Dorcas Speer Interviews Betty Friedman author of "The Feminine Mystique" (WOI News Clip 485)

Betty Friedan is Noel Nolan I think as the author of The Feminine Mystique what are you interested in at the present time well three things really I'm trying to finish a new book called the New Woman this is the woman that is emerging in America that's moved beyond the feminine mystique and and I am president of a and I helped found a new national well you might call it civil rights movement on behalf of the unfinished business of full equality for women and truly equal partnership with men it's called now the national organization for women but men and women are in it and it's not a woman's organization it's a civil rights movement that's devoted to taking action to bring women into into participation in the decision-making mainstream of all areas of American life and to break through the silken curtain of sex discrimination that keeps women really in menial housework roles whether you're talking about industry or the professions are higher education or the churches and political parties or government it is time that we move ahead again in this unfinished revolution that's been standing still ever since women win the vote and therefore it's been necessarily moving backward and we've got to make it possible for women really to use their rights in before people and and this will liberate men as well as women you know to share the burdens and responsibilities as well as privileges and rights and to break through the stereotypes that keep men and women from being freely themselves how are you going about this well for instance we we got organized two years ago when in title seven of the Civil Rights Act sex discrimination is forbidden now by law in employment like race discrimination but even the Commissioner is supposed to enforce the act we're taking the sex discrimination part is a big joke now it isn't a joke you know 75% of women who work that is a twenty eight million in America because they have to and they want to in there helping to contribute to their families or they are supporting them of these twenty-eight million women three out of four are doing the most menial work sales clerical service work they it isn't even a question of equal pay for equal work they don't get a chance at the equal work and their average wage is is only about half of the average wage of men it's a poverty wage in American standards that the average wage of women in the U.S. today is about three thousand dollars and and you know this is considered a poverty wage well sex discrimination was supposed to be a joke it's not a joke every woman works as you know I mean what chance do you have to be the huntley-brinkley of Iowa you know in every field you know we face it we're we're we're slaughtered if it takes exceptional ability even to rise to surface at all and then you stop right here you know and and it's - whether it's year you're cooking the church supper but you're not on the board of Oliver's they're preaching the sermon or whether you're in the political parties you're addressing the envelopes looking the stamps looking at the zip code numbers and running the coffee klatches but are you in the smoke-filled rooms or are you making the policy on the county committees the state committees the National Committee's are you running for office is we have one woman senator out of 100 and in employment of course I think employment is the gut issue today because until women are really there in the decision-making areas of employment they're not going to be there in politics either well I think now did succeed has succeeded already in in gradually getting it known and making this country because we are a we do use the media we get our message across just like I'm getting it that sex discrimination is not a joke that it should be that it is a lot of it that that it that women who are discriminated against on the job should you know take their cases to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and that now if whether we have virtually no money as a have a core of volunteer lawyers that we have even taught women how to be their own lawyers and in taking care of the court because women don't have the money often in these cases you know - so I think we've gotten that across I that we were responsible in in in in getting President Johnson to go beyond just token lip service to women and saying he's applying women to what turned out to be nothing jobs and to add sex to his own executive order forbidding discrimination under government contract and by government contractors you know if a university or a hospital or company has a government contract and it is found that they discriminated employment against the Negroes that government contract can be removed and our President Johnson always had the power to add sex to that executive order and yet even though he was supposedly the great friend of women similar to the tokenism in the rest of his position he did nothing about this until we put enough pressure on it that he finally did a few months ago interestingly enough here Eugene McCarthy is is the one candidate in the picture today who's really serious takes women seriously as people I don't know if you know it but he's the chief sponsor in the Senate of the Equal Rights Amendment which is what is needed to wipe out the discrimination that exists against women in in the laws of many states I I don't know if your state happens to be one of them but in many states there are still extremely unfair things affecting women that women can be forced to say for the same crime make a longer jail sentences than men or that that the grounds for a one-time adultery for instance is that in some states as a ground for a man to get a divorce but if it's why because five is found one time adultery but it's not a ground for a woman to get a voice against a man or or in employment again that discrimination can mask behind so-called state protective laws which forbid a woman to work overtime you know and so in many jobs I mean we're offer Labor Standards but let's protect men and women alike you know and let's give women men and women alike the opportunity of the lucrative jobs and these state protective laws that this really masks discrimination against women because they are used to forbid women access to promotion to important jobs that might say require overtime or in a factory for instance requiring some states say you can't lift a woman can't lift more than like 25 or 35 pounds one you know a baby or a briefcase can wear you know can weigh that much but now that the federal law forbids the company to fire women out of seniority first if there's a a layoff in a plan the company can get around it by adding this little weight lifting and then hiding behind