Posts Tagged ‘Betty Friedan’
“There is filth on the floor, and it must be scraped up with the muck-rake”*…
Harriet Martineau c1834, by Richard Evans. (National Portrait Gallery, London)
Harriet Martineau was a social reformer, novelist, and children’s author, the author of over over 50 books. (Early in her career, she was outselling Dickens.) An abolitionist, she was also a feminist and sociologist– before those terms had been invented. And she was one of the first women journalists, who published nearly 2,000 articles and columns in the leading newspapers and magazines of her day. Throughout a career devoted to “understanding how society works,” she strove to give the unheard– women, the poor– a voice… even as, for most of her life, Harriet was herself deaf.
Martineau had broken the mould by making complex ideas accessible to a wider readership via entertaining stories that connected grand theories with personal circumstances. While her delight in creating characters and human narratives gradually waned in favour of more direct campaigning for her favourite causes, she never lost her preference for example over theory, or (until her health gave out in 1855) for visiting places in person, so that she could see things for herself. What makes her career so remarkable was the number of times she made a fresh start on a new topic by mastering it for herself, from whatever information she could find to hand, and constantly updating her expertise so that her interventions might offer some practical support. Inevitably, some of these fields dated faster than others, but after a century of critical neglect, Martineau is now being widely reclaimed as a forthright thinker with a distinctive voice…
A campaigning journalist and an early feminist, Harriet Martineau humanized economic theory through Dickensian storytelling: “Mistress of All Trades.”
* Theodore Roosevelt
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As we celebrate curiosity, we might recall that it was on this date in 1970, on the 50th anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment, which had effectively given women the right to vote, that 50,000 women in New York City (and thousands more around the country and the world) marched down 5th Avenue to Bryant Park in protest of the lack of progress in securing equal rights for women. Organized by Betty Friedan and sponsored by NOW, it was known as the Women’s Strike for Equality.
Here she comes, Miss…
MISS LIBERTY AMERICA (sm) is dedicated to discovering America’s elite feminine patriots and giving them the opportunity on a national stage to showcase their patriotism, intelligence, talent, and beauty. The ultimate mission is to promote Liberty, the military, and the documents of our founding fathers. The contestants will be judged in categories of personal interview, swimsuit, evening gown, beauty, talent, questions regarding the documents of America’s founding fathers, and Marksmanship! This will be the first pageant of its kind to introduce competency in the handling, safety and use of firearms, and CPR! The contestants must be able to save a life as well as defend one!
More on this incumbent pageant, scheduled to debut in 2012 (in Las Vegas) here.
UPDATE: Further to the almanac entry on Wednesday about the incarceration rate in the U.S., this NPR report on the way that the private prisons industry collaborated in the drafting of, then lobbied for/made campaign contributions in support of Arizona’s controversial immigration law. As the head of the largest private prison operator says in an excerpt of an analyst call that’s played in the piece, “those people coming across the border and getting caught are going to have to be detained and that for me, at least I think, there’s going to be enhanced opportunities for what we do.” One might have thought that the recent revelations in Pennsylvania would stand as a cautionary example.
As we join Christine O’Donnell in boning up on the Constitution, we might celebrate some women who knew their stuff: it was on this date in 1966 that the meeting to create the National Organization for Women was convened in Washington, D.C.
NOW Organizing Conference, Oct. 29-30, 1966. Key to picture above: 1. Inez Casiano, NY, Community Activist, Program and Research; 2.Clara Wells, NY, Community Development Human Relations, Resources Committee; 3. Inka O’Hanrahan, CA, California Comm. Status of Women; 4. Alice Rossi, IL, Sociologist, University of Chicago; 5. Lucille Kapplinger, MI, Legal Assistant to Governor, Governors Commission; 6. Ruth Gober, WI, Academic; 7. Caruthers Berger, Washington, D.C., Attorney, U.S. Dept. of Labor; 8. Sonia Pressman, Washington, D.C., Attorney, EEOC; 9. Amy Robinson, IN, Governors Commission; UAW; 10. Betty Friedan, NY Author, The Feminine Mystique; 11. Morag Simchak, Washington, D.C., Equal Pay for Equal Work, U.S. Dept. of Labor; 12. Mary Esther Gauldin, TX, Univ. of Texas Southwestern Medical School; 13. Dr. Pauli Murray, Washington, D.C. Poet, Attorney, EEOC Consultant; 14. Mary Eastwood, Washington, D.C. Attorney, U.S. Dept. of Justice; 15. Dr. Caroline Ware, VA, Consultant, U.N.; 16. Sister Mary Joel Read, WI, Alverno College; 17. Unidentified; 18. Dorothy Haener, MI, UAW, Women’s Department; 19. Unidentified; 20. Anna Arnold Hedgeman, NY, National Council of Churches; 21. Robert Gray; 22. Muriel Fox, NY, Carl Byoir & Associates; 23. Pat Perry Gray, Washington, D.C., Carl Byoir & Associates; 24. Colleen Boland, IL, President, Steward & Stewardesses of Airline Pilots Association; 25. Charlotte Roe, NY, Project Director, National Affairs Assoc. U.S. Youth Council.
Many more women and men were involved in the founding and early days of NOW, including: Ada Allness, Dr. Shepard Aronson, Dorothy Austin, Mary Benbow, Gene Boyer, Analoyce Clapp, Catherine Conroy, Claire Dalmond, Caroline Davis, Carl Degler, Sister Austin Doherty, Elizabeth Drews, Edith Finlayson, Betty Furness, Anna Roosevelt Halstead, Lorene Harrington, Jane Hart, Mary Lou Hill, Esther B. Johnson, Nancy Knaak, Rev. Dean Lewis, Min Matheson, Mabel McClanahan, Ollie Butler Moore, Helen Moreland, Ruth V. Murray, Grace Olivarez, Marjorie Palmer, Pauline Parish, Dr. Patricia Plante, Eve P. Purvis, Charlotte Roe, Edna Schwartz, Dr. Vera Schwartz, Mary Jane Snyder, Dr. Gretchen Squires, Betty Tarkington, Olla Werner, Herbert Wright.
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