.

Friedan further stated that:

If that rage and bitterness is discharged to blind reac­ tive hatred against men, personally and politically, must it not create a backlash from men, and simultaneously, . . . outrage, bitterness and disillusionment from women? Has the rhetoric of sexual politics blinded us to the real political actions and the allies needed to actually open new options in women’s life? Is the promise of our sisterhood--- for the first time women able to affirm and work with one another-- opening life for us all, now being belied by actions, turning us against ourselves? Is our rage being manipulated by our enemies to paralyze our possibilities of action, to prevent effective responsible leadership from emerging? How do we transcend that rage?44 49

Friedan’s rhetoric enabled her followers to understand the per­

sonal exploration she initiated to question society of its apparent

inequities:

To put it differently, from the very beginning the women’s movement for me has been involved in having to turn new corners: coming to dead ends, looking in vain for blueprints or answers from books and authorities, then trusting my intuition—my gut personal knowledge of something wrong, something missing, something needed— and trying to find the answer in the experience itself. Women’s life now for us all means moving on unmapped roads, with signposts nonexistent or not too clear, mapping it as you go along—and maybe not seeing clearly where it’s leading until you’re almost there, until you look back and see how far you’ve gone.45

It was not the revolt rhetoric of the radical groups but the non­

traditional, yet conservative strategies utilized by NOW and other moderate groups that continued to promote Betty Friedan to advocate

significant social change. Simons, Bowers, Ochs, Browne and McEdwards

suggest that such agitation is anchored in conservatism:

Anchoring the ’Conservative’ extremity is the rhetoric of agitation. We define agitation discourse as that rhetoric which (1) is uttered by ’frustrated' indi­ viduals either inside or outside the power holding elite, (2) calls for a 'significant social change’ in the system, and (3) encounters resistance from the establishment such as to require its advocates to go beyond the 'acceptable' or approved channels of com­ munication.^

Consciousness Raising

The active programs established by radical and moderate groups involved in the women's movement attempted to provide methods by which women could probe their inner feelings in order to realize true worth and beauty in themselves. This process, basically termed consciousness- 50

raising, became a frequent activity of most women’s rights groups.

Since 1967, consciousness-raising has become one of the prime, edu- 47 cational, organizing programs of the women’s liberation movement.

After the late sixties, sessions for consciousness-raising became a method that women rights advocates used to study their situ­ ation. It became increasingly important for women to understand the nature of their oppression as they confronted society and demanded change in social, political and economic institutions. Serious efforts were made to draw conclusions from consciousness-raising sessions in order to offer solutions for women themselves, to the "equality" problem. Such solutions often related to theoretical concerns:

The traditional view of society assumes that men and women are essentially different and should serve dif­ ferent social functions; their diverse roles and statuses simply reflect these essential differences. The feminist perspective starts from the premise that women and men are constitutionally equal and share the same human capabilities; observed differences therefore demand a critical analysis of the social institutions that cause them. Since these two views start from different premises, neither can refute the other in logical terms.

Women’s groups used multiple strategies and techniques throughout the sixties and seventies in order to realize their equality. The inception of the women's movement came as a desire to mobilize collec­ tively for change. Differences in priority of ideas engendered fac­ tions in the movement that created moderate and radical rhetoric and ideologies. However, all women, regardless of their respective women’s group affiliation, felt it necessary to elevate the thinking of women in regards to their so-called "oppression," in order to facilitate a 51

solution. This elevation was not an attempt at establishing feminism, but rather a means by which their personal truths could be attained:

The people who started consciousness-raising did not see themselves as beginners at politics, including in many cases, feminism. Yet they intended consciousness-raising as much for themselves as for people who really were beginners. Consciousness-raising was seen as both a ' method for arriving at the truth and a means for action and organizing. It was a means for the organizers them­ selves to make an analysis of the situation, and also a means to be used by the people they were organizing and who were in turn organizing more people. Similarly, it wasn’t seen as merely a stage in feminist development which would then lead to another phase, an action phase, but as an essential part of the overall feminist strategy.

According to Betty Friedan, "the unraveling of what I called the feminine mystique from the actual fabric of women’s life was my personal consciousness raising."3^ Five years of trying to figure out what her life was about finally caused Friedan to say "no" to the feminine mys­ tique. Through her agitation to effect change, Friedan felt it neces­ sary to fully analyze her personal thoughts and create a movement based on ideology from experiences, real life and situations.

Summary

The social and historical dimensions from which the women’s rights movement emerged and the strategies utilized throughout the major events of the early women’s movement were described in this chapter.

The rhetorical efforts of spokespersons for the early women's rights movement revealed that equality and justice for women was their primary concern. Their strides toward progress brought to fruition the contemporary movement. 52

Lucy Stone, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony perceived

their efforts as some day redemptive in dissipating inequities in the

system. Their rhetoric addressed an analysis of the status quo as well as a non-acceptance of constitutional laws discriminating against women. The numerous restraints posed upon women in the days of the early women’s rights movement intensified their desires to effectuate change.

The central fact of both the early and contemporary movement for women’s rights is inequality and injustice. Therefore, the underlying issue that spokespersons ultimately must address is society's inequi­ ties relative to women. The tactics and strategies of agitating for significant social change have been varied. The major challenge faced by the spokespersons of the early women’s movement was that of utilizing the strategies available such that they would engender change

Due to the limited access to channels for redress, early feminist rhetors forged ahead to create unique contexts to assault the system relative to the "women’s rights" issue. As early as Sarah and Angelina

Grimke, women were opting for nontraditional avenues that extended them beyond the seemingly available communication channels. Attempts to provide rhetorical solutions to social, economic and political prob­ lems awarded progression to the early rhetors as well as duplication of efforts for contemporary spokespersons.

The Seneca Falls Convention provided an avenue for such agita­ tors as Stone, Stanton and Anthony to speak to the moral conscience of

America. Many of the same concerns argued by Betty Friedan were ably 53

articulated by these early rhetors. In attempting to realize the pulse and effectiveness of the early movement, it is necessary to understand the persuasiveness of the rhetorical skills demonstrated by earlier feminists.

Susan B. Anthony led the struggle for aggressive collective action to combat the problems surrounding the ratification of the

19th Amendment, giving women the right to vote. Her efforts paved the way for subsequent legal reform such as Title VII of the Civil Rights

Act and The Equal Pay Act. These pieces of legislation gave impetus and hope for women to begin a sustained campaign towards their goals of equality and justice. The advent of NOW further impressed upon society the urgency of a reform movement for women.

The strategies utilized throughout the period show that women’s rights advocates seldom deviated from the possibility of attaining justice for all. 54

FOOTNOTES

^Judith Hole and Ellen Levine, Rebirth of Feminism, p. 1.

2 Ibid., p. 1.

3 Barbara Deckard, The Women * s Movement, p. 244.

4 Ida Husted Harper, History of Women's Suffrage, p. xvi.

^Barbara Deckard, The Women's Movement, p. 252.

6Ibid., p. 252.

^Judith Hole and Ellen Levine, Rebirth of Feminism, p. 3.

g Elizabeth Cady Stanton, et. al., History of Women's Suffrage, p. 81.

9 Sarah M. Grimke, Letters on the Equality of the Sexes and The Condi­ tion of Woman, p. 10.

^Barbara Deckard, The Women's Movement, p. 254.

11Ibid., p. 255.

12 Ibid., p. 254.

13 Alice Stone Blackwell, Lucy Stone, p. vii.

14Ibid., p. 285.

15 Eleanor Flexner, Century of Struggle, p. 85.

16 Golden, Berquist and Coleman, "The Rhetoric of Social Protest," The Rhetoric of Western Thought, p. 241.

17 Judith Hole and Ellen Levine, Rebirth of Feminism, p. 6.

18 Ibid., p. 7. 55

19 Eleanor Flexner, Century of Struggle, p. 92.

20 Susan B. Anthony, et. al., The History of Women’s Suffrage, p. 81.

21 Elizabeth Stanton, "Letter to the Editor of the Critic," The Ideas of the Woman Suffrage Movement, p. 81.

22 Carrie Chapman Catt and Nettie Rogers Shuler, Woman Suffrage and Politics, p. 107.

23Malcolm X, Malcolm X Speaks, 1964.

2 A Barbara Deckard, The Women’s Movement, p. 322.

25Ibid., p. 322.

26Ibid., p. 323.

27Ibid., p. 323.

Ibid., p. 323.

29 Betty Friedan, It Changed My Life, p. xiv.

30 Judith Hole and Ellen Levine, Rebirth of Feminism, p. 28.

31 Barbara Deckard, The Women * s Movement, p. 328.

32Ibid., p. 328.

33 Judith Hole and Ellen Levine, Rebirth of Feminism, p. 85.

34 Betty Friedan, It Changed My Life, p. xiv.

35 Hugh Blair, Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Letters, pp. 317-18.

36 Maren Lockwood Carden, The New Feminist Movement, p. 103.

37Ibid., p. 105. 56

38 Betty Friedan, It Changed My Life, p. xiv.

39 Barbara Deckard, The Women's Movement, p. 329.

40 Ibid., p. 333.

41Ibid., p. 334.

42 Paul D. Brandes, The Rhetoric of Revolt, p. 3.

43 Herbert W. Simons, "Requirements, Problems and Strategies: A Theory of Persuasion for Social Movements," Contemporary Rhetoric: A Reader's Coursebook, p. 195.

Betty Friedan, It Changed My Life, p. xiv.

45T, . , Ibid., p. xv.

46 Golden, Berquist and Coleman, "The Rhetoric of Social Protest," The Rhetoric of Western Thought, p. 242.

47 Redstockings of the Women's Liberation Movement, Feminist Revolution, p. 147.

48 Jo Freeman, Women: A Feminist Perspective, p. 456.

49 Redstockings of the Women's Liberation Movement, Feminist Revolution, p. 147.

5%etty Friedan, It Changed My Life, p. xv. 57

CHAPTER III

BETTY FRIEDAN: A PARTICULAR WOMAN

Betty Goldstein Friedan’s career as a spokesperson for women's

rights began with her 1963 publication of The Feminine Mystique. It was at that time that Friedan reacted to situations that began to pre­

sent themselves in her own life relative to women's rights. She later,

in 1966, with the founding of NOW, confronted society relative to simi­ lar inequities that existed in the lives of other women. As first president of the National Organization for Women (NOW), she was able to articulate her ideas through a viable structure. Dubbed by New York

Times Magazine in 1970 as "Mother Superior to Women's Liberation," Betty

Friedan utilized her rhetorical efforts to realize justice and equality for women in all walks of life.

Long time friend of Betty Friedan and Columbia sociology profes­ sor, William Goode provides the following commentary that offers some insight into the aggressive women's rights spokesperson:

There is a quality to this woman that takes awhile to under­ stand. She is essentially a selfless person, she generally believes that she must do certain things to accomplish good or defeat evil, even at expense to her own life. What shows is Betty's enthusiasm, her indefatigability. What doesn't show is that this woman, who would seemingly do without the love and tenderness of a man, is crying out for these qualities all the more loudly.1

The purpose of this chapter is to focus on dramatic moments of

Friedan’s career and her viewpoints on American life by articulating her basic ideas, issues and goals within the context of the contempo­ rary women's movement. The chapter further attempts to provide bio- 58

graphical information on Friedan’s early years in order to gain some

insight into events in her life that may have served as catalytic

agents for the feminist leader that emerged during the period of 1960-

1970.

Roots

Betty Naomi Goldstein Friedan was born in Peoria, Illinois, on

February 4, 1921. She was the first of three children born to Harry and Miriam Goldstein. The Goldsteins, Jewish by ethnicity, had a daughter, Amy, a year and a half younger than Betty, and a son,

Harry, Jr., four years younger. Harry Goldstein, Sr. was the owner of a local jewelry shop. Miriam Goldstein, eighteen years her hus­ band’s junior, was a former society editor for the local newspaper, 2 who put aside her professional life to become a wife and mother. The

Goldsteins reared their family in a very comfortable middle-class brick home.

Although Betty's home life as a child was not an unhappy one, there was a certain degree of tension often present. Having abandoned a professional life for homemaking, Miriam Goldstein often initiated frequent quarrels with her husband in an attempt to channel her terri­ fic energies. Betty's immediate family environment was often one of 3 constant upheaval.

Endowed with a gifted mind, Betty was an avid reader and a con­ scientious youth. However, she was not a very healthy child. First, she had bowed legs and for three years had to wear heavy iron braces on them. Every winter she had bronchitis and flu and required the care 59.

of a trained nurse. In addition to being required to wear braces

for her teeth, she had a vision impairment in one eye and was

restricted to wearing glasses.

Betty's early years were ones of loneliness because of her physi­

cal unattractiveness. In order to compensate for deficiencies in

physical qualities, Betty plunged herself into reading voraciously and writing poetry. Her small circle of friends was mostly composed of 4 boys since she made friends with them better than with girls.

Attempting to keep some balance in Betty's life, her father pro­ hibited her from borrowing more than five library books at a time.

Betty considered this cruel punishment since her social life did not

revolve around frequent dating:

When I had dates and it wasn’t that often, they were the rejects, misfits just like me. I guess Peoria is where my awareness of injustices to minority groups and a pas­ sionate concern for them was born. My father often told me that the people friendly to him in business would not speak to him after sundown.

Betty later attributed her sensitivity to discrimination partly to her Jewish background. In an interview with Judy Michaelson for the New York Post, Betty stated:

When you’re a Jewish girl who grows up on the right side of the tracks in the Midwest, you’re marginal. You're IN, but you’re not, and you grow up an observer.6

Perhaps the rigors of having to prove herself equal as a child to her non-Jewish counterparts and the fact that she realized deficiencies in her physical appearance and health, gave Betty the impetus some twenty- two years later to challenge society's unequal treatment of women. 60

Education

Elementary-Secondary

Betty entered Whittier School in Peoria, Illinois, at the age of

six. She was an excellent student, learning very easily to read,

write and do arithmetic. In her second year of school, because she

always finished her work before the others and performed above average,

she was promoted a half grade ahead. In fourth grade, she was again

promoted a half grade, because of the quality of her work. It was

after this promotion that Betty formed a circle of friends that

remained constant until her junior high school period.

During her elementary and secondary years, Betty engaged in music

and dancing lessons, as well as dramatic art. Her lack of willingness

to practice her music lessons caused her to abandon the music and in

order to concentrate her total attention on her dramatic activities,

she persuaded her mother to allow her to discontinue the dancing. She acquired a fondness for dramatic art that stayed with her throughout her college years. A great majority of her school days was spent seeing and participating in plays.

When sorority selections were made and Betty’s name was omitted, her small circle of friends went their separate ways. In retaliation for being snubbed socially, Betty joined with two boys and started

Tide, a school literary magazine, which was financed by Peoria business­ men. Even at the age of 16, Betty was becoming a leader. Harriet

Parkhurst, who met Betty in high school and went through college with her recalls: 61

She was very intense in those days, everything she did had to be the best. Tide had to be the best literary magazine ever produced anywhere and at any time. She made the dramatic honor society with a walk-through in Jane Eyre. It was evident even then that she was drawn to higher calling. Her intellectual abilities won her some admiration, but so precious few of us cared about brains back then.?

Betty’s intense pursuit of academic excellence realized fruition when she graduated from Peoria High School at the age of 17, as class valedictorian, and left Peoria, Illinois, to attend Smith College.

College Years

In the fall of 1938, Betty entered Smith College with a major in psychology. She was trained in the disciplines of the psychologist and social scientist by some of the men and women "who pioneered holistic- dynamic psychological theory and contemporary techniques of studying 8 personality in its interrelationships with society and culture."

As an undergraduate student, Betty was permitted to participate in a graduate seminar under the noted Gestalt psychologist, Kurt Koffka.

During the summers of her college years, she worked as a clinical psy­ chologist, under the direction of Kurt Lewin and Tamara Dembo at the

Iowa Child Welfare Research Station. Her duties included assisting in some of the famous early laboratory studies of motivation, field theory and group dynamics.

As editor for the Smith newspaper, SCAN, she won a literary prize for her biting editorials and later helped to found the Smith literary magazine. In her junior year, she was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and, in

1942, received her B.A. degree summa cum laude and accepted a research fellowship at the University of California in Berkley.

4 62

On an alumnae fellowship from Smith and a university fellowship

in psychology from the University of California, Betty studied at

Berkley in 1942-1943 under Dr. Jean McFarlane, E. C. Tolman, Nevitt

Sanford, Erik Homburger Erikson and E. Frenkel-Brunswik. Based on a

preliminary theoretical analysis of Freudian concepts according to

Galilean modes of thought, Betty was awarded the Rosenburg Science

Research Fellowship for 1944-1945 to examine certain clinical and 9 statistical data in the light of those concepts, in a Ph.D. study.

Betty Friedan’s decision regarding the doctoral fellowship subse­

quently changed her life. The discord that characterized her adult

life at that time, projected for her, an either-or decision. Because of a relationship in which she was involved at the time of the fellow­ ship offer, Betty contended, "either I pursue my career or I sublimate my wishes to a man’s.Succumbing to the feminine mystique, Betty

turned down the fellowship and "probably planted the seed of discon­ tent that would bloom as a book almost two decades later.

Marriage and Family

Even after the sacrifice of turning down the. doctoral fellowship,

Be'tty's romance did not last. She moved from California to Greenwich

Village to live and work for a news service and later for labor news­ papers. It was in New York that she met Carl Friedan. In June of

1947, nine months after their meeting, Betty became the wife of Carl

Friedan, a producer of summer stock and theater works and later an advertising executive. For the next few years, Betty Friedan’s life could have very easily been classified as a prototype for the feminine 63

mystique. There were three offsprings born: Daniel, Jonathan and

Emily, and Betty abandoned full-time work to become addicted to dishes and dusting.

In 1957, the Friedans moved from Parkway Village in Queens to an eleven-room Victorian house in suburban Rockland County with a land­ scaped acre and a view of the Hudson River. According to the happy housewife syndrome, Betty Friedan had everything that the happy house­ wife should desire.

The lulls of the feminine mystique became ever present in Betty

Friedan’s life as the years progressed. She was confronted with a rude awakening that changed the course of her life:

Carl’s vision of a wife was one who stayed home and cooked and played with the children, and one who didn’t compete. I was not that wife. In some of those early years, I made more money than he did, and I took to doing stupid things like losing my purse so we wouldn’t have a fight.^2

In an article for the New York Herald Tribune magazine in 1965, Betty

Friedan provided additional insight to the evaluation that she conducted in her own life:

Eight schizophrenic years of trying to be a kind of woman I wasn’t, of too many lonesome, boring, wasted hours, too many unnecessary arguments, too many days spent with, but not really seeing., my lovely, exciting children, too much cocktail party chit-chat with the same people, because they were the only people there.^3

The marriage of Betty and Carl Friedan ended in divorce in 1969, but long before that time, Betty Friedan had arisen to a level of awareness that could no longer be suppressed. 64

The Problem That Has No Name

Betty Friedan first came to the realization of the extent of the

malaise that plagued the average housewife in 1957, when she prepared an

intensive questionnaire for her Smith College classmates. The results

of the survey, later corroborated by similar questionnaires submitted to

alumnae of Radcliffe and other women’s colleges, revealed the intensity

of the problem that has no name. Additional findings based on reader

response in an article, "Women Are People Too," that Friedan submitted

to Good Housekeeping in 1970, increased her momentum and revealed that

the problem was not restricted to graduates of Ivy League women's 14 colleges. After researching widely in psychology, sociology and

related fields, speaking to a variety of experts and interviewing 80

women at critical points in their lives, Betty Friedan coordinated her

findings with personal documentations of her own life and, as she ably

articulated, "wrote a book I couldn’t have written had I not lived those years as a suburban housewife."^3

The Feminine Mystique, published in 1963, selling over 1,500,000

copies in the United States, and now translated in 20 languages, is

credited by its author "with having started the women’s liberation 16 movement in the United States and the western world." Widely accepted by magazines such as Mademoiselle, McCall's and Saturday Review, the book was an accurate representation of the lives of millions of women.

The focus of the national and international attention of the feminine mystique addresses the lull that often pervades the life of the average housewife and leaves her grappling with a problem that has 65

no name. According to Friedan, individual identities are often sub­

limated in order that the housewife can totally submerge herself in

husband, home and children.

Because of the success of The Feminine Mystique, Betty Friedan’s

popularity heightened in the early sixties and she began exercising

her rhetorical efforts by way of women’s clubs, parent-teachers asso­

ciations, college students and medical groups. The time had come for

Betty Friedan to organize and develop her strategy.

Friedan of the Sixties

Ideas - Issues - Goals

The founding and organizing of NOW in 1966, informed an apathetic society that approaches were being organized to promote women’s rights.

As the spearhead and main thrust organization of the women's movement,

NOW, with its chapters throughout the United States, enabled Friedan to channel her concerns through a cohesive unit.

The Betty Friedan of the sixties believed that the sexual revolu­ tion which somehow grew out of the women's movement, was a two-sexed revolution, where man was not the enemy, but the victim. Through her rhetorical efforts, Friedan advocated that "when society is restruc­ tured to liberate women to true equality and a fully equal partnership with men—and love, sex, marriage, child-bearing—will also be liber­ ated. "I? Betty Friedan, a skillful user of words, often spoke of

"visions of an emotional Utopia wherein men and women will be free to love one another on an equal, lofty plane, where no one will die lonely 1 ft and unfulfilled." 66.

Capitalizing on every opportunity accorded her in the sixties

to speak for women’s rights, Betty Friedan agitated for change that was

long overdue:

The women of this country are tired of being prisoners . . . The image is of the moronic housewife whose sole aspiration in life is to have kitchen sinks and hus­ band’s shirts ... What we are saying is that the American women's time is worth nothing . . . That her talents need not be utilized ... We are polarizing male from female . . .19

Continuing to coordinate her issues for women’s rights, Betty Friedan sent letters to President Johnson asking for legislation to help women elevate themselves to first-class citizenship. Her acts of confronta­ tion quickly became very visible and audible. Speaking of Betty Friedan,

Paul Wilkes, New York Times Magazine reporter, provides the following commentary:

Protesting against paper pushing at the New York office of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commis­ sion, she walked into the office carrying bundles of newspapers wrapped in red tape, emblazoned with: Title Seven of the Civil Rights Act has no teeth, EEOC has not guts. She sat in at the Oak Room of the Plaza Hotel during the lunch hour, a time reserved for males for the past 61 years.20

Friedan's issues concerned themselves with ads that exploited women, political groups that refused to write women’s rights groups into their platforms and textbook publishers who underplayed the role of women in history. The total picture revealed a confronting of society relative to any inequity or injustice that women were suffering during the sixties.

Journalists, reporters and other women’s rights advocates observed

Friedan during the early stages of her ideology in the women’s movement 67.

and set forth observations that reinforce the obstinance and durability

that was often characteristic of the women’s rights advocate. Jacqui

Ceballos, noted feminist, contends of Betty Friedan:

She’s a terror to deal with and there is an overpower­ ing ego at work. But this is the first person who awakened women to their oppression and for that alone we should pay homage.2

Susan Brownmiller, New York Times Magazine reporter, maintains:

Many younger women are horrified that Betty can talk to the Establishment, that she has a black maid, that she is a celebrity. There is a serious generation gap. For me personally, this woman changed my life. I read The Feminine Mystique when I was 28 and a researcher at Newsweek worrying myself to death that I should be aspiring to suburban wifehood.22

Throughout her rhetorical efforts during the ten years of the focus of this study, Betty Friedan continued to utilize her persuasive abili­ ties in order to impress upon women all over the United States, the seri ousness of their plight. On August 26, 1970, the fiftieth anniversary of woman’s suffrage, Betty Friedan made her first call for a massive 23 strike as, "an instant revolution against sexual oppression." The loosely knit coalition of women’s groups working within the women’s rights movement settled on three official demands for the strike: free abortion on demand, free twenty-four hour community controlled child care centers and equal opportunity in jobs and education.

The plans of the strike communicated a message to the establish­ ment. Two weeks before the momentous women’s strike, the United States

House of Representatives hurriedly passed an amendment to the Consti­ tution that prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex. The amend- 68.

ment which has to be passed by the Senate and approved by two-thirds

of the state legislatures before becoming law, has been introduced

every year since 1923, but it had never come to a vote in the House 24 before. The same day, New York City Mayor John Lindsay, signed a

law prohibiting discrimination in public places on the grounds of

sex.

Betty Friedan’s women’s strike witnessed participants in forty cities across the United States. Its occurrence created a host of aggressor rhetoricians and subsequently heightened the movement.

Friedan realized that she had sufficiently agitated reason for change.

"It exceeded my wildest dreams. It’s now a political movement, the

i „25 message is clear.

Philosophy of Life

Much is written about Friedan’s uneven temper, abrasive disposi­ tion and overpowering ego. Many of Friedan’s interviewers have attached major significance to the sensitivity of injustice and dis­ crimination from her Jewish upbringing. Friedan, however, realized very early in her life that she would opt for a nontraditional approach to realizing goals important to her:

Beauty is my philosophy and my religion. I want to see and hear beautiful things and I want to create beauty. I want to fall in love and be loved and be needed by someone. I want to have children. I know this: I don’t want to marry a man and keep house for him and be the mother of his children and nothing else. I want to do something with my life - to have an absorb­ ing interest. I want success and fame. For these seventeen years have been a succession of striving for something and thinking once I would achieve it, I would be content, and then achieving it and not being content, but striving for something else.26 69

During the years of her life when Friedan worked as a free lance writer publishing in most of the American magazines, she departed increasingly from the usual formula article and tried new ways of communicating. Her concern even at this point in her life was in equalizing differences and allowing the lay reader the opportunity to comprehend the stated message. Betty Friedan, in an unpublished docu­ mentation of her accomplishments, provides the following justification for her expressivity:

It seems increasingly urgent to develop new techniques of communicating complex insights. I do not agree with the contemporary philosophers and scientists who believe that the new discoveries and theoretical developments, which rest on such a complex structure of knowledge, cannot be communicated to the majority of people who lack that pre­ liminary knowledge and the step-by-step disciplines neces­ sary to acquire it. Such insights, I believe, can be com­ municated in a direct, almost intuitive way — in, perhaps, the holistic-dynamic way in which the artist perceives and communicates.27

Endowed with a gifted mind, Betty Friedan was always able to com­ pete on an intellectual basis and reinforce her self-confidence. She often took pride in the" fact that her abilities allowed her a mark of excellence in her accomplishments. Speaking in 1970 of The Feminine

Mystique, and her involvement in the women’s rights movement, she maintained:

Amazingly, I've never had self-doubts about the book I wrote or the movement, although my personal life is a study in indecision. I wouldn’t say that I started the movement; it surely is a product of historical forces, but if Betty Friedan weren’t alive, she’d have to be invented to see the movement through. Seven years ago, I was considered the most radical woman in America; now the radicals in women's lib call me hopelessly bourgeois and all that.28 70

Betty Friedan has labeled the image to which women attempt to conform as "the feminine mystique." This mystique is created by society’s expectations of what women should be. Through her book,

Friedan noted that there is often a discrepancy between what women feel they want to achieve and what society has mandated that they attempt to achieve. This problem that has no name has beset women of all edu­ cational and income levels and walks of life.

The perpetuation of the dismay in recognizing the mystique is com­ pounded in the fact that it is rooted in the happy housewife syndrome.

Supposedly, the comfortable style of living coupled with the woman who buries herself in childbearing and housewifery intensifies the degree to which the mystique may plague the average American woman.

Particularly damaging effects of the mystique are the emergence of the crisis in woman's identity and the deterrence of her growth in an everchanging world. The crisis in identity is realized when the housewife determines that her vision and scope do not exceed the respon­ sibilities and duties of a wife and mother. Society has imposed a label upon her limiting her human potential. She is not equal to man, consequently she is not expected to compete with him in areas such as education and politics.

The need for a new identity engendered a journey that identified as its goal justice and equality for women. The initial phase of the journey was completed in 1920 when women won the right to vote. How­ ever, psychologist Sigmund Freud and anthropologist Margaret Mead, with their explanations of women as less than human and unable to think like 71

men, used their psychological and sociological theories, to almost bring about complete regression in the early struggle for women’s rights.

During the early forties, educators, including physicists, philo­ sophers, poets, doctors, lawyers, social pioneers and college profes­ sors, reacting to the temper of the times, discouraged women from aspiring to occupations or careers that would take them outside the home. Their college years were supposedly ones of attaining a com­ patible mate while exerting marginal academic competence. The mis­ taken choice that women felt compelled to make ultimately rewarded them with full-time housewifery.

The new life plan for women was proposed by Betty Friedan in order to allow women a chance to fulfill themselves. Friedan’s goal was to provide women with an awareness of their establishment oppres­ sion thus allowing them an opportunity to explore avenues in economic, political and legal arenas that would provide them with personal ful­ fillment. Interviews conducted with women during the early fifties provided Friedan with the impetus to translate her research and per­ sonal experiences into the manuscript that she justifiably titled

The Feminine Mystique.

Friedan’s perseverance and drive seemed very definitely rooted in her desire, even as a child, to excel. Because she perceived herself as a physical misfit, she became determined to compensate intellec­ tually for the physical deficiencies she possessed. Her dedication to 72

and love for writing was utilized as an avenue by which she was able to

transcend the realities of her personal life and expel the inner con­ flicts she harbored.

Millions of women followed the prescription diagnosed by Friedan and said "no" to the feminine mystique. The tenacity of this outcry has obviously been absorbed into American folklore and vocabulary, and 29 women all over the world testify that it changed their lives. Friedan is suprisingly, "the guru of newly emerging, non-militant, ambitious coeds who, like every generation gone before, want life to be differ- 30 ent from their mothers."

Betty Friedan's personal life was probably a very forceful influ­ ence on her thought and pilgrimage to attain women’s rights. An inde­ pendent youth and adult, Friedan willingly subjected herself to similar situations that she admonished other women to become aware of. As a student of Kurt Koffka, she became trained in Gestalt therapy and was able to approach clinically her own real life situations. Her desire to purge herself of her problems overpowered her desire to diagnose them so she opted for divorce and prescribed treatment through The

Feminine Mystique, for those suffering from similar situations.

Living a life full of controversy has provided Friedan with an adequate agenda. "This whole society could erupt in one great wave of boredom," maintains Friedan, "as for me, I'm very unbored. I’m nasty. 31 I’m bitchy. I get mad. But, by God, I’m absorbed in what I'm doing."

Through her own personal trials and agonizing moments, Friedan ini­ tiated a calling into question of society’s unequal treatment of women: 73

If anything were to be said about me when the history of the movement is written, I’d like it to read, ’She was the one who said women were people, she organized them and taught them to spell their own names.’ (James Baldwin in a letter to his nephew said the white man had taught the blacks to spell their names, and until the black man could learn to spell his own name, he would never be free.) And I guess it will have to read, ’she was the country’s most guilt-ridden writer.’ My conscience, is basically a wri­ ter’s and when I feel something strongly, I have to put it down on paper.32

The either-or kind of life is no longer the prescription Friedan offers. She perceives the next step beyond the feminine mystique as the one where career and marriage are interwoven and new lifestyles are constructed.

Summary

The full story of Betty Friedan would have to take the form of an extensive work especially for that purpose rather than just the cul­ tural and biographical aspects of Friedan as an individual. The phe­ nomenon and significance that is Betty Friedan consists of a life that was endemic with the times and circumstances in which she gained national fame.

The dramatic moments of Friedan’s career and her influence on the women’s rights movement consists of her rhetorical abilities that she utilized to uncover a level of awareness through the feminine mystique.

Betty Goldstein Friedan was the eldest of three Jewish children.

She was born in Illinois and spent most of her formative years in the

Middle-west. She desired a well-rounded cultural exposure, so she left the Middle-west and went East to Smith College. At an early age, Betty 74

became sensitive to discrimination and decided that she would forge

ahead and attempt to equalize some of society’s inequalities.

As a teenager, Betty refined her flair for dramatic arts. She

founded a literary magazine while attending high school. Throughout

her early education, Betty was constantly involved in a demonstration

of her writing abilities. An above-average student, she capitalized

on every available opportunity to place her thoughts on paper. Betty’s

conscious or subconscious aspirations that initiated her writing often

ended as Grade A compositions.

From Smith College, Betty arrived at a deeper understanding of

her quest for excellence in performance. She was a student of the Ges­

talt psychologist, Kurt Koffka. Her summer jobs working with Kurt Lewin

in group dynamics experimentation, afforded Betty a more thorough analy­

sis of her basic human nature.

Without even realizing it, Betty Friedan, after her marriage to

Carl Friedan, began embracing the implications and tenets of agitation

and confrontation. Betty spent eight years of her life trying to iden­

tify a problem that she could not identify. As she was living through

the years of the fifties and early sixties, she was constantly putting her experiences into written words.

Betty Friedan’s indictment came in 1963 when she published The

Feminine Mystique. The publication accused women of being used and abused by the dictates of society and challenged them to abandon their cozy housewifery duties and capitalize on their individuality. 75

Although in the early sixties Betty Friedan’s message to women may have been years before its time, it was sufficient agitation to induce changes in society's unequal treatment of women. The founding of NOW in 1966 gave Betty Friedan the organizational cohesion she desired to start a women’s rights movement. The ideas, issues and goals that she presented through The Feminine Mystique were now linked with those of the movement for women's rights.

By the end of the sixties, Betty Friedan had confronted society and demonstrated her rhetorical abilities at most major universities. The in-depth analysis of the formal speeches given during the decade of this study is presented in Chapter TV. 76

FOOTNOTES

Ipaul Wilkes, "Betty Friedan: Mother Superior to Women’s Lib," New York Times Magazine, p. 140.

2Ibid., p. 140.

3Ibid., p. 140.

^Ibid., p. 140.

5Ibid., p. 140-41.

6judy Michaelson, "Betty Friedan," New York Post, p. 84.

7Paul Wilkes, "Betty Friedan: Mother Superior to Women’s Lib," New York Times Magazine, p. 141.

g Betty Friedan, Unpublished Manuscript, Accomplishments (Student and Creature), p. 1.

9 Ibid., p. 1. lOpaul Wilkes, "Betty Friedan: Mother Superior to Women's Lib," New York Times Magazine, p. 140.

11Ibid., p. 142.

12Ibid., p. 142.

13 Current Biography, p. 147.

14Ibid., p. 147. l^Betty Friedan, Unpublished Manuscript, Personal Notes, p. 1.

Ibid., p. 1.

17Ibid., p. 1.

18 Lyn Tornabene, "Liberation of Betty Friedan," McCall's, p. 84. 77

19 Paul Wilkes, "Betty Friedan: Mother Superior to Women’s Lib," New York Times Magazine, p. 150.

20 Ibid., p. 150.

21 Current Biography, p. 148.

22Ibid., p. 148.

23Ibid., p. 147.

24Ibid., p. 147.

25Ibid., p. 148.

26 Betty Friedan, Unpublished Manuscript, Through a Glass Darkly, p. 21.

27Ibid., p. 21.

28 Paul Wilkes, "Betty Friedan: Mother Superior to Women’s Lib," New York Times Magazine, p. 141.

29 Lyn Tornabene, "Liberation of Betty Friedan," McCall’s, p. 85.

30 Ibid., p. 85.

31 Current Biography, p. 147.

32 Lyn Tornabene, "Liberation of Betty Friedan," McCall’s, p. 85. 78

CHAPTER IV

ARTUCULATING A POSITION: CONFRONTATION

The 1800’s witnessed an Initial upsurge in the drive for women’s

rights. The early feminist movement created an awareness of ideas whose

time had not yet come. Angela and Sarah Gimke, Lucy Stone, Elizabeth

Stanton and Susan B. Anthony called for women’s equality in a system

where women were legally considered the property of their husbands.

Although early women’s rights advocates had no legal redress to

combat the injustices of the system, they utilized their nontraditional

rhetorical abilities to confront society's inequalities. Early femi­

nists probably realized that the irony of this confrontation lay in

creating, in the minds of supposedly emancipated women, an awareness of

the necessity of the confronationa and utilizing all available means of

communication to promote their nontraditional rhetoric. Susan B.

Anthony wrote about the inability of women to recognize their oppression:

It is the disheartening part of my life that so very few women will work for the emancipation of their own half of the race . . . Very few are capable of seeing that the cause of nine-tenths of all the misfortunes which come to women, and to men also, lies in the subjection of women, and therefore the important thing is to lay the ax at the root.2

The contemporary feminists face problems similar to those of the early women's movement, when they call into question a society where the "happy housewife" syndrome has dictated that all is well at the homefront. Shulamith Firestone provides the following commentary: 79.

. . . how can we be surprised that this woman has chosen to stay at home today? . . . How can we now expect that she be here, when that life-long intimidation in her is so deep-rooted that even if you put her in solitary for twenty years she wouldn't dare think un-kosher thoughts or to question her position in this society. For she has internalized its values, she has accepted, and indeed in many cases she has become its low estimate of her human worth.3

Betty Friedan, along with other feminists, articulated her rhetoric

through the contemporary women's movement and called for change. Frie­

dan 's claim was that women had been duped by the happy housewife syn­

drome and exploited by the problem that has no name.

The purpose of this chapter is to analyze and evaluate the strategy

that Friedan utilized in her persuasive discourse. The chapter further

attempts to provide a broad contrast between the rhetoric of confronta­

tion and traditional rhetoric. During the decade of this study, Friedan

pleaded for equality between the sexes while creating through The Femi­ nine Mystique, an awareness level for women of their own oppression.

The Pace Is Set

The founding of women's organizations and the publication of femi­ nist literature in the sixties gave impetus to the women's rights strug­ gle. Betty Friedan, utilizing the decade upon which this study focuses, challenged women to engage their efforts in utilizing the new confronta­ tion politics of this period.

The publication of The Feminine Mystique in 1963, gave women the opportunity to seize the moment and proclaim their demand for equality.

A series of events in Betty Friedan’s own life had seemingly driven her to the point of demanding an audience for her nontraditional rhetoric: 80

If I hadn’t wasted a whole year, 1956-57, doing an alumnae questionnaire of inappropriate and unnecessary depth on the experiences and feelings of my Smith College classmates fif­ teen years after graduation ... if their answers had not raised such strange questions about that role we were all then embracing ... if the article I finally wrote raising certain of those questions had not been turned down by one woman’s magazine (McCall's) because its male editor didn’t believe it, and rewritten by another (Ladies Home Journal) to deny its evidence so I wouldn't let them print it and received by a third (Redbook), in a shocked rejection note as something with which 'only the most neurotic housewife could possibly identify' ... I might never have written that book, The Feminine Mystique.

The Feminine Mystique seemingly produced the thread that united

women of the world and forced them to admit to the existence of society's

imposed expectations. The collectivism of the personal quest for self-

fulfillment was apparently realized as more and more women substituted

the 378-page manuscript for their commonly read issues of McCall's and

Redbook.

Betty Friedan's desire, during the early sixties, for a rude

awakening to occur in the minds of women, had been realized through her

own words, published in The Feminine Mystique. During the ten years of

this study, Friedan set her rhetorical efforts into motion. Her plea

for women's rights began to spread quickly through college campuses and cities across the nation. It had finally become necessary for the ideas, issues and goals that were part of Friedan’s conscience, to be discussed on a national scale.

A Matter of Persuasion

In order to assess the rhetorical strategies utilized in Friedan's discourse, it is necessary to provide an overview of the audiences she addressed and the occasions at which she spoke. Regardless of the 81

respective rhetorical situation, Friedan’s agitative rhetoric had as

its goal, justice and equality for women.

Lloyd F. Bitzer contends that a rhetorical situation exists when

an exigence is "capable of positive modification through discourse

directed toward audiences whose members can become mediators of change."3

In order to facilitate the examination of the rhetorical situations

in which Friedan gained national prominence as an advocater of women’s

rights, Bitzer suggests that three key features of rhetorical discourse

be examined: (1) exigence, (2) audience and (3) constraints. According

to Bitzer, an exigence is "an imperfection marked by urgency, it is a

defect, an obstacle, something waiting to be done, a thing which is

other than it should be."^ Smith and Windes add that exigences in social movements are "perceived social problems of strains, which provide the principal motive or reason for the development of a movement."7

The rhetorical discourse which is examined during the decade of

this study, had its official beginning with the publication of The

Feminine Mystique. The injustice and inequality exigences required agitation and persuasion through confrontation in order to induce change. Mary G. McEdwards maintains that the absence of such agita­

tion would realize change very slowly:

Without agitation, a change in society would come so slowly that those in need of such a change would be harmed by the delay. Without change, there is no progress toward goals. Society holds certain goals as far from being reached so the rejection of these devices (agitation, confrontation) used to reach such goals seems impractical.® 82

Throughout Friedan’s persuasive discourse in the women’s rights

struggle, it was necessary to maintain a determination to struggle for

equality between the sexes. She was instrumental in gaining support

for her cause as she confronted society and called for eradication of

the myths that denied feminine fulfillment.

Audiences: A Body of Listeners

Bitzer contends that the second key feature in studying the rhetor­

ical situation is the audience. He contends that the rhetorical audi­

ence is capable of being influenced by discourse:

Since rhetorical discourse produces change by influencing the decision and actions of persons who function as media­ tors of change, it follows that rhetoric always required an audience — even in those cases when a person engages himself or ideal mind as audience ... a rhetorical audi­ ence must be distinguished from a body of mere hearers or readers ... a rhetorical audience consists only of those persons who are capable of being influenced by discourse and of being mediators of change . . . which the discourse functions to produce.$

Betty Friedan’s audience often included individuals desirous of effecting change as well as those who were not favorably disposed to her cause; the audience was often a composition of NOW members, as well as male and female college students. Friedan’s ability to tailor her dis­ course to her audience brought her much repsect from critics. Paul

Wilkes, New York Times Magazine reporter, commented of Betty Friedan that "the Mother Superior knows her audiences and if there is an enemy out there she knows how to blunt his attack.

Occasionally, Friedan related general inferences during her dis­ course, indicating preconceived notions about her audience: 83

I ask not so much for unity, for I assume that we are united for our goals or we would not be here, but a seri­ ous respect for our honest differences and an ability to overcome prejudices and see beyond the moment to the future.

During the women’s liberation movement, women’s rights advocates placed

great emphasis upon inducing audiences to act. The drive for self-

fulfillment was no longer in the hands of a few feminists protesting

through the courts and subsequent legislation, but appeals were made to

all people who were in a position to mediate change. The young as well

as the old, the middle class as well as the wealthy, blacks and whites, women as well as men became a part of Friedan’s integral audience par­

ticipating in the struggle for women’s equality.

As the movement evolved, a sense of purpose and unity seemed to be

created. Collective actions were utilized to gain support for the cause of women. NOW and other women’s organizations made efforts to attract a large number of individuals from all parts of the United States. Being acutely aware of the need for male support in the movement, Friedan adapted her message to meet the needs of the local audience in her imme­ diate presence. Speaking in 1970 at Wake Forest University, Friedan commented to an audience composed largely of male students and admini­ strators :

Many people think men are the enemy in the movement I represent. Man is not the enemy. He is the fellow vic­ tim . . . Why should men die ten years earlier? . . . Why should man be saddled with his masculine mystique, his image as tight-lipped, brutal, crew-cut - not able to cry out for help? . . . And women: are they only castrating monsters, or Lolita sex objects, or morons whose greatest quest in life is to have their kitchen sinks and husband’s shirts as white as snow?32 84

Friedan was aware of the effects of the mass media and the menial

role of women displayed through the media. The television ads that pro­

jected the "happy housewife" syndrome were contaminating those women who

had not denied the feminine mystique. Friedan’s retaliation to the

media reminded her audiences of the urgency of confrontation:

And only then, by confronting the feminine mystique were we able to confront the barriers and conditions that kept us in a menial housework role, whether we worked inside the home and called ourselves housewives, or whether we were doing the housework of industry, always the secretary, the assistant to, file clerk, etc., never taking a decision­ making role.13

Friedan pleaded that the time had come for women to act, thus mobilizing

her audience to collective goals:

And finally millions of women began to see, women who had been brainwashed into thinking that they were freaks and alone, that this was not an individual psychological prob­ lem of a woman, that there was something wrong with soci­ ety as far as women were concerned, and they begin to act, and the more they acted on their own behalf, the more they began to feel they were somebody, to write their own name,^

Herbert Simons maintains that "the leader must adapt to several audiences simultaneously."^ In an age of mass media, rhetorical utter­ ances addressed to one audience are likely to reach others. Outsiders

include those who are sympathetic or indifferent to the cause. Among

those who composed the audience for the movement towards justice and equality for women were many persons who had probably experienced legal defeats by society relative to women's rights and were consequently apa­ thetic and discouraged with the progress of reform in America's justice system. They were probably seeking means of self-worth and self-

identification from a leader sho could inspire them to work toward their 85

liberation and freedom. Other members of Friedan’s audiences may have been searching for avenues of release from feelings of futility.

As leader, for all documented intents and purposes, of the struggle for women’s rights, Betty Friedan wanted action. Lyn Tornabene reports that "she was the spiritual leader of the new feminism and America's first Jewish folk heroine."^ Friedan’s message to her auditors was that women had to become visible to raise their outcries to society.

This visibility would induce the confrontation necessary for feminine fulfillment:

. . . our voice is not heard. As blacks used to be the invisible men in America until their actions made them vis­ ible, so women have been invisible as people to the very degree they have been too visible as sex objects. If we don’t really confront in all seriousness the need to com­ plete the revolution that somehow stopped when women won the vote, complete it so women can be full people in every sense of the word.

Occasion-Purpose: A Time And A Reason

Friedan reported in her manuscript, It Changed My Life, that "the new relationship between personal experience and political action is the 18 essence of women’s leap into history." She contends that the actions and the words leading to those actions evolved from personal stories of women. As events happened in the life of Friedan and other women, they collectively identified a purpose for their struggle. Friedan’s rhetor­ ical efforts further reiterated that women’s rights advocates would "take action to bring women into full participation in the mainstream of Amer- „19 lean society ...

It was not until Friedan mobilized for action through the National

Organization for Women that she began to actively seek out occasions 86

through which her rhetoric could be heard. The successes of NOW gave

impetus to the need for a single speaker to address the causes and con­

cerns of the women’s rights movement. Wayne C. Booth notes that when

the speaker has identified respective adjustments relative to conform­

ity of requirements for audience and occasion, he is "prepared to raise

the people to those parts of the message grounded in principle or the 20 essential nature of things."

In order to assess the significance of the occasion as it related

to Friedan’s rhetorical discourse, it is necessary to explore Booth’s notion of rhetorical stance. Booth maintains that a four-step proce­ dure is necessary for the development of proper rhetorical stance.

This procedure includes: (1) audience recognition, (2) speaker/listener adjustment, (3) message-occasion suitability and (4) raising of grounded 21 principles. It is Booth’s contention that this procedure facilitates the speaker/audience relationship. The statement of Booth’s claim will illuminate the discussion of occasion, as it relates to the analysis of Friedan’s rhetorical efforts. Booth provides the following commen­ tary:

So important did the classical rhetoricians regard the occasion that they used it as a starting point in con­ structing their theories. Only after they had determined the nature of the setting were they ready to select a par­ ticular rhetorical strategy.22

The occasions for Friedan’s rhetorical discourse were as varied as the audiences to whom she spoke. As founder and first President of NOW,

Betty Friedan lectured or served as consultant on the women question at most major universities, including Harvard, Yale, Vassar, Loyola, Smith,

Southern Methodist, UCLA and Cornell. During the decade of this study, Friedan capitalized on numerous

opportunities to call for social change. Her testimony before the

United States Senate Judiciary Committee gave her the distinct advan­

tage of attempting to influence legislation:

I am here to testify before this committee to oppose Judge Carswell’s appointment to the Supreme Court on the basis of his proven insensitivity to the problems of 51^ of United States citizens who are women, and specifically his explicit discrimination in a circuit court decision in 1969 against working mothers.23

Often during her struggle for women’s rights, Friedan was called

upon for keynote presentations at college campuses. These occasions

allowed her to petition the support of young men and women in her bat­

tle against the establishment. Friedan’s distinctive language and

explicit call for change forewarned students of the society where true

equality could exist:

Endless, self-pity or abstract discussions of a miserable situation that do not lead to a transcendence in action are no good if we are going to try to arrive at a revo­ lutionary theory. But if we are going to address ourselves to the need for changing the social institutions that will permit women to be free and equal individuals participating actively in their own society and changing that society with men — then we must talk in terms of what is possible and not accept what is as what must be. In other words, don’t talk to me about test tubes because I am interested in leading a revolution for the foreseeable future of my society. And I have a certain sense of optimism that things can be changed.24

As keynote speaker at the First National Conference for Repeal of Abor tion Laws, Betty Friedan maintained that full human dignity was only possible if women were in control of their own bodies:

. . . and a very basic part of this — and my only claim to be here — is our belated recognition, if you will, that there is no freedom, no equality, no full human dignity and 88

personhood possible for women until we assert and demand control over our own bodies, over our own reproductive process.25

Regardless of the audience or the occasion, Betty Friedan seemed

able to call for equality. Whether speaking to local women’s rights

groups or capacity crowds, Friedan was able to focus attention on the

apparent inequities that society presents to women. As leading spokes­

person for women's rights during the decade of this study, she received

national acclaim for her rhetorical efforts.

Propositions - Strategies

According to Albert J. Croft, in order to analyze, report, inter­

pret and evaluate selected speeches representing periods or movements,

the researcher must determine the speaker’s propositions as they occur 26 in representative speeches. Because of the inherent value of these

propositions in rendering a rhetorical analysis, Croft suggests that

they be presented in synopsis form.

The manuscripts selected for analysis in this study provide several

propositions, some more important than others. It is important to

reiterate that Friedan had targeted as goals of the movement, justice

and equality for women. Her persuasive discourse suggested that women abandon their traditional roles and accept the nontraditional rhetoric

of confrontation. Friedan waged a constant attack on the media for its

perpetuation of the feminine mystique. Consequently, much of her rhetor

ical efforts were aimed at unraveling the web of confusion created by

the feminine mystique.

The following are major propositions of Friedan’s rhetorical efforts: (1) the denigrating role of women should be abolished because 89 .

it has kept women from being truly free and equal, (2) the reality of

the women’s revolution should be accepted and evolved from actions

transcending our own reality, (3) regardless of the problems that have beset women for countless years, things can be changed, (4) women are no longer willing to accept society’s standards dictating their life­ styles, (5) women and men all over the world should begin now prepar­ ing for the women’s revolution and (6) man should not be considered as the enemy in the struggle, but rather the fellow victim.

The following are minor propositions of Friedan’s rhetorical efforts: (1) NOW's success should not be measured by the amount that the membership has increased, but rather by the extent to which it has been instrumental in realizing true equality for women, (2) it should be realized that the woman’s own conscience should be the only voice heard in regards to childbearing and (3) women should take their share of political power. The importance of the stated propositions in deter mining the overall consequence of Friedan’s rhetorical efforts will be discussed in Chapter V.

The 1960-1970 decade of meetings, mass marches and nonverbal sym­ bols of persuasion, functioned rhetorically to redress the complex problems in the American system of justice. The various acts of dis­ sent and tactical agitative and confrontative approaches towards equality led to the involvement of many persons in the struggle for women’s rights. For purposes of this study, the concern is only rela­ tive to the verbal pronouncements that Friedan utilized in expanding her struggle for justice and equality. 90

According to Scott and Smith, the rhetoric of confrontation may be 27 evolved through total submission or belief in a stated ideology.

Bowers and Ochs suggest that the advocating of significant social change 28 can engender agitation. Mary G. McEdwards continues the emphasis by

contending that agitative rhetoric suggests movement away from the , , 29 status quo.

Friedan’s rhetoric called for submission to the ideology that the feminine mystique had to be abolished and that actions leading to sig­ nificant social change were only to occur through confronting of society:

Our tactics and our strategy, and above all, our ideology must be firmly based in the historical, biological, eco­ nomic and psychological reality of our own two-sexed world ... We can only transcend that reality by confronting it in our actions: confronting society, we change it . . . And now we must confront, in our deliberation on employment, on legislation, the fact that for each woman to walk with equality and human dignity, not just a few but all women must be able to do so . . . We are beginning to confront the radical changes in attitudes that are going to be neces­ sary to make the revolution real. We have to confront with concrete action the image of woman, not just talk about it. u

Friedan’s agitative language seemed to recommend confrontation as the means to achievement of the ends of justice and equality. In all of the manuscripts analyzed, Betty Friedan utilizes a nontraditional rhetoric which seems characteristic of the rhetoric of confrontation.

Scott and Smith list four major rhetorical strategies or themes involved in social confrontations: we are already dead; we can be reborn; we have the stomach for the fight, you don’t; we are united and we under­ stand. As the rhetorical leader or "man of words" of the movement, it became Friedan’s function to develop through her rhetoric, one or all of these themes, then direct them at the status quo establishment or 91

society, as the immediate audience. The end result induces action

moving from status quo existence to improved conditions.

The repeated call for confrontation suggests that Friedan presup­

posed a certain degree of unity in the movement and its followers:

. . . confronting their own situations; a movement now measured not only and perhaps least of all by the pro­ liferation of groups that call themselves women's liber­ ation, but measured by the consciousness of millions of women that have not . . . and we can dare to face the reality of the conditions that oppress us, in office, or in home today, only because we're beginning to see that together we can do something to change it.33

The suggestion of confrontation is very simple and straightforward in

the manuscripts that are analyzed. Friedan’s tone is neither haughty nor accusing, but rather optimistic and decisive. Her rhetoric seems

to indicate an exasperation with "business as usual" as society's answer

to women's rights:

There is no excuse for an educated person who gives lip service to the need for this revolution not to recognize that it can and must be confronted not in the slums but in the universities and the places that are training teachers . . . Problems must be confronted.34

Speaking out against abortion, Friedan’s rhetoric was couched in the language suggesting confrontation as a realistic approach to the issue:

This question can only really be confronted in terms of the basic personhood and dignity of woman, which is violated forever if she does not have the right to control her own reproductive process ... It is historic that we address ourselves this weekend to perhaps the first national con­ frontation of women and men with women's voice heard finally aloud and saying it the way it is, about the question of abortion in its most basic sense of morality and its new political sense in the light of this whole revolution on sexual equality.35

Betty Friedan perceived the confrontation rhetoric she advocated as being redemptive in realizing change. Because of the vision of possi- 92

ble change, Betty Friedan’s rhetoric suggested that such confrontation acts had to be attempted:

. . . and the rage will produce not change as it can be chan­ neled into the action that is capable of changing institu­ tions and confronting discrimination, but it will produce a backlash . . . And I’m not afraid of a confrontation, you know, and the kind of nervous community that says, anything you do will make me a backlash. Any action that can change something, we’ll take our chances, we’ll take the risk, that we’ve got to change things.36

Friedan’s rhetoric probably intended to use the establishment in petitioning for legal reform, which could ultimately help to change the conditions of women:

. . . the inescapable fact has made us realize the necessity of breaking beyond the feminine mystique and confronting our situation in society . . . And we are beginning to learn how to use our ingenuity and our solidarity in actions to confront the discriminations in industry ... We have begun to organize and we have consciousness and we have begun to confront.

The decade during which Betty Friedan oriented her followers to the confrontation strategy and agitative language and tactics of women’s liberation, marks the most important period of the contemporary women's 38 rights movement. It was during this period that women became inter­ ested in involvement for the cause of equality and desirous of effecting change. Through her rhetorical efforts., Friedan was able to organize collective efforts through NOW and mobilize her followers to a nontra­ ditional rhetoric that demanded answers from society and the establish­ ment, in addition to combating its denigrating role of women.

Attitudes: Predispositions Toward Men and Traditional Women

In Booth's four-step procedure for the development of proper rheto­ rical stance, he claims that "rhetorical stance is an attitude or posi- 93

tion taken by a renown orator with respect to his audience in a one to 39 many rhetorical situation. This attitude or position enables the ora­

tor to bridge the gap in communication and facilitate adequate message

transmission. Furthering the analysis of Friedan’s persuasive discourse,

it then is necessary to render an assessment of her attitudes or pre­

dispositions relative to men and traditional women (those women not

participative in effecting change).

Friedan’s confrontation rhetoric seemed to suggest that man was the victim of the women's rights movement, rather than the enemy. However, because of his supposed position in society as the stronger sex, his apathy towards equality between the sexes often became apparent. Con­ sequently, as husband, he contributed his share to perpetuate the notion that the woman should be committed to housewifery and childbearing.

Betty Friedan’s charge of the masculine mystique claimed that men, like women, were conforming to an image:

It might be better for both men and women if they could accept each other for what they are. It might even free men from the binds of the masculine mystique . . . Per­ haps the sexual revolution and women's right to abortion, in addition to equalizing women, humanizing sex and deprosely- tizing motherhood, will also liberate men from a one-sided humanity. As women are only half human until they have the right to control their own reproductive process and be active participants in the world, men are half human in assuming only the image of all powerful masculine superi- ority.40

The desire to realize true unity mandated, on the part of women, an acceptance of men that were devoid of feelings of ill will:

. ..we begin to have a self-respecting of ourselves as women, not just in sexual relation to men, but as full human beings in society. Therefore we are able to see 94

men in general, or in particular without blind rancor or hostility.41

The emergence of the equality that Friedan proclaimed would only

come through compromise between men and women. The revolution, if it

was to be successful, admonished men of certain trade-offs:

... a reality we must also face in this revolution is the fact that even the most enlightened of men have got to give up certain things . . . Just as there were benefits that the southern plantation owner got out of the slaves, there are benefits that men have gotten out of their prime roles. I think it is possible for some men to understand this. I don’t think that women and men are so completely different that it is impossible for us to see each other as human beings.42

The trade-offs would ultimately realize a gain for men as well as women:

Men, however, also have something to gain from this aspect of the sexual revolution, as the personality gap between the sexes is lessened, enabling fuller expression of male and female potential.43

Society and the establishment seemed to be as much to blame for

inequality between the sexes as biological tenets and premises. Friedan contended that reform was "something dreamed up by men. ”44 The new con­

frontation politics of the sixties mandated responses to legal reform

enacted by men, that would dictate the lifestyle of women. Rather than

achieve legislation through consubstantiality between men and women,

society had predetermined that man’s rhetoric of the women’s movement

offered a different approach for attaining justice that would ensure an

unconditional move towards total equality.

Betty Friedan’s rhetoric seemed to have an appeal for men as well as for women:

Am I saying that women have to be liberated from men? That men are the enemy? No, I am not. I am saying that men will 95

only be truly liberated to love women and to be fully them­ selves, when women are liberated to be full people.^5

The burden of carrying the agitative rhetoric to fruition, Friedan seemed to give to women:

And I think if women really understand as I think they do, that the greatest enemy of women today is not man but our own lack of self-confidence, our own denigration of our­ selves and each other, which comes from the put-down that we get from society. °

Friedan realized that there were, however, women who refused to accept the existence of the feminine mystique, because they opted for the "tra­ ditional" lifestyle society imposed. These women were often included in

Friedan’s rhetorical discourse. She labelled them "Aunt Toms:"

. . . a consciousness we are beginning to have in the new feminism, is that we are a revolution for all, not an excep­ tional few. The Aunt Toms who managed to get some place for themselves in society, usually as the spokesman of the voice­ less many, and who were, I think, inevitably seduced into an accommodating stance, helping to keep the others quiet. We are beginning to know that no woman can achieve a real break­ through alone, as long as sex discrimination still exists.^7

The ideologies of the women’s movement were probably not pursued by the traditional women. They were probably not accepting of the new strides that women’s rights advocates were initiating. Friedan’s rheto­ rical efforts suggested, however, that all women would ultimately join forces to realize the goals of the movement:

Sincere in my opinion, all women need liberation, and all women need 51% of the population, and 53% of the adult popu­ lation of the state of New York, and all women are ultimately going to identify with this movement.

Rhetoric — Something Old, Something New

Traditionally, rhetoric has been defined as "employing all the 49 available means of persuasion." Aristotelian theory also sets forth 96

three modes of proof and related information on style, arrangement and

delivery. In addition, it is necessary, under the guidelines of tradi­

tional rhetoric, to establish common ground with your auditors. This

common ground enhances the process of persuasion.

The rhetoric of the women's movements stems from the rhetoric of

social protest. This rhetoric is characterized by that of social agi­

tation, seeking to persuade "by altering social relationships among

people, groups and power centers or establishments."3^ Utilization of

this rhetoric disclaims established goods of society— civility, rea­

son and decorum. Verbal pronouncements made through this nontraditional

rhetoric questions the establishment and challenges its operations.

Scott and Smith maintain that the users of the nontraditional rhetoric

feel it necessary to radically divide themselves from traditional soci­

ety. A strategy emerges which is embedded in the "have" and the "have

not" system:

The 'have nots' picture themselves as radically divided from traditional society, questioning not simply the limitations of its benevolence but more fundamentally its purposes and modes of operation . . . have not leaders and theorists chal­ lenge existing institutions.51

Betty Friedan arose as the leader and the spokesperson for the new

rhetoric. She was part of a body of individuals who experienced a grow­

ing discontentment with the system, its values and premises. Working with

other people, desirous of effecting change for women, Friedan was able

to articulate the nontraditional rhetoric that analyzed and challenged

the establishment, offering specific goals. In addition, Friedan pre­

sented through the nontraditional rhetoric, appropriate means to reach her goals. 97

In the sixties, the temper of the times dictated an atmosphere of unrest characterized by marches, pickets, sit-ins and other verbal acts of dissent. As women grew more and more dissatisfied with social and political inequities between men and women, they began to question the nature of their perceived oppression. The appropriate behavior and rigid prescriptions relative to sex roles were no longer acceptable.

The new feminist thought that emerged in the sixties had to be heard. It was necessary to prick the moral conscience of all America.

The task was more than mere persuasion. The task called for a question­ ing and confronting of ideas, practices and assumptions that had been questioned some 40 years before. Friedan’s nontraditional rhetoric, characterized by the initial ideology of the movement agitated action and called for change.

The contemporary movement had promoted its ideas through both agi­ tative and revolt rhetoric. Betty Friedan confronted the system and expanded her ideas through agitative rhetoric. Through her discourse, she called for change by creating an awareness level for women of their own oppression. Friedan’s claim that women have been duped by the happy housewife syndrome and exploited by the problem that has no name, is anything but traditional. Friedan’s plea for equality between the sexes seems in direct accordance with the implications imbedded in the legal dictate given by the Judge, denoting marriage, "I now pronounce you man and wife." At that point, the woman, seemingly prepares herself for sublimation through the man, supposedly, the stronger sex. Betty Friedan, along with other feminists suggested that women say "no" to the feminine mystique and make their own choices. Carol Hanisch contends: 98

A lot of women who may say they just want to play the tra­ ditional roles are simply fearful — or unable to imagine other ways of being. Old ways can seem to offer a certain security. Freedom can seem frightening — especially if one has learned how to achieve a certain degree of power inside the prison. Maybe they are just afraid of choices. We don’t seek to impose anything on women but merely to open up all possible alternatives; we do seek choice, as one of the functions which make people human beings. We want to be full people crippled neither by law or custom of our chained minds. If there is no room for that in nature, then nature must be changed.^2

The agitative rheotric of the women's movement has to be considered

as nontraditional. The fact that this rhetoric contradicts some of the

basic tenets set forth by society regarding the roles and interactions

of men and women, cannot be ignored.

During the decade of this study, Betty Friedan used the traditional

system to her advantage, as she platformed her nontraditional ideas.

The manuscripts that were examined reveal that the strategies and tac­

tics of confrontation rhetoric, as utilized by Friedan, attempted to

induce action by respecting society's imposed customs and norms. This

is not to say that the message was traditional, but rather that the mes­

sage was nontraditional and the means by which the message conveyed,

operated within the guidelines of tradition.

Summary

Despite the fact that all women were not able to see the necessity

of a women’s rights movement, Betty Friedan managed to successfully cre­

ate an awareness of their existing oppression for a great many women.

Utilizing her 1963 publication of The Feminine Mystique as a point from which to expand her rhetoric, Friedan sought to strive for the libera­

tion of women. 99

Speaking to varied audiences on a wide variety of occasions, Friedan managed to articulate the proposition that the denigrating role of women had to be abolished. As the movement gained momentum during the decade of this study, Friedan gained more auditors. Living part of the experiences that became part of her manuscript, It Changed My Life,

Friedan contended that human equality would only be possible with equality between the sexes.

The confrontation strategy that Friedan advocated was supposedly the means to the end of justice and equality. Ever aware of the issues of the movement, Friedan’s rhetoric offered realistic approaches to the establishment for their resolution.

The analysis of Friedan’s persuasive discourse that has been ren­ dered in this chapter will provide a basis for determining the overall consequence of her persuasive efforts and the significance of such efforts in the women’s rights struggle. This information will be explained in Chapter V. 100

FOOTNOTES

Sarah M. Grimke, Letters on the Equality of the Sexes and the Condi­ tion of Woman, p. 10.

2 Alma Lutz, Susan B. Anthony: Rebel, Crusader, Humanitärian, p. 283.

3 Shulamith Firestone, Speech given at an abortion law repeal rally, New York, March 1968, reprinted in Notes 1.

4 Betty Friedan, It Changed My Life, p. 17.

3Lloyd F. Bitzer, "The Rhetorical Situation," Contemporary Theories of Rhetoric, pp. 39-48.

6Ibid., pp. 39-48.

7Ralph R. Smith and Russell R. Windes, "The Rhetoric of Mobilization: Implications for the Study of Movement," SÇCJ, 42 (Fall 1976), pp. 1-19

g Mary G. McEdwards, "Agitative Rhetoric: Its Nature and Effect," Western Speech, 32 (1968), pp. 36-40.

9 Lloyd F. Bitzer, "The Rhetorical Situation," Contemporary Theories of Rhetoric, pp. 39-48. lOpaul Wilkes, "Betty Friedan: Mother Superior to Women’s Lib," The New York Times Magazine, p. 140. llßetty Friedan, Report of the President, NOW Second National Conference, Washington, D.C., November 18, 1967.

12 Paul Wilkes, "Betty Friedan: Mother Superior to Women's Lib," The New York Times Magazine, p. 140.

13 Betty Friedan, War Between the Sexes, Wake Forest University, Winston- Salem, N.C., September 29, 1970.

14 Ibid., p. 9.

15 Herbert Simons, "Requirements, Problems and Strategies: A Theory of Persuasion for Social Movements," QJS, 56 (February 1970), pp. 1-11. 101

1 Lyn Tornabene, "Liberation of Betty Friedan," McCall * s, p. 84.

l^Betty Friedan, War Between the Sexes, Wake Forest University, Winston Salem, N.C., September 29, 1970.

18 Betty Friedan, It Changed My Life, p. 18.

19 Ibid., p. 18.

20 Wayne C. Booth, "The Rhetorical Stance," College Composition and Communication, XIV (October 1963), pp. 139-145.

21Ibid., pp. 139-145.

22Ibid., pp. 139-145.

23 Betty Friedan, Statement of Betty Friedan Before the Senate Judici­ ary Committee Condemning the Appointment of Judge Carswell to the U.S. Supreme Court, January 28, 1970.

2 Betty Friedan, Tokenism and the Pseudo-Radical Cop-Out: Ideological Traps for New Feminists to Avoid, January 25, 1969.

25 Betty Friedan, Abortion: A Woman’s Civil Right, Chicago, Ill., February 14, 1969.

9 Albert J. Croft, "Functions of Rhetorical Criticism," QJS, XLII (October 1956), pp. 283-289.

2 7Robert L. Scott and Donald K. Smith, "The Rhetoric of Confrontation," QJS, 55 (1969), pp. 1-8.

28 John W. Bowers and Donovan J. Ochs, The Rhetoric of Agitation and Control, p. 62.

29Mary G. McEdwards, "Agitative Rhetoric: Its Nature and Effect," Western Speech, 32 (1968), pp. 36-40.

30 Betty Friedan, Our Revolution is Unique, President’s Report to the National Conference -of NOW, Atlanta, Ga., December 6, 1968. 102

31 Robert L. Scott and Donald K. Smith, "The Rhetoric of Confrontation," QJS, 33 (1969), pp. 1-8.

32 Herbert Simons, "Requirements, Problems and Strategies: A Theory of Persuasion for Social Movement," QJS, 56 (February 1970), pp. 1-11.

33 Betty Friedan, Women’s Liberation, Fordham Speech, New York, April 1970

34 Betty Friedan, Tokenism and the Pseudo Radical Cop-Out: Ideological Traps for New Feminists to Avoid, January 25, 1969.

35 Betty Friedan, Abortion: A Woman’s Civil Right, Chicago, Ill., February 14, 1969.

36 Betty Friedan, Women's Liberation, Fordham Speech, New York, April 1970

37Ibid., p. 20.

38 Judith Hole and Ellen Levine, Rebirth of Feminism, p. 89.

39 Wayne C. Booth, "The Rhetorical Stance," College Compostition and Communication, XIV (October 1963), pp. 139-145.

40 Betty Friedan, Beyond the Feminine Mystique - A New Image of Woman, Seattle, Washington, March 21, 1968.

^Betty Friedan, Our Revolution is Unique, President's Report to the National Conference of NOW, Atlanta, Ga., December 6, 1968.

42 Betty Friedan, Tokenism and the Pseudo Radical Cop-Out: Ideological Traps for New Feminists to Avoid, January 25, 1969.

/ *5 JBetty Friedan, The Sexual Revolution and Women's Right to Abortion, November 4, 1969.

44 Betty Friedan, Abortion: A Woman's Civil Right, Chicago, Ill., February 14, 1969.

45 Betty Friedan, Statement of Betty Friedan Before the Senate Judici­ ary Committee Condemning the Appointment of Judge Carswell to the U.S. Supreme Court, January 28, 1970. 103

4^Betty Friedan, Women’s Liberation, Fordham Speech, New York, April 1970.

47 Betty Friedan, Report of the President, NOW, Second National Conference, November 18, 1967.

48 Betty Friedan, Women’s Liberation, Fordham Speech, New York, April 1970.

49 Lane Cooper, The Rhetoric of Aristotle, p. xvi.

^Herbert Simons, "The Rhetoric of Social Protest," The Rhetoric of Western Thought, p. 242.

51Ibid., p. 242.

52 Carol Hanisch, "Hard Knocks: Working in a Mixed (Male-Female) Move­ ment Group," Notes From the Second Year: Women’s Liberation—Major Writings of the Radical Feminists, p. 60. 104

CHAPTER V

TOWARDS TOTAL RHETORICAL ACTION: THE WOMEN'S LIBERATION MOVEMENT

The early women’s movement in the decades before 1920 focused almost all of its attention on a single issue — the vote for women.

The women’s movement that emerged during the decade of this study con­ cerned itself with the goals of justice and equality for women in social, economic and political areas. Betty Friedan’s rhetoric became interwoven in the rhetoric of other contemporary women’s rights advo­ cates, who fought for women’s equality.

Although the principal impetus for women’s liberation came from the publication of The Feminine Mystique and the founding of NOW, the 2 ideas were first voiced by women within the civil rights movement.

As early as 1964, Ruby Doris Robinson, one of the Student Non-Violent

Coordinating Committee’s (SNCC) black founders, presented to a SNCC conference a paper in which she protested the inferior status accorded 3 women within the organization. Collective action by other women dur­ ing the sixties to combat inequality for women met with similar ridi­ cule and mockery as was received by Ruby Doris Robinson.

The mobilization for women's liberation arose within the context of its interrelation with the total rhetorical struggle by blacks dur­ ing the Civil Rights Movement. The rhetorical action which occurred dur­ ing the decade of this study represents a phase of the rhetorical cam­ paign for women's equality which came to focus in the 1800's. Bryan

Edwards contends that "the first generation, submits, the second gen- 105

4 eration, protests and the third generation, acts." The yielding of

their individual rights to their husbands gave impetus to the protest

struggle for women’s suffrage that was initiated by Elizabeth Cady

Stanton and Susan B. Anthony. Publication of feminist literature and the founding of women’s rights organizations motivated acts of dis­ sent which characterized the women's rights movement of the sixties.

As the rhetorical efforts of women's rights advocates became more publicized, the women's liberation movement began to increase in size,

Its informal, local and national communication networks became inde­ pendent entities within the movement and Women's Centers, serving as gathering places for women's rights discussion, began to develop across the United States. The small centers became linked by innumer­ able ties through the exchange of periodicals or other movement pub­ lications and through personal contacts among movement leaders such as Betty Friedan, who visited throughout the country and attended national conferences.3

The purpose of this chapter is to relate Friedan's rhetorical efforts to the issues of the women's movement of the sixties. The importance of Friedan's stated propositions in determining the over­ all consequence of her rhetorical efforts Will illuminate her con­ tributions to the movement for women's rights.

Theories of Women's Liberation

During the decade of this study, most feminists agreed that women had lower status than men: that women were discriminated against socially, economically and politically, and that this state of affairs 106

was unjustified and had to be changed. Even though feminists differed

in their analysis of the origins of women’s inferior status, they agreed

in the end result of justice and equality for the eradication of soci­

ety’s inequities.

The women’s movement rhetoric presented three major ideological positions: the moderate or women’s rights feminists, the radical femi­ nists and the socialist feminists.7 The varying ideological positions posed varying demands upon Betty Friedan, as major movement leader, and other leaders, as they attempted to bring about change for women.

Herbert Simons indicates that, "the leader of a social movement must thread his way through an intricate web of conflicting demands. How he adapts strategies to demands constitutes a primary basis for evalu- g ating rhetorical output ..." Simons further states that:

. . . movements require a diversity of leadership types with whom any one leader must both compete and cooperate. The­ oreticians, agitators and propagandists must launch the movement; political and bureaucratic types must carry it forward. Ideological differences among the leadership reflects internal divisions among the following . . .’

Betty Friedan and NOW served in a position as mediators among the many organizations and activities that evolved during the decade of this struggle for women’s rights. Because the ideological positions that were prevalent in the women’s rights movement caused a division in the followers, these positions merit discussion.

Women’s Rights Feminism

Betty Friedan’s rhetorical efforts can best be classified in the ideological position of the moderates, or women’s rights feminism. The rhetoric of this position is the least integrated and the least clear- 107

cut.10 The basic premise of this ideology is that all people are cre­ ated equal and there should be equal opportunity for all. Realizing that this premise has not been applied to women, the rhetorical demands of this ideology mandates that it should be.

Through her manuscript, The Feminine Mystique, Betty Friedan artic­ ulated the tenets of the moderate advocate’s ideology. She presented an overdue challenge to the originators of the glorified image of the happy housewife heroine and imposed this challenge upon America. Friedan projected the feminine mystique as a modernized version of the old for­ mula for domestic enslavement, more bluntly expressed as, "woman's place is in the home.”3’3’

Through her writings and speeches, Betty Friedan violently rejected the role of housewife and childbearer, for the women's right feminists.

Because society has denied women individual fulfillment through these roles, Friedan warned other advocates that they seek challenges in society through education and professional careers. Since 1963, when

The Feminine Mystique was published, Friedan’s analysis of the moder­ ate’s ideology seems to have broadened in scope. She and other moder­ ates no longer concern themselves only with the plight of middle-class women:

Friedan’s early analysis implied that only the brainwashing of women by the schools and the media kept them from achieving professionally. Moderates now realize that legal inequali­ ties, employment discrimination, and the lack of facilities such as child care centers are also real barriers. They rea­ lize that women’s secondary status has been institutionalized and that women cannot free themselves individually through a change in consciousness. A mass movement is needed.^2 108

Moderates do not carry their critique of motherhood and the family to the same basic level as the radical feminists, but they seem to con­ tend that as now constituted, the institution of the family is oppres­ sive. Speaking to a national conference of NOW in 1968, Betty Friedan indicated that as long as women are relegated to being mothers and 13 mothers only, "motherhood is a bane and a curse." Friedan maintained that "when women are free to be full, equal human beings, the family will no longer be oppressive and other lifestyles will also be avail­ able for those who prefer them."^4

Even though moderates and radicals agree in principle on the oppression of women, their respective analysis of the functions that sexism serves, is quite different. Friedan ably notes in The Feminine

Mystique that keeping women in the home is profitable for business because it fosters consumption. Moderates view sexism as dysfunctional for society since it does not perform a vital function for an appreci­ able segment of people. Based on this analysis, the women’s rights feminists strongly emphasize the benefits of ending sexism. Betty

Friedan along with other moderates maintain the following:

Man is not the enemy, as we said in our statement of pur­ pose, but the fellow victim of the bind of half-equality we are in now. And in our every action this past year, I think we have begun to see in the men we encounter as we speak, act, demonstrate, testify, appear on television on matters such as sex discrimination in employment, public accommodations, education, or divorce-marriage reform, or abortion repeal — I see so clearly and from the mouths of men how they are sensing that they are going to be freed to greater self-fulfillment as human beings to the degree that women are released from the binds that now constrain us from full development to our own human potential. 109

The desire of the moderates to include men in their struggle has been evidenced by their percentage of male membership constituting NOW. How­ ever, moderates seem to foster an awareness that women must depend pri­ marily on themselves. Speaking about women’s liberation to a group of

NOW members in 1968, in Atlanta, Friedan maintained:

It would be as much of a mistake to expect men to hand this to women as to consider all men as the enemy, all men as oppressors. Like any other oppressed group, women must lead the fight for their own liberation.

While moderates are increasingly using the term "revolution," they do not mean it literally.''’7 Their ideology is based on the assumption that a nonsexist society can be achieved by working through the present system. Even though an accumulation of reforms may be necessary to accomplish change, moderates are opposed to the radical restructuring of society, advocated by the socialist or radical feminist.

The resound hope of change through the system is embedded by moder­ ates in the following beliefs:

As no significant segment really benefits from sexism, opposition to the feminist demands should eventually wither away under the impact of education. Furthermore, the mod­ erates, working from a liberal ideology, see distribution of power in the United States as pluralist. Competition among many groups determines government policy; no single group dominates. Organized women can get into the game and, like other groups, can expect to have their demands met if they put on enough pressure.

The criticism that moderates receive from radical and socialist feminists relates to the contention that the ideal society that the moderates include in their rhetorical efforts, has not been clearly defined. They are often accused by their more radical sisters of demand ing, "let us in," not "set us free" — of simply wanting a slice of the 110

19 pie. Moderates, like social and radical feminists, maintain, however, that each person should be free to develop his or her full humanity, independent of what society has labelled masculine or feminine. Betty

Friedan, along with other moderates, seems to have envisioned a socially just society, where men and women can attain individual fulfillment.

Whether this society can ever realize fruition through the strategy and tactics advocated by the moderates, may be the question that radi­ cal and socialist feminists are posing.

Radical Feminism

Radical feminism is a newer ideology than moderate or socialist 20 feminism and there is less agreement among its adherents. All radi­ cal feminists seem to agree that the oppression of women is the first and most basic case of domination by one group over another:

Male supremacy is the oldest, most basic form of domina­ tion. All other forms of exploitation and oppression (racism, capitalism, imperialism, etc.) are extensions of male supremacy: Men dominate women, a few men domi­ nate the rest.21

The problem, according to radical feminist theory, is the sex-class sys­ tem to which women have been relegated. They have seemingly been regarded as breeders and excluded from participation in anything crea­ tive. Moreover, "radical feminism recognizes the oppression of women as a fundamental political oppression wherein women are categorized as 22 an inferior class based upon their sex."

The psychological function of this sexism has been noted by New

York Radical Feminists: Ill

The purpose of male chauvinism is primarily to obtain psy­ chological ego satisfaction, and . . . only secondarily does this manifest itself in economics relationships. For this reason we do not believe that capitalism, or any other economic system, is the cause of female oppression, nor do we believe that female oppression will disappear as a result of a purely economic revolution. The political oppression of women has its own class dynamic; and the dynamic must be understood in terms previously called "non- political," — namely the politics of the ego . . . Man establishes his manhood in direct proportion to his ability to have his ego override woman’s, and derives his strength and self-esteem through this process.23

Shulamith Firestone, noted radical feminist, has developed a com­

prehensive theory of the origins of women’s oppression. Firestone con­

tends that the origins of the sex-class system lie in the biologically

determined reproductive roles of men and women: women bear and nurse 2 A children. Moreoever, radical feminists’ ideology suggests that the

exploitation of woman by man is rooted in biology rather than economics,

as suggested by socialist ideology. Radical feminism contends that 25 "revolution, not reform, is needed" to alleviate female oppression

from men.

The revolution that the radical feminists envision will supposedly

aim at a total restructuring of society. This restructuring must go beyond abolishing of capitalism and instituting of a socialist economy:

The abolition of capitalism and the institution of a social­ ist economy, while necessary, are not sufficient. Nor is it reforms in the status of women that are sought. The end goal of feminist revolution must be . . . not just the elimination of male privilege but of sex distinction itself; genital dif­ ference between human beings would no longer matter cultur­ ally. 26

Radical women contend that the revolution has to be made by women. 27 Very little help can be expected from men. Moderates, on the other 112

hand, view men as instrumental in attaining the ends of justice and

eqaulity, since they are seen as the victims of society’s exploitation

of females.

Rhetorical efforts of radical feminists called for a new society

by destroying the sex-class system. This ideology fostered a belief

that the ultimate benefit of such destruction would be the freeing of

men from their masculine roles. According to radical feminists, men

cannot be expected to realize the genuinely human relations that will

ensue with a new society because of the real benefits they receive in

the present society. Since "all men receive economic, sexual, and psy­

chological benefits from male supremacy and all men have oppressed 28 women," radical feminists aver that only women working together can

bring about a nonsexist, nonoppressive society.

Socialist Feminism

Having the rich tradition of Western socialism to draw upon, social­

ist feminism ideology is the most elaborate and extensive of the three 29 ideological positions in the women's rights movement. The socialist feminist's explanation of women's oppression places major emphasis on economic factors. This oppression is traced to the institution of pri­ vate property and the first division of society into classes.

Juliet Mitchell, an English socialist feminist, provides the fol­ lowing analysis of socialist feminism:

In analyzing the position of women at a given point in time, reproduction, sex and the socialization of children as well as production must be considered. Women's position at any given point in history is determined by the particular com­ bination of these elements that are in force at that time. The extent to which reproduction is voluntary, the extent 113

to which the socialization of children is, considered pri­ marily the women’s task, and the extent of sexual freedom, all affect the position of women. These factors are ulti­ mately related to but not directly derivable from the eco­ nomic factor — the mode of production.2®

Like moderate and radical feminists, socialist feminists call for

a socialist revolution to free women from oppression:

Socialism that is really feminist will only come about with sharp and conscious struggle led by women. The ideas and concepts of sexism . . . will persist for a long time. In addition to changing these ideas, men’s concrete power and privilege will have to be done away with.31

Socialist feminists contend that complete freedom of women from oppres­

sion will not be realized until the objective conditions and structures

that emphasize "woman’s place," are changed. Margaret Benston, social­

ist feminist, asserts:

. . . Fighting for free and equal entry into the produc­ tive sector is not sufficient. Housework must be social­ ized. Otherwise, the ’working' woman simply ends up with two jobs. Child care, cooking, cleaning, and the other work that is done in the home must not remain the woman’s private responsibility.22

The socialist feminists seem to envision a just society after the revo­ lution for women's rights, where democracy would prevail, politically and economically. According to Mitchell, the result would be not the destruction of the family, but "a plural range of institutions — where 33 the family is only one ..."

From Ideology to Action

The three major groupings in the women's liberation movement seem more clearly distinct in ideology than in tactics and strategy. Since this study is specifically concerned with Betty Friedan, it is also more 114

specifically concerned with the rhetoric, strategy and tactics of the

ideology of the moderates, or women’s rights feminists. This portion

of the study will, however, pay cursory acknowledgements to the mobil­

ization attempts that were generally utilized by women involved in the

struggle for women’s rights, rather than presenting specific actions

respective to ideological positions.

During the early sixties, women’s rights advocates were very busy

translating their ideology into actions. Some of their theoretical

concerns surfaced by means of organizing of consciousness-raising

groups and publishing of feminist literature. All other activities, 34 though eye-catching, were spontaneous and small scale. Such actions

included guerilla theater in the streets, sit-ins at male-only luncheon

facilities, as well as a variety of demonstrations.

Actions that usually involved only small numbers of women probably

gained publicity for the movement, however, they seemed to do little to

change the major problems of inequality and injustice that women all over

America were then facing. Consequently, in addition to the almost uni­ versal effort to found more consciousness-raising groups, many activist 35 groups began to specialize in particular areas.

Rhetorical attempts were initiated by feminist advocates to address the new independence of participants involved in the movement. Betty

Friedan, in her rhetorical efforts, warned her followers of the emer­ gence of the movement and their need to begin to confront society and actualize their respective human fulfillment. Speaking to a group of followers in 1963, Betty Friedan indicated: 115

You are not women who have lived within the limits of the book, The Feminine Mystique. You have your own indi­ viduality. You have your own identity. You have brains as well as breasts. You have used them, made certain choices; not the mistaken choices, but those that have you grow to your potential as human beings, not just your sexual potential to produce a baby. You are not pacified, not completely for your status, for pieces of the world you live in — man’s world. You move in it. It begins to be a woman’s world, not just a man's world.36

Mobilizing her followers in 1968 to the urgency of action, Friedan com­

mented :

I think that what we have begun to do this last year is to come to terms with the nature of our own reality as we define ourselves — existentially — through action. There is no other way we can define ourselves, really. It is not an accident that the one-sentence statement of the original 15 of us that got together to start NOW in Washington, the first sentence of NOW’s statement of pur­ pose, is a commitment to action.37

During the period of the late sixties, women's rights advocates

began classes in "women's history." The women felt that they, like

38 blacks, had been neglected by white male historians. Usually taught

by a movement member who had been doing research on the subject, these

classes were intended to help women attain a sense of identity and 39 pride comparable to that sought by the black separatist groups. The

topics of study included such areas as car maintenance, how to organize demonstrations, plumbing, carpentry and self-defense. While these classes seemed to encourage participants to develop personal autonomy, their work probably was not enough to satisfy the advocates' desire for social change.

In order that more women could profit from the attempted long- lasting effects of the movement's activities, during 1970-1971, activist 116

members of women’s liberation increasingly posed a similar question:

"Where is women’s liberation going?" Although dissatisfied with their

previous attempts to introduce social change, they were hindered in

their search for a new sense of direction by the generality and flex­

ibility of their ideology. Radical and conservative women from all

parts of the country voiced similar concerns. One person made a par­

ticularly violent attack on the activities of women's liberation groups

in San Francisco:

A lot of projects faded as they began — day care, abortion. They were completely unsuccessful. No one had enough stake in what they were doing. There was no place in the woman's movement where women could gather to discuss strategic questions about what the movement was doing. Only the orien­ tation meetings could go on effectively . . .

In their efforts to resolve the "lack of overall direction," to overcome their sense of "floundering," and to escape from their despair, the activist members of women's liberation began, either independently or in cooperation with reformist groups, to work for change in the 41 established system. Their work in a few areas, such as abortion law repeal, where they were already cooperating with other groups to promote institutionalized change, provides an example. Adding their brand of support at legislative hearings, they were able to provide statistics of the number of deaths from "illegal" abortions, relate added details of the horror of the experience and demonstrate their concern simply by their presence at the proceedings.

While a great many women's rights advocates translated their ide­ ology into action by forming the much needed consciousness-raising groups, several other groups worked diligently for a wide range of social changes 117

that were to hopefully improve the lives of women. During the earlier

part of the decade of this study, some members of the movement believed

they could change existing institutions without becoming involved in the

operations of the institutions. As the sixties ended, more and more

radical and socialist advocates realized the need for attempting to

achieve drastic social change by working through established channels

of social reform and revising, rather than recreating, the social system.

Changing the Image

The promoting of women’s rights rhetoric by feminist advocates

involved in the protest struggle for women's liberation, signaled soci­

ety of feminist intent and ideology. The decade of this study repre­

sents a period when society had been given an opportunity to assess the

rhetorical needs of the women’s rights movement. The founding of women’s

rights organizations, the publication of feminist literature in addi­

tion to the "spoken word," delivered by movement leaders, seemed to all work together towards the ends of justice and equality for women.

After having given careful analysis to ideology and tactics, move­ ment women probably agreed that the image of women in the print and broadcast media had to be changed. Without a change in the image of women projected by the media, changes in other spheres would probably have been much more difficult. Betty Friedan’s rhetorical efforts sug­ gested that her followers rise above the media's imposed image of women, and seek their own identities:

If girls today have no image of themselves as individual human beings with an identity of their own, if they think their only road to status, to identity, in society is to grab that man, according to all the images of marriage 118

from the ads, the television commercials, the situation comedies — and even to some extent from the speeches of experts who preach false deprivations and manipulations to catch that man — and if therefore they think they must catch him at 19 and begin to have babies and that split-level dream house so soon they never do make other choices, little ones not big ones, take other active moves in society, risk themselves, make certain trial and error efforts that will enable them to have an identity of their own as individuals, are they, we, really free and equal?42

Women’s rights advocates, in their attempt to attack the image pro­

jected in children's school books, conducted a detailed analysis to

determine how the media influenced the school children's view of the

world. A women's rights group studying elementary school texts in New

Jersey found that girls are portrayed as passive, fearful creatures who

cry a lot and provide an adoring audience for their assertive, curious

and brave brothers. The group conducting the study, an offshoot of NOW,

published its findings under the title, Dick and Jane as Victims.

Similar studies to the one conducted in New Jersey, revealed that

similar situations relative to children's books, prevailed across the country. Feminist advocates organized task forces in cities such as

Berkeley, Dallas and Minneapolis, in an attempt to introduce nonsexist materials into the public school curriculum. During 1978, the authors of Dick and Jane as Victims, reported that their examination of copy­ righted texts for that year showed no real progress, since both pub- 43 Ushers and educators had refused to identify a problem.

The efforts of women to curb sexism were redemptive, in some cities

Detroit, Evanston and Seattle, instituted official policy, in 1973 call­ ing for the rejection of blatantly sexist material. In Wellesley, Mass­ achusetts, a committee was established to screen textbooks for sexism. 119

The New York City Board of Education warned more than 150 textbook pub­

lishers to pay "special attention to the relative neglect ... of the

role of women," and added that "books and materials should concern them­

selves, among other things, with the new roles of women in the economy and the changing patterns of family life."44

Betty Friedan in her manuscript, The Feminine Mystique, bitterly

attacked the women’s magazines and advertisers as accessories in the

creation and prime transmitters of the mystique. According to Friedan,

the women’s magazines portrayed women only as full-time housewife-

mothers, only interested in bearing and rearing children. In defense

of the perpetuation of the image projected by advertisers, an editor

explained to Friedan:

/ Our readers are housewives, full-time. They’re not inter­ ested in the broad public issues of the day. They’re not interested in national or international affairs. They are only interested in the'family and the home. They aren’t interested in politics, unless it is related to an imme­ diate need in the home, like the price of coffee.45

Friedan claimed that women’s lack of interest in the "broad public

issues" was the result, not the cause of the policies to which maga­

zine advertisers adhered. Friedan charged that "ideas are not like

instincts of the blood that spring into the mind intact. They are com- 46 municated by education, by the printed word."

The results of the women’s attack on the media seems to have rea­

lized marginal effect. The television Geritol commercial in which a man,

speaking of his wife says, "I think I’ll keep her," was discontinued in

the early seventies. The Zest soap ad that showed two women on a cross­

country camping trip received a "Positive Image of Women" award from NOW in 1973.47 120

The most dramatic action against the women's magazines was the 48 sit-in at the Ladies Home Journal. The Media Women, a feminist group,

occupied the offices of the magazine's editor-in-chief and publisher

for 11 hours on March 18, 1970. In a press release, the women charged

that the Journal "deals superficially, unrealistically or not at all

with the real problems of today's women . . . the Journal depicts no

lifestyle alternative for the American woman, aside from marriage and 49 family." Of the demands made by the women which included, a woman

as editor-in-chief, a child care center, a $125-per-week minimum wage,

a less hierarchical structure, a "liberation" issue put out by the pro­

testers, only the last was in part, agreed to.3^ The women were, how­

ever, paid for producing a short supplement to the August 1970 issue,

and used it to explain feminism and various women's issues to the

Ladies Home Journal's readership.

Issues and Demands

The protest of the sixties that focused on achieving justice and

equality for women, dealt with several issues. The arguments used and

the campaigns presented basically addressed the following: (1) ending

sexist images in the media, (2) equal pay and employment,_ (3) the Equal

Rights Amendment} (4) the right to abortion, child care,/ (6} pre-

^vention of rape jihd (7) ^medical self-help. Since some of the issues

have already been addressed in this study, the following information

only addresses issues not previously analyzed.

Employment

When viewed abstractly, equal pay for equal work and equal oppor­

tunity in the labor force, seem to be the least controversial tenets of 121

the women’s rights movement. The Equal Pay Act of 1963 and Title VII

of the 1964 Civil Rights Acts, produced noticeable strides for women in

the area of employment. As laws of the land, it became necessary for

the American society to comply to the legal mandates.

Women's rights advocates found it necessary, in 1967, to keep a watchful eye on the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), such that charges of sex discrimination filed by women, would be kept at a minimum. Their careful scrutiny did not, however, ensure compli­ ance. In December of 1967, NOW picketed EEOC offices across the country and in February 1968, a suit was filed against the EEOC to force it to comply with its governmental rules.

According to Irene Murphy who conducted a study of public policy on the status of women, Nixon, during this term in office, made no effort "to give strong and continuous support to antidiscrimination pro­ grams."3^ The women's rights advocates utilized their efforts and were able to realize some progress in employment, in spite of assumed lack of support of those persons, who were then in society's policy-making positions.

Equal Rights Amendments

The Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) had in 1963, been introduced in every session of Congress since 1923. With the resurgence of feminism in the early sixties, interest in the ERA was revived. It was not until late 1967, when President Johnson endorsed the amendment and early 1968 when Nixon endorsed it in his campaign. The final passage of the ERA 122.

by the House of Representatives came on August 10, 1970, and by the

Senate on March 22, 1972.

The basic principle on which the ERA rests relates to the fact

that sex should not be considered a factor in determining the legal

rights of men or of women. In essence, women's rights supporters

believed that the amendment "recognized the fundamental dignity and 52 individuality of each human being." By the end of 1973, 30 states

had ratified the ERA.

Abortion

The contemporary women's rights movement, which became involved in

the abortion fight soon after its inception, focused its rhetorical

efforts on repeal of abortion laws. The women argued that a woman's

right to control her reproduction was a matter of simple justice. They

maintained that "repeal is based on the quaint idea of justice; that

abortion is a woman's right and that no one can veto her decision and 53 compel her to bear a child against her will ..."

The Association to Repeal Abortion Laws in California, founded in

July 1966 by Patricia Maginnis, seems to have been the first total-

repeal group. In January 1969, the New York chapter of NOW founded

New Yorkers for Abortion Law Repeal. In Detroit, in 1970, women staged

a funeral march mourning women murdered by back-alley abortionists.

In Washington, D.C., during the same year, women's liberation groups

joined by welfare women and the Medical Committee for Human Rights,

picketed a hospital that had approved a legal abortion for a woman, withdrawing the approval at the last moment before the abortion. 123

During the period of 1968-1970, court actions a gainst...abort ion 54 laws were underway in more than 20 states. Betty Friedan delivered

a keynote speech, during the same period, marking the First National

Conference for Repeal of Abortion Laws, in Chicago, Illinois. During

her presentation, Betty Friedan presented the position of women’s rights

advocates on the abortion issue:

Well, women are finally saying that we are the ones to say what will happen with our bodies, with our lives. We are finally demanding the voice that we have not been accorded despite all the paper rights that women are supposed to have in America and all the tokenism and the lip-service and the pats on the head and the sexual glamourization . . . The question can only really be confronted in terms of the basic personhood and dignity of woman, which is violated forever if she does not have the right to control her own reproductive process.35

Child Care) ;

By 1969, child care was a major issue, not restricted to the women’s 56 rights movement. NOW’s bill of rights articulated the following posi­

tion on child care:

We demand that child care facilities be established by law on the same basis as parks, libraries and public schools, adequate to the needs of children from the pre-school years through adolescence, as a community resource to be used by all citizens from all income levels.57

Feminists advocated for child care in the hopes of initiating the first

step toward breaking down society’s view that the sole responsibility 58 for child care rests necessarily with the woman. Some feminists car­

ried the plea even further and attempted to correlate women’s full equality with the instituting of child care facilities.

Moderate women’s groups coordinated their efforts and became instru­ mental in setting up child care centers. NOW and Princeton University 124

joined in sponsoring a nursery school in Princeton, New Jersey, in

1969. At the White House Conference on Children in December 1970, NOW

organized a strong feminist lobby, with the result that the conference

recommended to the President a federally financed national child care

network. In December 1971, Congress passed the Office of Economic

Opportunity Bill which included a comprehensive child development pro­

gram, authorizing $2 billion to provide child care to all children

regardless of parents' economic status.

59 In the early seventies, rape became a major feminist issue.

The increase in rape during the early seventies and the growing feminist

consciousness led to a questioning of society's views on rape and an

additional feminist analysis. Women's rights advocates charged that

society establish an understanding of the sex-dominance relationship between men and women. Such an analysis would supposedly curb the phenomenon held by society that, "nice women don't get raped," or

"she asked for it." Feminists contended that even if the victim could

show the act was completely unprovoked, she was still somewhat stig­ matized. The treatment given the victim was assessed by feminists as

"unfair and unjust."

Beginning in 1972, women established rape crisis centers for the purpose of providing emotional support to the victims of rape. By

1973, there were dozens of centers throughout the United States. The centers were equipped with a crisis line that provided 24-hour service to interested persons. 125

Medical Self-Help

As the self-awareness of women grew, women became increasingly

interested in themselves as women. Many found themselves desirous

of acquiring more information on women’s health. The results of this

interest realized Women's Health Centers that sprang up in places such

as Los Angeles, Vermont, Portland, Oregon and Chicago. The centers all

came into existence in the early seventies. The centers often began

by offering counseling and training in self-examination, before includ­

ing lab work and training for female health problems.

Friedan’s Outcry for Equality

The theories and ideologies that surfaced during the decade of

this study represented positions in the women's rights movement that

engendered forthright attempts for change. Betty Friedan and other

movement leaders articulated a diversity of viewpoints that became

germane to the success of the women's rights struggle.

The strategy and tactics advocated by Betty Friedan and the women's

rights feminists called for change in economics, social and political

areas. Through her rhetorical efforts, Friedan was able to promote her

proposition that became intertwined in the ideology of the moderate

feminists.

Speaking to a group of followers in 1968 in Seattle, Washington,

Friedan asserted to her followers that "the denigrating role of women had to be abolished.Her major propositions were articulated time and time again during the contemporary women's rights struggle. Her ideological positions were often echoed by other moderates participat­ ing in the feminist struggle. 126

In addition to Friedan’s reputation as a woman’s rights leader,

she seemed to have been regarded by moderates as a symbol of hope for

change. Her manuscript of The Feminine Mystique, represented the ini­

tial attack on society that paved the way for the realization of addi­

tional inequities. The founding of NOW in 1966 added impetus to the

rhetorical efforts that were initiated in 1963. The legal reforms that

came to surface as a result of the propositions leveled upon society

by Friedan, created an awareness of the change in society that Friedan

worked to engender.

Summary

Building a movement that is viable for an extended period of time

is crucial to the evaluation and understanding of its ideologies. The

success of rhetorical efforts, tactics and strategies must be assessed

in order to determine the consequences of the movement.

Betty Friedan, working through the moderate’s ideology of the women's rights movement, articulated the rhetorical needs of the decade

of this study relative to women's rights. Her speeches and platforms

that surfaced during the sixties created an awareness for women of their

own oppression. Friedan, as president of NOW, often served as a media­

tor on conflict issues that arose as a result of the movement's varying

ideologies.

The confrontation acts of dissent that Friedan agitated were recom­ mended to movement followers to realize their goals of justice and equal­ ity. Friedan contended that a restructuring, rather than a destroying, of society could achieve those goals. Her rhetoric mobilized followers 127

to the necessity of enacting legal reform for attaining change that would be lasting, in effect.

Even though radical and socialist feminists employed tactics for change that varied from the moderates’ approaches, Friedan’s efforts and work through NOW accorded her a position in the movement that socialist and radical feminists accepted. The attention that Friedan received from the press because of her writings and speeches, helped to escalate her position in the women’s rights movement to national prominence. 128

FOOTNOTES

Barbara Deckard, The Women's Movement, p. 376.

2 Maren Lockwood Carden, The New Feminist Movement, p. 59.

3Ibid., p. 59.

4 Lerone Bennett, The Negro Mood, p. 28.

^Luther P. Gerlach and Virginia H. Hine, People, Power, Change: Move­ ments of Social Transformation, pp. 33-78.

6 Barbara Deckard, The Women's Movement, p. 415.

7Ibid., p. 414.

8 Herbert Simons, "Requirements, Problems and Strategies: A Theory of Persuasion for Social Movement," QJS, 56 (February 1970), pp. 1-11.

^Ibid., pp. 1-11.

^Barbara Deckard, The Women's Movement, p. 420.

^Evelyn Reed, Problems of Women's Liberation: A Marxist Approach, p. 88.

12 Barbara Deckard, The Women's Movement, p. 427.

13 Betty Friedan, Our Revolution is Unique, President's Report to the National Conference of NOW, Atlanta, Ga., December 6, 1968.

14Ibid., p. 18. l^Betty Friedan, War Between The Sexes, Wake Forest University, Winston- Salem, N.C., September 29, 1970. l^Betty Friedan, Our Revolution is Unique, President's Report to the National Conference of NOW, Atlanta, Ga., December 6, 1968.

^Barbara Deckard, The Women's Movement, p. 428. 129

Barbara Deckard, The Women's Movement, p. 428.

19Ibid., p. 428.

20 Ibid., p. 419.

21 Betty and Theodore Roszak, eds., Masculine/Feminine, p. 273.

22 Anne Koedt, Ellen Levine and Anita Rapone, eds., "Politics of the Ego: A Manifesto for New York Radical Feminists," Radical Feminism, p. 379.

23Ibid., pp. 379-380.

24 Shulamith Firestone, The Dialectic of Sex, p. 8.

25 Barbara Deckard, The Women's Movement, p. 422.

26Ibid., p. 422.

27Ibid., p. 422

"Redstockings Manifesto," Betty and Theodore Roszak, eds., Masculine/ Feminine, p. 273.

*Barbara Deckard, The Women's Movement, p. 414.

Juliet Mitchell, "The Political Economy of Women's Liberation," Edith Hoshino Altbach, ed., From Feminism to Liberation, p. 202.

Working Draft - Socialist Feminist Paper, in Women's Studies Program: Three Years of Struggle (Publication of Inside the Beast, California State University at San Diego, May 1973), p. 12.

32 Margaret Benston, "The Political Economy of Women’s Liberation," Edith Hoshino Altbach, ed., From Feminism to Liberation, p. 202.

33 Juliet Mitchell, "The Political Economy of Women's Liberation," Edith Hoshino Altbach, ed., From Feminism to Liberation, p. 123.

3A Barbara Deckard, The Women's Movement, p. 430. 130

35. Maren Lockwood Carden, The New Feminist Movement, p. 74.

36 Betty Friedan, AWRT Meeting, November 14, 1963.

37 Betty Friedan, Our Revolution is Unique, President’s Report to the National Conference of NOW, Atlanta, Ga., December 6, 1968.

38. Maren Lockwood Carden, The New Feminist Movement, p. 74.

39 Ibid., p. 74.

40 "People’s Law," Off Our Backs, Vol. II, No. 2 (October 1971), p. 7; Philadelphia Women’s Center, Newsletter (January 1972), p. 4.

41. Maren Lockwood Carden, The New Feminist Movement, p. 79.

42 Betty Friedan, Beyond the Feminine Mystique — A New Image of Woman, Seattle, Washington, March 21, 1968.

43 "Dick and Jane as Victims," Women on Words and Images, 1972.

44 Quoted in Riverside, California, The Daily Enterprise, June 14, 1973

45 Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique, p. 31.

46 Ibid., p. 45.

47 Barbara Deckard, The Women 's Movement, p. 381.

48 Barbara Deckard, The Women's Movement, p. 381.

49 Media Women, Press Release, March 18, 1970.

50 Barbara Deckard, The Women's Movement, p. 381.

51 Irene L. Murphy, Public Policy on the Status of Women, p. 37.

52 Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report 20 (March 25, 1972), p. 693.

53 Lucinda Cisler, "Unfinished Business: Birth Control," Robin Morgan, ed., Sisterhood is Powerful, p. 258. 131

34Barbara Deckard, The Women's Movement, p. 396.

55 Betty Friedan, Abortion: A Woman's Civil Right, Chicago, Illinois, February 6, 1969.

56 Barbara Deckard, The Women's Movement, p. 369.

37NOW, Bill of Rights, 1968.

58Barbara Deckard, The Women's Movement, p. 400.

59Ibid., p. 402.

^Betty Friedan, Beyond the Feminine Mystique — A New Image of Woman, Seattle, Washington, March 21, 1968. 132

CHAPTER VI

"IT CHANGED MY LIFE"

Summary

As a result of this research on the strategy utilized by Betty

Friedan as a reformer in the Women's Liberation Movement, 1960-1970,

a summary and conclusions is warranted.

Betty Goldstein Friedan was resourceful in discovering strate­

gies to meet the challenges faced by the women's liberation movement

as it responded to the demands of the multiple audiences, during the

decade of this study. Betty Friedan was chosen as one of the major

spokespersons for all women because of her ability to articulate their

feelings and aspirations.

Through her skillful rhetorical abilities, Friedan was able to

communicate to the larger society, the inequities that existed in

social, political and economic areas, relative to women.

One of the first tasks that had to be accomplished before women

involved in the struggle for women's rights could realize their goals

of justice and equality was that of renewing public articulation regard­

ing the image of women. After 40 years of no consequential activity

regarding women's rights, society had to be persuaded that woman's

proper place was not necessarily in the home and that her aspirations

could exceed those of childbearing and housewifery.

During 1960-1970, Friedan through NOW, inspired and mobilized millions of people to the realization of women's oppression. Through 133

the strategy of confrontation, she actualized the words of The Feminine

Mystique, by addressing the need for a movement that would identify as

its goals, justice and equality for women. Friedan emphasized that man

need not be regarded as the enemy in the movement, but rather the fel­

low victim. /She stressed that men and women working together could con­

front society and demand that situations be changed. Generally, to

engender human equality and fulfillment, Friedan’s messages appealed

to all people to move towards eradicating the barriers that prevented

women from having equal access to the benefits and opportunities that

were part of a democratic society./

The dramatic moments of the direct action of agitation and con­

frontation initiated by Betty Friedan began with Friedan’s publishing of- The Feminine Mystique. ¿4t was during the early sixties that she

capitalized on the temper of the times and mobilized for collective

action for the cause of women’s rights.

A major turning point in the course of history of women in the

United States was reached in 1920 when women were given the right to vote. This great historical victory signaled an unprecedented oppor­

tunity for women to accelerate their protest against society’s inequi­ ties that prevailed against women. It was some 40 years later when

Betty Friedan gave the contemporary women's rights struggle new momen­ tum by articulating feelings of dissent through whatever communications channels available to her.

By the mid-sixties, feminist literature and women's rights organ­ izations had deeply rooted the seeds of protest and discord relative 134

to women’s rights. All that was necessary was a strategy of appropri­

ate redress to meet the changes to bring about more equity for women

in the American system; a skilled and articulate agent to express the

'existing inequities and a vehicle to promote the grievances perpetuated

by the inequities. These exigencies were met in 1966 when Betty Friedan

founded and became first president of the National Organization for

Women. Betty Friedan’s actions were the beginning of a sustained con-

frontative action move on the part of women to redress the American

system.

In order to effectively summarize the transformation that took

place in women's rights in this country during the decade of this

study, a critical examination must be rendered of the mobilization

for collective action which transpired following Friedan’s dramatic c action. i^This research indicates that there had been no aggressive action to combat women’s oppression since the_1920 ratification of the

19th Amendment, giving women the right to vote: Betty Friedan, through her exceptional rhetorical skills, was able to dramatize the woman's struggle by calling into question a society that proclaimed justice for all. Her ideas of having women transcend their own realities and actualize individual fulfillment sufficiently agitated society, cre­ ating an awareness of demands that had to be surfaced^ Friedan’s audi- tors accepted her ideas and believed that they could be realized to fuition. As a result, her followers embarked upon the task of working towards attainment of justice and equality, removing barriers that had previously dictated their lifestyles. 135

Historically, women had been labelled as housewives and mothers.

Stifled by the mandates of society, women had constantly been faced with the need to pursue their own avenues of self-fulfillment, inde­ pendent of husband and family. The educational impediments, barring women from attending some schools, the political impediments, forcing women from seeking some public offices and the social impediments, adding tenacity to society’s image of women, all added momentum to the women’s overdue fight for equality. Friedan’s vision of rising above the feminine mystique and changing status-quo conditions promoted an enormous amount of unity and determination that motivated women to work on their own behalf to achieve success, regardless of any barriers they confronted.

Betty Friedan was able to actualize her goals of justice and equal­ ity through confrontation. Her strategy was rooted in her desire to induce change for women. The nontraditional rhetoric that Friedan advocated never lost sight on women’s equality. Her constant plea for collective action from women demonstrates the unity that was perpetu­ ated in Friedan’s ideology. Socialist and radical feminists were able to assess the validity and utility of the moderate ideas that were pro­ moted by Betty Friedan. (^By focusing the attention of the protest struggle between justice and injustice rather than between women against men, Friedan was able to maintain the most acceptable perspective as she called upon the efforts of others. Friedan's rhetoric called for change of conditions through legal reforms in order to effect permanent conditions, rather than 136

radically restructuring society, accomplishing only temporary change

in conditions. Friedan’s ability to communicate with varied audiences

allowed her the opportunity of gaining additional auditors. Speaking

on a wide variety of occasions, Betty Friedan was able to increase the momentum of the movement for women's rights that emerged during the

decade of this study? u As the major spokesperson for the period, Friedan continued to

give meaning to Aristotle's definition of rhetoric by utilizing, "all

of the available means of persuasion," to motivate people to act.

Friedan’s philosophical basis for rhetoric encompassed her inherent sensitivity to discrimination which developed because of her Jewish heritage. Friedan’s belief of equality for all people motivated her to carry her fight against the feminine mystique into activism and utilize all channels of redress in order to encourage the support and participation of people from all walks of life.

Friedan’s educational background and training was a powerful appeal to middle-class women who considered themselves intellectuals.

Friedan’s messages were premised on the universal value of human ful­ fillment through an equal and just society. The women's rights move­ ment was viewed by Friedan as but a means to achieve the ends of equality and justice. Friedan’s skillful articulation of the neces­ sity of the struggle created an awareness level for women of their own oppression.

The nonverbal rhetoric used during the decade created a social dialogue that was communicated to the establishment. The rhetoric of the picketing, marches and sit-ins were means of redress that signaled 137

the dissatisfactions with status-quo conditions. In addition to the nonverbal rhetoric mentioned, the momentous women's strike that Betty

Friedan called for on August 26, 1970, celebrated the fiftieth anni­ versary of women’s suffrage. Friedan viewed the strike as "an instant revolution against sexual oppression."

The participatory direct action means of communicating, personi­ fies the nontraditional rhetoric that was characteristic of the women's movement. The action enhances Campbell's claim that the rhetoric of this movement "transforms traditional argumentation into confrontation that persuades by violating the reality structure." This rhetoric served to orientate Friedan’s auditors to the effectiveness of the con­ frontation strategy.

Bitzer’s explanation of the rhetorical situation supports the necessity of identifying a worthwhile strategy for change. Friedan’s confrontative discourse called for "positive modification" of society's existing conditions. The identifying of audiences, occasions, purposes and major propositions to be promoted, assisted Betty Friedan in escalat ing her strategy of confrontation. Couching her strategy in the social protest rhetoric that was characteristic of the movement, Friedan’s agitative and confrontative acts of dissent functioned rhetorically to redress the complex problems in the American justice system. Mary G.

McEdwards’ confirmation of the acceptability of agitative and confronta- tive acts to realize change is supported by her claim that these devices call for change without delay. 138

Through a number of speeches that Friedan presented during the

period, she was able to prick the moral conscience of America and

alert society to the immediacy of the women’s rights struggle. In so

doing, some of her rhetoric called for (1) abolishing the denigrating

roles of women, (2) demise of the feminine mystique and (3) transcendence

of women’s own reality.

Friedan was called upon in many instances to national and inter­

national conferences of importance, United States Senate Judiciary Com­

mittee meetings and congressional hearings. She also delivered pre­

sentations at major universities. She traveled to Switzerland to pre­

sent a paper on "Restrictive Structures in Today’s Society." Her

travels to Sweden, Finland and France accorded her the opportunities

of addressing the woman’s question in an international setting. These

examples attest to the fact that Friedan had several opportunities to

publicize her ideology, both at home and abroad.

Betty Friedan’s rhetoric did not stop with explanations of how to accomplish change. Her call to her constituencies explained that their rhetorical efforts would only be redemptive if they were able to enact legislation that would guarantee equality for women. Friedan embraced confrontation as the workable solution to the social, economic and political problems of women. Indeed her confrontative rhetoric was not bound to ideas alone. Action was a necessary part of the pro­ test struggle that Betty Friedan advocated. 139

The movement for women’s rights was a dynamic movement in the his­

tory of America. In the forefront of the protest, Betty Friedan became

accepted as one of the instrumental change agents. With her leadership,

women became active participants in the struggle for their own equality.

Because of her leadership and prominence gained during the decade, women have become realistic in their goals and aspirations and have

sought to actualize their own potentials. Women are attacking discrimina

tion on many different levels of involvement. The major women’s liber­

ation movement, though separated in ideology and strategies, was united

in its desire for change.

Implications of the Study

The research seems to suggest several implications. It seems noteworthy that, in spite of the three ideologies of the movement, the key leadership within the movement for women’s rights centered on Betty

Goldstein Friedan. Other leaders that arose during the movement con­ tributed to an all-encompassing federation of women protest organiza­ tions involved in direct action during the decade. All of the organi­ zations as well as the three ideologies of the decade, concentrated on bringing available rhetorical skills and efforts to bear on the strug­ gle for women’s rights.

The study seems to generate the idea that the impact of the con­ frontation utilized as a strategy for change during the decade was worthwhile in gaining America’s attention. It is noteworthy to reiter­ ate that the struggle of this period had previously been discontinued some 40 years before. However, Friedan’s rhetorical discourse said 140

"no" to the status quo and called for a revitalization of the "woman

question."

An examination of the persuasive discourse espoused through

Friedan’s manuscripts that are analyzed in this study warrants the

conclusion that Scott and Smith's rhetorical requirements for the strategy of confrontation were met in: (1) the founding of NOW for

the purpose of collective mobilization in the women’s rights protest struggle, (2) the articulated need to restructure society in a moder­ ate fashion to enact new reform, (3) the expressing of the struggle for women’s rights as a "revolution" and (4) the acceptance of a united statement of purpose expressed in 1966, in the founding of NOW.

/ The study reveals that the persuasiveness of the strategy of confrontation and direct action tactics were- instrumental in awaken­ ing a society from its lethargy and demanding change. Friedan’s pos­ ture of mediator in the women's struggle was instrumental in keeping the channels of communication open between the ideological groups that surfaced during the movement. This understanding within groups in the movement was necessary to effectively communicate to the larger society. Before Friedan issued an indictment against society for per­ petuating the image to which women fell prey, she experienced the situations in her own life and gained valuable insight into the appro­ priateness of delivering her message to America. Through this proce­ dure, Friedan was accorded much respect and support from her auditors.

Without such respect and support, her contributions to the movement for women's rights may have been given less credence. 141

The rhetorical study of Friedan’s leadership role and the strategy

of persuasion that she utilized generates the idea that Friedan as a

leader, was primarily concerned with equal rights for all women of

society. She focused her rhetorical efforts on enacting legal reform

so as to dispel the barriers that prevented' women and men from col­

lectively actualizing human fulfillment. With the aid of the con-

frontative strategy, she created a rationale for women to become

active change agents in their stride for equality. She was success­

ful in securing their involvement by mobilizing for collective action

through NOW.

Another implication of the study reveals that one constant moti­ vating force and predominant concern in Friedan’s rhetorical efforts was her realization of the new image of women. This image would allow women the full opportunity to express themselves in social, economic and political areas. This unyielding belief in the new image of women is found in Friedan’s writings as well as in the manuscripts analyzed in this study.

Future Research

This research has provided several avenues that might be pursued as further areas of study.

One study needs to emphasize the ideological positions of the women’s rights movement. Such an analysis would be significant in assessing the merits of the respective ideologies as well as render­ ing in-depth knowledge regarding strategies that may have been common to all ideologies. 142

Because Friedan’s manuscript, The Feminine Mystique, has been

credited with providing much of the impetus for having initiated appro­

priate identities for women who became the movement's auditors, one

study would be to render a rhetorical assessment of the manuscript and

determine its merit based on an identified readership who had been

involved in the women's rights movement.

An in-depth analysis of the rise and' fall of the women's liberation

movement would aid in understanding the problems that existed in the

movement. Such an investigation might offer a rationale for the current

status of the movement. This study could also place emphasis on the

successes that the movement realized.

Finally, a comparative study of the rhetoric of major feminists in

the women's movement would yield insight on respective speaking styles

as well as affiliations with designated ideologies that were created in

the movement. This study would be significant in increasing the scholar's

understanding of the symbolic power or organizational power attributed to respective feministf^Z^

It Changed My Life

Betty Goldstein Friedan’s role in the protest movement for women's

rights should not be minimized. Through her manuscripts, The Feminine

Mystique and It Changed My Life, she was able to redress the problems

that arose in society, denying women and men individual fulfillment.

Of considerabel mention is the fact that these manuscripts were pub­

lished during the inception and stagnating stages of the movement by

a change agent who had actually lived the experiences recorded in her 143

manuscripts. Friedan's writings for diverse publications such as

McCall1s, Harpers, The New York Times, Saturday Review, Social

Policy and her lectures that have been given nationally and inter­ nationally, helps to explain why she has been dubbed by New York

Times Magazine as Mother Superior to Women's Lib. 144

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APPENDIX A

September 10, 1979

Ms. Betty Friedan 1 Lincoln Plaza New York, New York 10023

Dear Ms. Friedan:

Thank you for the recent telephone conversation. As I explained during the conversation, I am a doctoral student at Bowling Green State University in Bowling Green, Ohio.

I am currently involved in writing my dissertation and have selected as my title: The Role of Betty Friedan as Reformer in the Women's Liberation Movement, 1960-1970. The manuscripts of your speeches during the decade of the study are not very easy to locate. I did, however, follow your suggestion and speak with Nancy Holly. I am awaiting information from her.

During the interim, Ms. Friedan, it would be my pleasure if you could grant me an interview to be scheduled at your conveni­ ence. I do not expect to complete the study until May of 1980. Consequently, I will gladly conduct an interview anytime before June.

You may reach me at 419-352-0294 after 10 p.m. daily and 419-372-2136 from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday - Friday. Thanking you in advance, I expect to hear from you in the near future.

Sincerely,

Glenda Hodges 214 Napoleon Road, #203 Bowling Green, Ohio 43402 152

APPENDIX B

Speech of Betty Friedan AWRT Meeting November 14, 1963

You are not women who have lived within the limits of the book, "The Feminine Mystique." You have your own individuality. You have your own identity. You have brains as well as breasts. You have used them, made certain choices; not the mistaken choices, but those that have you grow to your potential as human beings, not just your sexual potential to produce a baby. You are well aware of producing something to society as well as your share of babies. You are not pacified, not completely for your status, for pieces of the world you live in — man’s world. You move in it. It begins to be a woman’s world, not just a man’s world.

The woman’s world that seems to be a woman’s only world. The world of the home — bed making and the rearing of babies and sexual over­ activity, trapping that man. This is not your only world. You have some sense of a new human identity as human beings. We may have to evolve with it. Perhaps you have evolved more than other women. If you have managed for whatever quirk of substantial ability to move yourself beyond the Feminine Mystique you have been unscarred by it. In my time, women born before and after me, we have all shared the career woman’s grand syndrome. If we have a husband or children, we have been made to feel guilty as just wife and mother. This does not consume all of our ability, our passions. We are not conscious that we have to steal away from marriage and motherhood in order to be alive, to have some freedom and identity. We may have thought that we had to stay away from the active, producing able side of us unless we lose that man or do unjus­ tice to our homes or husband. We have real problems in the world where there are open doors for women. Real prejudices which Feminine Mystique keeps us from seeing. If we keep quiet, everything will go away. On the other hand, we have, I think, you have, that frequent sense — the image you have to give forward, that is brought forth for TV. The image of women in which you have decision-making roles. The inability to go along with an image of women that denies your own reality as human beings and women, that denigrates yourself. The biggest enemy of women is not man, but the Feminine Mystique and woman’s own denigration of themselves which the Feminine Mystique gives. Which we perpetuate.

For television, I know more clearly about it now than when I wrote my book, is one of the main perpetuators. Television as it exists today depends for its breath of daily life on the perpetuation of the Feminine Mystique. It seems to wait on it to the hilt and yet I wonder if the Feminine Mystique as it is perpetuated, not only traps American women in a commercial, though comfortable, concentration camp, but if Feminine Mystique isn’t a terrible trap for television. I haven’t realized how completely television and Feminine Mystique were 153

intermeshed until TV Guide had me do a survey on this question. I myself have been in recent years too busy during the day to watch TV, and perhaps for reasons not unrelated, not got around to watching it in the evenings. So I spent some two whole weeks glued to the screen in the hours in which I thought the majority of American women who still are housewives would watch it, and the programs the ratings told me they suggested. I was appalled, confused, I began to take a drink, to walk with my daughter, feeling as if I emerged from a period of LSD. Something very peculiar.

It is the assumption shared by the program executives that women control the television dial as they are supposed to control the man, home, everything else. When I looked at the image of women on tele­ vision, it had an illusive quality. There wasn’t a woman there at all It was like a vanishing woman, most peculiar — incredibly stupid, pretty in a vapid sort of way. There was evidence of her living in the modern age —her hairdo was the latest style, her clothes were in fashion. Her biggest problem and main concern was to get that kitchen floor or the sink shining brilliant pure. And conversely, to keep her hands looking feminine. Her biggest thrill was finding THAT detergent so that she could keep her man. She was extremely insecure. There always had to be a wise older man who had to advise her.

She would say, "Only a few years ago I was in college and now I'm a housewife and mother, but Jim says I've got to get the sink cleaned, floors shining . . ." The wise old man would tell her to use Ajax or Thrill and this would do the magic job. "But my mother never used it!" "Well, you tell your mother about this." She was so uncertain about everything. You work in television, but do you really sit and look at it; as my friends say, nobody looks at it that much. But may­ be some of them do, God forbid.

This woman was so insecure. "You mean there is more than one kind of vitamin.” The wise old man would always tell her what to do. She would worry so much about NOT being a good mother or sink cleaner. Look at the image of woman in the daytime. She is even more stupid than she is in the commercial. The soap operas are just tedium. But the women are always in the home, never concerned with anything else. They have paralyzed husbands, they have to be operated on, the husband always comes home for his lunch. She can't stand a husband who can't talk to her. She is a martyr. And so is he. He has to go back to work.

The bachelor tells the young high school student why he didn't get married at the right time. If you make that decision soon enough you will soon have that right thing. Marriage is the only thing to think about. Was this man really the father of his child? The stepfather is paralyzed. All in this fantastic framework — during the day. But the men aren't there during the day. 154

Stupidly — never a breath during the day except for one program when the man is home shaving — the modern world is there and nobody talks down. There are bright women on the program who don’t have much to do. There was a CBS program where the man talked down terribly to the woman. There was a woman on that program who was reasonably bright And there are the weather girls. This is all a revelation to me. These game programs that assume that the IQ of the women is minus 50, when no skill is needed to play them. She's completely willing to make a complete fool of herself, which, of course, she does. There was one in particular, where some middle-aged woman dressed with big hair bows, gave cheers, and it really was humiliating. Sometimes the MC's on the programs — the contempt for the woman is so obvious that it is pretty pitiful to watch.

Then, of course, at night the IQ shoots up a bit but the image of the woman is still very stupid. She may be dominating ("The Lucy Show,' "Make Room for Daddy"), but you wonder if she is supposed to be living completely for the love of this man. She has to keep him in his place and yet there's an edge of contempt there because it is pretty plain that the woman is so stupid (in the family comedy). But for the rest of it there's no image of woman. It has disappeared from television.

There are some very interesting new shows having to do with teachers and social workers. In reality the majority of elementary teachers are women and secondary school teachers are women, social workers are women — but on television there is a man social worker and the younger man teacher — but where are the women? There is more action in the shows. They have to do with a world that has a breath of life that seems to get beyond that level; there are only shadowy creatures of women.

The only thing on television was a "sick" woman. The biggest adventure that is presented to the woman is to get sick. Then drama may ensue. Dr. Casey might fall in love with her and there will be great tragic renunciation and she will then die. But his is the only real drama presented by women. "Beverly Hillbillies" . . . well, and so on.

The American woman is supposed to take over television. The vacant woman. Why, for instance, if there is a series about teachers, why isn't it a woman; and they say NO, we couldn't conceivably pack­ age a show with a woman as a lead. He said in the first place the women are there at the other end of the dial. The women want to see men. We can't let the man get married. It would destroy the illusion that they have an affair with the man, so we couldn't have a woman. If you had a woman as lead in a dramatic show, she would have to be either married or unmarried. If she's married, where's her husband. If she isn't, what's wrong with her? Is her husband taking care of the children or what? It just wouldn't go. The few leading women said they would never conceive a show with a woman as lead. Women want to see men. 155

I was Involved with a leading man in an experimental show, which presumably had attempted to give women more independent fare during the day. I overheard conversation between top agency brass deciding whether they wanted to hire a woman as the MC,but the idea was that at 11 o’clock in the morning, all that the women were interested in was the man that they could vicariously conceive they were in bed with, so they couldn't have a woman. When they decided to have a woman share the spot, she was not made to seem very bright. She did do the commer­ cials, etc. The assumption is obviously that of the Feminine Mystique, that a woman IS and only is a sex creature, although how a woman can be interested in sex from eight in the morning until 10 o’clock at night is beyond me. If this is so, why is she angry with that man?

Another executive producer said — the woman in the family comedy is very domineering — you laugh at her. After all, man is the enemy. They want to put that man in his place. Think of the implicit hos­ tility. The woman is walled into that home in the false security wrap, the man enjoying the world in which she is not in it at all. How can she keep that world? This hostility and then this denegation of the woman herself is implied. As in the women in the family come­ dies. The woman has to laugh at herself before someone laughs at you.

Then, you know, I wonder what this does to women, what this does to television. The generations of women, the young girls who have grown up with a steady diet of TV, are the ones who are unaware of an identity of their own. They give up the opportunities that are theirs for education, the qualities that are there by opportunity, by law. They think they can't exist in the world without getting this man. You know the statistics show that in the same era when television has blanketed the world, while many women are working outside the home, the declining ones are in secondary teaching, in art, in labs, etc. A declining number of women are doing less beyond the home. It only takes confidence in yourself’ as an artist. Recently I have been lec­ turing college students —women who are the same level as men are unheard of nowadays. They are surprised to learn that women are equal to men. What is holding women back is lack of "go," "aspiration," lack of an image of their own identity of people. And for this the mass media is partly to blame and it stems from when they are little girls watching the television set. But what does this do to televi­ sion? Interesting story — one of the things that interest me is the disappearing woman on television.

The real image from television of woman is gone — she's so afraid of losing her life, and she can't be a very beautiful or sexy woman on screen, but I understand there are decreasing opportunities for actresses on TV and decreasing opportunities for women in the networks — the idea of women doing the news instead of just weather reports -— women are not supposed to even look at women, even less identified women with a brain. "The Eleventh Hour," more or less independent,' the woman is usually sick. We do sometimes find some independence in women — she can be indepen­ 156

dently sick because she will be punished for it in the end. The actresses are just batting down doors. The only part she gets is to wave "goodbye" to the man, but here, at least, there's some job of being seen.

One man said he had thought of making a real housewife but the reality is so humdrum, they wouldn't believe it. There's got to be action in it. Something has to be happening. If we really made it the way it is, it would be too boring so we have to make these things up. A woman told me — one whom I consider one of the few independent women on television —she was successful about it — her image had certainly begun to worry the top brass because she was TOO independent, so they told her to go easy. There would have to be smelly diapers or dirty dishes in the back of the picture. But they just got too uneasy because her image was too independent. When they gave her a daytime show, it was too intelligent an image for daytime television. And intelligence, or independence, threatens the normal woman. The execu­ tive producers do package the programs for night (prime) time. The prime time is being used for the minus 50 IQ.

The stories can't be too foreign or else the woman won't watch it. Isn't there some coincidence that intelligent drama is disappearing? If women cut down their own growth at a point where the human mind doesn't stop going, it grows on to 50 or 60. If the woman's mind stops growing at the mental age of 9 or 10, if she really does con­ trol this home or the dial . . . what is this to us, to you, to me. I think there is something we can do about it. I think we better. If the opportunity for women is disappearing from television, we better do something about this.

The young women are then aspiring to place in society for them­ selves, beyond the infantile peak of childbearing and scrubbing floors. One of the most obscene things I see on television are some of the few women who do, who have (virtue of their own strength) achieved full freedom in society, turn to other women and say "You, dear, stay right there at home, there's nothing more you can do than wash the dishes." She doesn't speak very honestly. I think there's something we can do. It gives me a thrill to see a Negro lawyer in "The Defenders." It may have a better effect on Negro boys in schools to get them to use this motivation. But he is a self-respecting man. It’s beginning to hap­ pen in television and radio. We are image-makers. I will not be com­ fortable denegrating myself or going along with ah image that denies my reality about women. The hostility is directed against that women who cannot dominate or move in the world, so she has to dominate in the home, or so it is expressed to the few women who are working in the office. This hostility will get worse unless we let women reach their full potential. When this becomes a human world we will have to be free or equal. Are we really equal?’ Can we make the right choices to grow to our full potential. If we make such a fettish about getting 157

our man, etc., the woman too late realizes her own identity. We can do one thing. It will be better for us. We can say NO to the Feminine Mystique, we can use our own possible opportunity of image- makers to make an honest image of women that will be true to all women and will also help women to grow, and ask for things for women - an end to the things that men get credit for. I am starting to do one thing — I'm still feeling blues of the Feminine Mystique.

My husband said to me, "You can't do this Susan B. Anthony bit and not show pictures of the kids." So I always end now, when I have to do a speech — goodness, where are they? ... I then show the pic­ tures of my children . . .

But I am designed as a woman and I am fulfilled as a woman, not only by my husband and my children, but by this, my work, the passion and the energy, and the sheer grit that makes me do this— but we have got to do something about this. So many millions of women are really trapped, who are wasting their life until it's too late. We could do something about it and I think we should.

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DISCUSSIONS —

Florence Simon, Family Circle — Do you take some inspiration from the program, "This Is The Week That Was" — a brilliant program.

It was very enthusiastic.

Do you take some heart from this program? Sure. There is no research to show that people are so stupid. The response is very heartening.

Ruth Thompson, feature writer — If you are thinking about a group of some people who are oppressed . . . These women have some splendid television opportunities. The family may be rising econo­ mically or something like that. I heard a story about a soldier who had been transferred to Iceland and missed the last episode in a series and sent for the script because he had to know how it ended. It relates to the life. That they will be gleaning something from some of these programs.

A— I wonder what would happen. We equate this woman with the sick soldier in the hospital. The woman really isn't maimed. But there is a Spanish proverb -- "Treat married woman as if she had broken leg." 158

What would woman do with daily TV if she weren't pinned to the house, if they want to look at TV, they do.

Lucille Mason, TV advertising (Compton Ad Agency) — I wonder if we are forgetting a basic thing. Part of the problem is that we have to get to the sponsor to get to them that women want more than day­ time serials. They are blanketing the country with quiz shows and soap operas — this is an advertising problem.

Ruth Hagy Brod, Newspaper Columnist, Producer of "College Press Conference" — Economics — there are many fine documentaries. But they just can't compete. That is why you have so little of it. Who watches it, though? Very small segments of the population. It's commercial, not economically feasible. These specials have been great but they cannot compete commercial and the sponsors can't make money, so what do you do about this?

Mrs. Felicia Schwartz, Director of "Catalyst" -- In essence, I, too, disagree with the negative image that is presented. I think per­ haps one of the important answers is that women be alive within them­ selves. If they are really living the family years, they will want to continue to live. If they started with an excitement in college and then go on to enjoying their children, they will be positively pro­ pelled into the productive world and only then will come the real answer — that women of the next generation will be like your daughter, like mine. They will be intolerant of the woman now on TV, so the ratings of the shows we all consider good will all go up. But mothers who are using their lives productively, using the life at home, at work, make intellectual contributions to free society.

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P.S. During the discussion at the head table afterwards, new member Florence Horn remarked that her oldest son had said to his sister: "Get married, stay home, suffer!" Apparently he'd based this impres­ sion of the female destiny on a few weeks of TV viewing. . . . m. f. 159

APPENDIX C

Report of the President Betty Friedan Second National Conference National Organization for Women (NOW) Washington, D.C. November 18, 1969

It is slightly over a year since we met here in Washington to organize a "new movement toward full equality for all women in America, in truly equal partnership with men." We said in our statement of purpose: "the time has come to move beyond the abstract arguments, discussions, and symposia over the status and special nature of women that has raged in America in recent years. We organize to initiate and support action nationally and in any part of this nation by individuals or organizations to break through the silken curtain of prejudice and discrimination against women in the government, industry, churches, the judiciary, the labor unions, the educational institutions, science, medicine, law, and every other field of American endeavor."

In this incredibly fast-paced year, we have been so busy organiz­ ing and acting on behalf of that equality—and so harrassed by the day-to-day problems involved, with no resources but our own energy, per­ sistence, and dedication in taking on the complex problem of sex dis­ crimination in this country—that we are hardly aware of how far we have come. I do not measure this distance by the fact that our member­ ship has quadrupled from 300 to more than 1200 men and women committed to action in NOW, or by the fact that chapters are being organized almost weekly in California, Illinois, Wisconsin, Ohio, New England, Pennsylvania, New York,- the National's Capital, and the South. It is rather the length that these, our first 1200 members, have gone to, to become active in NOW—too impatient to wait for an answer to a letter sometimes, ready to go to great lengths to track down an officer who will tell them what they can do right away—the intensity of dedica­ tion to our purpose, the seriousness, perseverence, ingenuity, and indeed, elegance in which NOW members in this past year have begun by "acting now, and by speaking out on behalf of their own equality, free­ dom, and human dignity—not in pleas for special privileges, nor in enmity toward men but in self-respecting partnership with men"—have already begun to create the new image of women which America sorely needs.

Consider this distance we have traveled. In the spring of 1966, when some of us first began discussing the need for an "NAACP for women"—as we referred to it before we named our child "NOW"—the outlawing of sex discrimination in employment in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act was a joke. No one was supposed to take it seriously. Spokesmen for the EEOC joked at their conferences about the right of a man to become a Playboy Bunny. Without a blush of shame or a murmur 160

of protest from any organized guidelines which forbid segregated adver tising to permit employers to advertise "help wanted - males," "help wanted - females," though they could not advertise "help wanted - colored," and "help wanted - white." There was a good deal of talk in Washington, at various high levels that summer, about taking sex out of Title VII. It was a "nuisance," as the cases of women suffering job discrimination on the basis of sex began to pour in on the EEOC in a volume no one had expected. Neither the labor unions nor women’s organizations nor the Civil Rights movement seemed interested in these cases. "It was just a fluke that sex got into the Civil Rights Act," according to the establishment party line; "women don’t really want job equality." There was indeed "no civil rights movement to speak for women, as there has been for Negroes and other victims of dis­ crimination." So "NOW" began to speak.

Our first order of business was to make clear to Washington, to employers, to unions, and to the Nation, that someone was watching, someone cared about ending sex discrimination. When we went to the Hill to meet with Mr. Macy, with the Attorney General, with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commissioners to ask that the mandate against sex discrimination be enforced as seriously as that against race dis­ crimination, to ask that the President use his powers to do more than make token speeches and token appointments of women and issue an Executive Order to end sex discrimination in the Government and by Government contractors, to ask that new civil rights legislation for­ bid sex discrimination in jury service, they listened. We were speak­ ing for the New Woman in a new tone of voice that had not been heard from women before. We were not afraid or ashamed to be called femin­ ists, but we seemed to be a new breed of feminists. We were not bat- tleaxes nor man haters. Indeed there are men in our own ranks. The officials we interviewed, the men who interviewed us, treated us as attractive women, but without that glint of contempt that so often belies men's flattery of women. Because we were and are serious about real equality, and because we really meant it (real equality not half equality), they treated us with real respect. Unlike most women's organizations and official spokeswomen, we are not timid about taking our case to the nation through the mass media, the press, radio and TV. For we know the importance of bringing the question of sex dis­ crimination out from under the table where it could be ignored or sniggered away, to confront the human rights consciousness and con­ science of this country.

When nothing happened about the "help wanted” guidelines, we used our best legal skills to force the EEOC to hold public hearings. "NOW" members in New York and other cities began to put pressure on the news­ paper publishers and even to picket the newspapers. When we learned through the grapevine that there was a possibility of merely a token addition to sex to the Executive Order on Government contracts—under which sex discrimination would not have been handled by the same agency 161

and procedures as other forms of discrimination—we made it clear to the White House that we would consider this a betrayal of equal oppor­ tunity. Women all over the country began coming to NOW for help in fighting sex discrimination they were experiencing in their jobs. Women who had no unions to fight for them, sometimes women whose unions didn't seem to want to know how to fight for them against sex discrimination. We helped them. Our volunteer legal committee had to work nights and weekends on top of their own demanding jobs and law practices. Where we had no NOW member lawyer, our legal committee taught women to act as their own lawyers. We helped by shedding the light of publicity on particularly infamous cases of sex discrimination such as the Pauline Ziob case, a woman who was sent to us by the U.N. when she was pulled off her job as yeoman typist aboard a ship at sea because it was said to be a "man's job." Again and again, as in the Mengelkoch case in California and the Colgate-Palmolive case in Indiana, we found that sex discrimination, now forbidden in employment by the Federal laws, was hiding behind the so-called state protective laws where women but not men might be prevented from lifting 35 pounds or working overtime—and thus denied promotion to good jobs or recall after layoffs. The courts, so far, have been singularly deaf to our plea that women are being denied equal protection of the law as guaran­ teed by the 14th amendment to the Constitution. But we have just begun to fight. It is amazing, considering the powerful adversaries we have had to take on, that we are not intimidated. The airlines probably spent a small fortune on nationally famous lawyers to keep us from sup­ porting the airline stewardesses in their battle against forced retire­ ment at.age 35 or marriage. Despite the fact that we suffered indig­ nities in the subpoeaning of our officers when we first offered sup­ port to the stewardesses, we offered it again when a new hearing was called this spring and not only testified on the implications of their case for the 28 million working women in America, most of whom are over 35 and are married, but saw to it that the mass media understood the serious implications of the case. So now we have that long over­ due Presidential Order outlawing sex discrimination in the Government and by Government contractors. The word, according to industry news­ letters, is that new guidelines are about to be released on help wanted ads and the decision on the stewardesses' case. Perhaps even more important, sex discrimination is out in the clear light of day and now being talked and written about all over the country. In the last two weeks five major magazines (news magazines and women's magazines) have approached us for material for major articles on sex discrimination and "NOW." There is no more talk about taking sex out of Title VII. But in 1968 we must ask why so many of the cases of sex discrimination brought to the EEOC are lost by women and why the Attorney General has not yet used his powers to interfere in cases of sex discrimination. And why there are still no women in major policy-making positions on the EEOC itself. Moreover we must organize ways to police the Execu­ tive Order on Government contracts so that every company, every educa­ tional institution which is working on a government contract, and that 162

means a great many companies, a great many institutions, must clearly post notices to all executives and employees that sex discrimination on the job is now forbidden. And where it continues, we must take steps to see to it that the company or that institution pays the penalty and loses its government contract! We must also in 1968 see to it that sex discrimination lose its hiding place behind the so-called state protective laws.

We have also in this past year begun to raise our voides on issues even more complex than sex discrimination in employment, issues where women's voices had not been heard. We protested the absence of women on the Urban Coalition on the Emergency in our cities, noting that the problems of those cities will not be solved as long as women who, with their children, make up eighty per cent of the welfare load are considered unemployable for lack of job training and day care facilities for their children. We protested the use of women as mere window-dressing in the war on poverty. We protested the kind of day care legislation that would have forced women to work and put their children in day care centers with no adequate standards for those cen­ ters. At a conference in August of the National Students Association we were asked to help students confront sex discrimination on the cam­ pus and discovered that the students themselves feel that discrimina­ tory and segregated living arrangements are as injurious as quotas against women in fellowships and graduate school admissions in keeping women second-class citizens. A representative of NOW helped expose that a much publicized international conference on Abortion was rigged not to open but to prevent free discussion of that issue in which women were hardly allowed to be heard. Individuals in the leadership and membership of NOW laid the groundwork for the decision by the govern­ ing assembly of the United Presbyterian Church in 1967 to inaugurate a study of women in Society and the Church. The preamble to this study states that the Church has an unprecedented opportunity to restructure its own attitudes and practices regarding the role of women and to influence what is taking place in the world today. This study will cover the employment and education of women, their sexual relationship with men, civil rights not fully realized for women, in theological views and teaching, and the effect of separate women's organizations within the church, "a subtle as well as overt discrimina­ tion against women in ecclesiastical matters" and women's lack of responsibility in decision-making within the church. With similar movements underway in other Protestant denominations, in the Roman Catholic Church, and in Judaism, our own task force on religion may address itself to an ecumenical congress on equality for women in 1968.

In California, NOW spoke out forthrightly against legislation sup­ posedly designed to help working women, that would have undermined labor standards for men and women alike. In New York, NOW has won sup­ port from men in our battle against sex discrimination in employment on the basis of our principled approach to divorce, alimony, and abortion 163

reform. Nationally, NOW has won membership on the leadership confer­ ence for civil rights despite the attempt of some negro leaders to say that civil rights do not include women. We are now engaged in a dia­ logue with leaders of other civil rights groups, including the black power movement, out of a belief that the question of full equality for women is inextricably linked with equality for all victims of discrim­ ination. We have and must continue to resist efforts to use women to put down the negroes’ new militancy just as we resist efforts of some misguided negro leaders to put down women.

And now we enter a Presidential election year. In 1968, when women represent 51% of the electorate, the New Women—whose ranks include not only the 28 million women who now work in the U.S., but the millions of women emerging from our colleges each year, women who are as intent on full participation in the mainstream of our society, even those who are at home with young babies as are their mothers who are emerging from housewives' isolation to go back to school or work— this New Woman could prove a significant factor in the presidential election, if we organize properly our potential power. I propose that our first order of business for 1968 be the organization of women and men committed to our goals into a true voting power block. I will not call it "woman power" for it includes men. We must find a synonym for "sexual equality power." Now is the time to act on our original pledge that "Women must refuse to be segregated on the basis of sex, into separate but not equal - ladies auxiliaries in the political parties. They must demand representation according to their numbers in the regu­ larly constituted party committees on the local, state and national levels, and in the informal power structures, participate in the selec­ tion of the candidates and run for office themselves."

We must make good on our original purpose: "NOW will hold itself independent of any political party in order to mobilize the political power of all women and men intent on our goals. We will strive to ensure that no party, candidate, president, senator, governor, congress­ man, or any public official who betrays or ignores the principle of full equality to mobilize the votes of men and women who believe in our cause, in order to win for women the final right to be fully free and equal human beings, we so commit ourselves."

As a touchstone for the evaluation of all political parties and candidates in 1968, I propose that we here proceed to draw up a Bill of Rights for Women for 1968 and that we present this Bill of Rights to the platform committees of both parties, and to all major candidates for president, to all senators and congressmen running for re-election and all aspiring for nomination. And I propose that we, ourselves and others who share our goals, cross party lines to work for and support those candidates who will commit themselves to our Bill of Rights and to defeat those who are its enemies. We must also, every single member of NOW, become active in the mainstream of our parties and not in the 164

Ladies Auxiliary. We must insist that for our support we must sit on a major decision-making committee of the party. And everywhere possi­ ble we must use the same courage and confidence we have found in fight­ ing for our own equality in employment, to run for political office. We must make it understood that there are many issues facing our nation today of as great or even greater importance to many of us here as equality for women, but it is the very nature of our own commitment to that equality that we wish to speak out and act on those issues in the decision-making mainstream rather than as members of women’s ghettos, whether these be Democratic or Republican Women’s Divisions, the League of Women Voters, or Women’s Strike for Peace.

My own revulsion toward the war in Viet Nam does not stem from the milk that once flowed from my breast nor even from the fact of my draft age sons but from my moral conscience as a human being and as an Ameri­ can. And it is to that conscience which most Americans share—our com­ mon commitment to human freedom, equality, individual dignity—that we must address our Bill of Rights on Women in 1968.

I would suggest that the first article of the Bill of Rights for Women in 1968 be the long overdue amendment to: the Constitution to pro­ vide that "Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied by the U.S. or any state on account of sex."

Second, since bearing and rearing children is important to society, the right of women who want to or have to work, not to suffer because of maternity, must be protected by a law insuring her right to return to the job within a reasonable time after childbirth, and to be given paid maternity leave as a form of social security and/or employee bene­ fit .

Third, the right of women to equal opportunities in employment must be implemented by immediate revision of tax laws to permit the deduction of full home and child care expenses for working parents.

Four, to insure the right of women to participate on an equitable basis with men in the world of work, education and political service, child care facilities must be established by Federal law on the same basis as parks, libraries and public schools, adequate to the needs of children from the pre-school years through early adolescence, as a community resource to be used by all citizens from all income levels.

Fifth, the right of every woman to be educated to her full poten­ tial on an equal level with men must be secured by Federal and state legislation eliminating all discrimination by sex, written and unwrit­ ten in colleges, graduate and professional schools, loans and fellow­ ships to women, and sexual segregation in educational facilities includ­ ing dropout programs which perpetuate dependence, passivity, and infer­ ior aspirations in women and abdication of responsibility for home and children in men. 165

Sixth, the right of women in poverty to secure job training, hous­ ing and family allowances on equal terms with men must be secured by revision of welfare legislation and poverty programs which today deny women of dignity, sexual privacy and self-respect.

Seven, the right of women to full sexual equality with men and to the dignity and privacy of their own person must be secured by Federal statute recognizing the right of every woman to control her own reproductive life, and giving her the means to do so by giving her access to contraceptive devices and information and by removing contra­ ceptive information and abortion from the penal code.

I propose that this Bill of Rights be drawn up section by section by this body, the final decision-making authority of NOW, and that the substance of it be approved before we adjourn tomorrow and then be drafted into literary polish by our best writers. You may want to add to or delete or change any or all of what has been outlined here but I do think we should formalize and adopt a Bill of Rights for Women in 1968.

Whether or not you wish to include what I have outlined as the final right in our Bill of Rights for Women in 1968, we must begin a major national dialogue on the sexual implications of full equality between women and men if we are ever to enjoy it for ourselves or for our children. The sex role debate, as I learned to call it in Sweden last month, cannot be avoided if equal opportunity in employment, edu­ cation and civil rights are ever to mean more than paper rights. In Europe this fall I went to some of the communist countries where such equality is enjoyed on paper by women in employment, education and in political rights but these women were working 80 and 90 hours, carry­ ing the full burden of housework as well as the most menial work on their jobs, suffering the same kind of sexual discrimination which we are finding here. And they were beginning to organize a version of NOW to fight the beginning of a campaign that said it might be cheaper to pay women to stay home rather than pay for maternity leaves and child care centers. They had never really confronted the question of full equality between men and women with all its implications of equal responsibility in relation to children and home as well as equal oppor­ tunity in work and politics. In Sweden, where for about 20 years the sex role debate has been engaged, a version of NOW has almost as many men actively committed to it as women. These young men as well as women are acting out in their own lives their commitment to real equality in ways that would seem almost fantastic to us and because this is so, not only is their whole attitude toward sex more enlight­ ened than ours—which so denigrates women as sexual objects—but mat­ ters such as child care centers are not only front page headline news but near the top of the agenda for politicians of all parties. They say in Sweden that as long as we talk about women’s two roles, as if 166

home and children is only woman's work and if she wants to work OK if she can handle both, while men have only one role, is not possible.

In France I also saw the equivalent to NOW. Organized in the last few years, they have begun already to do what we should now begin to do—to run for political office themselves as well as the economic and educational activities we have been doing so far.

One final plea as we begin our serious work here. I ask not so much for unity, for I assume that we are united for our goals or we would not be here, but a serious respect for our honest differences, and an ability to overcome our prejudices and to see beyond the moment to the future.

It seems to me from what I have seen in Europe and, even more important, what I have learned here as President of NOW, that this unfinished revolution, this revolution which we and those like us in many other countries of the world have committed ourselves to for full equality. 167

APPENDIX D

Beyond The Feminine Mystique—A New Image of Woman Betty Friedan Seattle, Washington March 21, 1968

Mrs. Friedan: I am delighted to be here. In fact, I have decided that women of the Northwest are less scared than most of the feminine mystique. You are moving more rapidly than most beyond it. This is the second time in recent months I have been in Seattle. I spent yesterday at Washington State. It seems to me that the new image of woman is embodied in real women here in greater numbers than I seem to see it in many other cities and suburbs. What explains this I am not quite sure, but I am going to work on it.

I think that you here and women like you all over this country are, whether you realize it or not, on the verge of completing the massive delayed revolution that needs to be won for women. It is a delayed revolution because all the rights that would make women free and equal citizens of this country, persons able to develop to their full poten­ tial in society, were won on paper long ago. The last of them, the right to vote, was won the year before I was born. But we are not really free and equal, are we, if an image — that which I have called "Feminine Mystique" — has kept use.from freely using our rights, if the only world we really are free to move in is the so-called woman’s world of home; if we are asked to make a big and unreal choice no man is ever asked to make; if we think as girls then we have to choose somehow between love, marriage, being a wife and being a mother, and devoting ourselves seriously to some challenge, some work of society, some inter­ est that speaks to that particular ability of ours which would enable us to grow to our full individual potential, our human potential, which may or may not have anything to do with our sexual role as women.

Are we really free and equal if we are forced to make such a choice or half-choice by lack of support from our society, lack of simple institutional help from society in combining marriage and motherhood and work in the professions, a commitment to politics or advance on any of the other frontiers of our society which is moving, has moved, far beyond the home? If girls still today have no image of themselves as individual human beings with an identity of their own, if they think their only road to status, to identity, in society is to grab that man, according to all the images of marriage from the ads, the television commercials, the movies, the situation comedies — and even to some extent from the speeches of experts who preach false deprivations and manipulations to catch that man — and if therefore they think they must catch him at 19 and begin to have babies and that split-level dream house so soon they never do make other choices, little ones not big ones, take other active moves in society, risk themselves, 168

make certain in trial and error efforts that will enable them to have an identity of their own as individuals, are they, we really free and equal? Do we have that simple age-old destiny that depends only on our sexual biology and chance or do we have the freedom of the choices that are actually open to us as women today in America?

I say that the only thing that stands in women's way today is this false image, this feminine mystique and the self-denigation of women that it perpetuates. This mystique and this self-denigation of women makes us try to beat ourselves down to be feminine, deny or feel freak­ ish about our own abilities as people. It keeps us from moving freely on the road that is open to us. It makes us not recognize and move to solve the small but real problems that remain, that would give us choice and not leave our destiny up to chance.

Whether you know it or not, you have in your own lives, in your own persons, moved beyond this false image. You yourselves in reality deny the feminine mystique, you deny the very images of women that come at you from all sides. For these are no heroines today in America, not so far as the public image is concerned. There are sex objects and there are drudges. Take that woman with pretty hair, whose only prob­ lem is to get the sink glistening white, who really isn't sure that she has the intelligence to do that without a wise man to counsel her. In the television commercials, she says, "I am afraid I am not being a good wife and mother and my husband, Jim, may not love me any more because I can't clean the sink pure white," and he says, "Use Ajax," or whatever it is, "and this will do it for you," and she says, "Oh, thank you." And her other major problem is to find that lotion that will keep her hands soft and feminine after she has used the detergent to keep the sink clean. Those are really the only problems and then, of course, all the aids she needs to keep this man.

This is parenthetical, but I have been doing an interesting research on the television, which I had never watched in the daytime before. And I could not see a real heroine, a real image of women there. You couldn't grasp any reality somehow in that Mrs. Average Housewife of the commercials. In most of television, all you really did see were men. In the series, there would be a young man teacher and an older man teacher, or a young man doctor and an older man doc­ tor, a young man lawyer and an older man lawyer, male teachers, male social workers, to say nothing of cowboys and supermen. Even in situ­ ations where there are quite a few women in actuality why on television only men? All you see of women is a rather unattractive housewife, a terribly disagreeable woman. And in spite of the fact that all she seems to be concerned about is sex, or love, she really doesn't seem to like her husband. He is the enemy and she is always trying to get the best of him. 169

When I went around asking producers and executives about this, one television said, "Well, we can't make any television series starring women because the housewife controls the dial and women don't want to watch other women. Women are only interested in men, and furthermore, women are interested in a man they can vicariously have a romance with.' He put it in slightly different terms. And this is why the young man, for the young housewife; the older man for the older housewife. Is it really true that women are interested in nothing but sex from 8 o'clock in the morning until past 9 o'clock at night?

Furthermore, I said, "Why never any attractive women?" He said, "Well, we can't give the women out there any competition. And we never let the man really get married. We can't even show him kissing a woman on television for fear it will destroy the illusion that she is the one who is having the affair with him."

It seems to me to be a terribly denigating image of women here: this non-existent image of a woman who takes any active part in the world's affairs, this incessant dreary drudge, the insecure sex obsessed housewife who needs all this help and vicarious romance. I wonder what it does to girls to grow up watching television. Maybe this is one of the reasons they have so little confidence in themselves, in an iden­ tity of their own as people, that they feel they have to get the man at 19.

Of course, in real life there are heroines. You fit the defini­ tion of a heroine, in the Greek sense, in the hero as a person who is willing to risk himself, or I say herself, and insert himself, herself, in the human story, play her own full part in the human adventure, use the beginning that is hers by virtue of being born human, to initiate, to do human work that leaves a mark behind of thought, of action, a mark that transcends one's own life, that helps to create the ongoing adventure of human society, human progress. I think this is work that you all here have done in your lives. I speak not of work in the sense of a pay check, for some of you hold such jobs and some of you do not, but all of you do human work as opposed to merely that drudgery, that labor, that the Greeks defined as fit only for the slave and gave to slaves to free the Greek man for the life of politics, of action, of thought, that was essential to his human condition. The cleaning of the dirt that gets dirty again, the cooking of the meals that get eaten, all this has to be done to keep biological life alive, but is no more than it is. We are capable here and have done more than this in our lives.

You here are the new image of woman, as person, as heroine. You deny the feminine mystique for you are not passive. You live actively in society. You are not solely dependent on your husbands and your children for your own identity. You do not live your whole life vicar­ iously through them. You do not wait passively for that wise man to make the decisions that will shape your society, man's world, for you 170

move and help shape that society yourself and to that extent you begin to make it a more human world. You bridge that old obsolete division of life into man’s world of thought and action and woman’s world of love. With little help from society, you have begun to make a new pat­ tern in which marriage, motherhood, homemaking, the age-old and tradi­ tional roles of women, are merged with this new possibility, the role of women in the whole human adventure, moving on the new frontiers of society as individuals, as decision makers, creators of the future.

But because of the feminine mystique you have not felt fully free and confident even so far as you have moved on this road. You have felt guilty; you have endured jeers, sneers, snickers, perhaps not from your own husband, who, I suspect,' supports you more than the image would admit, in your human need, in your growth, in your actions, but from the image makers and from, perhaps, your less-adventurous neigh­ bors, your neighbors who are less willing to assume the role of heroine, which I think you begin to assume. I think this is what America needs, more real heroines.

I say that you are the key to a massive revolution, for insofar as you have become conscious of your own identity and insofar as you have begun to say no to the mystique, and insofar as you stop acquiescing in the self-denigration of woman and in the denigration of woman by society and ask for yourselves and for all women that which we need, to move freely ahead on the road that is open to us in America, you begin to complete the delayed revolution.

Your presence here tonight is a testament to the fact that you are beginning to become conscious of this task that is before you. You are beginning to become conscious of the moment in history in which you stand, and this consciousness is what we need now.

Someone said to me in St. Louis, where I was speaking last week, that I wasn't actually telling women to do anything new, that I was only helping to make them conscious of the road they were already mov­ ing on. I would accept this. I think we must become conscious of it in order to finish the job. Otherwise we keep repeating over and over again the same arguments with ourselves, and the same conflicts, the same decisions, instead of moving ahead and facing the new problems that need to be solved and asking in voices loud enough to be heard for what we need from society. We do not know how strong we could be if we affirmed ourselves in each other as women and joined together to get these things instead of each woman alone feeling freakish and iso­ lated as if no one else but herself had the brains, the adventurousness, the courage, the visions beyond the home, the goals beyond that young peak of marriage and childbirth that the feminine mystique enshrines. 171

You know that you have brains as well as breasts and you use them. You know what you are capable of but you could use if for yourselves and other women so much more freely if you could break through these self-denigrating blocks. It is not laws, not great obstacles, and not the heels of men which are grinding women down in America today. Men are victims as well as women in the feminine mystique. We must merely break through this curtain in the minds of women themselves, and stop beating ourselves down to be "feminine" to get on with the massive delayed revolution. And there are massive numbers of us. If we rea­ lize how very many of us have already moved beyond the feminine mystique and are helping to create the new image, and how very many more are ready to move.

I am not speaking here only of the women who work outside the home in jobs in industry, although I am speaking of them, for every woman who works in society has made a certain advance from the of household drudgery. Unfortunately far too many women of that one our of three who work ouside the home are doing the housework in indus­ try. Far too many women are taking jobs too soon to put their hus­ bands through law school, engineering school, graduate school, theo­ logical school, because these girls, do not take themselves and their own abilities seriously enough to put themselves through schools as they must realize the full potential of their own ability and play a major role on the new frontiers of society which require a great deal of education, a great deal of complex training. So too many women are concentrating on the housework jobs of industry, which are going to be replaced by the machine, by automation, as surely as much of the drudgery of our housework at home, has been replaced by the machine, and so much more of it could be done by the machine if the massive resources of American technology were devoted to this task instead of devoted to selling women things they do not need, selling women illusions that running the washing machine is as creative, as scientific, as challeng­ ing as solving the genetic code or selling women on the idea that it is necessary or creative to break the egg in the cake mix when actually it isn’t necessary at all, the cake mix can have the egg already in it.

In the massiveness of this revolution, however, are the one out of three women who, now that they are working outside the home, could very well advance beyond the housework in industry and should get the train­ ing and advancement they need to move ahead to the kinds of work that require human characteristics that cannot be replaced by the machine. But to those numbers I would also add the great numbers of women who do not hold jobs in industry but are doing real work in society, taking real leadership in society, that requires a great deal of human strength and human thought and initiative, that cannot be replaced by automation. To a certain extent, their work is often more in tune with the massive rapid pace of change in our society than the work that is structured in the existing professions. I am speaking here of the kind of serious community leadership, the kind of serious, committed, innovating volun- 172

teer work that is done almost completely by women in America and is thus not recognized for what it is by our society. Therefore, sneak­ ing around the corner, it manages to innovate in ways that the con­ formity, the resistance to change structured into the existing profes­ sions does not permit.

I think, however, if we break through the denigrating image of women that is enshrined in the feminine mystique and take ourselves seriously and affirm ourselves for what we are, society may begin to take us seriously, and the denigration of volunteer work in America will stop, and the false line between the professional and the volun­ teer will be redrawn. Perhaps you here in the Northwest can’t afford to waste talents that way, but certainly in many suburbs in the East and Middlewest, if not here, professionals who in too many cases are men, even in professions which women started, have such a low opinion of the woman volunteer that they dream up work to keep her busy, use her far below her own ability to raise money or hold teas or lick envelopes or break the jobs up into little segments that someone with an I.Q. that is not very large could do, and yet they cannot find the professionals they need to solve the social problems in the community and there aren't enough trained group workers to do the work that needs to be done in the hospitals, in the schools, in the health and welfare agencies with which volunteer work is concerned.

If all the volunteers resigned tomorrow, much of this work, not all, would still have to be done, but it might be done with a more serious use of women's real abilities.

I would add also to the massiveness of this revolution the great numbers of women who are doing the housework of politics, but if freed from the self-denigration of the feminine mystique, would be freed from the contempt for ourselves that we acquiesce in when we are willing merely to lick the envelopes, merely to take a nominal post in a ladies aid auxiliary of the political parties, or collect the furniture for the auctions, or second the nominating speech, but not insist on hold­ ing policy-making positions, running for the county committee, serving on the town committee, running for the state Senate, running for the Senate or Congress or going to law school or becoming a judge or even running for Vice-president. I won't say President, I think that may be premature, but I think it might help the massive delayed revolution if a woman had enough courage to try it. Above all, women in America need higher aspirations in politics. We know more than we think we know politically and we are not using it.

Of all the passions open to man and woman, for there are many human passions besides the sexual passions — politics is the one that a woman most easily can step into, move ahead in most freely and make her own new pattern, merging this with marriage and motherhood. Only our own self-denigration stops women in politics. 173

I think, of course, there are prejudices men hold, but I don’t think they are so hard to overcome if we simply have enough respect for ourselves. As a woman said in New York, "I was doing all the work and the county chairman was taking all the credit and I told him I wanted to be chairman." It wasn’t county chairman, it was a district. Any­ how, she became chairman. It may not always be as simple as that, but it is much simpler than when we won the vote many years ago.

I would also add to this massive delayed revolution the great number of women who could be artists, who are artists but do not take themselves seriously as artists, as seriously as they might if they did not share in this self-denigration of women. There were some interest­ ing recent figures in the New York Times that showed an enormous increase in the number of Americans who answered "Artist" on the cen­ sus blank, who define themselves professionally as artists, painters, sculptors, art teachers, writers, poets, playwrights, television writers, all the rest. This great increase was almost completely men. The number of women who wrote "Artist" on the census blank showed an increase smaller than the increase in the female population during this time. All that keeps a woman of talent from being an artist is the false image that keeps her from taking her talent seriously, from making the commitment to herself and to her future to discipline her­ self to become an artist, for this does not even require a solution of the practical problems that keep woman today from becoming physicists, even if she escapes the notion that physics is unfeminine as a young girl, she wants to have children and she knows she can’t work in physics if you can’t go to the physics laboratory. But you can paint at home. It is only for lack of taking herself seriously that a woman who paints does not become an artist. Or take on the problems that must be solved for many women to become physicists.

I also add to the massive delayed revolution many of the young women who fell hook, line and sinker for the feminine mystique or used it as a rationalization for evading their own choices, thinking that all they had to do was get that man at 19 and this would solve the rest of their life, and then woke up at 22 or 25 or 35 or 45 with the four children, with the house and the husband — to face that future ahead where they would not be able to live through others. Such a woman, whose children already are moving out the door, finally asks herself what she is going to do with her life, and begins, even if late, to face and make some choices of her own. These great numbers of women who are trying now to go back to college to get the education they gave up too easily and too soon are getting more or less, too often less, a helping hand from the educators. Some of them, the University of Minnesota, perhaps your own university, which has been one of the first to set up a commission to investigate the problems here, will break through formalistic barriers and help these women grow to their full potential by admitting them to part-time graduate work, for part-time study is the only answer for a woman who is still responsible for small children. 174

The universities may even provide part-time nursery schools, so that women may continue to study even during the years the children are young so they will not emerge as displaced people when their last child goes off to school, so they will not have to contribute to the popula­ tion explosion by keeping on having baby after baby after baby for lack of anything else creative to do. Perhaps the colleges and universities will even begin to be a little less rigid and understand that a woman who has had the strength to innovate in the community, to take leader­ ship in solving new problems in education, in politics, in mental health, in desegregation of school, and all of the other problems in the suburbs that women have taken the leadership in solving in recent years, may have learned something that is the equivalent of an academic thesis, and let her take an examination and not waste her time on academic work if she already knows the answers and the facts and the principles involved.

I will finally add to the massive delayed revolution the great numbers of young girls for whom, thank heaven, the choice is still ahead. If they only see through the false image, they can make so easily the little choices, not the false big ones — marriage versus career — but the little ones that if made all along will create a new image of woman easily. And even if not that easily, even with effort, with work, with a few conflicts and problems that have to be solved, no problem as tremendous as that desperate emptiness a woman faces at 40 or 35 if she thought all her life could be lived in life-long, full­ time motherhood. These young girls can decide in high school, "I would like to be a physicist, I would like to be a teacher, I would like to be a nurse, I would like to be an astronaut." "What do you want to be, little girl?" "I would like to be an actress." "What do you want to be, little boy?" "I would like to be a cowboy." Of course, he is going to be a husband and father; of course, she is going to be a wife and mother. But the choices she must make in school are to learn what else she can be and do herself, because if she does not make these choices young she will not even do the work, make the effort to move ahead on the road that will take her to our new frontiers.

It doesn’t take that much work or effort to get that man, to con­ ceive that child; it does take effort to become a scientist or a teacher or a politician. She will not become this if she does not face her own real choices. But if she makes them and moves ahead, with trial and error, and then she gets that man and love and children, she will then make other choices and decisions which will create new patterns.. Perhaps then she will get some help from society. Perhaps if enough women decide to be doctors there will begin to be part-time patterns in internship as there are beginning to be part-time patterns in residency, in pediatrics, in psychiatry. In Boston and in New York there are hos­ pitals today which so badly need women to train as pediatricians and psychiatrists that they finally understand that women who can be and want to be doctors will also be mothers and cannot spend 24 hours a day at the hospital. So two women will do in two years what one man 175

did in one year, and school holidays will be spent with the children, vacations with the children, hours every day with the children.

If this can be done in such a rigidly structured profession as medicine, it can be done in all the professions. This is one of the great break-throughs that are needed to complete the massive delayed revolution and which, I think, women will make simply by having higher aspirations to contribute to society — if the young girls make these little choices in time and not leave it all up to chance.

Of course, if this revolution is going to be so massive there is going to be resistance to it. In the last year or so the problem of women in America has been put on the table. The President's Commission on the Status of Women has made its report. My book and others like it have perhaps stimulated discussions of women who have too long sup­ pressed their own aspirations as people, and we are beginning to see resistance to this.

There was a story in the New Yorker a few weeks ago called "An Educated American Woman" by John Cheerer. This was about an educated woman who fought a zoning battle in her neighborhood, who was taking a French course at Columbia and writing a book, and was punished. The babysitter left her child dying of pneumonia, and he died. Her husband left her for a motherly woman. No more education, no more zoning bat­ tles, and, heaven forbid, no more books.

Doris Day movies, there was one where she, too, was fighting a zoning battle and the implication was as a result no sex, her man left her bed. No more zoning battles for her. In the latest one, "The Thrill Of It All," she is an obstretrician's wife who gets a chance to do television commercials. She enjoys this but her husband doesn’t like it very well. He, by his great scientific ingenuity, is helping a poor, embittered, sophisticated career woman at the age of 40 to finally have a baby. In the end the baby is born in a taxicab on the East River Drive with Doris Day helping to deliver the baby and the obstetrician galloping up on a horse. So they deliver the baby together, and Doris Day says, "Now I know what life is all about, helping you to deliver this baby." But, of course, how foolish can the audience be, she can’t help him deliver a baby in the operating room tomorrow, so what will she do? Aha, she'll have another baby, that’s the answer. Of course, Doris Day in these movies, though she may be 40, always looks about 28 or 30. But the real life Doris Day can’t go on having babies forever.

Recently you may have seen an advertising campaign by one of the women’s service magazines. There are three obviously neurotic women. One says, "I read this wonderful poem, it was such an escape." Dreamy, neurotic escape. The other one, a very hard, bitter, career woman, with a hat pulled down says, "I read this article about India in such and such a magazine. It kept me occupied coming home on the 5:35." 176

Another woman who looks as if something is wrong with her, says, "I read a wonderful novel by so and so." Then we see the fourth one, healthy and wholesome, Mrs. Average Housewife, "I read about a new paint for the children’s room. I won’t use it, Jim will." The maga­ zine only a homemaker could love. No articles about India, no poems, no real literature here, only service to home and children.

The Redbook magazine had a story about a woman who felt guilty because while she just sat home and baked cookies and fooled around, her neighbor made petitions to improve the schools. And this neigh­ bor said, "Goodness, how are women ever going to assume their equality if you are just going to sit on your behind and make cookies?" And then a mousy little wren comes to town who won’t even sign the petition, she literally does nothing but bake cookies. And the guilty woman dis­ covers that this mousy little wren, who didn’t even bother to look attractive — had been a physicist. But she saw no greater thing in the world to do now than to bake cookies in her own home. This was evidently supposed to mean that it was all phony, this idea that women could make petitions and campaign for the school board or be physicists or dream of doing something else besides bake cookies in their own kitchens.

Margaret Mead, who has contributed much to our knowledge of the plasticity of the human male and female, but who also helped to create the feminine mystique, had an article in Redbook again attacking the report of the President's Commission on the Status of Women because, she said, it assumes that political life and work would be important to women, and did not emphasize enough that women must be full-time wives and mothers. This woman who is a world famous, far travelled anthropoligist, says approvingly, after all, more and more educated women are choosing to be full-time wives and mothers. If women really finish the job that the President’s Commission says needs to be done, who will be there to bandage the child’s knee and listen to the husband’s troubles and give the human element in the world? Somehow, she never mentions how the woman is going to listen to the husband's troubles during the eight hours of the day when the husband is at the office, and how she is going to bandage the child’s knee when the child isn't there to have his knee bandaged because he’s in school?

Thus the resistance to the massive delayed revolution even shows up in the ranks of what I call capital C, Career women, women who them­ selves would not be caught dead behind a dishpan and who, from their vantage point, back from the expedition in New Guinea or behind the television microphone, say, "But what greater thing can a woman do but drudgery for those she loves, and how many things in the world are there to do, really rewarding, satisfying, things — look at the taxi drivers." Somehow this is always at Radcliff or Harvard, where the choices open to women, or men, are more than being drivers. Or, they sneer, how many women have abilities to do anything beyond housework? Of course, these women know they have such abilities, but they are 17.7.

exceptional. I don’t think they are so exceptional. I think that 50 per cent of the women are above average just as 50 per cent aren’t. And I think that while above average women and below average women have to get dressed, eat dinner, make meals, keep houses clean, this can hardly use all the abilities of an above average woman, and I don’t think it could even use the whole life span abilities of a below average woman today. For if we are going to live, my generation, to be 75, our daughters will live to be 100. No matter how much they will love their children, how much they will want to be wives and mothers and truly enjoy motherhood, this will be such a small part of their lives, it deprives them of their real choice to say that they should think of themselves only or even primarily in terms of this one biological possi­ bility, their sexual difference from man (long live it) and never in terms of their unique human abilities, whatever they may be.

There is also resistance on the part of some men but not as many as you think you would find if you moved out on the new road. I am increasingly surprised at the numbers of men who really do have a full regard for their wives as human beings, who want them to have full lives of their own, who are weary of the burden and the guilt of having to make up to a woman for all the life she misses beyond the home, the world she has no part in. Men are weary of coming home from that tough complex rat race in society to be met by a pent-up wife who has been short-changed into the narrow world of home and who seizes him eagerly, avidly, as her only bridge to the world — and finds him somehow inade­ quate because he can’t give her all that magic fulfillment she has been told to expect from marriage. But perhaps he is not inadequate at all, she is merely asking for too much from marriage. Perhaps for a woman, as for a man, marriage and love, while one of the basic, great values of life, cannot be all of life. For it is a fact that most men do not spend most of the hours of their day, most of the years of their lives, in preoccupation with love or sex as much as those passions are, perhaps, over-glorified in the public image today. These images are directed at women, and they are directed at women usually to sell them something whether we realize it or not.

Do we really have to keep on acquiescing to the sexual sell, and, really, is it essential to the American economy? I have a hunch if women are released to develop their full potential, they might want other things that will keep the American economy alive just as much as those 88 ways to get that man or keep him, or those magical powders that will keep the sink pure white. There are other things the Ameri­ can economy could produce that would keep it alive. Perhaps more of the American economy might go to research and education, perhaps there might be other changes, but I hardly think to keep the American house­ wife in an underused state of perpetual frustration and emptiness and nagging discontent is that essential to the American economy. 178

I think there are some men who may resist this massive delayed revolution because they have had too much mother, and thus feel inse­ cure in their own ability :to move as human beings in the world. They may think they need a woman as a doormat. They need someone whom they can think of as inferior to feel superior to. But I doubt that it is really going to solve any man’s problem in this regard for his wife to beat herself down, to assume a phony inferiority to make him feel superior. There is, somehow, something phony about that. Isn’t it pretty contemptuous of man to say his ego is so weak that he needs her to pretend to be something she isn't to make him feel like a big boy. I happen to think men are stronger than that. It might be better for both men and women if they could accept each other for what they are. It might even free men from the binds of the masculine mystique. Someone else will have to write a book about that.

I think all of these resistances are not that great. Our own self-denigration as women is the main resistance and perhaps our own fears. For it is an unknown road we now must take, and if we move on it we take risks, we face the unknown. It takes courage. We face a more complex life when we begin to create this new image of woman and put all of these pieces of ourselves together. We risk being tested, being measured ourselves. We risk exposing ourselves if we insert ourselves into the human story instead of living through our husbands and children. And the longer we hide in our homes, evading these chal­ lenges of the very complex society that is moving and changing so fast outside our doors, the more we may be afraid to move. The longer we are afraid to step out into that exciting, fast-changing society, the more we may wish, insist, somehow, that we can and only need to be wives and mothers, this is all, this is all, this is the greatest thing in life. And surely, it is the bedrock of life, for what would life be without it — true, true.

But it isn’t all, it can’t be all for women today. And if it has to be all for some women too old, too frightened to risk a more complex road, and in the mainstream of our large, changing human society, it is not too late for most women. Most women have more strength than they imagine. We do not know what strength we have.

I will tell you something that might make you feel good, it makes me feel good. There is a study not yet published that is being done in the Washington University Medical School about the growth of the self in women, the ego, identity, whatever you want to call it. Do you know who has the most mature and the strongest self of all, the most autono­ mous ego? The committed woman volunteer. Her sense of identity is much stronger than that happy little housewife. Much stronger, interestingly enough, than the professional social worker in the same field. Why? Because she did pioneer on an unknown road, because she had to structure a growth pattern for herself, not a pattern already there and struc­ tured by society, because in many cases she innovated and because she imposed a discipline on herself that was not imposed by the demands of 179

the paycheck. She is living this new image of woman, she is showing the way. You are, whether you realize it or not, whether you affirm your own reality for what it is.

I say we must all say yes to ourselves as women and no to that outworn, obsolete image, the feminine mystique. We must stop denigrat­ ing ourselves, stop acquiescing in the remaining prejudices the mys­ tique enshrines. We must recognize and affirm each other in the mas­ siveness of our own numbers and our own strength and ask for all women what we all need to move freely ahead. One does not move freely and joyously ahead torn always by conflicts and guilts. Nor does one move freely and joyously ahead feeling like a freak in man's world. Nor does one move freely if one is always walking a tight rope between the things one has to do to be a good wife and mother and one’s commit­ ments to society — with no help from society for a mother who also wants to play her full part as a citizen in the world. But if we ask, I think we can get from society simple institutional solutions to these real problems women have today in using their rights. Five or eight- hour a day nursery schools or day care centers well run, professionally run, are needed for women to move ahead in certain professions that can­ not be practiced at home when children are young. You can't even fight a political battle completely at home, though you can do a lot of it on the telephone, any more than you can complete an experiement in genetics at home, although some homework can certainly be done in all professions, all fields of society, by mothers even with very young babies. Mater­ nity leaves are needed which are real and not just on paper so that the staff is not mysteriously reduced when you get pregnant. Real credit needs to begin for that work you have done as volunteers so that the growth pattern of the volunteer does not require all that strong an ego, and women a little less strong might also move ahead not only from volunteer work to political leadership, but from a training internship in part-time volunteer work, to professional work when their children go off to school. And more part-time patterns are needed in professions for mothers. Above all, women must assume real political equality, and take over the place as decision makers in political life.

We must ask for these things ourselves for no one will hand women anything any more than society has handed Negroes anything. It was only when the Negroes in 1963 said for themselves, the young ones and the old ones, we will no longer eat, live, work, go to school, or even go to the toilet as anything less than free and full and equal human beings, that the rights they won on paper a hundred years ago began to be a reality, and our society began to take Negroes seriously.

American women, the only majority, perhaps, that is still treated „ like a rather unequal minority, do not have the uncomfortable suffering of the Negro. But they will not be free and equal members of the soci­ ety until they take themselves seriously and finish the work of the 180

delayed revolution. Each and every single woman must in her own life stop denigrating herself and must help to win these things for other women.

In speaking to you like this, and by taking my husband’s advice, I want to add, my husband said if you are going to be Susan B. Anthony you must show you are human, so show the pictures of our children. He is an advertising man and he has some good ideas, and besides, I love to show off my children. This is Danny (indicating). He is 15. He is a mathematician. He was paid two summers in a row for programming the 7090 computer. He is moving on a new frontier. It is right for one’s children to move further ahead, and I have no wish to do his homework for him, I would rather do my own.

This is Jonathon (indicating) and he is 11, and he has decided he doesn’t want to be a big league baseball player, he wants to be a law­ yer and then governor of New York State and then President.

This is Emily (indicating), and she is 7 and she has just written a book. She brought it home from school. She called it "Emily’s Stories published by Friedan and Company." I said, "You know, they won't publish a book unless they think people will come into a store and buy it," and she said, "Yes," She wants to compete with her mother, not only for daddy, but she wants to write a book, too.

I show these pictures not quite with tongue-in-cheek. I love these children. I would not have missed having them for the world. They are a great fulfillment of my life. But my children no more fulfill nor define me as a woman, my love for and my life with my husband no more defines or fulfills me as a woman than the work I do, the non-sexual passions, the questions and the search that made me write my book — and the wish to help write the human story that makes me urge you to affirm your own identity as full human beings, and help create this new image of women for your daughters and for our society. 181

APPENDIX E

Our Revolution is Unique an existential ideology for the new feminism must evolve from action confronting and transcending our own reality, now . . . President’s Report Betty Friedan National Conference of NOW Atlanta, Georgia December 6, 1968

I think that what we have begun to do this last year is to come to terms with the nature of our own reality as we define ourselves — existentially — through action. There is no other way we can define ourselves, really. It is not an accident that the one-sentence state­ ment of the original 15 of us that got together to start NOW in Washing­ ton, the first sentence of NOW’s statement of purpose, is a commitment to action.

We learned this year that while we had much to learn from black power, while we had much to learn from the civil rights movement and the revolution against economic and racial oppression, our own revolu­ tion is a unique revolution: it must define its own ideology, in its own terms. It is, of course, not an accident that NOW which is, I believe, the major thrust of the new feminism, came into being as a result of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, of getting sex discrimina­ tion in employment outlawed in the Civil Rights Act as well as race dis­ crimination. That is no more coincidence or accident than the fact that the first wave of feminism, the wave that won the original rights of women and ended with winning the right to vote, followed and came under the aegis of the abolitionists, the battle to abolish slavery.

But I think we have begun to learn certain differences between our revolution and the black one. We can cut no corners; we are, in effect, where the black revolution was perhaps 50 years ago, but the speed with which our revolution is moving now is our unearned historical benefit from what happened since in that revolution. Yet there can be no illu­ sion on our part that a separatist ideology copied from black power would work for us. Whatever sexual-equality-power or woman-power is, we cannot conceive of a single-sex society. We cannot conceive of fight­ ing a revolution to achieve full equality between the sexes, cannot fight our revolution in single-sex terms. So this is a major differ­ ence, and we became aware of it, existentially, in our actions this year.

We have become aware of the reality of our revolution as opposed to fantasy. The reality of change we have already brought about can be sensed in the new seriousness with which women are taking themselves, 182

and are beginning to be taken, finally, in America: sex discrimination in Title VII was a joke when we founded NOW, and it is not a joke any longer. We are treated very seriously, even with trepidation, when we move against THE NEW YORK TIMES to end sex-segregated want ads, against the Conrad Hilton in Pittsburgh or the Plaza opposing for-men-only pub­ lic accommodations, restaurants and bars. Whether we are launching a seminar at Wayne State in Detroit on woman’s revolution, or planning an intersession at Cornell at the invitation of the faculty and administra­ tion, or challenging help-wanted advertising, or suing the federal government for not enforcing the law equally on behalf of women, or demanding a voice for women within the political parties, or proposing new doctrine on the question of abortion, we are being taken seriously. That’s reality, not fantasy.

It is because we are real, because this is a really serious new, historical phase in the evolution of women and men toward full equality and therefore a fuller humanity, we are beginning in action to recog­ nize our historic and real responsibility. We are not operating in a fantasy world; we are not doing something for our own private kicks or personal self-aggrandisement, though we are most certainly doing some­ thing for ourselves; we are not telling ourselves fairy stories about the natural superiority of women, to make ourselves feel better — we are really changing society. We have begun to change society in reality. Therefore, we have the responsibilities that reality imposes. We then begin to distinguish the women from the girls, if you will, and the men from the boys.

We begin to distinguish the women of all ages, who accept respon­ sibility for the real society-changing possibilities in our revolution, as opposed to the girls who operate as if they’re playing childish games. The girls do not understand that we are really doing something here that is changing history. Our movement has brought change that is visible in this country and already having its reverberation around the world and showing its potential to effect this change with amazing speed, as all revolutions in this new post-industrial era are advertis­ ing with amazing speed.

It is part of this realism to recognize that we are a two-sexed revolution, not a single-sex revolution. Our tactics and strategy and, above all, our ideology must be firmly based in the historical, bio­ logical, economic and psychological reality of our two-sexed world, now: which is not the same as the black reality and different also from the reality of the first feminist wave. We can only transcend that reality by confronting it in our actions: confronting reality, we change it.

Having enjoyed the rights that were won for us by generations past of the early feminists — because we here who have mounted this second stage of the feminist revolution have grown up with the right to vote, little as we may have used it for ourselves; because we have grown up with the right to higher education and to employment and with some, not 183

all, of the legal rights of equality and, insofar as we have moved, at least or at times, on the periphery of the mainstream of society, with the skills and the knowledge or command its paychecks, even if insuffi­ cient, and to make its big decisions, even if not consulted beyond its housework — we begin to have a self-respecting image of ourselves, as women, not just in sexual relation to men, but as full human beings in society. Therefore we are able, at least some if not all of us, to see men, in general or in particular, without blind rancor or hostility, and to face oppression for what it is in our concrete experience with poli­ ticians, bosses, priests, or husbands. We do not need to suppress our just grievances when we have them; we now have enough courage to be aware of them. And yet we are at least able to like ourselves enough as women to be able to conceive the possibility of full affirmation also for and from man. Man is not the enemy, as we said in our state­ ment of purpose, but the fellow victim of the bind of half-equality we are in now. And in our every action this past year I think we have begun to see in the men we encounter as we speak, act, demonstrate, testify, appear on television on matters such as sex discrimination in employment, public accommodations, education, or divorce-marriage reform, or abortion repeal — I see so clearly and hear from the mouths of men how they also are sensing that they are going to be freed to greater self-fulfillment as human beings to the degree that women are released from the binds that now constrain us from full development to our own human potential.

This sense of the freeing of men as the other half of freeing of women, if you will, was always there, even in the early writing of Mary Wollstonecraft and Elizabeth Stanton and the rest; our action- created new awareness and consciousness cannot lie to us, or play coquettish tricks, about men.

A third difference, a consciousness that we are beginning to have in the new feminism, is that we are a revolution for all, not for an exceptional few. This, above all, distinguishes us from those token spokeswomen of the period since women won the vote, the Aunt Toms who managed to get some place for themselves in society, usually as the spokesman of the voiceless many and who were, I think, inevitably seduced into an accommodating stance, helping to keep the others quiet. We are beginning to know that no woman can achieve a real breakthrough alone, as long as sex discrimination still exists, in employment, in mores, in education, and in denigration of the image of women.

Even if those of us who started this movement have managed to achieve a precarious success in a given field of society, we still walk as freaks in "man’s world" (since every profession — politics, the church — any field that we operate in is still structured as man's world). Walking as a freak makes one continually self-conscious, apologetic, if not defiant, about being a woman, if not necessarily one of the boys. The kind of thing that makes one feel there are three sexes — men, other women, and myself — I am the exception, the 184

"brilliant" one with the rare ability to be an anthropologist or a television commentator; but you slobs out there, you watch the tele­ vision set. And what better use can you make of your life than doing the dishes for your loved ones. Two kinds of women, if you will. We do not buy this.

We cannot say that all women in America want equality, because we know that women, like all oppressed people, have swallowed and plowed into themselves the denigration of women by society that has gone on for generations, for centuries. Some women have been too much hurt by denigration, by self-denigration, by the lack of the very experiences and education and training needed to move in society as equal human beings, to have the confidence that they can so move in a competitive society. They must say they don’t want equality — they have to be happy, adjust to things as they are — and for such women people like us are threatening. We are becoming aware of the resistance from those women for whom equality is so frightening and so threatening that they must wish that we did not exist. And yet we see so clearly with our younger members and with students that to the very degree that we move step by step ahead and create the opportunities for self-confidence in society and for moving in society, and in the process creating the "new women" who are people-first in ourselves, to that degree this resistance will disappear. We are aware of it, but we are not deterred therefore.

We can say with absolute assurance that we do not speak for every woman in America, but we speak for the right of every woman in America to become all she is capable of becoming — in her own right and/or in partnership with man. And we already know now that we speak not for a few, not for hundreds, not for thousands, but for millions. Especially for millions in the younger generation that have enjoyed more equality than the older ones. And we know this simply from the resonance, if you will, that our pitifully small actions have created in society.

The nature of our reality is also such that I don’t know how many members we have; it is no secret how bad our national housekeeping is. For lack of funds, our own records are inadequate. I cannot tell you, standing here, and I don’t think anyone can, whether we have two thous­ and or three thousand members, whatever it is. But we do know that what we have done in Syracuse, in Pittsburgh, in New York, in New Orleans, in Wisconsin, in Atlanta, in cities large and small, has cre­ ated a wave of resonance that indicates how very many people we speak for.

And you have no idea how worldwide that wave of resonance is. In Canada, they want to have an affiliate National Organization for Women, and propose that, ultimately, there will be a World Organization for Women. Wow! From Great Britain, France, Italy, from many countries over the past year, from the Scandinavian countries, from Germany, 185.

Japan, New Zealand, women — young, vital new feminists — have asked me for guidance. High school students are asking for speakers and for guidance from NOW in New York. From Bennington College I received a letter saying that their decision to go coeducational was based in part on their awareness of the thinking of NOW.

A year ago, after a very painful confrontation with our own con­ flicts on abortion, NOW became the first organization to speak in the name of women on the question of abortion. We expounded a doctrine, if you will, that it is the human right of every woman to control her own reproductive process, and to establish that right as an inalienable human, civil right of women, would require that all laws penalizing abortion be repealed, removed from the penal code; the state would not be empowered either to force or prevent a woman from having an abortion. When we first proposed this at the New York State Constitutional Con­ vention, all the other groups working on abortion, ADA, ACLU, the mini­ sters and planned parenthood people, almost all of whom were men, told us: "Why, you are crazy, you women, you don’t know what you are doing"; and we said, "This is the only way to get down to the nitty-gritty of it, to the principle. It will advance the whole debate immeasurably further than to mess around with the kind of reform thing that only benefits a few victims of rape, thalidomide and incest, but not the majority of all women who are married and simply want the right to choose not to have more children."

In the course of this year, as a result of the wave that mounted once we dared to speak in these terms, ACLU, ALA, the governing bodies of most of the Protestant churches, advanced medical groups and newly courageous male abortion reformers are now taking our position., Shirley Chisholm, the officer of New York NOW who helped introduce this proposal first in the New York State Constitutional Convention, as you know has become the first black woman to sit in Congress. A national conference will shortly be held in which NOW will join with all these groups in a new coalition to repeal abortion laws. We picketed Governor Rocke­ feller's hearing on abortion because only two women were on the Commis­ sion deciding this question. All of these things have had waves and waves and waves of impact. The basic idea of our revolution is, in the end, self-determination: that you cannot decide anything about a woman's life, especially such a thing as the control of her reproduc­ tive process, without woman's voice itself being heard. This point is beginning to get across. It is not getting across sufficiently.

And now we must confront, in our deliberation on employment, on legislation, the fact that for each woman to be able to walk with equality and human dignity, not just a few but all women must be able to do so. We cannot approach matters of employment in such a way that still prescribes a choice — that somehow a woman must choose between marriage, childrearing, a commitment in full consciousness and con­ science to her own children as a mother, and serious aspiration in society, to the decision-making ranks of profession or politics. If 186

more than a very few women are to enjoy equality, we have an absolute responsibility to get serious political priority for child-care cen­ ters, to make it possible for women not to have to bow out of society for 10 or 15 years when they have children. Or else we are only going to be talking of equal opportunities for a few. This year we got sex discrimination out from under the cobwebs where it had been buried, out from under the jokes and hilarity to where it was taken seriously. Now we must confront some of the much more difficult questions of social innovation, the new institutions that are going to be needed to make equal opportunities possible for all women, not just for a few.

We are also beginning to confront the radical changes in attitudes that are going to be necessary to make this revolution real. We have begun to confront with concrete action the image of woman, not just talk about it. The denigration of women implicit and explicit in lan­ guages and practices is not only symbolic but perpetuates the second class status of women in employment, education, politics. It is not frivolous; it is not even a question of how many people does it affect that United Airlines bars women from executive flights; how many people does it affect that in the Rifle and Plow Restaurant in Gateway Center in Pittsburgh, or the Oak Room of the Plaza in New York, where so much business gets settled, women can’t have lunch, they are only welcome at night escorted by men. But isn’t this the basis of women's denigra­ tion, self-denigration: the definition of woman as sex object alone; unescorted by men she is a prostitute, never welcome as a person, on ordinary business, at lunch. We are confronting, also, the fact that equality for women and men means something new and different in the relationship between women and men, not a fantasy of destroying men or illusions about the superiority of women, but actual confrontation of a need to evolve to a new stage in the relationship between the sexes and in the mores as well as the laws that govern marriage. We have to ask the questions that will open up alternative life styles, for the future, to the kind of marriage and nuclear family structure not only women but men want out of today.

On the question of self-determination we became painfully aware, in our attempts to get a bill of rights for women into the platforms of both political parties this year and as a major issue in the election for all candidates for national office, that we need political power. Last year we were like "the dog can really talk!" It was so remarkable, after years of apology from women, living within the binds and put- down of women, and apologizing "we’re not feminists." It was so remark­ able for any group to stand up with self-respect and say "we do want equality and we do mean business and this law has got to be enforced or we’re going to sue the government." And actually suing the government for not enforcing the law against sex discrimination in employment, getting on television and saying it and not getting laughed at. Well, the dog can talk, but its not enough to change laws in America; to change institutions in America we must get political power. Political 187-

power is explicitly linked with all of this. Here we must learn from black power, not in a separatist sense but in the same sense that we must absolutely realistically talk in terms of power.

We must overcome the reality that we are of many political beliefs. Our common commitment is to equality for women, but we are sitting here Republican and Democrat, right and left. And we are not single issue people; we want a voice for all women, to raise our voices in the main­ stream, in decision-making on all matters from war and peace to the kinds of cities we’re going to live in. Many large issues concern all of us; on these things we may differ. How are we going to surmount this and yet achieve the political power necessary to change the situation of the oppressed 51% — the power potential in the fact that women are 51%. It became obvious to me again, as a result of the failure and the reverberations of our actions, during the election campaigns.

We're only going to do it by getting into city hall ourselves, or by getting into Congress ourselves, regardless of whether your politi­ cal party is Republican or Democratic or Peace and Freedom. We're only going to do it by getting there ourselves; that’s the nitty-gritty of self-determination for us; not to rely on'Hubert Humphrey or Richard Nixon or even Eugene McCarthy to do it for us.

In this we can be united. Notable successes, in spite of a general political failure on our part this year, were: the fact that in Cali­ fornia (through the absolutely crazy idea of one member of NOW — not even an officer of NOW nor an officer in the Democratic party) the NOW Bill of Rights for Women was incorporated into the platform of the California Democratic Party: in other cities and states where we had active chapters and where those chapters took advantage of hearings that were held on platforms to raise these issues, the Pittsburgh people would agree, the Syracuse people would agree, the New York people would agree, we again began to get an awareness of woman's existence, and new insistence, from politicians to whom previously women were simply invisi­ ble people.

I had most amusing experiences in trying to run as Democratic dele­ gate in the 17th Congressional District of New York myself, where they asked what I would talk about and I said, of course, I would talk first of all about war and peace and getting out of Viet Nam, and then I would talk about the whole question of women and the fact that women are not equal in this country . . . and they said, "What's that got to do with anything? Surely you would agree that crisis in the city is more important." I said, "Well, the women are absolutely the heart of the crisis in the city." I educated the Democratic caucus of the 17th Congressional District, though they decided in the end that Robert Lowell and I were too uncontrollable to elect as delegates. Their excuse was "We have one woman already" — as if one token woman was all there could be, when women are well over 53% of the vote there. The 188

outrage this remark caused was consciousness-raising. Women, supported by many men in that caucus, were outraged, and then they went (probably for the first time) in the Democratic caucus of the 17th Congressional District into a basic discussion of the woman question.

Similarly, the Republican platform hearings at the Republican con­ vention in Miami: Eliza Paschall and I went down there (we had at that time no Florida chapter). We certainly managed to keep the newspapers of Miami well filled almost every day of the convention with the idea that a Bill of Rights for Women should be a part of the Republican plat­ form, though we were given most respectful hearing by the platform com­ mittee. In the process we also organized a Miami NOW group and immedi­ ately thought of making a demonstration like the poor people’s mule train to underline our message; but we didn’t yet have the technical capacity, the know-now, to mount such a demonstration. Yet it was amaz­ ing that we got the message across. In the final, full platform meet­ ing of the Republican convention, though the platform had already been drafted and, I believe, printed, the women on the platform committee insisted at the last minute that the word "sex" be added to the rather vague anti-discrimination proposal in the Republican platform. And, though there were small attempts to laugh it off, the women were so serious about it that it was kept; and this single word was the only word of, by and for the people who are women, in the platforms of the two parties that govern the United States. But this new consciousness that we helped create in Republican women will not end there.

We must, of course, do more than that. We decided last year we would not be in women’s auxiliaries — they should be outlawed: women must sit on the real decision-making bodies. It is a tribute to the power of NOW and its pitifully few members as a force in American soci­ ety that almost all of the national officers of NOW and a good many of the local officers were offered the chairmanships of the women's com­ mittees in the different political parties; almost all of us refused. When I was offered such a token woman chairmanship in the McCarthy cam­ paign I said, "I don't believe in women's separate auxiliaries; I will only do it if I have an equal decision-making voice on the actual cam­ paign committee." "We'll get back to you," they said.

It's an interesting footnote that a NOW member ran for vice presi­ dent of the Peace and Freedom party, and she had just as bitter a fight to get anything about real equality for women into that platform as Muriel Fox and the rest who were on Humphrey's task force did; and as I did, I must confess, in the McCarthy campaign; and as our Republican members did, too. So that it's not going to be easy, but by 1972 we must be determined that we will have our own Julian Bonds, that we will find some way to confront and break through the travosty of women visi­ ble in American political conventions only as mini-skirted greeters or at ladies' luncheons. We must begin to use the power of our actions, to make women visible as people, finally, in America, as conscious poli­ tical power, to change our society, now, so all women can move freely, as people, in it. 189

APPENDIX F

Tokenism and the Pseudo-Radical Cop-Out Ideological Traps for New Feminists to Avoid Betty Friedan Cornell University Intersession on Women Ithaca, New York January 25, 1969

My role here is going to be that of the active revolutionary. All of us have been thinking about revolutions in this post-industrial era — how they are in danger of being aborted by establishments, the traps we can fall into. This is no less true of the sexual revolution. I use the sexual revolution in its larger sense — not to mean simply when and with whom we go to bed and how we enjoy intercourse, but also the actual relationships between the two sexes, men and women.

Here we are talking about equality. We are exploring how to achieve it. The danger of the "liberal arts fallacy," especially in discussions about the sexual revolution (or the woman question, as it’s so often called), is that it is terribly easy to use words and pscho- logical concepts and very glib formulations to somehow rationalize the status quo. This is enormously easy for men to do by a clever trans­ posing of some study of the sexual differences of children or animals, or an application of Freudian thought. To say, like Erik Erikson, that little girls are concerned with inner space and little boys with outer space and therefore there are differences between men and women, and we must make an analogy with the black problem and affirm the right of women to be different — this is a rationalization of the status quo. It’s a way of saying that this is a world of happy problems, that we need to do nothing.

Women — inner space; that is, women don’t want to be in and shouldn’t move into the man’s field of outer space which includes sci­ ence, art, and social science. Outer space is anything to do with business, industry, government, outer situations that take place in a classroom, in an office, in a laboratory; private little inner space is the house. But really, what is inner space and outer space? I think outer space is what a psychoanalyst does in his office dealing with outside patients, even though it concerns itself with other people’s inner space. Does an artist deal with inner space or outer space? What about a sculptor, which is masculine by definition? You could sculpt something that dealt with inner space. In fact, any kind of creative thinking involves the dimension of inner space. As a matter of fact, certain kinds of inner space were taboo for men under the stereotypes of masculinity for many generations, and psychoanalysts tell me that women in some ways seem to take more naturally to the therapeutic function of the psychoanalyst than do men because certain dimensions of human inner space had not been so taboo for women as for men. 190

I would think that one should simply say by definition that both men and women have inner space, and both men and women — as human beings in American society, or any society in 1969 — must move into outer space. Whether we are talking about the city of Ithaca, or Cornell University, or the race to space or the problems of American Society, though these problems go into the inner space of every man and woman’s individual home, they are being decided out there, in society. So for men and women outer space is a must.

Women can fall into the same fallacies as easily as men can. The classic example is Helena Deutsch's two volume document on the psy­ chology of women which did more to mislead intelligent, educated women of my generation than probably any other book. Helena Deutsch had so swallowed the denigrating image of women that was implicit in the culture in which Freud grew up and worked and which is implicit in Freudian thought, that she denied her own reality. In Helena Deutsch’s Psychology of Women, all original theoretical work, all intellectual life, has to be phallic, and somehow an abdication of woman's true femininity which can only express itself in passivity and sublimated sexuality. It was feminine and truly expressive of feminine intellect for a woman to be the nameless assistant to a Freudian analyst but not to be an analyst herself, so in every word of her book she is denying her own identity. And that note of false­ ness in her theory was the crux of it.

In other words, as James Baldwin said in the letter to his nephew, whitey has always spelled your name. You don’t know how to spell your name and until you know, you won’t know the truth about anything. There are differences between men and women and I am not denying that. But we will not know what those differences are until women have begun to spell their own names and define themselves in the human dimension more than they’ve been able to do in the past. One of the reasons that women have not done this is that they have accepted the denigrating image society gives them; they have kept it in the form of self­ denigration. Above all they haven’t had the actual active experiences that tell a human being who he or she is.

It is asked, why has there never been a great woman philosopher? Someone sent me something on this from France. The reasoning goes: in order to ask great questions, to be a great philosopher, one must transcend self-consciousness and move on beyond oneself to the great questions of one’s time or of society. Such self-transcendence or freedom from self-consciousness can only come when one has had suffi­ cient active engagement with society to release one’s human potential so that one knows so surely who one is oneself that one simply goes on to the larger questions.

You do not find these endless debates on what is the special nature of man. You might say that all of science and social science 191

and psychological science is addressed to this question, but you don’t find special debates on men as you do on women. This is because women are still caught in a bind of asking questions which can't be solved by looking in the mirror; they extrapolate from studies of animals because they haven’t had sufficient engagement with society, sufficient exper­ iences to know who they are. So this is why we are able to be sold such a bill of goods on these things.

Let's not get into that trap here. We won't know for quite awhile how much of the difference between men and women is culturally determined and how much of it is real. But let's at least start with the assumption that men and women are human. Women are female, but they are not cows — they are people. There is only one place you can be people and that is in outer society, in human society. Inner space is all very well — we all have that. But I do not think women think with their vaginas any more than men think with their penises. Long live both.

Now let's talk about a revolutionary theory that's adequate to the current demand of the sexual revolution. It must address itself to the concrete realities of our society. It must, by definition almost, transcend the given institutions and realities to at least envisage alternatives to meet the end which is true development of human poten­ tial and true human fulfillment of women, as well as men.

We rationalize all the time, and whine in endless self-pity. "The poor trapped housewife, but what can we do? Someone’s got to do the dishes and who’s going to do it? He is out there, and he has to bring home the groceries and he's go to get up from associate professor to full professor and so you can't ask him to baby-sit. Besides,who has the money for her to go and get a Ph.D.?" All right, she made a mis­ take and married too young, but what are you going to do about it now?

And then we get into abstractions. "What's wrong is marriage altogether. What's wrong is having babies altogether; let’s have them in test tubes. Man is the oppressor, and women are enslaved. We don’t want jobs because who wants to be equal to unfree men, and all jobs today are just rat-race anyway." And so again we rationalize, only now we're rationalizing in radical terms, not in terms of the Freudian analyst but perhaps in terms of the SDS activist. We are rationalizing again to accept the status quo, because in the end we're going to weep and go home and yell at our husbands and make life miserable for awhile but we'll conclude that it's hopeless, that nothing can be done.

Endless self-pity or abstract discussions of a miserable situation that do not lead to a transcendence in action are not good if we are going to try to arrive at a revolutionary theory. But if we are going to address ourselves to the need for changing the social institutions that will permit women to be free and equal individuals participating 192

actively in their own society and changing that society — with men — then we must talk in terms of what is possible, and not accept what is as what must be. In other words, don’t talk to me about test tubes because I am interested in leading a revolution for the foreseeable future of my society. And I have a certain sense of optimism that things can be changed.

Twenty-five years from now in this very forum you might talk about the need to change social institutions, with test tube babies as a reality. It is my educated guess as an observer of the scene — both from what I know of psychology and what I’ve observed of actual women and men, old and young, conservative and radical, in this country and other countries — that for the foreseeable future people are going to want to enjoy sexual relationships and control the procreative act and make it a more responsible, human decision whether and when to have babies. If we use test tube babies as some glib solution for the whole problem, we are going to move away from the concrete engagement with the need to change certain institutions that can be changed.

Similarly, we need not accept marriage as it’s currently struc­ tured with the implicit idea of man, the breadwinner, and woman, the housewife. There are many different ways one could: posit marriage. But there seems to be a reasonable guess that men and women are going to want relationships of long-term intimacy tied in with sexual rela­ tionship, although we can certainly posit a larger variety of sex relationships than seem conventional in the square towns and cities of America or other parts of the world. But at least engage ourselves with the realities of what seem to be basic needs of people in life. Women have to eat; as long as bread — and houses, clothes, books — costs money, if women can’t get good jobs they are going to be dependent on men, or welfare, or alimony. And it’s not possible, much less con­ ducive to health, happiness or self-fulfillment, for women or men to completely suppress their sexual needs; a basic Freudian finding which even those who object to its distortion, misuse and exaggeration do not deny.

We can change institutions but it is a fantasy deviation from a really revolutionary approach to say that we want a world in which there will be no sex, no marriage, that in order for women to be free they must have a manless revolution and down with men. It is just silly to say that a woman who shoots a man is a heroine to the new feminist because man is the enemy. It’s worse than silly — it’s a bit sick. We have to deal with the world of reality if we are going to have a real revolution. Here at Cornell a few weeks ago I asked the girls in SDS why they had to have a separate organization, why they couldn't speak up in SDS, and they said that they might not get married because the men would think they were too aggressive. As long as this is still going to be the hang-up of even the most radical young girls, don't tell me that anybody can posit a possible revolution — for which there 193

would be any following or any possibility of living that revolution for most women, much less most men — if it says, "we’re going to kill off the men and refuse to breed male babies."

Finally, a revolutionary theory must be applicable to all. There is no special breed of woman. I am no "exception" because I have a high I.Q. and am able to write a book. Any revolutionary theory or theory of women that doesn’t include me is by definition wrong because it must spell my name too. But at the same time I do not accept a revolution that will make me a special class of person and say that eighty-five per cent of other women are going to be in a drone class. Any theory that we accept must be applicable to the fifteen per cent as well as the eighty-five per cent. It must be applicable to all women — even the nuns who are leaving the nunneries — and it must take the realities of sex into account.

A reality we must also face in this revolution is the fact that even the most enlightened of men has got to give up certain things. Just as there were benefits that the southern plantation owners got out of the slaves, there are benefits that men have gotten out of the prime role. And I don’t think it’s very realistic to expect any large group of people to voluntarily move over and give up the central place in the sun and by largesse hand it to anyone else. So women are going to have to organize, just as the Blacks and any oppressed peoples have had to, not to destroy or fight or kill men or even to take the power away from men, but to create institutions that will make possible a real life of equality between the sexes.

I think it is possible for some men to understand this. I don’t happen to think that women and men are so completely different that it is impossible for us to see each other as human beings. I think that it is as possible for men to put themselves finally in woman’s place by an act of empathy or by guilt or conscience or simply a human rights’ consciousness as it has been possible for whites to do for blacks. But it’s perhaps not much more possible than that. There are more bonds between men and women, and really men’s stake in this revolution is greater because a woman can make life hell for you if it isn’t solved. But I think that we would make as much of a mistake if we expected men to hand this to women as we would expecting that all men are the enemy, all men are the oppressor. This revolution can have the support of men, but we’ve got to take the lead in fighting it as any other oppressed group has had to.

I think that it is eminently possible in higher education to cre­ ate and disseminate the radical ideology that is needed for the liber­ ation of women, that will then influence the great change in expecta­ tions and institutions that is needed. In the education of women, I think it is garbage to keep talking about five optional life styles, the freedom of choice and marvelous options that American women have. 194

They do not have them, and we should face this right away. As it is now, these are not equally good choices, and these choices do not exist for most women. You cannot tell a woman sitting here who is age eighteen to twenty that you can make a choice not to move in soci­ ety and just stay home all your life with your children, your friends and your husband and if you are happy and adjust, fine, if you are miserable with it, too bad, but that is one of five equally good choices. This is simply telling a lie to a girl now because she is going to live close to a hundred years. There won’t be children home to occupy her or to use her qualities all her life. If she has intel­ ligence and the opportunity for education it is telling her simply, "put yourself in a garbage can, except for the years that you have a few little children at home." The only decent thing to do is to address yourself to the idea that all women and all men should and must be able to have the same two roles, if we’re going to talk about two roles at all, or stop talking about roles altogether. Just tell both men and women to move in society and, if they wish, to have children, but with equal freedom and opportunity, in society, and equal responsibility for the children.

Now, the so-called second choice and option: to go to school, then have children, stay out for twenty years and then come back in, get a job, go back to school . . . continuing education. This option is not an equally good choice. I am not denying the need for occupational therapy for women of my generation who’ve had to do it this way, but any woman who has been through the continuing education thing knows the limitations of occupational therapy and knows that it isn’t an equally good choice. I had dinner yesterday with the Professional Skills Roster*. They have to do what they can but they have enormous problems trying to get back after ten or fifteen years. They are just a pool of semi-employable slave labor that has to be grateful for what­ ever they can get. These are facts of life that nobody should kid themselves about.

Then we have the idea that there is another choice — and it is immediately implicit that this is a very freakish and exceptional choice — which is to be just like a man and be single-minded. The idea is, don’t marry, don’t have children, if you really want a hard profession. Of course, if you do it this way, forget equality for women. I don’t want to forget equality for women. I don’t accept for women the necessity of making a choice that no man has to make. This is not to say that women are not to have a free choice to have children or not to have children, to marry or not to marry; but the idea that this choice has to be linked with professional or political pursuit, that you are going to be sexually frustrated by choosing to be a

*The Professional Skills Roster was a two-year long attempt by Cornell faculty wives to find interesting part-time jobs for themselves at Cor­ nell and to encourage the creation of such jobs. It was discontinued for lack of funding. 195

scientist, is nonsense. Today technology is automating out of exist­ ence all the unskilled jobs, and men are flocking into the "female" professions simply because those professions are now of importance to society. If, especially when you are sitting in a college or a gradu­ ate school, you do not address yourself to the need to make it possi­ ble for any woman to choose the hard professions, the professions that society values and needs and will not be replaced by a machine in the future, you are not facing up to the problem. A similar cop-out is involved in the perversion of the new feminism which exhorts all who would join this revolution to cleanse themselves of sex and the need for love, refuse to have children and abandon the ones they do have. This not only means a revolution with very few followers — but is a cop-out from the problem of moving in society for the majority of women, who do want love and children. To enable all women, not just the exceptional few, to participate in society we must confront the fact of life — as a temporary fact of most women’s lives today — that women do give birth to children. But we must challenge the idea that it is woman's primary role to rear children. Now, and equally, man and society have to be educated to accept their responsibility for that role. And this is first of all a challenge of education — to the college, the university and the graduate school.

I was in Sweden a year ago and I was impressed that these expecta­ tions are considered absolutely normal not only in Stockholm but even "in the sticks" in Sweden. The need for child-care centers is accepted as so absolutely important by all the fathers as well as all the mothers of the younger generation that every major young politician has it high on his agenda. The equivalent of the Sunday editor of the New York Times in Sweden, or a rising State Senator, would tell me how he and his wife both have part-time schedules so that they can both go on with their professions, and how this is fine but they rea­ lize it's only makeshift because what's really needed is more child­ care centers. And the editor would pick up the baby and say proudly that she relates to him more than to the wife. These are not queer, freakish hippies but the successful men in society. And in the Volvo factory, even the PR man with a crew cut says the same thing. I couldn't believe it! I asked, how do you explain this? How does every­ body have these attitudes? And they said, education. Eight years ago, as Anne-Marie (Berggren) has been telling you, they decided that they were going to have absolute equality and the only way you can have this is to challenge the sex-role idea. The sex-role debate is not considered a woman question, not even an individual woman question or a societal woman question, but a sex-role question for men and women alike. In the elementary schools boys and girls take cooking and child care, and boys and girls take shop. Boys and girls take higher mathematics. In the universities the dormitories are sexually inte­ grated, and they all have kitchens andb oys and girls learn to cook, to sleep together and study as equals at the same time. (Chhers from stu­ dents in the audience.) The kitchens are very important — a boy will boast how good a cook he is, and the idea that this is woman's work is gone. 196.

This can be done in the course of one generation, and if Sweden can do it the United States can do it. There is no excuse for an educated person or an educator who gives lip service to the need for this revolution not to recognize that it can and must be confronted not in the slums but in the universities and the places that are training the teachers. It can be done in time to affect our own lives. Even if we had an economic revolution tomorrow, we'd still need to do this. It hasn’t been done yet in the Communist countries; there, people still can say "Oh, the feminization of industry, terrible! And too many women doctors. And something is wrong with an industry with too many women in it — let’s pay women to stay home." If you don’t have the sex-role debate you could have socialism and women will still be playing a menial role. But if you address yourself to the urgencies of this revolution in education as it really can be done, then you can do an awful lot in a short amount of time.

Tokenism is worse than nothing. Tokenism is pretending that some­ thing is happening, to divert effort from the things that could really make something happen. It was terribly interesting to watch the exper­ iments in continuing education at Radcliffe and Sarah Lawrence. Sarah Lawrence provided all the goodies and therapy for a hundred and fifty women, and I don’t know how many women who were already at the Ph.D. level got the most marvelous deals at Radcliffe to get back in, but this revolution has got to be for everybody. Most women that lived in Cambridge and wanted to get into Harvard graduate school simply couldn’t get in at all, because Harvard won’t accept women for part­ time study when they’ve got enough men applying-for full-time study.

Let’s talk about what you could really do that isn’t just tinker­ ing or tokenism. Every single university should have a child-care center, and a Child Development department in any university that doesn’t address itself to this need is not confronting its own pro­ fessional challenge. Another thing you could do, which N.O.W. is trying to do, is to tackle sex discrimination in the universities in the broadest sense. If we got sex into Title Six of the Civil Rights Act, so that sex discrimination in education is outlawed as well as race discrimination in education, we could then demand the removal of government contracts from any university that discriminated against women in assigning fellowships. We could then establish, by going to the Supreme Court, that it was discrimination against women not to give them maternity leave and instead to make them drop out of medical school if they get pregnant or else diet so much that the belly isn’t visible. It is as much discrimination against women not to give them a maternity leave as it would be unconscionable to make a boy who has to go into military service lose his chance to get back into graduate school. And it is discrimination against a woman for the graduate school not to have a child-care center, much less not give her a scholarship or fellowship. 197.

You could also say that nepotism is absolutely discriminatory against women and that the university should have its government con­ tracts removed if it continues to practice nepotism. You could argue that perpetuating dormitory and sorority rules like curfew and parietal hours continues to make girls sex objects and perpetuates their own self-denigration. This is discrimination on the basis of sex and you could take a case to court. I think the Veterinary School here doesn't admit women, and professional schools all have written and unwritten quotas for women. It is almost impossible for women to get fellow­ ships in certain kinds of professional schools. All of this could be challenged for what it is — sex discrimination.

Finally, professional schools, and architecture especially, should change their approach. In Sweden, the more sophisticated young archi­ tects and planners are professionally confronting the problems of using technology to create new kinds of houses that don’t require this silly Slave work on the part of women that makes such a misuse of women’s time. These architects do not accept the status quo of "woman as the servant of the house."

There are many things that we can do about sex discrimination in an activist way as educators, as students, and simply as political animals — that are not tokenism. Faith that tokenism or continuing education and things like that will solve this matter is setting our sights down to a "culture of poverty" for women where any woman with four children who gets into graduate school at all is ecstatic. But every woman with four children should be able to get in and not have to pay the penalties that some have had to pay. Problems must be con­ fronted. If an exceptional few are able to do it happily, don’t tell me that all the problems are solved. Everybody — widows, men, children — has problems today, but the problems that are holding women back, and which you can confront very concretely in the university, are as sharp and special in their own nature and need as much concrete attention as the problems facing the blacks. 198

APPENDIX G

Abortion: A Woman’s Civil Right Betty Friedan Keynote Speech First National Conference for Repeal of Abortion Laws Chicago, Illinois February 14, 1969

I think that this is the first conference that’s been held on abortion that is a decent conference, because this is the first con­ ference in which women’s voices are going to be heard and heard strongly.

We are now in a new stage here, in the whole unfinished sexual revolution in America — the revolution of American women toward full equality, full participation, human dignity and freedom in our society. We are moving forward again, after many decades of standing still: which has been in effect to move backward. And a very basic part of this — and my only claim to be here — is our belated recognition, if you will, that there is no freedom, not equality, no full human dignity and personhood possible for women until we assert and demand control over our own bodies, over our own reproductive process.

There is only one voice that needs to be heard on the question of the final decision as to whether a woman will or will not bear a child and that is the voice of the woman herself. Her own conscience, her own conscious choice. Then and only then will women move out of their enforced passivity, their enforced denigration, their definition as sex objects, as things, to human personhood, to self-determination, to human dignity. And this is the new stage in your movement, which is now mine, although I am no expert on abortion, but I am the only kind of expert that there needs to be now. It is like the new stage in the black revolution. Blacks are no longer accepting the definition of what their liberty, their equality, their identity shall be from anyone else, no matter how paternalistic, beneficent, no matter whether sheriffs with bullwhips or kindly white liberals. The blacks finally are having the dignity and the self-respect and the guts and the cour­ age to say — we’re writing our own names, we are the ones to say what we want and where we’re going.

Well, women are finally saying that. We are the ones to say what will happen with our bodies, with our lives. We are finally demanding the voice that we have not been accorded despite all the paper rights that women are supposed to have in America and all the tokenism and and the lip service and the pats on the head and the sexual glamouri- zation. And the use of sex to sell everything from cans to detergents to mouthwash, even the glorification of breasts and behinds is finally 199

being understood by women for what it is: this ultimately denigrating enshrinement of women as sex objects and even the hypocritical tributes to motherhood.

Women are denigrated in this country, because women are not decid­ ing the conditions of their own society and their own lives. Women are not taken seriously as people. Women are not seen seriously as people. So, this is the new name of the game on the question of abortion: that women's voices be heard.

I flew in this morning from New York. Incidentally, I don’t come from New York. I come originally from Peoria, Illinois, so this is coming back home. Chicago was by first big city, my way out into the world. Yesterday, an obscene thing happened in the city of New York. A Committee of the State Legislature, in the state of New York, held hearings on the question of abortion.

Women like myself, asked to testify. We were told that testimony is by invitation only. There was only one woman invited to testify on the question of abortion, for what will happen to the laws govern­ ing abortion in the state of New York, a Catholic nun. The other voices that were heard were only the voices of men. It is obscene, I say, that men, whether they be Legislators or whether they be priests, whether they be even benevolent abortion reformers, that men and only men’s voices should be heard on the question of woman’s bodies, woman's reproductive process, what happens to women, who are the peo­ ple that bear children in this society, in this time.

Dont' talk to me about test tube babies. Perhaps my daughter, when she reaches my age, if she is standing here in a similar confer­ ence, will be confronting the question of babies being born in test tubes. But, in any revolution, while it must transcend what is happen­ ing now in a given society, it can only do so in terms of what is, shall we say, technologically possible. And in my book and the book of reality where this revolution must be fought, women give birth to babies. Viva la difference. But, women are the ones who, therefore, must decide. And what we are in the process of doing now, it seems to me, is realizing that there are certain rights that have never been defined as rights, that are essential to equality for women. These rights were not defined in the Constitution of this or any country, because that Constitution was written only by men.

The right of woman to control her reproductive process must be established as a basic, inalienable, human, civil right, not to be denied or abridged by the state. Just as in American tradition, in the American Constitution, the right of individual conscience, reli­ gious conscience, spiritual conscience is considered an inalienable private right not to be denied or abridged by the state and therefore the question of church and state are held separate. 20Q

So, must we address all questions governing the reproductive process, access to birth control, to contraceptive devices and abortion Don’t talk to me about abortion reform — reform is still the same — women, passive object. Reform is something dreamed up by men, abortion reform. Maybe good-hearted men, but they can only think from their point of view as men. Women are the passive objects that somehow must be regulated; let them have abortions for thalidamide, rape, incest. What right have they to say? What right has any man to say, to any woman — you must bear this child? What right has any state to say? This is woman's right and not a technical question needing the sanc­ tion of the state, or to be debated in terms of technicalities — they are irrelevant.

This question can only really be confronted in terms of the basic personhood and dignity of woman, which is violated forever if she does not have the right to control her own reproductive process. And this question, the guts of it, the heart of it goes far beyond the question of abortion, as such, though it seems to me almost self-evident that this is the only way to handle abortion.

It also seems to me quite remarkable what has happened in the lit­ tle more than a year, in which some of us have begun to talk about abortion in these terms, and I think that the people who first began doing it loud were women, although we’ve had a lot of support from men in doing it. But, I remember how they laughed when my group NOW decided that there had been enough talk about women, we wanted action; we decided to define a new Bill of Rights for women, and one of the rights had to be the right of women to control their own reproductive process. At that time, New York state was having a Constitutional Con­ vention — rewriting its Constitution — and Larry Lader invited me to the meeting of all the different groups — the church groups, the medi­ cal groups, Planned Parenthood and the rest — working on Abortion Reform. I said, we're going into the New York State Constitutional Convention demanding a Bill of Rights for women and we are going to demand that it be written into the Constitution, that the right of a woman to control her reproductive process must be established as a Civil Right, not to be denied or abridged by the state. Most of the people at that table, working on Abortion Reform in New York state at that point, were men. They looked at me in absolute horror, as if I was out of my mind. They said, you don’t know what you are talking about, you’re not an expert on this, you women have never done any­ thing like this. You’re just going to rock the boat — this isn’t the way to go about it — you listen to us: ADA, ACLU, the clergymen, the medical people.

If I were easily intimidated, I would have slunk out. But I said, well, you may be right but as far as we are concerned, this is the only way that abortion is worth talking about and we’re going to demand it and let’s see what happens. And as I left, a couple of the women that 201

were sitting quietly at the table came up and said, we’d like to help. Then lo and behold I began to hear ministers and ADA and ACLU and others begin to voice the same position, in terms of the woman’s basic right. It did get the nitty-gritty of it, I think. You can, in the rest of this conference, talk about all the technical reasons that different Abortion Reform Laws are inadequate or have worked or haven’t worked. It's hardly interesting. What interests me, is the basic position, and the resonance of this question for the whole revolution that needs to be advanced towards sexual equality today. You see, the essence of the denigration of women somehow, in this country, in the world, is the treatment of women as a passive sex object.

I won't go into the whole psychology of that, but women, almost to the degree that they're almost too visible as sex objects in this country today, are invisible people. As the negro was the invisible man, so women are the invisible people in America today. Women as peo­ ple, women to be taken seriously as people, women to have a share in the decisions of the mainstream of government, of politics, of the church — not just to cook the church supper, but to preach the sermon; not just to look up the zip codes and address the envelopes, but to make the political decisions; not just to do the housework of indus­ try, but to make some of the executive decisions. Women, above all, to say what their own lives are going to be, what their own personalities are going to be, and no longer listen to or even permit male experts to define what "feminine" is or isn't or should be.

The essence, somehow, of the denigration of women is our defini­ tion as an object, as sex object. And to confront therefore, our inequality, we must confront our denigration in these terms by society and our own self-denigration as people.

Now, am I saying that therefore women must be liberated from sex? No. I am saying that sex will only be liberated to be a human dia­ logue; sex will only cease to be dirty, if you will; sex will only cease to be a sniggering dirty joke and an obsession in this society, when women are liberated to be active self-determining people, liber­ ated to a creativity beyond motherhood, to a full human creativity.

Am I saying that women must be liberated from motherhood? No, I am not. I am saying that motherhood will only be liberated to be a joyous and responsible human act, when women are free to make, with full conscious choice and full human responsibility, the decision to be mothers. Then and only then, will they be able to embrace mother­ hood without conflict. When they are able to define themselves as people, not just as somebody's mother, not just as servants of child­ ren, not just as breeding receptacles, but as people for whom mother­ hood is a freely chosen part of life, freely celebrated while it lasts, but for whom creativity has many more dimensions, as it has for men. 202

Then and only then, will motherhood cease to be a bain and curse and a chain for men, for the children of mothers. For despite all the lip service paid to motherhood today, all the roses sent on Mother’s Day, all the commercials and the hypocritical ladies’ magazines cele­ bration of women in the roles as housewives and mothers, the fact is all the television comics or night club comics have to do is go before a microphone and say the word "my wife," for the whole audience to erupt into gales of guilty, vicious and obscene laughter.

The hostility between the sexes has never been worse. The image of woman in avant garde plays, novels, in the movies and in the mass image that you can detect behind the family situation comedies on tele­ vision is that mothers are man-devouring cannibalistic monsters, or else Lolitas, thing-like sex objects. Objects not even of hetero­ sexual impulse, objects of a sadistic sadomasochistic impulse. That impulse is much more a factor in the abortion question than anybody ever admits: the punishment of women.

I maintain that motherhood is almost by definition, a bain and a curse, or at least partly that, as long as women are forced to be mothers — and only mothers — against their will. Like a cancer cell, living its life through another cell, women today are forced to live too much through their children and husband — too dependent on them, and, therefore, forced to take too much varied resentment, vindictive­ ness, inexpressable resentment and rage out on their husbands and their children.

Perhaps it is the least understood fact of American political life: the enormous buried violence of women in this country today. Like all oppressed people, women have been taking their violence out on their own bodies, in all the maladies with which they plague the doctor's offices, the psychoanalysts. They have been taking their violence inadvertently and in subtle and in insidious ways out on their children and on their husbands, and sometimes, they're not so subtle.

For the battered child syndrome that we are hearing more and more about in our hospitals is almost always to be found in the . instance of unwanted children; and women are doing the battering, as much or more than men. In the case histories of maimed children — psychologically maimed if not physically — the woman is always the villain and the reason that this is so, is the definition that we make of women. Not only as passive sex objects, but as mothers, as ser­ vants of others, as primarily mothers, as someone else’s mother, some­ one else’s wife — denying women primary human dignity as people them­ selves . 203

Am I saying that women have to be liberated from men? That men are the enemy? No, I am not. I am saying that men will only be truly liberated, to love women and to be fully themselves, when women are liberated to be full people. To have a full say in the decisions of their life and their society and a full part in that society. Women must have the control of their own reproductive process.

Until that happens, men are going to bear the burden and the guilt of the destiny they have forced upon women, the suppressed resent­ ment of that passive stage — the sterility of love, when love is not between two fully active, fully participant, fully joyous people, but has in it the element of exploitation. And men will also not be fully free to be all they can be as long as they must live up to an image of masculinity that denies all the tenderness, the sensitivity, in a man that might be considered feminine. Because all men have that in them, as all women have the potential in them of truly active, participant human dignity, women not just as objects, but as subjects of the story. Men, also, have in them enormous capacities that they have to repress and fear in themselves, living up to this obsolete and brutal man­ eating, bear-killing, Ernest Hemmingway, crew-cut Prussian sadistic, napalm all the children in Viet Nam, bang-bang you’re dead, image of masculinity. Image of all powerful masculine superiority. All the burdens and responsibilities that men are supposed to shoulder alone makes them resent women’s pedestal, must as that pedestal — that enforced passivity — may be a burden for women.

Men are not allowed by their masculinity to express their resent­ ment against that. Men are not allowed to admit that they sometimes are afraid. They are not allowed to express their own sensitivities, their own needs, sometimes, to be passive and not always active. Their own ability to cry. So, they are only half-human, as women are only half-human until we can go this next step forward, of which this right of women to control her reproductive process, the right of women to have a say in the decisions of her own life, is a part.

And the final stage or at least, the next stage, is a concept of human dimension and human creativity that would ask in theological lan­ guage, in the way that we have been asking lately, is God dead? — Is God He? Not that we should say, is God she? Unless we can conceive of divinity — the highest dimension of human imagination and possi­ bility — that which is most sacred — in masculine and feminine clothes, we are not able to celebrate our full humanity. We are not able to celebrate our full humanity.

So, this is the real sexual revolution. Not the cheap headlines in the papers, at what age boys and girls go to bed with each other and whether they do it with or without the benefit of marriage. That’s the least of it. The real sexual revolution is the emergence of women from massivity, from thingness, from the point where they can be the easiest victim and the channel, if you will, for all the seductions — what is 204

wrong with our society — all the waste, all the bowing and worshipping of false gods in our affluent society — women confronting their own situation as the passive victims of all the sells and, now, women emerging from thingness, from passivity to full self-determination, to full dignity. And insofar as they do this, men are also emerging from the stage of instruments, if you will, of inadvertent brutes and mas­ ters to full and sensitive complete humanity.

This is revolutionary. It cannot happen without radical changes in the family as we know it today; in our concepts of marriage, in our very concepts of love, in our architecture, our plans of cities, in our theology, in our politics, in our art. Not that women are special. Not that women are superior. But, it’s bound to be a different poli­ tics, when women’s voices are equally heard: 51% of the population. They are bound to be much more varied, expressions of human creativity, and infinitely more various and enriching — the dimensions of human relationship — when women and men are allowed to relate to each other beyond the strict confines of the Ladies Home Journal's definition of the mamma and papa and Junior and Janie marriage.

I call to your attention a study that was done a few years ago of how American women looked at their husbands, done on Long Island house­ wives. Such women looked at their husbands, first of all, as bread­ winners. Then, they saw them as fathers. You know, the way certain couples will say: "Oh, yes, father," she will say to her husband. "Yes mother," he will say to his wife. Second of all, as fathers. Then as husbands. I don't even think this study said lovers. And finally, they saw their husbands as themselves, as people.

That is obscene, what that reflects of the state between the sexes in America today. That is terrible for men to be looked on first of all as breadwinners. For women not to be able to see their own husbands primarily as lovers and above all, as people themselves, just as it is obscene for men to look on women as things, as objects, as Playboy Bunnies. Hugh Heffner's disposable Kleenex theory of sex, for men to look on women as objects only, is, I guess, to deprive them­ selves of personhood, until ultimately the only answer is simply, women stay away — to flee from women altogether and so you have this image of women as monsters and as devourers.

But, if we are both people and if we are allowed finally to become full people, not only will children be born and brought up with more love and responsibility than today, but we will break out of the con­ fines of that sterile little suburban family to relate to each other in terms of all of the possible dimensions of our personalities — male and female, as comrades, as colleagues, as friends, as lovers, in a lifespan that is now 75 years and that is going to be 100 years. And without hate and without so much jealousy and buried resentment and 205

hypocrisies, there will be a whole new sense of what love is that will make Valentine’s Day look very pallid.

It’s very crucial, therefore, that we see this question that we are here talking about today, that it is more than a quantitative move, more than a politically expedient move that you move beyond the stage of abortion reform to say, the right of a woman to control her own reproductive process with medical assistance is an absolute human right or Civil Right, not to be interfered with by the state. Abortion Repeal — this is not a question of political expediency, this is not a question for any politician here, male or female, Aunt Tom, excep­ tional women, anyone to argue in terms of political expediency. This is a radical change in the terms of the debate. This is like what hap­ pened when the blacks began to say it the way it is and not permit even the white liberals to tell them the way it should be.

We and only we can say it the way it is, for we are the women who bear the children. We are not talking in terms analogous to black power because it would be sick to make an absolute analogy here and certainly, the support and the assistance and the help of men is wel­ comed and needed, and I at least believe that men are not the enemy. I think men will not die in 10 years younger than women, when full equality is finally celebrated in this country and I hope to live to see the day. We must understand the seriousness and the real need of this new approach: that it is the move from women's passivity, from women’s denigration as an object to full human dignity, to defining the terms of the debate ourselves, to defining the terms of our lives ourselves and so, I think it’s historic. It is historic that we address ourselves this weekend to perhaps, the first national con­ frontation of women and men, with women's voice heard finally aloud and saying it the way it is, about the question of abortion in its most basic sense of morality and its new political sense in the light of this whole unfinished revolution of sexual equality.

And I think that in this confrontation, this weekend, we will be making an important milestone in this marvelous revolution that began long before any of us here were born and has a long way to go, and is not the same as any other revolution, although it converges. Because even if economic revolutions are won, women will be the last pro­ letariat until they finally reach self-conscious, self-determining, personhood. So, we will be making the same kind of milestone, address­ ing ourselves to the question of abortion in these terms as the pioneers from Mary Wollstonecraft to Margaret Sanger to all of our forebears that gave us the consciousness that brought us from our several direc­ tions here, and I am glad to be here, this time. 206

APPENDIX H

The Sexual Revolution and Women’s Right to Abortion Betty Friedan November 4, 1969

Introduction

In the whole unfinished sexual revolution in America — the revolution of American women toward full participation in society — there is no freedom, no equality, no full human dignity and person- hood possible for women until they assert and demand control over their own bodies and their own reproductive process. To enable all women, not just the exceptional few, to move in society, we must accept as a fact of life, a temporary fact of most women’s life today, that women do give birth to children. But it is left to all women to challenge the idea that it is their primary role to bear and rear children. There is only one voice that needs to be heard on the question of whether a woman will or will not bear a child and that is the voice of the woman herself. The right to have an abortion is a matter of individual conscience and conscious choice for the woman concerned.

Women and Ecology

To remove, for a moment, the argument for abortion on demand exclusively from the realm of the sexual revolution^ one can examine the case in broader terms. In the ecological crisis that now con­ fronts the world, the survival of the human race may well rest on this sexual revolution — on the speed with which it wins for women full human status and opportunity to develop and use in society human abili­ ties beyond sexuality and childbearing. As long as her hope of iden­ tity and enjoyment of society is as sex object or mother — and as long as she is barred, because of her sex or even because of childbearing from the full rewards of other forms of participation in society — she will burden society with too many children. If women are to choose not to bear more than two children, they must have the opportunity to participate in all professions of importance ■— in politics, arts and science, education and the race to space, in more than menial roles. In this sense, ending thorough sex discrimination in educa­ tion and employment and a sex education for women and men that rede­ fines or abolishes sex roles is inextricably linked with the right of woman to control her own reproductive process and to control the population of the world. The right to abortion thus gives a woman a double source of leverage in the world — a safeguard against over­ breeding and as a tool with which she indirectly controls population. 207

Psychological Backseat

For a long time women have been denigrated and not taken seriously into account in the decisions concerning their own society and their own lives. The classic example of how women have historically been induced to take a psychological backseat is Helena Deutsch’s two volume document of the psychology of women which did more to mislead intelli­ gent, educated women of the author’s generation than probably any other book. Helena Deutsch had so swallowed the denigrating image of women that was implicit in the culture in which Freud grew up and worked and which is implicit in Freudian thought, that she denied her own reality. In Deutsch’s Psychology of Women, she explains that all original theo­ retical work, all intellectual life has to be phallic and somehow an abdication of women’s true femininity which only expresses itself in passivity and sublimated sexuality. It was feminine and truly expres­ sive of feminine intellect for a woman to be the nameless assistant to a Freudian analyst but not to be an analyst herself. In every word of her book she is denying her own identity as women had been doing before her and have continued to do to this day.

Erik Erikson is another who has been guilty of using psychological concepts to dichotomize sharply between what are men’s concerns and what are women’s concerns. To say, like Erikson, that little girls are concerned with inner space and little boys with outer space and therefore there are differences between men and women is to rationalize the status quo. And this is the crux of the sexual revolution that women are no longer willing to accept the status quo or let these rationalizations go unchallenged. The sexual revolution of the six­ ties is not concerned simply with when and whom we go to bed and how we enjoy intercourse but with the actual relationships between men and women. Because the controversy surrounding the right to abortion focuses in on every aspect of the relationship between the sexes and holds the key to discarding an old concept of femininity for a more honest male-female dialogue, it is a target area in which women’s voices must be heard strongly. If gains are not made in the area of abortion and the right to control reproductive functions then gains will not be made at all.

It is highly inconsistent that men, whether they be legislators, priests, or even benevolent abortion reformers, be the ones to make their voices heard on the question of woman’s body and reproductive process when it is women who in fact bear the children in this society. Women are the ones who must decide these questions and it seems that women are just beginning to realize that they have certain rights which never have been defined as rights and which are essential to equality for women. These rights have not been defined in the Constitution of this country, or any country, because such documents have been written 208

by men. However, the right of a woman to control her reproductive process must be established as a basic, inalienable, human civil right not to be denied or abridged by state or church, and it falls to women to address themselves to all questions governing the reproduc­ tive process, access to birth control and contraceptive devices and above all abortion.

Sexual Revolution

If women’s voices have not been heard on the subject of abortion, it is because women themselves have been minimally visible in the total American scene. Women, almost to the degree that they are too visible as sex objects in this country today, are invisible people. The essence of the denigration of women is their definition as sex objects; to confront their inequality women must confront their denigration in these terms. Abortion does not promise to liberate women from sex but rather to liberate sex itself. Abortion can help to elevate sex from being a dirty joke and an obsession in this society to a vehicle for honest human dialogue when women are liberated to be active, self- determining people.

Similarly, abortion will not liberate women from motherhood. Rather motherhood itself will be liberated to be a joyous and respon­ sible act when women are free to make the conscious choice when to be mothers. Motherhood is almost by definition a bain and a curse when women are forced to be mothers and only mothers against their will. Women, living too much through their husbands and children and too dependent on them for their identity, may harbor inexpressible resent­ ments. Perhaps the least understood fact of American political life today is the enormous buried hostility of women who have been taking their violence inadvertently and in subtle and insidious ways out on their children and on their husbands. The battered child syndrome which is becoming more and more frequent in hospitals is almost always to be found in the instance of unwanted children and women are doing the battering as much or more than men. If women are to embrace motherhood without conflict, which at one extreme leads to child abuse and at the other repressed hostilities, they must define themselves not just as somebody’s mother but as people for whom motherhood is a freely chosen part of life.

New Masculine Image

The right to abortion is definitely a way in which a woman may redefine her identity and achieve a new equality with men by freeing herself from sex and motherhood as irreversible determinants of her destiny. Men, however, also have something to gain from this aspect of the sexual revolution as the personality gap between the sexes is les­ sened enabling fuller expression of male and female potential. When women are no longer expected to repress certain aspects of their per­ 209

sonalities men will also be liberated from certain taboos labeling as "sissyish" certain latent traits which they possess. As women are only half human until they have the right to control their own reproductive process and be active participants in the world, men are half human in assuming only the image of all powerful masculine superiority. Men must live up to an image of masculinity that denies much of the tender­ ness and sensitivity in them. Men are not allowed to admit that they are sometimes afraid. They are not allowed to express their own needs and sometimes to be passive rather than active. In living up to this obsolete man-eating, bear-killing Ernest Hemmingway image of masculin­ ity, men have to repress in themselves enormous capacities which they have to develop all dimensions of their personalities. Perhaps the sexual revolution and women’s right to abortion, in addition to equal­ izing women, humanizing sex, and deproselytizing motherhood, will also liberate men from a one-sided humanity.

Woman's Human Rights

Because the real sexual revolution has to do with the emergence of women from passivity and thingness, and of men from inadvertent brutish­ ness, and not with the fact that boys and girls go to bed with each other without the benefit of marriage, it is impossible to ask for any­ thing less than complete freedom on the part of any woman to have an abortion. The question of abortion rights for women is more than a politically expedient quantitative move beyond the stage of abortion reform. To repeat, the right of a woman to control her own reproduc­ tive process with medical assistance is an absolute human right, a civil right, not to be interfered with by the state. In terms of the debate concerning abortion there must be a radical turning away from pomp and circumstance with a view toward what is really happening, or should be happening, between the sexes. 210

APPENDIX I

Statement Before the Senate Judiciary Committee Condemning the Appointment of Judge Carswell To the U.S. Supreme Court Betty Friedan January 28, 1970

I am here to testify before this committee to oppose Judge Carswell’s appointment to Supreme Court Justice on the basis of his proven insensitivity to the problems of 51% of United States citi­ zens who are women, and specifically his explicit discrimination in a circuit court decision in 1969 against working mothers.

I speak in my capacity as national president of the National Organization for Women, which has led the exploding new movement in this country for "full equality for women in truly equal partnership with men," and which was organized in 1966 to take action to break through discrimination against women in employment, education, govern­ ment and all fields of American life.

On October 13, 1969, in the fifth circuit court of appeals, Judge Carswell was party to a most unusual judiciary action which would per­ mit employers in defiance of the law of the land as embodied in Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act to refuse to hire women who have children.

The case involved Mrs. Ida Phillips who was refused employment by Martin Marietta Corporation as an aircraft assembler because she has pre-school age children, although the company said it would hire a man with pre-school age children.

This case was considered a clear-cut violation of the law which forbids job discrimination on grounds of sex as well as race. The EEOC, empowered to administer Title VII, filed an amicus brief on behalf of Mrs. Phillips; an earlier opinion of the fifth circuit filed in May upholding the company was considered by Chief Judge John Brown such a clear violation of the Civil Rights Act that he vacated the opinion and asked to convene the full court to consider the case.

Judge Carswell voted to deny a rehearing of the case, an action which in effect would permit employers to fire 4.1 million working mothers in the U.S. today who have children under six. They comprise 38.9% of nearly 10.6 million mothers in the labor force today.

In his dissent to this ruling in which Judge Carswell claimed no sex discrimination was involved, Chief Judge Brown said: 211

"The case is simple. A woman with pre-school children may not be employed, a man with pre-school children may. The distinguishing factor seems to be motherhood versus fatherhood. The question then arises: Is this sex-related? To the simple query the answer is just as simple: Nobody — and this includes Judges, Solomonic or life tenured — has yet seen a male mother. A mother, to oversimplify the simplest biology, must then be a woman."

"Itis the fact of the person being a mother — i.e. a woman — not the age of the children, which denies employment opportunity to a woman which is open to men."

It is important for this committee to understand the dangerous insensitivity of Judge Carswell to sex discrimination, when the desire and indeed the necessity of women to take a fully equal place in Amer­ ican society has already emerged as one of the most explosive issues in the 70’s, entailing many new problems which will ultimately have to be decided by the Supreme Court.

According to the government figures, over 25% of mothers with children under six are in the labor force today.

Over 85% of them work for economic reasons. Over half a million are widowed, divorced or separated. Their incomes are vitally impor­ tant to their children. Perhaps even more important, as a portent of the future, is the fact that there has been an astronomical increase in the last three decades in the numbers of working mothers. Between 1950 and the most recent compilation of government statistics, the num­ ber of working mothers in the U.S. nearly doubled. For ever mother of children who worked in 1940, ten mothers are working today, an increase from slightly over 1.5 million to nearly 11 million.

In his pernicious action, Judge Carswell was not only flaunting the Civil Rights Act, designed to end the job discrimination which denied women along with other minority groups equal opportunity in employment, but was specifically defying the policy of this administra­ tion to encourage women in poverty, who have children, to work by expanding day-care centers rather than the current medieval welfare system which perpetuates the cycle of poverty from generation to gen­ eration. Mothers and children today comprise 80% of the welfare load in major cities.

Judge Carswell justified discrimination against such women by a peculiar doctrine of "sex plus" which claimed that discrimination which did not apply to all women but only to women who did not meet special standards — standards not applied to men — was not sex discrimination. 212

In his dissent, Chief Judge Brown said, "the sex plus rule in this case sows the seed for future discrimination against black workers through making them meet extra standards not imposed on whites." The "sex plus" doctrine would also penalize the very women who most need jobs.

Chief Judge Brown said, "Even if the 'sex plus' rule is not expanded, in its application to mothers of pre-school children it will deal a serious blow to the objectives of Title VII. If the law against sex discrimination means anything it must protect employment opportunities for those groups of women who most need jobs because of economic necessity. Working mothers of pre-schoolers are such a group. Studies show that, as compared to women with older children or no children, these mothers of pre-school children were much more likely to have gone to work because of pressing need . . . because of finan­ cial necessity and because their husbands are unable to work. Fre­ quently, these women are a key or only source of income for their families. Sixty-eight per cent of working women do not have husbands present in the household and two-thirds of these women are raising children in poverty. Moreover, a barrier to jobs for mothers of pre­ schoolers tends to harm non-white mothers more than white mothers."

I am not a lawyer but the wording of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act so clearly conveys its intention to provide equal job opportunity to all oppressed groups, including women — who earn today in America on the average less than half the earnings of men — that only outright sex discrimination or sexism, as we new feminists call it, can explain Judge Carswell’s ruling.

I would recall to this committee the exact wording of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which provides that:

"a) It shall be an unlawful employment practice for an employer —

1) to fail or refuse to hire or to discharge any indi­ vidual, or otherwise to discriminate against any individual with respect to his compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, because of such individual's race, color, religion, sex or national origin, or

2) to limit, segregate, or classify his employees in any way which would deprive or tend to deprive any individual of employment opportunities or otherwise adversely affect his status as an employee, because of such individual’s race, color, religion, sex, or national origin." 213

At the very least, Judge Carswell's vote in the Martin Marietta case reflects a total blindness to the very real problems women face today, in attempting at long last to use the rights guaranteed in the Constitution to assume full participation in American Society, which is their necessity as human beings in the 1970's. The blacks until recently could say, with bitterness, that they were the "invisible men" in America, women have lately realized and with increasing vocal bitterness that they are invisible people in this country. And para­ doxically, they are invisible as people precisely to the degree that they are too visible as sex objects — defined and used as sex objects to sell every conceivable product by American business, and yet denied the opportunity to earn a decent salary or hold a decision-making position in virtually every business or profession in America today.

Human rights are indivisible and I and those for whom I speak would oppose equally the appointment to the Supreme Court of a racist judge who has been totally blind to the humanity of black men and women since 1948 as to a sexist judge totally blind to the humanity of women in 1969.

That racism and sexism often go hand in hand is a fact often pointed out by social scientists, most notably Gunnar Myrdal, in his famous appendix to the "American Dilemma."

But to countenance outright sexism not only in words by judicial flaunting of the law in an appointee to the Supreme Court in 1970, when American women — not in hundreds or thousands but in millions — are beginning finally to assert their human rights not only as a moral necessity but because history gives them no alternative, is unconscion­ able.

I trust that you gentlemen of the committee do not share Judge Carswell's inability to see women as human beings too. I will put, however, this question to you.

How would you feel if in the vent you were not re-elected (though I am not implying necessarily that women who surely make up 51% or more of your districts will refuse to return you to Washington if you con­ done the appointment of such an enemy of women)? Still, gentlemen, I repeat, how would you feel if when you applied for a job at some com­ pany or law firm or university you were told you weren't eligible because you have a child?

How would you feel if your sons were told explicitly or implicitly that they could not get or keep certain jobs if they had children?

Then how do you feel about appointing to the Supreme Court a man who has said your daughters may not hold a job if they have child­ ren? 214

The economic misery and psychological conflicts entailed for untold numbers of American women and their children and husbands by Judge Carswell's denial to women of the protection of a law that was enacted for their benefit are only a faint hint of the harm that would be done in appointing such a sexually backward Judge to the Supreme Court. For during the next decade, I can assure you that the emerging revolution of the no longer quite so silent majority — and that 51% of women are the majority —- will pose many pressing new problems to our society, which will inevitably come before the courts and indeed will probably preoccupy the Supreme Court of the 70's as did questions arising from the Civil Rights movement of the blacks in the 1960’s.

It is already apparent from decisions made by Judges in other cir­ cuit courts that Judge Carswell is unusually blind in the matter of sex prejudice and that his blindness will make it impossible for him to fairly judge cases of sex prejudice that will surely come up.

Recently courts have begun to outlaw forms of discrimination against women long accepted in society. The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals (convened as a three-judge court without Judge Carswell), on March 4, 1969, in Weeks v. Southern Bell Telephone ruled that weight­ lifting limitations barring women, but not men, from jobs, were ille­ gal under Title VII. The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, on Sep­ tember 26, 1969, in Bows v. Colgate Palmolive Co. ruled that, if retained, a weight-lifting test must apply to ALL employees, male and female, and that each individual must be permitted to "bid on and fill any job which his or her seniority entitled him or her." Separate seniority lists for men and women were forbidden.

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in Rosenfeld v. Southern Pacific, 293 F. Supp. 1219 (C.D. Cal. 1968), decided in favor of a woman employee by ruling that California’s statutes relating to hours and weight-lifting were unconstitutional under Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

In the area of criminal law, the case of Daniel v. Pennsylvania, 210 P. Super. 156, 232 A.2d 247, 255 (1968), it was decided that women could not receive a punishment of up to ten years if the punishment a man could receive for the same crime is limited to four years in prison

A list of a few existing instances of discrimination against women all involving government action, follows. It goes without saying that most of the examples would arouse the fury of any sensitive human being

1. In New York City, male, but not female, teachers are paid for their time spent on jury duty.

2. In Syracuse, New York, male, but not female teachers are paid for athletic coaching. 215

3. In Syracuse, an employer wants to challenge the rule that forbids her to hire female employees at night in violation of New York State restrictive laws.

4. In Pennsylvania, a woman has requested help in obtaining a tax deduction for household help necessary for her to work.

5. In Arizona, a female law professor is fighting a rule that forbids her to be hired by the same university that employs her husband in another department.

6. In California, a wife is challenging a community property law which makes it obligatory for a husband to control their joint property.

7. And, all over the country, the EEOC regulation, which made it illegal to have separate want ads for males and females, has not been followed by most newspapers.

The Honorable Shirley Chisholm, a national board member of NOW, has summed it all up in her statement that she has been more discrimin­ ated against as a woman than as a black.

It would show enormous contempt for every woman of this country and contempt for every black American as well as contempt for the Supreme Court iteself if you confirm Judge Carswell’s appointment.

We cannot say that all women in America want equality, because we know that women, like all oppressed people, have swallowed and plowed into themselves the denigration of women by society that has gone on for generations, for centuries. Some women have been too much hurt by denigration, by self-denigration, by the lack of the very experiences and education and training needed to move in society as equal human beings, to have the confidence that they can so move in a competitive society.

I want to give you a lesson in the psychology of young women today, in the way they see this:

"The rallying cry of the black civil rights movement has always been: 'Give us back our manhood.' What exactly does that mean? There is black manhood? How has it been taken from blacks? And how can it be retrieved? The answer lies in one word: responsibility; they have been deprived of serious work; therefore, they have been deprived of self-respect; therefore, they have been deprived of manhood. Women have been deprived of exactly the same thing and in every real sense have thus been deprived of womanhood. We have never been taught to expect any development of what is best for ourselves because no one 216

has ever expected anything of us — or for us. Because no one has ever had any intention of turning over any serious work to us. Both we and the blacks lost the ball game before we ever got up to play. In order to live you’ve got to have nerve; and we were stripped of our nerve before we began; black is ugly and female is inferior. These are the primary lessons of our experience, and in these ways both blacks and women have been kept, not as functioning nations, but rather as operat­ ing objects, but a human being who remains as a child throughout his adult life is an object, not a mature specimen, and the definition of a child is: one without responsibility."

"At the very center of all human life is energy, psychic energy. It is the force of that energy that drives us, that surges continually up in us, that must perpetually be reaching for something beyond itself. It is the imperative of that energy that has determined man’s characteristic interest, problem-solving. The modern ecologist attests to that driving need by demonstrating that in time when all the real problems are solved, man makes up new ones in order to go on solving. He must have work, work that he considers real and serious, or he will die. That is the one characteristic of human beings. And it is the only characteristic, above all others, that the accidentally dominant white male asserts is not necessary to more than half the members of the race, i.e. the female of the species. This assertion is, quite simply, a lie. Nothing more, nothing less. A lie. That energy is alive in every woman in the world. It lies trapped and dor­ mant, like a growing tumor, and at its center there is despair, hot, deep, wordless."

"No man worth his salt does not wish to be a husband and father; yet no man is raised to be a husband and father and no man would ever conceive of those relationships as instruments of his prime func­ tions in life. Yet every woman is raised, still, to believe that the fulfillment of these relationships is her prime function in life."

Am I saying that women have to be liberated from men? That men are the enemy? No, I am not. I am saying that men will only be truly liberated, to love women and to be fully themselves, when women are liberated to be full people. To have a full say in the decisions of their life and their society and a full part in that society.

Until that happens, men are going to bear the burden and the guilt of the destiny they have forced upon resentment of passivity, the sterility of love, when love is not between two fully active, fully participant, fully joyous people, but has in it the element of exploitation. And men will also not be fully free to be all they can be as long as they must live up to an image of masculinity that denies all the tenderness, the sensitivity, in a man that might be considered feminine. Because all men have that in them, as all women have the potential in them of truly active, participant 217

human dignity, women not just as objects, but as subjects of the story. Men, also, have in them enormous capacities that they have to repress and fear in themselves, living up to this obsolete and brutal man- eating, bear-killing, Ernest Hemmingway, crew-cut Prussian sadistic, napalm all the children in Viet Nam, bang-bang you’re dead, image of masculinity, the image of all powerful masculine superiority. All the burdens and responsibilities that men are supposed to shoulder alone, makes them, I think, resent women’s pedestal, such as that pedestal — that enforced passivity — may be a burden for women.

Men are not allowed by their masculinity to express their resent­ ment against that. Men are not allowed to admit that they have some­ times been afraid. They are not allowed to express their own sensitivi­ ties, their own needs, sometimes, to be passive and not always active. Their own ability to cry. So, they are only half-human, as women are only half-human until they have a full voice and a fully active part in our emerging human society.

The specific forms and instance of discrimination against women are easy to document. Voluminous, evidence demonstrating widespread social and professional discrimination on the basis of sex has been, and continues to be, gathered. In most states the domicile of a married woman is that of the husband, which means that she cannot vote or run for office if she lives elsewhere. She cannot legally do busi­ ness in her own name, and, in many instances, she cannot borrow money or contract for anything without the approval of her husband. Rape by a husband is legal. In many states the husband has complete legal con­ trol of all property owned by both jointly. Often laws relating to property passing at death discriminate against women. There is a Supreme Court decision barring women from jury duty, although a recent lower federal court decision has gone the other way. In some states, a woman can be sentenced to jail for a longer period of time than a man who commits the same offense. Women are barred from many publicly funded educational institutions on the one hand, and from publicly licensed places of public accommodations on the other.

Perhaps the most effective area of discrimination is in employ­ ment. Last year eighty-nine percent of the women in the labor force earned less than five thousand dollars, as compared to forty percent of the men. Further, women are paid forty percent less than men hold­ ing the same jobs (U.S. Department of Labor Statistics). Restrictive laws have operated to keep women out of managerial positions by limit­ ing the hours they can work. Today there are fewer women principals of schools, fewer women professors and fewer women lawyers than there were in 1950 on a percentage basis.

All these inequities are embodied in legal cases that will surely come before the United States Supreme Court in the 1970's. Therefore Judge Carswell’s proven bias against the long-neglected rights of Ameri­ can women makes him unqualified to hold such office in these historic times. 218

APPENDIX J

Women’s Lib* Fordham Speech Betty Friedan New York, New York April, 1970

I suppose that the real symbol of the seriousness and urgency of this moment in our movement, in our unfinished revolution for true equality and human freedom and dignity, identity, full human identity for women, is that so many of us are here on a sunny June Saturday, to examine where we are, where we are going. And I would like to throw out to you some thoughts of mine on the dangers, certain dangers, cer­ tain dead ends, as I see them, and certain directions for the future at this critical moment in our movement, in our unfinished revolution, which is really moving forward with great speed after that fifty years of lack of motion when the whole cause of women’s freedom and unfinished business of equality seems to be dormant; the movement which began in the mid-Sixties has reached, I believe, this year, a point of critical mass, has exploded into the national consciousness, and is carried now by not hundreds or thousands but I think millions of women, in their actions, in their consciousness, confronting their own situations; a movement now measured not only and perhaps least of all by the pro­ liferation of groups that call themselves women’s liberation, but mea­ sured truly by the consciousness of millions of women that have not ■— that may have been searching or not, been able even to find an organi­ zation to receive them, and thus organized their own, and perhaps millions more who identify surely, though uneasily and a little bit threatened, but are beginning to identify more and more surely, the nature of their own situation and their common cause with their sis­ ters; and measured also in the growing consciousness of men, all who have to deal with women, have been employers, priests, politicians — have consciousness that may or may not be uneasy that something’s hap­ pening here even if they don’t quite understand it.

There is danger in the very reality of the change in our nation, our society, that is making this revolution explode now. And this revolution is not exploding in isolation or because any of us . . . and said it had to be. You know why it's exploding. It's exploding because we have to be people in society, we had to break out of the feminine mystique, as I called it, we had to break out of that defini­ tion of us, solely in sexual terms, as wives, mothers, sex objects,

* Incomplete with pages missing. 219

or server of physical needs of husband, children, home — to be people in society. Because in a 75-year life span, there is no possible way for child-bearing or child-rearing even if it should be defined as solely women’s responsibility — and while the bearing is actually done by the woman, the act requires two, and the responsibility, as you know, I don’t feel, we don’t feel, is woman’s responsibility alone. But even if one would still assume the traditional women’s role, as motherhood first of all — motherhood, child-bearing . . . — it’s just not possible, for motherhood or child-rearing to occupy, preoccupy or define a woman for anything but a relatively minor part of her months, hours, years of life. At this moment in history. And this has been true — it was true of my generation, already. It’s been true for a great many years, but there was quite awhile before this absolutely inescapable fact . . . sunk into our consciousness, and made us rea­ lize the necessity of breaking beyond the feminine mystique, and con­ fronting our situation in society. Because we had to do that. There was no place else — there is no place else — for us to be human, except as human beings in human society. And we had to move out of our isolated homes to do that. Because quite awhile ago, most of the necessary work — and I use what’s now not only in a sense of paychecks, but in . . . sense of what defines a human condition, the work that creates and transforms, a changing, ongoing human society -— that work, quite awhile ago, began to be someplace else but in that isolated home. In the ranch, in the pioneering days, the man and woman had more equit­ ably shared the burdens and responsibilities of parents in society. When the ranches were real. But in the ranchhouse, much less the city apartment . . . and that’s not where the . . . comes from. And all of the work, even most of the work of the rearing of children, except for the first few years, is done out in society, and the big decisions are made in society. And there was, is, no place for women to be alive, to be ruler, to have an existence, to use her human abilities and poten­ tials, and to have a say in the decisions that are affecting her life, and her society, the future of her society, except out there — out there in the world where it’s happening. And there is no way, now, in the rapid technological change of our society, for her to be there, or to stay there, much longer, unless she is able to do the work and have the skills to make the decisions and be part of the action of an advanced technological society — the kind of work that cannot be replaced by the machine.

The menial housework as a job, where that nearly half of all women who do work outside the home are for the most part segregated today, in jobs being taken over by the machine. And there has not been an increase in women; in fact, women are being replaced increasingly by men. In the profession, the decision-making executive type jobs in industry, or positions in political life — or here I speak of establishment and antiestablishment — that even in the formerly traditional female professions, school-teaching, library, social work, the women are being replaced by the men, increasingly in advanced 220

jobs, in all but the menial jobs. And so there is no way, no way for us to evade any longer the ... of real equality, the hard gut prob­ lems of achieving it, of breaking through the barriers of discrimina­ tion that keep women out of the education and the opportunities in employment, politics or decision-making in any institution of American life — no way . . . unless we break through the barriers and discrimin- ationa massively and achieve equality and equal opportunity as our absolute human right — or rights as Americans here; and no way to do that, we know now, if in addition to breaking through the barriers we do not now create these new institutions that are necessary in society, or restructure the institutions that have been structured solely in terms of males, that will permit women who do at this time still give birth to children — and the majority of women do that, and while we say it must be their real human choice, their own inalienable human right to decide this matter, it is a fact of life and it would be my educated guess that it will continue to be a fact of life, that a great many women, that the majority of women will choose to bear perhaps not many children but one or two, probably our morality soon will say not more than two or there won't be any air for them to breathe, there won’t be any way for them to grow up in a decent society. But all institutions in this society, in this country, where the action is, are structured today solely in terms of man’s world, without any cog­ nizance of that fact of life that women give birth to children and that women who do give birth to children should be able to move in society. And the home, which remains a place that the family comes back to to sleep, rest, eat, find solace, work, intimacy and all the rest — the home is structured too much as woman’s world, as we know. We can’t evade changing it, because if we do, the rapid technological changes, we can’t stop those, nor can we, it looks like, stop the con­ ditions in our country which are plunging us into recession. Women are going to be, in the first place, in a recession, that we already have if it isn't a depression — the first fired and the last hired. And I see the stories every day in the papers about decreased women in jobs — I don't know when it's going to begin to happen overtly, but some of you here can remember the Depression and how school teachers for instance couldn't get married, had to hide the fact of their mar­ riage because it was considered absolutely immoral, in fact it was, is, not possible for a woman to continue teaching if she was married. And in the school system, and in that Depression, teaching was one of the few jobs left, it became a job that people really wanted and needed.

We've got to get beyond the menial roles so we're essential, so we can have a say in the decisions of this society, or we've got to somehow establish our equality so that whatever the condition of this society is, and however much we want to change it, we're in there and able to do it, and have force and power to do it. And we can't wait. We can't wait. There is a danger right now in 1970 to fake, to be deluded, by the press, to be deluded by the master publicity that women's liberation movements have been getting; to be deluded into 221

thinking that very much has really happened to change the situation, when in fact it hasn’t. All that has happened so far is conscious­ ness — consciousness, I believe, created by action, and actions which have achieved some legal victories, have at least gotten such . . . of the Civil Rights Act which forbids discrimination in employment on basis of sex as well as race — gotten that law for us, to some degree, begun to establish a possibility in this city, in this state and elsewhere, that laws could be written, and demand for laws be writ­ ten, to outlaw sex discrimination in public accommodations and in edu­ cation, and in housing. And we are beginning to learn how to use the courts to do this, and we’re beginning to learn how to use our ingenu­ ity and our solidarity in actions to confront the discriminations in industry, in all of our industries. And we have organized conferences now, in all the major professional organizations, women’s conferences, and in the political parties we are beginning to do that, and in the colleges, we do have women’s liberation movements. We have begun. We have begun to organize and we have consciousness, and we have begun to confront. But we have barely begun to break through the barriers of discrimination, and we have not even begun to really create . . . institutions or restructure institutions. We have just become con­ scious of the need for child-care centers, but we have hardly got the power to create them or get them created, and we haven’t managed to establish them as the priority they have to be, on any politi­ cian’s agenda. All we’ve gotten, really, so far, in terms of the effect on any woman’s life, is consciousness, really. Well, it’s important, it creates consciousness, both in us and the employers, when we take an action, even action against a denigrating image — the denigrating image is still there. "You’ve come a long way, baby." — all the insulting commercials and ads, that moronic image of woman, you know, on television, . . . you get the kitchen sink pure white, and need the counsel of an elderly man to do that (AMID LAUGHTER), and somehow every year has a lower I.Q. (LAUGHTER) You know. "Is there more than one vitamin, tell me, doctor," you know. (LAUGHTER) "I can't get them shirts clean. I couldn’t get them shirts clean. No." And it’s only beginning to be an awareness that women ought to be outraged and insulted by these commercials. We haven’t even yet begun to do — we’ve just begun to put stickers on ads, saying this ad insults women. We haven’t begun yet to figure out how to use our —1 the only sort of economic power we have» as you know we’re not on the boards of anything that controls any real money, but they do take us seriously when they try to tell us this hair coloring or that hair coloring, you know, anything and every­ thing to get sharp . . . peak demands, or this powder to throw in this, or that powder to throw in that, applicanee. They take us ser­ iously when they’re trying to sell us the products — we haven't even begun to use that power yet, even to counteract the very image that insults us, or to stop buying the products that in a way make us a commodity. A lot of it is just talk, so far. And a little 222

of it is beginning to be action. But if we think that the headlines in themselves count for much, we're kidding ourselves. The head­ lines, the publicity, the cover stories, are great, insofar as they . . . •— and every time we get on television, in action, inter­ action with other women, beyond the reach of our organizations, peo­ ple identify with. And when we then do actions, every time we use the media in conjunction with our actions, to build the massive movement that we are capable of building, since in my opinion all women need liberation, and all women need 51% of the population, and 53% of the adult population of the state of New York, and all women ultimately are going to identify with this movement. And only if, not necessarily all, but great numbers, begin to be able to use their power together, can we make the changes happen that have to happen, and go further from beginning to be taken seri­ ously, as we are now, to get the power to make changes.

(REMARKS FROM AUDIENCE AND LAUGHTER) Well at least we don't speak in whispers any more. I don’t know. And to, you know, have anywhere near 50% of the seats in Congress or the Senate or any political party that we think, or coalition or anything else that’s going to carry the future. We can use the media — we have to use the media in a nation, you know, what is it not, 300 million people, 200, I don’t know — increasing too much, all the time. But we have to use the media to get our message across, and to alert the possi­ bilities of action, and to enable to join us the women beyond the reaches of our voices, and to unite. But headlines in themselves, and stories especially about the fringe kind of actions of the move­ ment that are deadends, that do not lead to restructuring and to basic change and to basic change now, and to confrontations of con­ ditions and barriers that need to be broken through now — they are worse than useless; worse than useless, they’re.even dangerous. They kid us into thinking we’ve won when we’ve only just begun to fight, and they alienate from us all the millions of women that need to join with us, that want to join with us, that won’t if in fact our message does not seem to speak to the realities of their condi­ tion, of their life at all. So this is, I think, a real danger now. I mean, I think it is understandable when women have been voiceless so long, when women have been invisible people so long, and invisi­ ble as people, you know, to the very degree that they are too visi­ ble as sex objects, as commodities, as decorations to sell every­ thing from automobiles to whatever anyone else wants to sell, — invisible people, it’s understandable that we should welcome and want recognition in our actions as people, and if we achieve iden­ tity for ourselves even in the movement, that’s understandable. But let’s not mistake sensational publicity for actions. Let’s use the media for what we need to use it for, in conjunction to action, to alert more women to action . . . 223:

house in a rap session, I mean it’s better because it leads — now, if there are eight women, not one alone, looking at a soap opera; but if we stay at the soap-opera level, even at the ... of a soap opera, it seems to be that of movement and revolution — nothing has happened. Nothing will happen. Nothing can happen. And if women really under­ stand, as I think I do, that the greatest enemy of woman today is not man, but our own lack of self-confidence, our own denigration of our­ selves and each other, which comes from the put-down that we get from society . . . experience from childhood on, whether as secretaries in an office or the one woman in the law-school class, or in the daily life that we all led in school, dating and the rest of it, and the kinds of things we were supposed to do and we weren’t supposed to do, and the kind of math we had to . . . and the way we thought we had to be to be feminine, and the way we were geared solely to think that our destiny lay in being something that we were not, in attract­ ing, not in ourself but only in our possibilities, of someone else’s wife, mother. All the ways that we have experienced in ourselves, in just not much ... to put down. And more than that, the real lack of ability to move that has come from not moving. When we haven’t had a piece of the action, when we haven’t had the experiences that give one confidence, that give one the ability to risk, to take challenges, when we haven’t even been given the chance to take them, to make big decisions, not just small ones; to learn about, without — not the way . . . textbooks, the kind of things that advance men to decision-making places, to places where they — not all men, of course, but all men want to be in some way able to . . . and control their own destiny and have a voice in decisions of society. And men — young radical men and older men that are not radical — get the experiences, and are expected to get the experience's, if they are not too badly handicapped, by childhood deprivation, by race, by poverty. And our nation has begun to confront, in conscience, these deprivations. But even there, men are expected to get and do get, even the experiences that enable them to challenge the deprivation, challenge the conditions, emerge into leadership. Women don’t. We must recognize that if we sit too long on our behinds, rapping, we’re not going to get that confidence either. It gives us a little bit of greater strength to know that our conditions, our put-downs, are not our own capricious faults, our own psychological neurosis, to be — that the put-downs we experience are not our fault or some­ thing to be swallowed bitterly in silence that way we’ve done it so long. But that everybody else has them too, therefore something is causing them out there. But if all we do about it is just say "Yassah" -- that’s happened to me too — and don’t do anything to change it, we don’t get the confidence, we won’t have a sense of the power, the ability to do it.

A danger in unreality, in, again — as long as we are acting to change, we can make mistakes, but something’s going to happen. We throw a new element into the situation, that doesn’t remain static. 224

But if we talk — we talk in abstractions that are not geared to the reality of our life, or changes that are needed, we can go off into terrible deadends.

One deadend is a deadend that I see in some parts of radical — radical, you see, I don’t buy the media’s definition of what’s radi­ cal or not, what's radical; I don’t think the radicalism of this movement is the hate-man, down-with-man, down-with-sex, down-with- love, bear-babies-in-test-tubes, I don’t think that’s the radicalism. I don’t think it’s even radical to talk about the politics of orgasm. I don’t see it's radical to say, "Oh, the establishment is a rat-race anyway, who wants to be president of General Motors? It's boring, and it's just wanting to be part of the establishment. Talk about jobs for women, or job training, or equal employment opportunities, or breaking through barriers against women in their particular pro­ fession." But the only people that can afford to be that blind to reality, the only women who can afford to be that blind to reality, are the daughters of rich daddies, or at least affluent daddies, who somehow expect that they will be taken care of by someone like affluent daddy, you know, the rest of their lives, even if that consciousness, even if that expectation isn't conscious. I mean even if one doesn't want to be — even if one doesn’t want to be implicit by the materialistic, the rat-race, by a life led before a television set and wall-to-wall carpeting and a new car every year and all the appliances, all the rest, even if one has no intention whatsoever of being trapped that way, one still needs, as long as money is the . . . in this society, as long as everything is part money, through housing and books one needs to be able to earn some money. And one needs not to be dependent on say the lifelong support of a benevolent husband, because all too many women, nearly half of all marriages, end in divorce; and when women don't have the skills to support themselves — alimony which we don't believe in anyway, is pretty much of a farce because you have to pay a lawyer even to collect child-support. So I mean you can’t ignore the realities of life in society as it is now. Because as I —- you know, what are you going to do? . . . go to bed till the revolution comes? And another way of ignoring reality. You know, go to bed alone? Because sex is a reality, you know. And even if sex is being oversold, and women are being defined in sexual terms too much, and since it's become a commodity, and sex has been soured, and dehumanized, by somehow the denigration of women, because sex is always going to be dirty, whether in the Victorian terms of repression, or in Playboy terms of obsession, which is two halves of the same coin — sex is always going to be dirty until women are really human and are seen as human by men, and there is really a human sex, human dialogue. And when it is possible for women and men to love each other transcendent — the love between the sexes, the battle between the sexes, which I don't think is a necessary war, but it's certainly going on today, explicitly or in the unconscious, in almost every woman's home, whether she realizes it or not. But sex, 225

conceptuality of our human nature, in Freudic — Freud didn’t even see women as people, and I don’t think Freud, you know, had any sense of what women were all about, and constructs like penis envy and all the rest of it, were not applicable, we know. But nobody really denies the finding, the insights of Freud, that there was hell to pay if sexuality is suppressed. There is still hell to pay today, because sexuality is so distorted and has to be suppressed because the war between the sexes, which is caused by what happens in society, hardly makes human sex possible, or real human intercourse possible between man and woman. Messes it up too much. But to ignore it, to act as if it doesn’t exist, that you go away — or even to couch this revo­ lution in terms of a bedroom war-- is to — is a real deadend, a real deadend. Because there are obvious needs of men and women for each other, there are obvious sexual needs, there are obvious loneli­ ness and need for love tremendously in mass society, in alienating mass society. And we might believe that . . . as it’s currently struc­ tured is not a very good answer to those needs. And marriage as it’s currently defined — mama fhe housewife and papa the breadwinner and junior and jamie — is not even adequate to the needs of children growing up, much less the need of either man or woman for sufficient nurturing type of human intimacy. We might think that there should be room for new institutions beyond the nuclear family, but let’s not deny the needs, and let’s not mistake the rage that is erupting in women that have been buried so long, the rage erupting now that instead of taking it out on ourselves, burying it as oppressed peo­ ple bury the rage. You’re dependent on the man for status, for sup­ port, for love, which is somehow less humiliating to figure to depend on him for love than for state of support, maybe you’re dependent for love too. You’re too dependent on the . . . when you don’t have the power to even do anything about the put-downs in the office, so you bury the rage because if you face it, you couldn’t live with that much rage each day. And we’ve been burying it for generations, tak­ ing it out on our own bodies in that self-hate, on our kids, on our husbands, and being soured by it. And now we are at least strong enough, more and more of us, strengthened by our support of each other, to become conscious of the rage we have every right to feel. Strong enough to become conscious of it because we’re able to do something about it. That’s why we can become conscious of it, because Freud was right, too, when he said it is not possible to have an insight really until you’re able or willing to do something about it. And we can dare to face the reality of the conditions that oppress us, in office or in home today, only because we’re beginning to see that together we can do something to change it. And the solidarity of this movement and its public growth — because here the public growth is awfully important — is making women who were threatened, last year, two years ago, you know, who would say, "I am not feminist" or wish people like me and you would drop dead and stop talking, "Don’t bother us and upset us, you’re — " and so threatened, more hostile toward us, it seemed, than any man — those very women today . . . the way 226

they felt threatened, was because that was festering, and once a sense of the reality of the conditions would come into consciousness, too threatening if they didn’t think they could do something about it. But now there is the hope we can do something about it. So let’s not mis­ take the rage for the doing something about it, because if we don’t do something about it, the rage will continue, the conditions that cause the rage will continue, the rage will continue. And life will be very lonely and sour and bitter, for us all. And the rage will produce not change, as it can if channeled into the action that is capable of chang­ ing institutions and confronting discrimination, but it will produce a backlash. And I'm not afraid of a confrontation, you know, and the kind of nervous community that says "Anything you do will make a back­ lash." Any action that can change something, we’ll take our chances, we’ll take the risk, that we got to change these things. But just empty vituperation of rage — you know . . . raised in poverty of venom, even ranting and raving, "Down with men" or the rest of it — you can't say down with the orgasm, you know, you can’t say down with love. What are you going to change, you see? You see, it doesn't lead to any change, any change. Maybe at 18, you know, maybe at 18 or 16, or even at 20, if the recession doesn't get much worse, or if one does have a nice husband or otherwise — but these days it's more often that you’re supposed to support him, but you know (LAUGHTER), to do this thing, see. It is possible at 20 and 18 to think that's where the radicalism is, or that's where the action is. But at 28, if that's all that happens, there's going to be that isolated house with the dirty diapers and then, you know, no skills to really get in there as a decision-maker, whether you're talking about any company, or even to support yourself, whether you're talking about any company or any kind of radical movement or whatever it is. If it doesn't lead to change, it's sterile. If the rage is just rage, and isn't going to lead to actively change something, question it. What’s causing the rage, and then do something to change that. And if it's private rage, within your own bedroom well I can't say forget it because you have cause for that rage, but I don't know what that's going to change either. Because our strength now is our ability to unite, you know. Sisterhood is powerful. It is our solidarity in action, and our ability to unite millions of women, and to get millions of men — which I think we can do — to understand in consciousness, their own consciousness, what this is all about, and to be willing to say share power, to move over a little, to accept restructuring, even to cooper­ ate in it, not out of benevolence or do-good, but out of necessity. A kind of necessity that wasn't created by the fact the office will shut down, or the company will go bankrupt if we really begin to use our power to do that — that's one kind of necessity. And another kind of necessity is the necessity that men have for women, for women's love, the fact that it's hard to get away from them. You know, it is possi­ ble for whites to wall themselves up still in suburban ghettos, around our ghettos, and not really feel in their own lives very much what the 227

black movement is all about; they can isolate themselves or wall them­ selves off from it. It is not possible much longer for any men in America not to be affected by what's happening among women. So any action we do, that doesn’t use our real potential to get joined with us not a few women but milliones of women, and those men who are not, you know, too sick, you know. You know. Or you know, maybe they — too much benevolence to think that it might be that easy to get any­ body that has a big piece of the pie to share it off. But there are certain rewards that it’s very obvious a man gets, you know. You know, with some of this. In a time of recession, a two-paycheck family is a useful thing to have, for instance. And it is kind of useful not to feel you have to be — I mean it is possible for men to see that there are benefits, maybe in the longer life, if they don't have to have all these ulcers and all the nagging, you know, and all the guilty responsibility of conveying all of life to men, you know, in their marriages. It’s possible for men to see us, even for young men to see, that there are rewards in breaking through the masculine stereotype, and restructuring the role. And there are ways, very many ways, to get men to join women.

A deadend, finally and also I believe, in isolation of another kind. A read deadend, it seems to me, in going on much longer as if the woman’s movement, the women's liberation movement, is in a vacuum, is not related to everything else that’s going on in society, in society today, and to see this not abstractly, not in terms that one just gives lip service to, but to translate that into action, into coalition, if you will. Now, I am not saying — and the thing is, I’m not saying let’s expand every women’s liberation group, and just join in one great big heap organization. That would be ridiculous. We need women’s liberation, and we need our caucuses until we really have a decision-making break everywhere, and we need even better ways of organizing to use our power. But if anybody has any illusions that women's liberation can mean anything if this country becomes a fascist country, or if this country, you know, goes much further into Cambodia or whatever country we’ve gone into since the last headline I read — (LAUGHTER, APPLAUSE). If anybody has any illusions that we could liber ate ourselves if this country continues down the road it’s going on, that’s the most dangerous illusion of all. And that’s worse than a deadend. That's — and it’s worse than stupid, it’s almost suicidal. The very nature of our definition of women as people first, the very nature of our insistence that we must have a voice in the decision that affects our society, means that we must raise our voices today on the bigger issues of our time, and the most dangerous crisis facing our society, which is a crisis of repression and the vast movement towards fascism that is happening here. And we are — (APPLAUSE) — 52% of the voting population.

Now, I don’t say, and I wouldn’t listen to anybody who said, "Listen, sisters, I mean now stop this liberation nonsense, it’s 228

irrelevant, we’ve got racism and war and the questions that we’ve got to put all our energies to something — and you’ve got to stop talk­ ing about women’s liberation and it’s getting in the way" — I won’t buy that, because it's not diversionary unless we let it be. You know, we can . . . have voices to raise and be able to raise them against fascism and war; you know, we’ve got to get some of these things and we’ve got to get them now. And furthermore, in terms of all, women, our impotent rage won’t make up, and all the other mil­ lions of women who haven’t come even as far as we have in understand­ ing what the cause of that rage is, fodder for Agnews, to turn that hate against the long-haired kids or anyone else that has some illu­ sion of freedom. We could — women as a whole, women are the back­ bone somehow of the — I mean it’s one thing to be antipornography, in the way that we might do if we — I mean those marvelous demon­ strations that were held a year or so ago, you know, where they demon­ strated nude, men and women alike, against the play — when Hugh Heffner came to ... or whatever it was in Iowa, and they demon­ strated nude to show they were not Mrs. Grundy and against the body, and that they were against that dehumanized image of women — that’s one thing. But the kind of hate literature of antipornography, hate love, hate kids, hate everything, hate freedom, hate long hair — fascists furthered that movement; an awful lot of women whose rage is already fetterd to that. And I say, therefore, we can’t just be — anyone in women’s liberation, be concerned only with it. Because if we don't, as the people we are, free women from that rage, that we cannot only liberate ourselves but that we can really join in forces for love in this country, all the forces against — with the other forces in this country that are against fascism and against repression, firm and obsessed with power for coalition that will be not a silent majority, but an active majority. And we haven’t even begun to understand or to see ourselves as people. We haven’t even begun. And we deserve to just stay there acting out our soap opera, you know, in our own living rooms, or our own kitchens. I think it is obscene for any woman in the name of women’s liberation not to take part today in action against fascism and war. (APPLAUSE) I think that it’s dull and stupid and dangerous to say, "We’ve got to concentrate only on women’s liberation and only on feminism and pure feminism, because that’s where it is," because nothing will happen if the coun­ try goes up in flames or if we’re all locked up in concentration camps or even relatively comfortable concentration camps, you know. (LAUGH­ TER) As I said in — but, I’ll say also that — you see, how do we translate this in — I don’t think we need separate women's organi­ zations against fascism and war. I think we fight war in the main­ stream. But what we need is coalition. What we need is some effec­ tive political way to join our movement, at those times when we need to join it, for the — against the common oppression that no woman or man can escape from in this country, the threat of fascism that affects us all, this war in Vietnam that is all of our sin, and all of our crime, as good Germans, unless we stop it. We’ve got to find a better 229

way, more ways than we have now, to use our growing voice in coalition, in political coalition, with the other movements of the black, of the students, of any humanistic life-oriented people, where those people can be found, I think, under the hard hat, even there; they can be found in middle management, they can be found in the suburbs, and they can be found in what seems to be middle America, the silent majority. We have to form coalitions on these common things.

Now, I’ve talked too long. That’s my sin, but you know, some of these points are so urgent that I go on too much. But I just have to say that — I hope that we will find a way to on August 26th, as you may have read or heard, I sort of issued a call, or threw out the idea, several months ago, that on Wednesday, August 26th, which is 50 years after women won the vote in America, the 50th anniversary of the winning of the vote, the amendment to the Constitution, we join, we ask all women to join with us a general strike of American women, on unfin­ ished business of our equality. (APPLAUSE) I do not propose it as an empty token gesture. I propose this as a serious and not symbolic action of confrontation, wherever we are. In office or in home, pub­ lic actions, private actions. Organized by whoever wants to organize it. By all these different groups that there are, and in any office, hospital or school where there isn’t a group. Confronting the single­ most urgent, concrete issue of your unfinished business of equality. Whether it's in an office where a woman is doing the job in which a man would get paid more and she’s just going to cover the typewriter or sit there, and figure out some way to get her sisters any enlightened, humanistic men in the office to join with her to give some ultimatum to the boss, whether it’s a place where a woman never gets tenure, stays always instructor level, assistant professor, or where — or whether she's doing a job as assistant to forever, doing all the work for which a man is getting the credit and twice the pay, or the sole byline. Whether it's a place where the segregation is simply struc­ tured in the profession, like at Time-Life, and Newsweek, where it was supposed to be inviolable, that women were always researchers, and never writers or editors, and that was only inviolable as long as nobody violated it. But when the majority of the editorial workers of Newsweek and Time-Life decided that they were going to get together and challenge it, and take a lawsuit under Title VII and charge their employer with sexism, or sex discrimination, in that interaction, that — there was a breakthrough there, there was a real confrontation that leads to change. We can all take those instant actions on that day, and by virtue of the fact that we take them together, that there will be the attention needed, that we will be able to get our story across. It is our solidarity and our support and our ability to do it without being afraid we're going to get our head chopped off. And there can be private actions on that day, to sort of start restructur­ ing our own marriages if we will, and I think maybe a lot of us, some of us have been getting together . . . — this strike is not the . . . 230

And a whole lot of nurses came to our last . . . meeting, and they're going to dream up some things they can do about hospitals. Now, what a great — I mean like how many — I mean the head surgical nurse in hospitals in Harlem told me that she's brought up three generations of surgeons and taught them how to do — you know. So why does not the surgical nurse have a voice in the decisions of the hospital. And let the surgeons . . . and let them demand some things. And unhook, some telephone workers will unplug the switchboards one moment of the day, because it's outrageous that Bell Telephone Co. doesn't let women even apply for a job beyond the operator where you are screaming because you can't get a dial tone, you finally get one, or you can't get the number for information and then she says,"I'll give you my supervisor" and the supervisor with just the other voice that says, "Now, madame ..." That's the highest job a woman can apply for, in Bell Telephone Co. And I think you know now woman on Wall Street is a little bit ridiculous. You know, I mean — I wonder what we could do on Wall Street . . . (LAUGHTER) You can see the possibilities for creative action that day are enormous. We've got this ability now, and we got to make no mistake, we got something that everybody thought would take ... to get a reform law, and we have a repeal law in New York State, we have a law that, if it wasn't being sabo­ taged, women would get the matter of your own body, your reproductive process — would be the product of decision of a woman and her ability to get a doctor or medical help . . . for any reason she does not have to bear a child . . . would be established — (UNINTELLIGIBLE) . . . we got this law a few months ago, because in an unprecedented way, women in this state united in real action, effective action and put through and made . . . but the law is not going to mean anything, if the house were to say, "Only one bed," you know. And you have — . . . or whatever they're doing, all kind of stipulations that aren't even in the law. The medical profession establishment, you know, run by men — who can we demand reparation from. You know. I mean, what can we do? And we're going to do that one up too, to confront . . . unfinished business on that date, we have a lot of unfinished business that's going to — on this day — all the divisions of the State Uni­ versity of New York, women, you know, are meeting — there's a plan, some considered action against sex discrimination in state universi­ ties, in education, and to plan definite . . . I've had some of the students from Columbia and other groups, talking about little actions like taking bedsheets, see, and we could do this in apartments and suburban . . . and write with magic markers, like a lot of people might put "Only for Women" in the . . . over $10,000 a year. There are how many women in . . . none. Hang that — hang those bedsheets from windows all over — similar tokens, statistics, facts of life that have been . . . let's . . . Let's hand this out, hang this message out from dormitory windows, apartment windows, suburban places. Get them . . . going to do it. But at the end, what we're going to do is get together, and show visibly how powerful we are, not only in individual actions. You know, years ago, the day they paraded down 231

5th Avenue, Junior Leaguers, dubutantes, working women, old women, workers, black women, white women, Catholics, Jews, women who after a hundred years — a century — had won the vote. There was a massive parade down 5th Avenue, to celebrate that. And ... of that parade are still available . . . museums. And we are going to parade down 5th Avenue — all the women that identify with the unfinished business of equality — they don’t have to identify with women’s liberation, they don’t have to identify with NOW, they can only have to identify with the unfinished business of equality, and with the power that that vote and our numbers give us. And we'll say, "Come join with us, women, to get the message to women everywhere." Use the media, every­ thing we can, and women on the streets, we hope, who haven't got . . . will take that first decisive step that leads to consciousness and step off the curb and join us. And any men that join us, can join too. And if we keep our movement related to the general movement against fascism and war, we can find perhaps ... in that parade. If it is possible to have allies in the black movement, we can invite our black brothers as well as the black sisters who are in this move­ ment to join, and it can be quite massive. And I think that maybe you'll want to end up by occupying City Hall. (LAUGHTER, APPLAUSE) Not again, as a token. It would not be a bad idea to spend a night in the big decision, which the definition of us as sex objects has been used, you know, to erase. We've heard ... we could use that night, we could choose that night, to spend the night debating the big politi­ cal issues where our voice isn't heard, and draw an ultimatum that has to be listened to. About what our business is, in this city, where I am afraid, you know, women really, in City Hall, there is a lot of unfinished business of equality for women. Confront it nationally. If that equal rights amendment hadn't been sent out of the House and Senate for ratification by the states, by then, we could send some to track every congressman and senator ... in his own home, just stay with him (LAUGHTER) twenty-four hours, till he gets the message. And you know, I think that a lot of us might say, that day, we're not going to wait fifty years to get 50% . . . the Senate and the Congress. And we're not going to take anymore of this nonsense about "That's a qualified man," "There aren't enough qualified women." ... I am going to run for Senate against Senator ... in 1972. (APPLAUSE, CHEERS) . . . and — and I think on that day, a lot of women here, and a lot of women elsewhere are going to announce what they're going to run from — for-- (LAUGHTER) — and also I think ... I don't think it matters any longer that the political establishment — the machines of Democratic and Republican party. We've got the power. (APPLAUSE) — not just by ourselves. Not just by ourselves, but in coalition with others who need our power to fight some of the pressing things we all want to fight today, and to generally get a kind of government that is responsive to people. This is true from Washington down, and I think that that, womehow, by the end of that day, our powers to make these things happen will be visible, and ... to ask permission of the male­ dominated establishment, where our voice isn't even heard, or let them 232

say, even, what we can do. ... it will be done. So I say to you, let’s all get in right now, and plan concretely what we're going to do on August 26, and consider that our day, an instant change, and determine that this country, this city, our lives will not be . . . after that day. In whatever the most concrete . . . is . . . and take steps that day to get you and me elected to the Senate . . . occupying City Hall . . . want to have a dialogue, we'll welcome it. We'll share the meeting, you know. Right on! (APPLAUSE) 233

APPENDIX K

War Between The Sexes Betty Friedan Wake Forest University Winston Salem, North Carolina September 29, 1970

Our presence here tonight is a moment in the massive unfinished revolution for full equality of women with men that has begun to move forward again with great speed, after nearly fifty years of lying dor­ mant. In this revolution the enemy is not man, man is the fellow vic­ tim. This revolution must move forward now, urgently, to end the war between the sexes that is contributing to the violence in this nation, and the violence that this nation is perpetrating on the world. And I think that to see the revolution in isolation is to mistake a rage caused by problems that can be solved — for the real object of this revolution which is to put an end to the rage, to transcend the rage, and to create a society where neither women nor men will be tormented by the guilts and hostilities that are making a mockery of love in this country today.

You see, when I say man is not the enemy, I really mean that — man is the fellow victim. Why should a man die ten years younger than a woman, as men on the average do in this country? They bear an undue share of stress, of burden. Man is as much saddled by the obsolete masculine mystique as women are by the obsolete image of women which I called the feminine mystique. The feminine mystique is the name I gave to the definition of women solely in sexual terms, solely in terms of her sexual relation to man, as man's wife, mother, mistress, sexual object, server of physical needs of husband, men, children, and even of the appliances of the home. Never as a human being herself first, as a person in her own right, women were not to define themselves as people first. All the images of women from the mass media to the images of theology and education defined them in terms of the feminine mystique. And this brought back, sometimes in the sophisticated terms of Freudian psychology and sociology the old prejudices, no longer so overtly "woman is inferior, woman is child, woman is something less than human, but still implicit nevertheless." In some definition which put woman’s fulfillment, woman's identity, the fulfillment of woman's potential, not in terms of her own being but in terms of ser­ vice and vicatious living through husband and children. And as long as we were brainwashed by the feminine mystique as we were in this country, all of us, women and men, fled from the complexity of the new and different future that real equality for women would open. 234

We had the rights on paper though we had barely begun to use them. It is only fifty years this year that women have had the vote; I believe it is only twenty-five years that women have been able to attend colleges like this, with men; it is not very long at all since women have been able to attend professional schools. Women have worked for some years, but it is only in the last decade or so that great numbers of women have worked outside the home, and known they were going to work. And only then, by confronting the feminine mystique were we able to confront the barriers and conditions that kept us in a menial, housework role, whether we worked inside the home and called outselves housewives, or whether we were doing the housework of industry, always the secretary, always "assistant to," file clerk, aide, never "a decision-making role," never somehow having the access to the rewarding positions in any field. I think you must be aware of the statistics, of the conditions the statistics reflect, that half of all women work outside the home today, and 90% of all women will have to work most of their lives outside the home, and not only because everything in this country costs money. The bread is no longer really baked in the home, and certainly the wheat for the bread is not longer raised in the gar­ den of the ranch house, and certainly the cow from which the steak is cut does not graze on the lawn of the ranch house; it all must be bought in the supermarket, it all costs money, and even the caring for the sick and the elderly, and the education of the young, and the tasks which used to be done in the home, almost all the activities of life, and the activities of carrying society forward, are now carried on in professions, industries, cities, in places, outside the home where the rest of the family is, where the husband is, where the child­ ren are. The necessary activity of society is not in the home; there isn’t the reward in the sense that the where-with-it-all of life costs money and even a two-income family today can hardly meet the standards of our affluent American society, to say nothing of the fact that enor­ mous numbers of women are supporting themselves or carrying the major amount of support for children, widowed, divorced women, single women, or they are supporting aged parents, but most women are those whose husbands are at home, and many of these women have children, and the two-income family is still a necessity, plus the fact that if a woman is a human being, there is only one place for her to be a human being, and that’s in the human society. She must be a part of human society. Increasing numbers of women found that when the children went to school, in the long hours between when the children and husband left and returned from school and work, that the only activity available to them was the machines and the television. They began to feel as if they did not exist. Whether they were able to move into human society, rewarding or not, depended on a number of factors. It was not very easy for women of my generation who had still been brought up (or brainwashed) by the feminine mystique, thinking that they would all their lives be full-time housewives and mothers, to get access to any world outside their home. Half of all women work outside the home; half of all women today do not work outside the home. No matter which 235

group you are talking about, women today enjoy something far less than full equality, or perhaps more important, something less than a self-determining role in the decisions that effect their lives and the future of their society, even the control of their own bodies. It is only in the last two years, for instance, that woman’s voice has been heard on the issue of birth control and abortion laws, where woman’s control over her own reproductive process should be an inalien­ able human right. Till then these decisions had been made entirely by men, whether these men were priests, or legislators, hospital com­ mittees, or even benevolent abortion reformers.

Women who work outside the home today earn on the average about half of what men make. A woman college graduate is asked, "Can you type?" when she goes to get a job, and she earns on the average what a man who got out of eighth grade earns. On the wage scale, white men earn more than black men, then white women, and then on the very bot­ tom of the scale, the victims of double discrimination, black women. Three out of four women who work outside the home are doing menial work — sales, clerical, hospital aide. There is a token 1, 2, 3% of women in the professions. I think 4% of all lawyers, 6% of doctors, and maybe 1% of the upper ranks of civil service. There is a declin­ ing percentage of women in college teaching, in secondary and admini­ strative teaching, and increasingly taking over elementary school principalships. We are 53% of the voting population, and we have 1% of the Senate. One woman out of 100 in the Senate, 1% in the House. You practically have to go to the Fiji Islands to find women having as little say in the big decisions of their lives as women do in the United States today.

And what about the women who are in the homes, discriminated against in social security, who divorced can lose out entirely in social security in old age. No value at all is put on the work they do in the home, and there should be value put on it -— not the phony hypocritical value of the commercials. The biggest Rorschach test that shows you the insulting position that women are in is the image of women in the commercials. There is only one image of woman on television today, and she is a moronic little blonde household drone. She gets dumber every year; she obviously didn't go beyond fifth grade. She says, "Tell me doctor, is there anything I can do, I couldn't get Joe's shirts clean until I used this powder," and her greatest aim and her greatest achievement is to get the kitchen sink or the shirts pure white, and she needs the aid of elderly counselors and costly chemicals to do that. She lives in an absolute state of complete and abject sexual insecurity, her obsession from prenubility to late senility is to get, catch, trap, keep a man, and she needs all the help of modern science to do that. The implication is that in her natural state she smells, she's ugly, her hair needs to be a differ­ ent color, and her eyelashes need to be longer, and this goes far beyond the natural impulse to be beautiful. Every year the advertis­ 236

ing gets more and more denigrating. It used to be that women should lie about their age when they reached 40, and then it has happened that 25 was a pretty ghastly age, and then it began to look, from the fashions and everything else, that any girl over the age of 13 had had it and had only the grave to wait for. Of course, if the idea is to look 13, what tremendous built-in inferiority, and self-denigration in women who are over the age of 13.

In churches, as you know, you’ve been making rag dolls out of dish­ cloths to sell to one another, and you’ve been cooking the church sup­ pers but your theological voice is hardly heard. In the political par­ ties, we look up the zip codes, and we raise the little pin money, but are we in the smoke-filled rooms and are we making the big decisions on war and peace, on the control of our bodies, on our future, the kind of housing we have, the kind of cities we live in? Our voice is not heard. As blacks used to be the invisible men in America until their actions made them visible, so women have been the invisible people in America, and they have been invisible as people to the very degree perhaps that they have been too visible, seen solely as sex objects and lately as a kind of dehumanized, depersonalized sex object, like the Playboy Bunny which I call the disposable piece of Kleenex approach to women and sex. The Bunny is one symbol; another is the fact that a nightclub comic need only step before the microphone and say the words "my wife" for the whole audience to be expected to explode into guffaws of hostile, guilty laughter.

The hostility between the sexes in this country today is so bad that it would seem that there is no way for the relationship between the sexes to go but up. In the mass media, you have the family situ­ ation comedy, supposedly celebrating the blisses of domestic love, the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval, Junior and Janie and Mama and Papa kind of family, and the plot is continually revenge; Mama getting the best of Papa, Mama outwitting Papa. And since Mama is always a stupid boob, Papa has to be an even worse boob for Mama to outwit him. And how does this reflect the actual American family out there? Well, I did a thing on television image of women a few years ago, and I actually watched television for two weeks, morning, noon and night. I have never taken LSD, but I would come out of each day feeling like I had been on what I would call a "bad trip." I noticed there were no women, except for the little housewives who would believe things like "If you put this powder in the machine, you'll relive your wedding night" . . . What do they think of women, the people who write those ads? . . . Well, in the actual dramas, you could hardly find a woman as a heroine (and this incidentally is true of the school books that Janie and Johnny are going to read. The woman is waving good-bye, or kissing good-bye, or maybe bandaging the knee when somebody comes home from school. It's never doing.) The woman is never the one about whom the story is told. There are also not very many love stories. There are always two heroes, not one, no heroine, and one would be a 237

younger man like the lawyer or the intern or the school teacher. And it is a very interesting thing — the older man would be a widower and the younger man would be unmarried. And this was not an accident. I went to the people on Madison Avenue and in Hollywood who make the great decisions that give us such art, and they said the television tube is controlled by the woman. (That is one of the things about American women — they have absolutely no control in this country, but there is this myth about how they run the country, and run the home and run the men.) In any event Madison Avenue believes that she does run the television dial. I commented on all these widowers and bachelors and said, "Why no husbands?" "Well," they said, "to the American woman the husband is the enemy." And you can see other ads as well playing to this. There is an ad for a restaurant chain and there is a very angry woman saying, "You eat on an expense account Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and you’re going to take me to Longchamps for lunch on Sunday," or "You fly to London and Los Angeles on business all the time, and now the airlines have a baggage fare and you can take me." This hostility is played to. They said to me, "The husband is the enemy. He’s out there in the glamorous world — it’s not so glamorous but at least he's out there in it — and she resents this so much that we can never make the hero a hus­ band. She's in this great state of sexual frustration. (Well naturally, if the husband is the enemy and not many American women are Elizabeth Taylor), so we give you for the old housewife, the widower; for the young housewife, the bachelor. And we have to be so careful (I am paraphrasing the producers now) not to destroy the illusion that he is meeting her needs, that the romance is with her. So, as opposed to the movies, you very seldom see even a kiss consummated on the television screen." Hence the popularity of the hospital drama where the pretty young girl can be killed off by leukemia before things go too far. And you can see the absolute nadir of the soap operas in the afternoons when absolutely nobody is home to watch the television except that half of women who are housewives plus a few bed-ridden elderly people. You may see husbands creeping into the picture there, but very often they are paralyzed from the waist down, in a wheelchair.

Now if you think I am overstating the case, see if this strikes no chord in your own experience, your own family situation, where Papa comes home and by that time Mama feels that she is such nothing that she wants to take out an awful lot of revenge on him for something which is not his fault. Or if I am taking too much of the case from "papa," then consider higher art if you will, your own Southern play- wrightess. The image of woman today, on the screen, in plays, in novels, is more often than not a castrating, man-devouring monster, or else a less than human sex object. And, it's very strange about Southern playwrights, very often this man-devouring, monstrous thing has a very soft Southern drawl, and curly hair, and lots of ruffles, and she is a such a man-devouring monster that man must feel for his very life. And why is that? What does it mean? 238

Let’s cut for a minute to your own experience. Supposing a girl comes to this college, 17 or 18, brought up to the kinds of activity and the images and expectations of us. Already by the time she gets here, the girl won’t have an awful lot of self-confidence, because whether or not she has consciously suffered any put-down, she hasn’t been encouraged to have many of the experiences which give boys self­ confidence. On the other hand, she hasn’t had any of the demands of machismo which make a boy feel less than adequate when he might be very adequate indeed. She comes to this college, and there are two completely different sets of rules. The boys are considered at 17 to be young men, capable of determining basic decisions about their own lives and conduct. It is hoped that they will assume such respon­ sibility and expected they will make a few mistakes, but that’s how you learn. The girls are faced with a set of rules that says (a) you are not capable of making decisions about your life and conduct, and (b) all you are is a sex object; the most important thing about you is that organ of your body which we must put under lock and key. So this girl who may have had a great deal of human ability (what makes us human is the brain structure and there is no reason to think that girls do not share that with boys), who has had to meet higher tests to get into this college, because there is one girl for every three or four boys, is told, "All you have, kid, let’s face it . . ." And, she’s turned into a spy at age 17, made to enforce the denigrating rules on other women, and made to endure humiliations if she stays out late or forgets that she’s not supposed to go certain places, or forgets that she’s not four years old anymore and has to ask permis­ sion to do anything. What does it make a girl feel like, finally, and what does it make a boy think of a girl? What kind of images do we get of each other, and what kind of love is possible in a situation like this? The prettiest girl in the college, whom all the boys might elect May Queen or whatever you do, might ultimately, if she’s a bright, self-respecting human being, get so annoyed at all this that she, even when she’s using all the wiles and manipulations that this kind of sys­ tem teaches, seething with rage underneath, has no choice but to take it out on herself first, in the self-putdown that a woman has to endure and to perpetrate on herself to live up to this image, or down to it, and finally inadvertently or covertly on her husband and on her child­ ren. And then the sons of that drawling woman, beaten down to fit that hideous, contemptuous image with its feet of clay, meet her in that state of warfare, of rage. There cannot be love. I found it very interesting, long before I thought through the feminine mystique for myself and long before I helped to start this movement, to see the violence of the Southern movies, and the Southern plays, which have this image of the woman so sweet and ruffly and yet so vicious under­ neath, or else so helpless, and the men so brutal. Finally he slashes her face with a razor, or throws acid on her. In All the King’s Men, or in Tennessee Williams, there was an enormous amount of physical violence against women by men. And this is what I mean when I say that man is not the enemy, but a fellow victim. How alienating and 239

lonely for a man as well as a woman to have to endure this loneliness and warfare in the kind of relationships, and in the only relationships, where men and women are expected to find intimacy and love — to find there resentment, hostility, guilt, conflict, and warfare. Women could not express this rage, bred to passivity, dependent on men. It is easier to admit that you are dependent on a man for love than for your economic support or status in society. How many sneers and putdowns have all women met by the time they reach adult age and taken out on themselves, and on their husbands and children? And how much recipro­ cal rage must a man feel after the rat race in the office, with the added burden of feeling that he must take care of himself and whatever family he creates, till death do them part? No man would dare express resentment of this, because the masculine mystique would not let him, as long as the marriage is intact. But just listen to men talk about alimony. And yet what recourse do women have if they cannot earn and have no other way to protect themselves if the marriage dissolves? If a woman's only life is through a man, she feels like nothing her­ self. And the higher the pedestal is, the more protective, the more nothing she feels like. And so this rage breaks out into conscious­ ness, because it can’t be kept down any longer. In a 75-year life span, there is no way for a woman to kid herself for most of her life that she can define herself solely as a mother.

This is a time of consciousness of human rights for everyone. It was not possible for women to see blacks and students saying, "We are going to spell our own name," and for them not to say, "Me too." James Baldwin wrote in his letter to his nephew, "Whitey has always spelled your own name and you have lived the name whitey has given you and until you learn to spell your own name you won't know the truth about anything." And finally women began to spell their own names, and to say "No" to these stupid false images, and to say, "I am a person, I define my own life, and I have the rights that any American has." And to look at the conditions that they had not been questioning them, seeing the barriers against them, seeing above all that the whole world outside the home is structured as a man's world, and the home is structured as a woman's world. Not only a world which a woman is expected to run, but where the time she spends there counts as nothing, and where what she's expected to do is menial work that nobody would do for pay if they had the education or opportunity to do otherwise. And yet every woman is expected to do it for love.

At first, we seemed like a minority, at first I seemed like a far- out voice, and then as this student generation was asked, "Can you type?" and those who learned a human rights consciousness fighting for the rights of blacks saw they needed liberation themselves — they added their marvelous numbers. And then all the young women at home with the babies while their husbands were out with the action — whether the husbands were young executives or draft resistance leaders — saw that there was something wrong. They had the same education. What 240

was wrong with the marriage? Why this feeling of martyrdom and why did she feel like nothing herself? Millions of women began to see, women who had been brainwashed into thinking they were freaks and alone, that this was not an individual problem of an individual woman, but that there was something wrong with society as far as women were concerned. Then they began to act. And the more they acted on their own behalf the more they began to feel they were somebody. They stopped wallowing in self-pity and no longer even felt so much rage. I wrote a song for August 26, and it said, "We're breaking out of our cage of ruffles and rage." Because there could finally be joy in being a woman, and self-confidence and pride, you didn't have to feel all that rage and bottle it in, and turn it against yourself. You finally did begin to move freely and act freely, even if there were barriers in your way — and to confront those barriers and realize that you had the strength to change them. And women began to realize this more and more, and those who couldn't face it before — it's too painful to face the slights and putdowns if you have to adjust to them. If you really have all the self-confidence brainwashed out of you, if you haven't had any experience more chal­ lenging than making the beds, you don't feel confident that you can be a person in yourself. And you buy the image, and you think maybe you are as stupid as those television commercials say you are. But there's a great resiliency in the human intelligence, and in the human brain, and women began to realize that they weren't that stupid, and they began to use their brains and intelligence in acting on their behalf, and the more they moved the more they had the confidence to move and to do something to change the condition, and if it's too late for us, then it's not too late for our daughters. And so, on August 26, what the media had tried to treat as a joke concentrating on extreme acts like bra-burning, the revolution began.

But basically this is a revolution based on reality, and it can­ not ignore the sexual reality of women, or the real needs of women and men for each other, for love and for intimacy. It cannot ignore the reality that women are the people who give birth to children, and ask women to pay the price of renouncing sex or sexual love until the revolution comes, in order to be equal in society. While women may have been oversold on love as the total end of life, if love is impossi­ ble and becomes sour, no matter how many books you read on how to have a better orgasm, women do have a need for love. In fact the need for love and for long-term intimacy increases in mass society with the change and discontinuity that all people experience now. The real enemy is not man, and most women know this. Most women who marched on August 26, in the symbolic strike for equality marched against the oppressions of all society, which institutions such as yours rules here, institutions which discriminate against women in education and employment, structures which are geared entirely toward men perpetrate. There aren't maternity leaves and child-care centers for women; in the professions like medicine the timing patterns are geared entirely 241

to men, and while they might consider that men's child-caring years might coincide with internship or residency, the men are not expected to be home with the children. It would be very hard indeed for a woman to embark on medicine as a career, she would be encouraged by the counselors to train to be a nurse or a receptionist no matter what her ability or interest in medicine might be. She would be given a nurse’s kit to play with, not a doctor’s kit. She would be taught that if she wanted to have children she couldn’t also want to go to medical school. The cards would be further loaded against her, because it would be expected that she would not use her education once she had children.

Those thousands upon thousands of women in all the cities who marched for these demands on the 26th understood that the enemy was not men, and men marched with them too, because men, across the coun­ try, men young and not so young, understand that their liberation is entailed in the liberation of women. I think that this is a two-sex revolution, and many young men are taking part in it without realizing it, have been symbolically taking part in it for a long while. The boys in this college, any college, and the older men who are wearing their hair long and who would like to — what are they saying? Aren’t they saying "no" to that all-dominant, all-powerful, all-brutal, all­ superior, Ernest Hemmingway? 242

APPENDIX L

The Next Step: Women’s Participation — Human Liberation Opening Remarks Betty Friedan Organizing Conference of the National Women’s Political Caucus Washington, D.C. July 10, 1971

The time has come for this women’s liberation movement to be transcended by a massive new movement; women's participation in political power. Even more than the 18-year-old vote, the women’s participation movement could upset all the old political rules and traditions in 1972 with a new human politics that bosses won't be able to contain nor polls predict.

It was just five years ago in Washington, at the last conference of the President's Commission on the Status of Women before it was disbanded without the power to implement its goals, that some of us met late at night in my hotel room to decide we had to organize what we then called an NAACP for women — the first, and largest women's liberation organization — N.O.W.

Today we meet to take the next decisive step for women, plans for which many of us here have been working on in informal meetings and in long distance phone calls across this nation for some months now — the formation of a new National Women's Political Caucus.

Last August 26, fifty years after winning the vote which we as women have never yet used for ourselves, we discovered how many mil­ lions of us there were, marching on the unfinished business of our equality. We do more than march this year. We prepare to take our share of political power: the power which is our right as 53 per cent of the voting population of this democracy, and a necessity if our new consciousness of ourselves as people is ever going to be more than talk for most of us.

At an analogous moment in the early 60's, the civil rights move­ ment had to demand black power if the rights were to become real for most blacks. Women's participation in political power will change the politics of this nation in 1972 and thereafter, more basically than the black movement or any minority movement or ethnic block of the past. Up until now, the politics of our two-party system, the politics of bossism and machines, has been based on manipulation of minorities, often against each other, by the male, white minority with power. What unites women as a majority is the refusal to be manipu­ lated any longer. What unites women across the lines of race, class, generation and man-made party politics is the demand for participation 243

ourselves: our own voice In the big decisions affecting our lives. This will be quite a change from the token role that women have played in American politics until now — the few who got beyond the menial chores.

I used to be invited to the White House during the Johnson admini­ stration to be on a "women's committee" with other "prominent" women just before elections. But the women were never asked to speak, just to have our pictures taken with the President, or, more usually, hav­ ing tea with the President's wife. Last August, frightened, I guess, by the spectre of all those women marching, the House passed the Equal Rights Amendment which had been bottled up in committee for 47 years; but when the march was over, the Senate quickly took it back even though a majority of Senators had "promised" to sponsor it. President Nixon didn't even want to release the report of his own appointed task force on women's rights and responsibilities. He still hasn't done anything about it.

Women, who have done the political housework in both parties, ignored by the very men they elected, know what we in the women's move­ ment have learned trying to get priority or money appropriated or even legislation enforced on issues like child care or abortion or sex dis­ crimination: what we need is political power, ourselves. With men 98 or 99 per cent of the House, Senate, the State Assembly, City Hall, women are outside the body politic.

The concept of the National Women's Political Caucus has been fleshed out over five months of discussion with women from the differ­ ent groups and constituencies in this nation who have, over these past few years, begun to work together on social issues. It will be worked out in final form by all of you at this conference. I believe the National Women's Political Caucus will include women who are Democrats, women who are Republicans, women disgusted with both parties, and young women turned on to neither. If it succeeds in uniting women to elect women, it will have the power to confront the bosses and the machines in either party, and to change the power structure. If it uses the woman-power that has been used for all the detail work, mimeo­ graphing, envelope-addressing, canvassing, doorbell ringing, coffee klatches, lunches and teas which have helped to elect men — as well as the speeches we have written for men, and the brains we haven't been asked by men to use in the smoke-filled room of party decision-making — to elect women, women will finally have their rightful share of politi­ cal power. Any woman against any man? Of course not. But certainly a qualified woman should be run against less qualified men. There's been too much nonsense about there being "no qualified women" available to run. Thousands of women have had educations equal or superior to men's in every way. Working women, now 43 per cent of the population, have acquired technical and business experience matching or exceeding that of men. All the women who have run men's campaigns and legisla­ 244

tive offices have political expertise, and a whole new group of women have qualified themselves for the new politics by leading, outside the party structures, the great movements on social issues.

One rainy night this winter, I went to the suburban five towns area of Hempstead, Long Island to help launch the first women’s politi­ cal caucus at the grass-roots level where the real work, the real decisions and the real organization will have to take place. Yolande Quitman, mother of two teenagers, and a few of her neighbors who had virtually no experience in politics had contacted every women’s group: Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, PTA, League of Women Voters, AAUW, stu­ dents at local colleges, even the women’s auxiliary of the Veterans of Foreign Wars. These women were so turned on at the prospect of getting some real political power that the meeting had to be limited to two women from every organization, and still cars were parked for blocks around. They didn’t waste time arguing about women's libera­ tion. They made plans to run women for town council, supervisory and regulatory boards to which women had never been nominated before, even in suburbs where women and children formed virtually the entire popu­ lation. Within three months, they got the first women nominated for the 1971 elections by the regular Democratic Party that now considers them one of the most powerful political groups in the district. Already beginning to search for many more political nominees for '72 — judges, convention delegates, etc., etc., — they have begun a voter registration campaign aiming at women and the 18 year olds of both sexes. If, as the latest census shows, the suburban population is becoming the decisive one in the United States, then the women's participation movement is surely the key to the new politics of suburbs

The women’s liberation movement has created now. If it doesn’t become political, it will peter out, turn against itself and become nothing. Can we really make it political? Women old timers with a lifetime on the party fringers worry, "... Women will never get together to elect other women." . . . "You can't get women to run for anything." Idealistic young radicals turn up their noses at "establish ment politics," "women with political ambitions of their own," or electing anybody for anything: "elitism," "ego trip," etc. But the new women in Congress, Shirley Chisolm, Bella Absug, know it was women who elected them, over the opposition of the professional politicians. Even the most powerful women in Congress today, Martha Griffiths and Edith Green, were elected without much help from the regular machines and with a lot of help from women across regular party lines.

Such women have increasingly outnumbered the few women who might still say, "I wouldn’t vote for a woman senator." Politicians, even the Aunt Toms, will have to realize that the old male machine bosses have become obsolete. Women politicians in office who think that their power rests on being the only woman there are making a serious mistake. 245

Such women will have no more than token power. They will only have real power to change society and to create the conditions all women need when there are many women there.

As we put the caucus together, even women who have made it with "tried and true" political methods realize that the tried may no longer be true or may never work for women. I remember when Edith Green decided not to run for the Senate, because she couldn’t raise the money to do it. Could the National Women’s Political Caucus raise the money women need to run for the Senate or for the State House, or even the Congress or could it provide the equivalent of money? Women and students can be mobilized to go into districts as needed, to aug­ ment local political woman power. Women celebrities can speak, write, cut records for women of little fame running for offices in small towns. Perhaps the fairness doctrine can be used to get women candidates equal time on TV and radio with male candidates.

I know that in our meetings here trying to put all these ideas together it may look at first like an impossible job. How can Con­ servatives, Republicans, Democrats, Radicals, women so disgusted that they want to start a women’s party and run a woman for President, agree on what to do and how to do it. But in meetings already held we have come to realize that we don’t have to agree with each other on everything. I suggest that the Caucus and the candidates in each community will decide on the issues and methods. I submit that it only takes an hour or two or a meeting or two for women who may otherwise be of different political views to realize that the important thing now is unite to get women elected— women who will be committed to the rights and interests of women, and to human priorities. Women do not seek power over men or to use power as men have used it. I believe that women’s voice in political decisions will help change our whole politics away from war and toward the critical human problems of our society — not because women are purer or better than men, but because our lives have not permitted us to evade human reality as men have, or to encase ourselves.in the dehumanizing prison of machismo, the masculine mystique. Shana Alexander suggests that our slogan should be "Women’s Participation — Human Liberation."

I remember once hearing John Kennedy talk about "the political passion." Beginning to understand what he meant organizing the women’s movement and doing battle with politicians in Washington, I felt what a shame it is that women are only expected to experience sexual pas­ sion, and even that passively. The great philosophers from the Greeks to our own time have said that it is when men exercise that political passion and participate in the decisions that write the on-going human story that they are most human. It was this condition that defined the free man as opposed to the slave whose work was needed for bio­ logical survival but never left a mark behind. That work, sweeping the floor that gets dirty again, cooking the meal that's consumed, has defined women until now as it once defined the slave. It is time to 7Ai>

move up from the menial housework of home, office, school, factory and political party. It is time to have a voice in human destiny, to find and use our fullest human power.

It is a remnant of our own self-dénigrâtion, the putdown we finally do to ourselves, to think that a woman is "pushy" or "unfemi­ nine" or "elitist" or on an "ego trip" to want to run for political office. It is to be hoped that there are thousands of us sufficiently liberated now to take on the responsibility and demand the rewards of running for political office. It takes courage to emerge from our private hiding place and risk ourselves, expose ourselves, as we must when we enter the political world in our own right. I suspect the great desire we have to do this now goes beyond the issues we care about — the child care centers, abortion rights, equal opportunities in jobs and education, new approaches to marriage and divorce — goes beyond the urgent need women feel with the young for human priorities in our government and is not at all explained by a simple desire for power over others. I think we are finally experiencing, millions of us, the true political passion that means we have liberated ourselves to be human.

The men who made the American revolution and the Constitution that embodied it intended to establish and preserve beyond possible threat the right to political participation. The women's participa­ tion movement seeks that right for women, seeks that full humanness, and would keep it even if all the issues on the current social agenda were won. Whether or not we succeed in electing a hundred women to Congress and to the State Houses in fifty states, or tens of hundreds to city and county offices and party committees, hundreds of thousands, even millions of us will experience the political passion in trying to elect them and in discovering our own unsuspected human political power. It will not be a joke by 1976, the two-hundredth anniversary of our Republic, that a woman might run for President of the United States, for the women's participation movement, the second American revolution, will have peacefully achieved government of, by and for the people who are women as well as men.