Betty Friedan teaches at CU-in-Washington on Feminine Mystique's 40th

By Linda Myers

Women's movement icon Betty Friedan, whose 1963 book The Feminine Mystique was a catalyst for positive change in the lives of millions of women, celebrated the book's 40th anniversary year by talking about it with a group of students in a School of Industrial and Labor Relations Cornell-in-Washington intern credit course.

Betty Friedan, left, a fellow at the Cornell ILR School's Institute for Women and Work, talks during the course The New Paradigm: Women, Men, Work and Public Policy, at the Cornell-in-Washington center in Washington, D.C. Seated to her left are Francine Moccio, co-teacher for the course and director of the institute; Nathan Stotzfus, history professor at Florida State University; Maria Foscarinis, adjunct faculty member; Brigid Beachler, program coordinator for the ILR Cornell-in-Washington program; and Heather Navy '04, ILR. Andarge Asfaw/F Stop Studio

Friedan, a co-founder of the National Organization for Women, was a guest lecturer in the course The New Paradigm: Women, Men, Work and Public Policy on March 27 in one of the center's Dupont Circle classrooms in the nation's capital.

Friedan is a fellow with the ILR School's Institute for Women and Work. The course is taught by Francine Moccio, director of the institute, with the assistance of adjunct faculty member Maria Foscarinis, executive director and founder, National Law Center for Poverty and Homelessness.

"In the course we look at how social movements for change have influenced women's advancement in the workplace as well as the relationship between jobs, home and society, with an eye toward gender relations," said Moccio.

The Feminine Mystique was a clarion call for women to break away from the confinements of the home and seek a wider role and a voice in the public sphere alongside men in the workplace. As more women have entered the work force in the four decades since the book's publication, the gap between men's and women's pay has narrowed, with women today earning between 74 and 76 cents for every dollar earned by men (up from 59 cents in the mid-1970s), said Moccio. But after decades of progress, working women now seem to be backpedaling. In the newly structured workplace that following a wave of deregulation, privatization, layoffs and corporate restructurings in the 1990s, they are the largest segment of the contingent work force -- people hired as needed as low-paid temporary workers or independent contractors, often without benefits or job security. In addition, those women who are among the high income earners in the work force (annual salaries of about $75,000 or more) currently earn about half as much as men in that segment.

"Betty asked the students how The Feminine Mystique had influenced their lives and if they thought its ideas were still relevant today in light of this newly structured workplace," said Moccio.

Adam Zwecker '04 said his mother, a homemaker who was influenced by The Feminine Mystique to earn a law degree, has helped shape not only his academic aspirations but the way he views women. "She taught me to treat women as equals and that men aren't always better decision-makers than women." He also said that his mother's decision to return to school made her a role model to his sister, who now sees her "as someone who raised the bar for women's success and opened doors for female advancement."

James LaRocca spoke about the influence of changing societal views on men's and women's roles, as reflected in his own family. "My grandfather worked long hours, while my grandmother stayed home to take care of domestic chores. While that was typical of the roles of men and women of their era, today society has moved beyond those traditional gender roles," with women and men now sharing work and home responsibilities more equally, he said. "I want to pursue a full-time career," said LaRocca, "but I also want to spend a large amount of time at home with my children and help out as much as possible in the home." Such a choice would not have been a plausible reality for his grandfather, he said.

Devin Sullivan '04 raised a frequent criticism of The Feminine Mystique, that it spoke mainly to middle-class women and seemingly ignored the plight of poor black women.

And Keisha Latimore '04 commented: "Black women in post-bellum America have had to work as a matter of necessity." While they are not immune from the issues Friedan's book raised, she said, larger challenges, such as coping with discrimination and other barriers to employment, have taken precedence in their lives.

Friedan said that she intended her book to help women in general achieve a sense of "personhood" and that when she wrote it, most black women already had a strong sense of themselves because they had been active in the work force for a long time, albeit in primarily menial jobs, in addition to their responsibilities at home. Nevertheless she now recognizes that black women have suffered because of cultural attitudes about male domination and female subordination at home as well as at work.

The class also discussed Friedan's 1997 book, Beyond Gender: The New Politics of Work and Family, in which she encourages women and men to address such societal priorities as access to adequate, affordable day care and employment policies responsive to the needs of working families, including those headed by single parents.

This story was written with assistance from Matthew Rocco '04, ILR.