THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, May 4, 1995 TAG: 9505040020
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DENISE WATSON, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 158 lines
BETTY FRIEDAN HAD a run in her stockings.
Not just a run. A RUN. A marathon of gnarled, off-black nylon and lycra that gaped and grew, zigged and zagged until it disappeared into the depths of her black skirt.
But she didn't care. Why should she? The mother of feminism has spent half her life teaching women to care about things that matter most, and a run in a stocking wasn't one of them.
Friedan moved women beyond the world of hosiery and other social tethers in the early 1960s when she chronicled the disillusionment of many housewives in her book, ``The Feminine Mystique.''
In 1966, Friedan founded the National Organization for Women and helped organize the National Women's Political Caucus. In her most recent book, ``The Fountain of Age,'' 74-year-old Friedan tackles aging, and challenges folks to look at those latter years with acceptance rather than dread.
A visiting distinguished professor of public policy this semester at George Mason University, Friedan took a few minutes to discuss aging, the future of feminism and Newt Gingrich as she relaxed in her office on the college campus.
``There is this war now. This war on the welfare mothers. It's like the canaries in the coal mines,'' said Friedan, visibly tired but her gravelly voice still fresh.
``The rage of that angry white male is being manipulated into a polarizing thing. . . . It's turning the white men, blacks, immigrants, the women against each other.''
Here are some questions we collected from readers. Following are excerpts from that conversation.
Do you have any advice for a 16-year-old starting off and looking into the feminist movement? There are many negative things said about feminism. What does she accept and disregard?
For a 16-year-old, the feminist movement has a lot to offer. Because now she can take herself seriously as a person, as a full person, and she has to make decisions about her own life, where as her mother was supposed to only think about catching a man. Little girls weren't even asked, ``What do you want to be when you grow up?'' Girls received, ``You're a pretty little girl, you'll be a mommy like your mommy.''
We've done that in the women's movement for equality, which is the major expression of feminism. We've done that to the point, where this 16-year-old and her generation can take for granted opportunities their mothers never even thought of.
And I know it's been fashionable in recent years to say, ``I'm not a feminist. But I think I'm going to go to law school and maybe I'll be a senator, or a judge, marry a nice guy if I want to, when I want to.'' All kinds of choices are taken for granted now.
But I think it would be good for her to study the history of feminism because the rights that are taken for granted now, the opportunities that are taken for granted now, are in danger with this Contract on America group. What a war on women and children! And what a backlash against women! And to be prepared for that, to be able to say rather proudly and strongly, ``I am a feminist.''
Let her disregard some of the rhetoric that the media sometime plays up beyond its proportion in the movement itself. Feminism does not mean down with men, down with marriage, down with motherhood, down with sexuality. Those are some of what I consider distorted voices that have come out of feminism.
But the reality of the women's movement for equality is that it's made life better for men as well as women. The fact that women are able to work now and earn, she doesn't earn as much as a man, but she earns more than she would've thought she could ever earn 20 years ago. The man doesn't have to be the sole breadwinner. It's better for the whole family.
But there is this war now. This war on the welfare mothers, it's like the canaries in the coal mines. The rage of that angry white male is being manipulated into a polarizing thing. Gingrich and the attack on affirmative action churn the white men, blacks, immigrants, the women against each other. That is a diversion from the real economic imbalances leading to the growing frustration of the middle class men and women.
But it's also a diversion to see it in too narrow gender terms because men are not the enemy here. Only some men, that are using their power to manipulate this backlash against women, against people of color.
Looking back at all of your work, is there anything you would have done differently?
If someone had written my book when I was 20 years old, who knows? I might've gone to law school and ended up on the Supreme Court. Or I might've been an archaeologist and lead great digs, or who knows what? I might've married later, but I'm glad I had the children I had. I think I've made good use of my life even though I didn't have a conventional career, but I have helped make the possibilities of life better for the next generation. That's why the women's movement, I think, is a miracle and a wonderful thing. A life opening, life-affirming evolution of our democracy of the last 20, 30 years. That and the black Civil Rights movement.
But I think we have to move on now. What I see so needed now is a new vision. I think we've gone as far as we can go with separate movements - women's rights, gay rights, black rights. At this point, there has to be confronting of the dangers of the backlash, of the polarization of the groups against each other, while the rich are getting richer, and the Gingrich people with their Contract on America, are going to destroy 60 years of social progress.
I've been reading the papers in Washington very carefully and, with the many comments I've read, I have never seen lobbyists for business, big business, so openly writing the laws. As they are, sitting down with the Newt Gingrich gang and actually dictating how the laws should be written to get rid of the regulations that have protected the American people.
How does a woman who feels defeated from hitting the glass ceiling heal and redeem herself? What actions should she take?
Well, I know what a lot of women are doing. They're starting their own businesses. They're leaving the corporate world and, in a certain sense, the cutting edge of our economy today is entrepreneurial. And more Americans today work for companies owned or managed by women, than the fortune 500.
But on the other hand, I don't think you give up the battle to break the glass ceiling. I don't think we can lie back and let Newt Gingrich and his gang get rid of affirmative action. Because the facts are, 95 percent of the top executives in management in every business are white males.
Who were the most influential people in your life?
Since I am a product of psychological training, my mother and my father.
One woman says she's read all of your books but now wonders if the rise in crime and drug use among kids can be linked to women working outside the home.
The research shows that's absolutely not true. That in the last 40 years, where for the first time American women worked from choice and not just from drastic family emergencies, like desertion or alcoholism from a husband, all kinds of research shows that children of families where women worked, were psychologically, in better mental health, had more self-confidence, than children of full-time housewives.
Is your current focus on aging, and getting people to see aging as a positive instead of a negative aspect of life, more rewarding than your work in women's issues?
It's an evolution, that's all. That I was able to write the ``Feminine Mystique,'' that I was able to start the women's movement was wonderful. As my grandson would say, `Awesome!' And I look back and I'm marveled that I was able to do that, that I had the nerve.
It's hard to even realize now how taken for granted that feminine mystique was. I hit a chord in so many American women and each one thought she was alone in that suburb, that sexual ghetto where nothing stirred between the hours of 9 to 5, over 3 feet tall, that if she wasn't having an orgasm waxing the kitchen floor, something was wrong with her. That no matter how much she wanted those kids, her husband and all that, the appliances, the station wagon, . . . she might ask herself, ``But who am I? the world is going on without me?'' And I called it the problem that has no name.
By putting a name on that problem, and by taking women seriously and their own experience seriously, I was able to free women to take their experience seriously. And women are still stopping me today and telling me it changed their life.
I also see, as much as for women, that books like mine, and whatever meaning that comes out of them, will enable people over 50 to see their lives in new terms and possibilities
And you'll see, when younger people get it in their gut that there is life beyond youth and not to dread it. That there's a whole ever-changing, 80-year-life span, it will enable you to make different decisions and explore different paths all the way along. ILLUSTRATION: Color photos by Karin Anderson
Friedan, author of "The Feminine Mystique," has recently written
"The Fountain of Age."
KEYWORDS: INTERVIEW QUESTION ANSWER PROFILE BIOGRAPHY BETTY
FRIEDAN WOMEN'S MOVEMENT
by CNB