Betty Friedan died on February 4, in 2006, on her 85th birthday. Germaine Greer (who knew Germaine Greer was funny) wrote a wonderful memorial at the time, in the Guardian UK

In 1972, Betty and I, and Helvi Sipila of the United Nations, were together in Iran as guests of the Women’s Organisation of Iran, and once again I had difficulty in dissociating myself from Betty, who would usually take over my allotted speaking time as well as her own and inveigh against younger feminists who burned bras and talked dirty.

Read the rest of this entry »

If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position. And if he was a woman, he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is. And the country is caught up in the concept …

No I don’t know where I got that, it’s all over everywhere and you don’t need the goddamn link anyway. I am so pissed.

You told me a few decades ago these women would turn out to be more than a disappointment, I would have jumped down your little sexist throat.

Course, the fact that Geraldine Ferraro happened to be very lucky to have been in her position—one that thrilled the bejesus out of us, I do recall that. You cannot imagine, if you are a man—or if you’re one of the pups that do seem to becloud this Interwebs thing—what it was like. Sea after sea of male faces … and for the first time, my god, there was a woman up there on the platform, running, as it were, for Vice President!

I think that was the moment that unlocked it, for America. The avalanche of feminine faces where the world had only seen men. Oh yes. The first female news anchors were an amazing sight. And we all gained authority. Why, it made me how I am today! (No remarks please.)

Sometimes this blog seems like nothing but questions. Why do people … I’m sure there’s a name for this, um, conversion reaction. (I didn’t quite become a therapist. Is it obvious?) Where people cannot wait to accuse someone else of which they benefited from. Another goddamn sentence ending in a preposition. The world is going to hell, I tell you.

The good news: Intrade has Obama taking Hil and poor John McCain. Like I always say, Follow the money. This time, though, seems it just might have a happy ending.

Shelley writes: I read ZAMM once, a long time ago. I remembered thinking after reading the work that this was a book written by a man for men, though there is nothing in the work that is even remotely sexist. I felt, though, that I was reading a book written in language I’ve learned to speak fluently, but wasn’t my native language. After Loren’s reviews, I might try reading it again, and see if I still suffer the same disconnect.

What was worse, we were supposed to like that book … and every other damn piece of writing that acted like half the world didn’t exist. I find that waay more insidious. I don’t remember understanding a damn thing.

Okay, not true, but if I’d faced up to what I understood perfectly well, I would have been appalled in real life (and therefore had no place to to live, me with two little, little kids.) Instead,  all that sort of feeling went underground where you better believe it ate at my cells. Turned my immune system inside out—we are mirroring creatures, and if the mirrors around us are all turned away, if the Narcissus spell has taken over the house, what am I saying? That sickness without begets sickness within?

You bet I am. Take care who you hang with. Better Pirsig should have written, Women, have your own money. Can you believe there was a time when the options were, for a girl without a high school diploma, and who could not clerk to save her soul, whose typing was a bloody nightmare: get married or hook. Blech. Revolting even to recount. As were the succeeding decades. Why am I telling you all this? It can’t possibly be of interest, you have your own life, it’s very hot where I live today.

Pirsig’s son was murdered in San Francisco, someone we all cared about after plowing through that many pages. It was just a stupid little holdup, where the person with the gun sometimes for no reason at all pulls the trigger. We were all sorry for his loss.

(I skipped all the boring parts. I bet I would again.)

Catherine Orenstein’s Op-Ed Writing Seminars For Women:

“What I want to suggest to you,” Orenstein continued, “is that the personal and the public interests are not at odds …”

OMSJ … whole life wasted? (opens kitchen drawer)

“ … and the belief that they are mutually exclusive has kept women out of power.” Don’t you want money, credibility, access to aid in your cause? she asked. Read the rest of this entry »

Santorum said he’s heard from ‘many’ women who tell him that it’s ‘easier,’ more ‘professionally gratifying’ and ‘more socially affirming’ to work outside the home than it is to take care of their own children. “Think about that for a moment,” Santorum writes. “Here, we can thank the influence of radical feminism, one of the core philosophies of the village elders.”

So. What you are saying, Senator Santorum, is that older women like myself, involved at the modest beginnings of Women’s Lib, um, planted a concept in the minds of younger women (are ya with me so far?) that (perhaps a little chip, behind their ear?) now causes them to experience an “ease” and “personal gratification” … which they don’t really feel?

Golly. I command millions.

You flamin’ frigtard. Make no sense whatsoever, just throw blame at wall, see what sticks. You know what that accomplishes, don’t you. A witless accusation reveals the accuser to be … witless. Say, wait a minute. Could it be, Senator, that you are what we used to call Part Of The Problem, oink oink?

And, let’s see, being a mother at home gets no respect. Which would mean, some portion of society looks down upon or ignores the value of a contribution beyond measure. Whooo could that portion be?

Staying home, taking care of small children, can be monstrously difficult, draining, boring. Lord knows.

But what I’ve heard from women is, having a job frees them not from kids and home—it frees them from having to take a single ounce of crap from Mr. Breadwinner and Sole Controller. Who (it is to laugh) “shares” his earnings with the unspoken (or, under the tiniest duress, way spoken) expectation that, in return for this largesse, he will be flattered, pleased, and generally taken care of.

And on his terms, fuck mental, spiritual or psychological health. You do know what I mean. The god of Male Ego is an angry, Old Testament god, and I am here to say, sleep with him at your peril.

I was once married to a guy like that. Did I ever fail to make him “happy!” I realized later, hey! There’s a whole profession that could have pleased him all along! But, see, he wanted it to look voluntary; he wanted it to look like love.

link: salon politics