but set her to work on a toilet, and there'll be no end to her libidinous bliss.

Betty Friedan, Who Ignited Cause in 'Feminine Mystique,' Dies at 85

i feel a certain kinship with betty friedan. for one thing, she was a late bloomer. (god, i hate that term, but that's what they call me, and that's what she was):

Growing up brainy, Jewish, outspoken and, by the standards of the time, unlovely, Bettye was ostracized. She was barred from the fashionable sororities at her Peoria high school and rarely asked on dates. It was an experience, she would later say, that made her identify with people on the margins of society.

At Smith, she blossomed. For the first time, she could be as smart as she wanted, as impassioned as she wanted and as loud as she wanted, and for four happy years she was all those things.

she was often difficult:

Though widely respected as a modern-day heroine, Ms. Friedan was by no means universally beloved, even — or perhaps especially — by members of the women's movement. She was famously abrasive. She could be thin-skinned and imperious, subject to screaming fits of temperament.

and, like me, according to this article, she hated all forms of floor washing; she once screamed at an audience that no woman "gets an orgasm from shining the kitchen floor!"

obviously, she was not good friends with martha stewart.

thanks, betty. for NOW, Naral Pro-Choice America, and the National Women's Political Caucus. i may not agree with everything you had to say, but thanks for making us aware that we have options.