radical past of liberal feminism: Betty Friedan and the making of the feminine mystique: The American left, the cold war, and modern feminism, The

Off Our Backs, Jul 2001 by Douglas, Carol Anne

Bettye then went to work for UE News, a publication of the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America, one of the most progressive unions. They held a strike that completely shut down all Westinghouse and General Electric plants, angering the corporations.

In 1946, she wrote about the formation of the Congress of American Women, a progressive group. (Ironically, the article, which she co-authored, criticized middle-class women for standing apart from working-class women.) Within 12 months, the group had a quarter of a million members, who fought for equal pay, government-sponsored day care, national health insurance, a central role for women in unions, and respectful representation of women in the media. But red-baiters were able to drive liberals away from the group.

Although Horowitz emphasizes what he calls the "Popular Front feminism" of progressive women at the time, he does note that there was male chauvinism in the Left and that men who verbally supported equality for women still didn't do any housework.

Bettye married Carl Friedan in 1947; he did not have the idea of egalitarian marriage that she did. He had changed his name from Friedman, possibly so it would sound less Jewish.

In 1952, Bettye wrote a pamphlet, UE Fights for Women's Rights, which, among other things said that African American women suffer from double discrimination. Soon afterwards, the union that supposedly fought for women's rights had to reduce its office workforce of two men and two women; it laid off the two women, including Bettye. The union had been greatly depleted as working-class people left left-wing unions for "mainstream" ones during the "Red" scares.

Betty (she began using the name Betty Friedan at this point) later expressed bitterness that the unions let women down and the working class (she thought) let the progressive unions down because too many workers just wanted material goods, not social change. These feelings no doubt influenced her decision to focus on middle-class women in The Feminine Mystique.

Even before she wrote her most famous book, Betty was not exclusively a housewife but organized community groups and was a freelance writer.

In the early drafts of The Feminine Mystique, which Horowitz read, Friedan quoted from Simone de Beauvoir's The Second Sex and Friedrich Engels' The Origins of the Family. In later drafts, she cut the references. She emphasized personal growth for women as individuals.

But in 1966, when she was involved in founding the National Organization for Women (N.O.W.), the N.O.W. statement of purpose mentioned working class and African American women. N.O.W.'s first focus was on job discrimination.

Friedan quickly rejected radical feminism and had a homophobic response to lesbians in the movement. Horowitz indicates that she always had homophobic tendencies.

In her 1997 book, Beyond Gender, Friedan said it is now necessary to "go beyond feminism, beyond sexual politics, beyond identity politics altogether." She called on women, men, African Americans, and lesbians and gays to put aside differences to work against the "corporate culture of greed." She said it was better not to focus on issues such as rape, pornography, and abortion, but on reshaping work to improve family and economic life. Horowitz sees her as coming full circle back to calling for a labor-identified "Popular Front" coalition.