|
Moved by "the movement" This Guy Says "Thanks" to Betty FriedanBy Rick Horowitz
I never read a single word that Betty Friedan wrote. It didn't matter -- she changed my life. For the better. Definitely for the better. The rules were different back then, before Betty Friedan, before the women's movement she did so much to create. Not just the rules, though -- the assumptions, too. The rules, confining and cumbersome as they may have been, at least were out there in the open. But the assumptions -- the ones so many of us held, the ones that held so many of us -- were shadowy things, habits of mind and heart, and more difficult to root out. Betty Friedan helped us clear away some of the shadows. And women weren't the only ones "liberated." I remember back in college, the first real conversation I ever had about the women's movement. She was a college classmate, a good friend of a good friend, and she'd become active in Betty Friedan's cause. We talked about it one afternoon, and much of it was new to me, and it didn't all make sense, but some of it did. (My own meager contribution to the conversation, as I recall, was the suggestion that she and her compatriots were more likely to get some of the changes they were seeking than the apologies they seemed to be demanding. That men -- and I was every bit as capable of generalizing about men as I was about women -- might be persuaded to alter their behavior in some degree, but that hell would sprout icicles before most of us would ever admit we'd been wrong in the first place.) We had just that one conversation about it. Within the year, she was on the FBI's Most Wanted list. Those were different times. And I still remember the conversation in the law-school cafeteria -- a law school whose entering class that year was roughly 15 percent female, a number considered high in those days. A girlfriend was visiting, and there we were in the cafeteria, talking to one of my classmates, a female classmate, and my girlfriend was saying that if she ever married, she'd want to keep her own last name. It was strange to me, and then it wasn't all that strange. And then it wasn't strange at all. (That "if" also took some getting used to.) I still remember being newly out in the working world and coming back from lunch dates, first dates. "How did it go?" my officemate/friend/confidante would ask. "Pretty well," I'd say, and she'd smile at me. "So she paid for herself?" It was another part of the benefits package -- not cheap dates, although that had its advantages, too -- but the whole radical idea that the male of the species wasn't always going to be the one bringing all, or even most, of the money to the table. The women's movement meant that men didn't always have to be the breadwinners. The women's movement meant that men didn't always have to be a lot of things -- the sole initiator of social contact, the towel-snapping recounter of studly exploits, the deciding vote. For a guy who didn't especially want to play God, the women's movement was a godsend. But the biggest thing the women's movement did for me was what it did for the women in my life, the women in my family. They found possibilities they couldn't have imagined even a generation ago. Multiple paths, and multiple models -- including the traditional ones. Some chose to go that route. But they had options in front of them, and not just assumptions. A perfect world of perfect equality? Won't happen, not in our lifetimes. Even the women's movement, for all its achievements, can't ensure that the talented female you've cheered on for so long won't get passed over someday for some middle-aged white guy of no particular distinction. Can't guarantee that the relationships that matter most to the women who matter most to you will all be built on love and mutual respect. But the chances are better than they used to be, and Betty Friedan helped make that happen. So thank you, Betty -- from one of the guys. Posted 2/9/06. Expect
unusual insights from syndicated columnist Rick Horowitz -- and spread
the word!
|
  |
Rick Horowitz
