I’ve been surfing the blogosphere, reading some of the posts paying tribute to the passing of Betty Friedan. Two of the best I’ve seen so far are at MF Blog (Mitchell Freedman) and Thoughts of an Average Woman.

The things that resonate with me most about Betty Friedan, and why I feel sad about her passing:

she spoke out early in her life and so had a long time to do her work;

she was moderate, not man-hating;

she didn’t recoil when other feminists criticized her;

she became an advocate for elder rights in her later years, recognizing how gender becomes more and more secondary in some ways as life progresses.

Because she had lived so long, she made it feel like feminism had been around forever (for people like me, born in the late ’60’s) and like it would be around forever. So let it be. Rest in peace, Betty. Long live feminism.