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Psych Lit · Guru

RE: RIP Unaplogetic, Strong, American Female Icon

nesea · Senior Member

another treasure lost ....

Marilyn French, Novelist and Champion of Feminism, Dies at 79

Published: May 3, 2009

Marilyn French, a writer and feminist activist whose debut novel, The Womens Room, propelled her into a leading role in the modern feminist movement, died on Saturday in Manhattan. She was 79 and lived in Manhattan.

Ruby Washington/The New York Times

Marilyn French in 1985.

The cause was heart failure, said her son, Robert.

With steely views about the treatment of woman and a gift for expressing them on the printed page, Ms. French transformed herself from an academic who quietly bristled at the expectations of married women in the post-World War II era to a leading, if controversial, opinionmaker on gender issues who decried the patriarchal society she saw around her. My goal in life is to change the entire social and economic structure of Western civilization, to make it a feminist world, she once declared.

Her first and best-known novel, The Womens Room, released in 1977, traces a submissive housewifes journey of self-discovery following her divorce in the 1950s, describing the lives of Mira Ward and her friends in graduate school at Harvard as they grow into independent women. The book was partly informed by her own experience of leaving an unhappy marriage and helping her daughter deal with the aftermath of being raped. Women all over the world seized on the book, which sold more than 20 million copies and was translated into 20 languages.

Gloria Steinem, a close friend, compared the impact of the book on the discussion surrounding womens rights to the one that Ralph Ellisons Invisible Man had had on racial equality 25 years earlier.

It was about the lives of women who were supposed to live the lives of their husbands, supposed to marry an identity rather than become one themselves, to live secondary lives, Ms. Steinem said in an interview Sunday. It expressed the experience of a huge number of women and let them know that they were not alone and not crazy.

Ms. French continued publishing novels as well as books of essays and literary criticism with the common theme of male subjugation of women, whether the arena was Shakespeare or modern history. Mens need to dominate women may be based in their own sense of marginality or emptiness; we do not know its root, and men are making no effort to discover it, she wrote in The War Against Women (1992).

Critics accused her work of being anti-male, frequently citing a female character in The Womens Room who declares, after her daughter has been raped: All men are rapists, and thats all they are. They rape us with their eyes, their laws, and their codes.

Marilyn French, Novelist and Champion of Feminism, Dies at 79 - Obituary (Obit) - NYTimes.com

-- Edited by nesea on Tuesday 5th of May 2009 06:18:16 PM

Psych Lit · Guru

Anonymous wrote:

And American artist, performer and entertainer.

4/25/09 Bea Arthur. An unlikely icon of an all out no-balls to the walls trailblazing. An assimilation of womens issues, human rights issues, equality matters into the televisions and water cooler discussions of the 70's. And if her passing is remembered as it should be we may, just may have a burst of energy throughout the female, and human, community. One that reminds us that we aren't "there" yet. We've come a long way baby isn't worth much if the destination ends on 4/22/1978. The final episode of Maude. Maude goes to Washington to stir things up. Anyway, the following clip is not that one. But of a womans right to choice, one that's a marvelous example of a simple predicament, unplanned pregnancy of a responsible couple, later along in their lives than are ready, willing or open to bringing an unexpected baby into the world. This plot line esemplifies the exact reason abortion rights must remain an available option for women everywhere. A truly innovative, envelope pushing moment on broadcast television. One that Norman Lear, Bea Arthur and the Network were bold enough to share with America. Kudos to Norman Lear and everyone involved in that watercooler episode. Now, if the networks would grow a few pair and the women in them would remember there are more issues than ratings to contend with maybe bring back a little of that passion and humanitarianism? We may again have a movement on our hands. At least, a revived burst of interest in rights speicifially related to equality and choice for women, secondhandedly, to humankind. But ours to own firstly.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4YjB6Szch4

that was sad news. and she was 86? damn. shes always seemed kind of ageless. and great clip. whenever ive thought aboyt that show over the years thats the exact episode that i remember. probably because it was such a groundbreaking episode.

Date: Sun Apr 26 4:58 AM, 2009

And American artist, performer and entertainer.

4/25/09 Bea Arthur. An unlikely icon of an all out no-balls to the walls trailblazing. An assimilation of womens issues, human rights issues, equality matters into the televisions and water cooler discussions of the 70's. And if her passing is remembered as it should be we may, just may have a burst of energy throughout the female, and human, community. One that reminds us that we aren't "there" yet. We've come a long way baby isn't worth much if the destination ends on 4/22/1978. The final episode of Maude. Maude goes to Washington to stir things up. Anyway, the following clip is not that one. But of a womans right to choice, one that's a marvelous example of a simple predicament, unplanned pregnancy of a responsible couple, later along in their lives than are ready, willing or open to bringing an unexpected baby into the world. This plot line esemplifies the exact reason abortion rights must remain an available option for women everywhere. A truly innovative, envelope pushing moment on broadcast television. One that Norman Lear, Bea Arthur and the Network were bold enough to share with America. Kudos to Norman Lear and everyone involved in that watercooler episode. Now, if the networks would grow a few pair and the women in them would remember there are more issues than ratings to contend with maybe bring back a little of that passion and humanitarianism? We may again have a movement on our hands. At least, a revived burst of interest in rights speicifially related to equality and choice for women, secondhandedly, to humankind. But ours to own firstly.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4YjB6Szch4