Betty Friedan and the RadicalPast of Liberal FeminismJOANNE BOUCHER

BETTY FRIEDAN IS UNIVERSALLY REGARDED as one of the founding mothers offeminism's Second Wave. In The Feminine Mystique, published in 1963, Friedanaimed to expose the sexist underpinnings of America's post-World War II com-placent prosperity. Friedan argued that millions of American housewives found

the destiny of mother and housewife which society mapped out for them stifling, re-pressive and even dehumanizing.

Anna Quindlen, inher introduction to themost recent paperbackedition of The FeminineMystique, proclaims thatthis book changed her Hfeand that of millions ofother women who be-came engaged in thewomen's movement and"jettisoned empty hoursof endless housework and found work, and mean-ing, outside of raising their children and feedingtheir husbands. Out of Friedan's argument thatwomen had been coaxed into selling out their in-tellect and their ambitions for the paltry price of anew washing machine...came a great wave ofchange in which women demanded equaHty andparity under the law and in the workplace."^

Friedan's self-presentation in The FeminineMystique is that of a rather naive and apoHticalalbeit bright and university-educated suburbanhousewife who stumbles onto a startHng discov-ery— that America's housewives are, in fact, mis-erable.2 Friedan depicts herself as sharing in aHthe experiences of her feHow housewives. She isone of them and has experienced their pHght.̂However, Friedan also uses another voice in thetext, that of the expert, the university-trained re-

Friedan's self-presentation in TheFeminine Mystique is that of a

rather naive and apolitical albeitbright and university-educated

suburban housewife.

JOANNE BOUCHER teaches politics and feminist theory atthe University of Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canuda. She cur-rently researches and has published articles on the im-

paa of new medical imaging technologies on debatesabout abortion rights.

searcher and psycholo-gist. This perspectivelends her work scientificauthority. The combina-tion of the two voices —the personal and scien-tific — gives The Femi-nine Mystique mnch of itsdramatic force.

However, for all itsacclaim and its status as

the book that ignited the women's movement,praise for Friedan's Feminine Mystique has neverbeen unqualified. Indeed many feminists havecriticized its myopic representation of women.There is hardly a word in The Feminine Mystiquethat would indicate that American women in the1950s were deaHng with problems other than thetrap of suburban domesticity which, after aH, wasa consequence of economic prosperity. The prob-lems facing, for example, milHons of poor, work-ing women or non-white women — oppressiveworking conditions and low pay, racism, and theburdens of a double day — barely register on theradar screen of The Feminine Mystique. AsRosemarie Tong remarks, "Friedan seemed obHvi-ous to any other perspectives than those of white,middle-class, heterosexual, educated women whofound the tradidonal roles of -wife and motherunsatisfying.'"*

bell hooks draws out fiirther the deleteriouspoHtical impHcations of Friedan's narrow pictureof American women, particularly given her roleas a founding figure of the women's movement,hooks notes that Friedan "did not discuss who

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would be caHed in to take care of the children andmaintain the home if more women Hke herselfwere freed from their house labor and given equalaccess with white men to the professions. She didnot speak of the needs of women without men,without chüdren, without homes. She ignored theexistence of aH non-wrhite women and poor whitewomen. She did not teH readers whether it wasmore fulfilling to be a maid, a babysitter, a factoryworker, a clerk, or a prostitute than to be a lei-sure-class housewife."' hooks does credit Friedanwith providing "a useful discussion of the impactof sexist discrimination on a select group ofwomen." But she also offers this damning assess-ment of The Feminine Mystique, "it can also beseen as a case study of narcissism, insensitivity,sentimentaHty, and self-indulgence, which reachesits peak when Friedan, in a chapter tide "Progres-sive Dehumanization," makes the comparisonbetween the psychological effects of isolation onwhite housewives and the impact of confinementon the self-concept of prisoners in Nazi concen-tration camps."''

hooks' critique is shared by many feministsfor whom Friedan's The Feminine Mystique repre-sents the severe Hmitations of Hberal or bourgeoisfeminism as a theory and as the basis for poHticalaction. The faults of liberal feminism center onits seemingly bland acceptance of American capi-talism as a system structured on economic free-dom which merely needs some tinkering (such asthe eHmination of "unfair practices" such as rac-ism and sexism) to make it entirely workable andjust. Friedan's single-minded focus on white,middle class suburban housewives and the pre-sentation of their düemmas as emblematic of thoseof aH women demonstrates the underlying pre-suppositions of The Feminine Mystique about thecharacter of sexism and capitaHsm. Friedan's Hb-eral or bourgeois theoretical perspective has alsobeen seen to inform the Hberal politics which sheespoused as the first head of the National Orga-nization for Women (NOW) with its focus onattaining economic and civic equality and itsavoidance of the more contentious territory ofsexual poHtics.

Indeed, Friedan is notorious for her inifial vo-ciferous opposition to the introduction of lesbi-anism in particular and sexuaHty in general as le-gitimate topics of poHtical discussion in NOW (a

position she later renounced). She pushed a brandof respectability which was anathema to many ofthe radicals in the early days of the women's move-ment. Friedan was adamant that the women'smovement present itself as reasonable, moderate,heterosexual, famüy-loving not famüy-destroying,man-loving not man-hating in its approach.Friedan's image as the paradigmatic Hberal femi-nist was only reinforced with the pubHcation ofThe Second Stage (1981) in which she systemati-caHy pointed out the dangers of what she deemedthe excesses of the women's movement. Thus,Friedan's persona and the poHtical positions shechampioned seemed to be entirely of a piece withher Hberal feminism.

Moreover, there's an important way in whichFriedan and her classic text are pivotal to the nar-rative of the evolution of the women's movementitself Friedan and The Feminine Mystique epito-mize an earHer, less sophisticated and less inclu-sive version of feminism. It is the feminism of awhite, privüeged middle class woman who wasunaware of the Hves of women outside the con-fines of safe and prosperous suburbs. In this sense.The Feminine Mystique represents the unworldlypast of feminism which has been surpassed byyears of poHtical debate and experience. Friedan'swork stands for the unsophisticated, naive past ofthe women's movement. It is a past which has beensuperseded as women have become more enlight-ened as a result of decades of struggle, debate andexperience.

Before The Feminine MystiqueWITHIN THIS THEORETICAL AND POUTICAL con-

text, the revelations in Daniel Horowitz's bookBetty Friedan and the Making of The FeminineMystique are intensely dramatic and disorienting.For Horowitz meticulously detaüs the voluminousevidence of Betty Friedan's entirely un-bourgeoisand un-Hberal poHtical commitments prior to thepubHcation of The Feminine Mystique. Much ofthe new historical data Horowitz offers is signifi-cant precisely because it throws into question thetidy narrative of the progressive erJightenment ofthe women's movement — from Hmited and ex-clusionary to sophisticated and aspiring to be fjillvinclusionary Horowitz's book disrupts this sort ofDarwinian tale of the evolution of feminist poH-tics, with its Hberal, radical, sociaHst, global and

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post-modern phases representing steps up theevoludonary ladder of poUdcs.

Here are some of the highUghts of Friedan'shidden radical and feminist poUtical past thatHorowdtz has brought to Ught:̂•While at Smith CoUege (1938-1942) Friedan's

lefdst poUdcs were developed by the radical out-look of her professors. She put her beUefs intopractice. Friedan (then using her maiden name,Betty Goldstein) was editor of a coUege campusweekly paper where she argued for her positionse.g. non-intervention in WWII (up until PearlHarbor), unionization of the maids on the col-lege campus. She attended a summer course atthe famous activist training camp, HighlanderFoUcSchool.8

• Friedan spent one year doing graduate work inpsychology at Berkeley (1942-1943). She wasoffered a scholarship but decUned it. Wbile atBerkeley her social miUeu consisted of activemembers of the Communist Party United Statesof America (CPUSA). Notably, one of her boy-friends, David Böhm, a party member, was aphysicist at work on the Manhattan Project, de-veloping the atomic bomb. He was later caUedup by HUAC, (as were several of ber Berkeleyprofessors). Böhm was acquitted and left thecountry'

• After leaving Berkeley, Friedan's first job in NewYork City was as a journaUst at Federated Press,the U.S.'s premier lefdst news service. While atFP (1943-46) Friedan wrote stories, for example,promoting unions, exposing and opposing cor-porate exploitadon, denouncing racism and sex-

ism.' After being fired fiom FP (to make room for a

man or because of her excessively pro-Sovietposidons, the evidence is not entirely clear) hernext job was as a staff reporter for UE News(1946-1952), the newsletter of the United Elec-trical, Radio and Machine Workers of America.This union was among the most radical in thecountry and was in the orbit of the CP. It shouldbe stressed that Friedan wrote extensively on thespecific and unique problems of inequality andhardship faced by working class and AfricanAmerican women. Friedan wrote an importantpamphlet, UE Fights for Women Workers in1952." In this pamphlet she outUned how cor-porate America exploited women workers andengaged in discriminatory practices. AsHorowitz explains: "To support the caU for equalpay for equal work and to fight discriminadonagainst women, she countered stereotypes jus-

tifying lower pay for women: that they werephysicaUy weaker, entered the work force onlytemporarily, had no famiUes to support, andworked only for pin money." And "she high-Ughted the 'even more shocking' situation of Af-rican American women faced, having to dealwith the 'double bars' of being female and Afri-can American." -̂̂While working as a freelance journaUst (afterleaving UE News in 1952) she wrote anotherpamphlet for UE in 1953, Women Fight For aBetter Life! UE Picture Story of Women's Role inAmerican History in which "she used photo-graphs and texts to provide the social, economic,and poUdcal dimensions of the story of how overthe centuries American women had foughtagainst discdminadon and for peace, jusdce, andequality." Again, she emphasized the "doublediscrimination" faced by African Americanwomen historicaUy in the U.S."

• Friedan was fired from UE News with her sec-ond pregnancy. Her Ufe from 1952 - 1963 mostapproximates that of a suburban housewife —

Friedan pushed a brand ofrespectability which was anathemato many radicals in the early days

of the women's movement.

pivotal to her persona in The Feminine Mystique.However, even on this count, Horowitz providesa fiiU account of how unorthodox a suburbanhousewife she was. Friedan continued to writefreelance árdeles, many based on her experiences,and taught writing courses at New York Uni-versity and the New School for Social Research.That is to say, she continued to be extremelyactive in community-based poUdcs, writing, forexample, of experiments in co-operative Uvingand of a nationally-recognized educationalproject sbe set up in ber community."

This information was virtuaUy unknown foralmost four decades though one broad and verypubUc hint had been dropped by Friedan herselfIn a 1974 essay in New York magazine, "The WayWe Were — 1949" (which was later reprinted inthe collection of her essays, It Changed My Life),Friedan argued that 1949 was the year that the

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feminine mystique "reaUy hit." She offers an analy-sis of her mind-set in that fateful year. Friedandeclares, "After the war, I had been very political,very involved, consciously radical. Not aboutwomen, for heaven's sake! If you were radical in1949, you were concerned about the Negroes, andthe working class, and World War III, and theUn-American Activities Committee andMcCarthy and loyalty oaths, and Communistsplits and schisms, Russia, China and the UN, butyou certainly didn't think about being a woman,politicaüy. It was only recently that we had begunto think of ourselves as women at aU. But thatwasn't political — it was the opposite of politics."^'As Horowitz notes, neither Friedan nor any jour-nalist or scholar foUowed the thread of this star-tHng declaration. It was only when Horowitz firstpublished results of his research in a 1996 article

Horowitz's research raises seriousquestions about the usual

chronology of the women'smovement itself and, intriguinglythe connections between liberal

and socialist feminism.

in American Quarterly, (his book was published in1998), that the proverbial cat was let out of thebag. As Horowitz puts it, "In public, with a fewexceptions, Friedan has avoided, denied, mini-mized or obscured her progressive political con-victions of the 1940s and 1950s, especially onwomen's issues.""'

Subsequent to this, Friedan did grant exten-sive co-operation to Judith Hennesee for her 1999hiogT2Lphy, Betty Friedan: Her Life. Hennesee doesfocus some attention on Friedan's political activ-ism in the 1940s-1950s. Hennesee openly depictsFriedan as a Marxist in her coUege days and notesher dismissal of her pivotal activist years 1943-1952 as unimportant. However, unlike Horowitz,she concentrates on the more personal aspects ofFriedan's life, her family relationships, marriage,affairs, children, personality traits and so on. In

this sense, Hennesee's portrayal of Friedan is moreconsistent with the mode of self-presentation con-structed by Friedan in The Feminine Mystique}^It is only very recently that Friedan herself hasprovided extensive detail about her radical pastwith the publication of her recent autobiography,LifeSoFar}^

Beyond The Feminine MystiqwWHAT ARE WE TO MAKE of aU this new informa-tion about Friedan's hidden years of political ac-tivism? What are its implications for an assess-ment of Friedan hersetf as an author, feministleader, liberal feminist, socialist feminist? Whatare the implications for an understanding of TheFeminine Mystique as a founding text of SecondWave feminism? More generally, what can welearn about the contribution of women in theCommunist Party and its political circles to thewomen's movement?^'

Certainly it is evident that portrayals (and dis-missals) of Friedan as a clued-out liberal feministmust be reconsidered. Clearly she was a canny, sea-soned political activist when she virote The Femi-nine Mystique. Arguably, it may have been her po-lifical and professional experience that enabled herto tap so brilliantly into the mood, of and appeal to,middle-class housewives. She left out references toMarx, Engels, and de Beauvoir which, accordingto Horowitz, were included in early drafts and in-stead emphasized her persona as a smart coUegegraduate and trapped housewife. In short, the BettyFriedan depicted by Tong and hooks may be saidto no longer exist. Further, as menfioned above,Horowitz's research raises serious questions aboutthe usual chronology of the women's movement it-self and intriguingly, the connections between lib-eral and sociaUst feminism. Finally, Horowitz's workis a forcefiil reminder, as he puts it, that "socialmovements and their leaders do not.. .come out ofnowhere. They have histories that powerfUly shapetheir desfinies . . . "̂ °

But, apart firom all such questions, which willhave to be sorted out over the years to come onequestion must first be approached: Why did BettyFriedan avoid public discussion about her politickpast? And how does Horowitz address the specificquestion of her obñiscations about the past? Heargues the foUowing: "Friedan had reason to worrythat her involvement in radical politics for at least a

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Betty F-ri cd a 11

dozen years beginning in 1940 meant that a fidlrendering of her life after 1960 was dangerous, givenMcCarthyism's power in memory and reality . . .Had Friedan revealed au in the mid-1960s, shewould have undercut her book's impact, subjectedherself to palpable dangers, and jeopardized thewomen's movement."^' Thus, obscuring her pastwas merely a sensible, utilitarian choice. Given thismotivation for concealment, Horowitz asserts thatit was "morally reasonable" since "in the early 1960s,protecting oneself from McCarthyism is an under-standable and defensible act."̂ ^

Indeed, Horowitz'sentire re-telling ofFriedan's political past isstructured around thenotion

Friedan and American feminists should be

Friedan, for her part, seems singularly unim-pressed by Professor Horowitz's efforts. She re-flised to co-operate with Horovñtz in anyway. Hewas denied interviews and the right to print any-thing from her unpublished papers. Her hostileattitude is on display in her recent autobiography:

A deconstructing male historian would try todismiss my credibility in writing The FeminineMystique by claiming that it was aU a commu-nist plot, starting with my Smith student days

and my labor immersion,and insisting that I never

^ ^ ^ ~ ^ ^ ~ was a real suburbanhousewife. But that isn'tirea arouna rne -ri - - - i i- - i

ofthe "tragedy of TlllS IS Certainly nOt tO dlSmiSS the tme. My experience withMcCarthyism," that the dismal legacy of McCarthvism with Communist dogma had

jobs lost, lives destroyed andradicalism gone underground.

wave of anti-commu-nism which swept theU.S. in the 1950s de-stroyed an indigenousleft tradition, broke con-nections between gen-erations of radicals and terrified dissidents likeFriedan into inactivity and silence. As he states,"I wish to highlight the damage McCarthpsm didto progressive social movements in the 1940s andearly 1950s, and especially to feminism, which itforced underground but could not destroy."^^

But why tell all now? The political climate isclearly more conducive to such news. It wouldappear that any immediate danger posed by rabidanti-communism has disappeared. And,Horovvdtz's motives are precisely to reveal the po-litical losses America has suffered due toMcCarthyism, that is, the lessons and experiencesof an entire generation of radicals obscured. Hewishes to restore a sense ofthe continuity of femi-nist politics from the 1940s to the 1960s and be-moans the lack of dialogue between what he termsthe Old Left and New Left feminism and seeksto encourage such dialogue through the exampleof Friedan's life.̂ " Thus, he writes, "I felt that whatI was going to reveal about her life made her amore significant, heroic and interesting figure inAmerican history than her own story allowed.After all, I was arguing that Friedan's life, in con-necting the 1960s and the Old Left, gave second-wave feminism a richer heritage, one of which both

given me a healthy dis-trust of all dogma thatbelied real experience,while Smith had givenme the conceptual abil-ity to take on the femi-

nist mystique, training as a hands-on reportergave me a third ear to hear pieces of new truthbehind denials and defenses and rigidity. Thatability to follow leads, clues from many differ-ent fields, was invaluable once I truly commit-ted myself to solve this mystery.^'

How can we explain Friedan's hostility? Af-ter all, the threat of McCarthyism is long goneand she herself has indicated her involvement withleft-wing causes. If anything, a radical past couldonly improve her image in the women's movement.The key seems to me to be in Horowitz's confi-dent declaration that "Friedan's life . . . gave sec-ond-wave feminism a richer heritage, one of whichboth Friedan and American feminists should beproud." In fact, Horowitz presents voluminousevidence, that "At least from 1940 until 1953[Friedan] inhabited a world where Communistsand their sympathizers held influential positions,where she witnessed redbaiting, and where sheencountered the ideology of American Commu-nists, especially in their Popular Front appeals."^'

Given this, one would expect more cautionabout assertions of a proud heritage. After all, atthis time, Stalin was at the height of his powers inRussia engaging in political crimes of world-his-toric proportion which the world's Communist

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Parties bHthely ignored or explained away lest itdestroy their faith in the existence of a worldlyUtopia. Moreover, there is no question that theCPUSA adhered to the ideaHzation of StaHn's re-gime and took direction from Moscow on inter-national and domestic issues. It is at this pointthat Betty Friedan's anxiety and hostiHty may be-come entirely understandable. To say this is a"problematic" poHtical heritage with which Oldand New Leftists and feminists have to contendis to understate the case beyond measure.

Political AnxietiesHOROWITZ'S NARRATIVE of Friedan's poHtical Hfeis, I would argue, one-sided, with its focus on the"tragedy of McCarthyism," and scant attention tothe "tragedy of StaHnism," to the point of pos-sible misrepresentation. This is certainly not todismiss the dismal legacy of McCarthyism withjobs lost, Hves destroyed and radicaHsm gone un-derground. But, it is crucial to insist on the atro-cious legacy of StaHnism and its domestic effectsin the U.S. — bHnd adherence to party-Hnes, ex-cusing inexcusable crimes against humanity in thename of a greater good — which also played acentral role in discrediting the aspirations of morethan one generation of socialists.

This narrative strategy indicates Horowitz'sanxiety about being associated with any form ofred-baiting by criticizing overtly the CPUSA andits feHow-travelers. Horowitz thereby positionshimself within current debates -within Americanhistoriography as part of a stream of historianswho wish to restore the image of the CPUSA asan organization comprised of "home-gro-wn radi-cals," motivated by a passion for social justice. Thisstream of historiography is counterposed to thatwhich views the CPUSA as a mere vehicle forSoviet aims. Horowitz and like-minded histori-ans wish to explore "issues without concentratingon the obedience of some party members to aSoviet-directed party line." He objects to this ap-proach because it presents "a one-dimensionalcore-periphery model which exaggerate [s] thedegree of control of the KremHn and the Com-munist Party over people who they thought werepassive and naive recipients of a party Hne. Such aperspective over-emphasizes the importance ofactual party membership, as well as the influenceof the party and Moscow."^^

Horowitz proposes instead to "stress the var-ied sources of American radicaHsm, whose ori-gins, power, and sophistication a focus on the partyunderestimates."'' And he writes, "I can weH ap-preciate how progressives would join with partymembers in supporting the Soviet-American al-Hance in World War II, or in fighting for socialjustice for women or African-Americans."'"

This is the prism through which Horowitzanalyses Friedans's political Hfe. He specificallydescribes Friedan as a "Popular Front" feministor radical. By this he means to include her amongthose "who battled anti-communism and wereinspired by issues articulated by radicals — partymembers and non-party members alike."'^ Hedoesn't specifically address whether or notFriedan was, in fact, a CPUSA member'^ But,as noted above, he does position her squarely inCP circles.

However, he also insists that she was not adogmatic adherent of StaHnism. He contends thefoHowing: "I knew that in the immense amountthat Friedan pubHshed in the 1940s and early1950s, some of which appeared in party-sponsoredpubHcations, she never mentioned the party or dis-played a preference for the Soviet social or eco-nomic system. I have found no evidence that shesanctioned the küHngs of milHons of people car-ried out by StaHnists in the USSR, approved of

Joseph Stalin himself would not fitthis absurd definition of a Stalinist

pro-Soviet Americans conveying national secu-rity secrets to a foreign nation, or looked favor-ably on the party's penchant for making dramaticand opportunistic shifts."'^

This, of course, proves absolutely nothing.Joseph Stalin himself would not fit this absurddefinition of a StaHnist — he never advertised hismass murders and, of course, spies were operatingclandestinely in the United States. Thus, Horowitzproduces an exaggerated definition of StaHnismto prove that Betty Friedan was not a dogmaticStaHnist. Moreover, he consistenfly do-wnplays theextent to which it does indeed appear, the poHti-

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cal views espoused by Friedan were entirely con-sonant with those of official CPUSA party Hne.He recounts the positions taken by Friedan in ar-ticles for FP and UE News as simply as those ofan independent radical espousing her own per-sonal views. The significance of the fact that invirtuaHy aH cases that Horowitz recounts, her workpushed the concerns and views of the CPUSA isnot acknowledged let alone accounted for.

I will note one example that Horowitz raisesfrom Friedan's FP days:

Because Goldstein [her maiden name] also wor-ried that tensions between America and tbe So-viet Union were early signs of tbe Cold War,sbe boped for a post-war world order built onthe continuation of Soviet-American friendsbip.In March, less tban two weeks after WinstonCburcbill bad delivered his speech in wbicb becoined tbe phrase 'iron curtain,' Goldstein andKolkin [a colleague at FP] wrote a story tbatreported favorably on a protest againstCburcbiU's fostering of bostilities between theUnited States and tbe USSR. Two days later,she hailed Wallace's efforts to rally Americansaround a decreased commitment to Anglo-American coalition and to develop in its stead agreater understanding of Soviet actions. Tbis,sbe wrote, would diminisb American enthusi-asm for a war against tbe USSR. A few dayslater, she discussed bow interest in ou led tbeBritisb to support an anti-democratic govern-ment in Iran at tbe same time tbat sbe cast askeptical eye on news of Russian military pres-ence tbere. In the spring of 1946, sbe expressedconcern tbat America's support of fascist gov-ernments abroad would lead to tbe deteriora-tion of Soviet-American relations."^''

This passage is indicative of the generalmethod Horowitz uses in his approach to Friedan'spoHtics. He presents her as an independent jour-naHst or a Popular Front feminist and ignores theglaring indications that in her journalism she ispromoting positions which are entirely in tunewith those of the CPUSA (not to mention in theinterests of the USSR).

This is certainly not to say that the specificpoHtical positions Friedan took were wrong orproblematic simply because they were consistentwith those of the CP but it is to note that timeand again Horowitz obscures or downplays theextent to which she is surrounded by CP mem-

bers, espousing CP positions and promoting CP-related institutions and organizations in ber writ-ing. For instance, Horowdtz refers four times toFriedan's deaHngs with Ruth Young. He refers toan interview with Young as being the most im-portant article Friedan wrote on women at FPduring the war. He refers to Young as a "UE offi-cial . . . a forceful advocate for women's rights inthe union movement."'' Next, it's "Ruth Young,the UE leader whom Friedan had interviewed in1943 . . . "3' The third reference notes that Friedan"knew Ruth Young, the key feminist in the UEleadership."-'' There's Httle preparation, then, forthe final reference to Young which is, as foHows:"The transformation of Ruth Young's Hfe underMcCarthyism was especiaHy fraught with mean-ing for Friedan since she had written about Youngearly in her career as a labor journalist. Young, aCommunist since 1937 and tbe daughter of aCommunist, was the first woman member ofUE'sexecutive committee and was acfive in tbe Con-gress of American Women [a CP popular frontorganization]."^* Horowitz then teHs a tale ofYoung and her husband's de-radicaHsation andresponses to McCarthyism. So, on the one hand,CP connections are not mentioned. When theyare mentioned, they only serve to highHght the"tragedy of McCarthyism."

A simüar strategy is evident with Horowitz'saccount of Friedan's relationship to the newspa-pe.1, Jewish Life. He writes.

Nothing better illustrates the stakes surround-ing McCartbyism tban the treatment of articlesFriedan wrote for Jewish Life: A ProgressiveMonthly. Tbis publication noted a scholar, was'in tbe orbit of the Communist Party' until 1956.Althougb it apologized for Soviet anti-Semitism, in many ways the periodical foughtfor admirable causes. In its pages, writers ex-plored the relationship between Jewish Ufe andprogressive politics. Tbey celebrated the resis-tance of tbe Jews in tbe Warsaw gbetto upris-ing. Tbey emphasized the connections betweendiscrimination aimed at African Americans andJews. Moreover,/eiy¿.r/!) Life published some oftbe period's strongest attacks on anti-Semitism.^'

The foHowing is from the entry in the Ency-clopedia of the American Left that Horovidtz usesas his source:

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yL, for the first nine and a half years of its exist-ence [1946-1956 —jb] , adhered to currentCPUSA positions on Jewish and other issues.From 1948 to the middle 1950s, it followed theSoviet view concerning assimilation when, un-der Stalin, after 1948 all Jewish social and cul-tural institutions suddenly shut down./Z,'s expla-nation for these events was that they merely re-flected a natural process of assimilation of Jewsinto the general Soviet population and therebyshould be seen as being a progressive develop-ment and a direct result of the building of a newsocialist society in the USSR. When the anti-Semitic campaign in the USSR and EasternEurope reached its zenith during the years 1948-1953,/Z, referred to it as a myth fed by Cold Warlies. The publication defended the Prague trialsof 1952 and wrote an efifbsive eulogy on the deathof Stalin called 'Stalin and the Jewish People.'These positions served to isolate fL from orga-nized Jewry.*

The central difficulty here is that when oneconsults the source used by Horowitz for infor-mation on the periodical, Jewish Life, what oneencounters is a more clear picture that this was aCPUSA pubUcation which followed its interna-tional poUtics to the point of condoning the ex-treme oppression of Jews in the Soviet Union.

Horowitz recounts that Friedan wrote a seriesof four articles ior fewish Life attacking the poUciesof the International Ladies' Garment WorkersUnion (ILGWU), which was the UE's major unionrival. The fourth article never appeared because theeditors devoted the issue to the execution of theRosenbergs. His argument is that this must havestruck terror into Friedan's heart, given that she wasa radical Jewish woman with extensive Party con-nections (though he doesn't say this expUcidy), thatshe had dated a party member working on the atombomb, and so on.

However, Horowitz's dramatic juxtapositionof Friedan's association with, fewish Life (fight-ing for "admirable causes") against the drama ofthe execution of the Rosenbergs emphasizes theaggression of the American state and entirelydownplays aspects of Friedan's political engage-ments which may be extremely "problematic." Inparticular, why did Friedan w r̂ite for a journalwhich idealized the Soviet Union to the point ofcondoning its anti-Semitism?

THIS RHETORICAL STRATEGY of emphas^izingthe "tragedy of McCarthyism" vs. the "trag-

edy of Stalinism" runs through Horowitz's book.This strategy condnues the obfuscadon begun (forwhatever reasons) by Freidan. It prevents a fullaccoundng of the character of the poUdcs ofwomen activists of the period. And, without this,an open, informed and informative dialogue be-tween Old Left and New Left feminists cannotproductively move forward. The difficulty, ofcourse, in assessing the work of women activistssuch as Friedan is the extent to which their un-derstanding of "male chauvinism," "women'sequaUty," "ending sex discrimination," as idealswere separable from the long-term goal of estab-lishing a society akin to the Soviet Union in theUnited States. This strikes me as one of the mostproblematic areas of accounting in which social-ist feminists must engage. I would argue that it isfar too simpUstic to look back at the work of ac-tivists/inteUectuals/reporters such as Friedan andone-sidedly praise their work any more than it isusefiil to dismiss it because of its connections tothe StaUnist CPUSA.

NOTES

1. Anna Quindlen, "Introduction," to Betty Friedan, TheFeminine Mystique (New York: W.W. Norton & Company,1997), p. X.

2. For an excellent discussion of the narrative structure ofFriedan's The Feminine Mystique as a mystery story see RachelBowlby, "The Problem with No Name: Rereading Friedan'sThe Feminine Mystique," Feminist Review, 27, Sept 1987, pp.61-75. It should also be noted that recent studies have ques-tioned the picture of 1950s domestic conformity whichFriedan so effectively popularized. See, for example, EvaMoskowitz, "'It's good to blow your top': Women's maga-zines and a discourse of discontent, 1945-1965," Journal ofWomen's History, Fall 1996, pp. 66-98; and Joanne Meyerow-itz, "Beyond the Feminine Mystique: A Reassessment ofPostwar Mass Culture, 1946-1958," in Not June Cleaver:Women and Gender in Postwar America, 1945-1960, ed.Joanne Meyerowitz (Philadelphia: Temple University Press,1994), pp. 229-262.

3. Friedan says in her introduction to the tenth anniversaryedition of The Feminine Mystique, "until I started writing thebook, I wasn't even conscious of the woman problem . . . "Friedan, Mystique, p. 3.

4. Kos&m3.'áe.'Von^,FeministThought, (Boulder, Colo.: West-view Press, 1998), p. 26.

5. bell hooks, Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center (Cam-bridge, MA: South End Press, 2000), pp. 1-2.

6. hooks, p. 3.

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7.1 use the term "feminist" here advisedly. There is consid-erable and important evidence that activists in the CPUSA,radical unions and Popular Front organizations were quiteconscious of the need to fight "male chauvinism" (and "whitechauvinism"). Of course, this need not (within the contextof an orthodox Marxism) constitute "feminism" as it is nowunderstood. Nonetheless, I would use the term to empha-size that Horowitz's research indicates that Friedan was clear-ly conscious of and wrote extensively ahout the unequal po-sition of women in American society well hefore she beganresearch for The Feminine Mystique.

8. Her biographer, ludith Hennesee, comments, "The mostprofound thing that happened to Betty at Smith was herradicalization. She became committed to Marxist philoso-phy . . . " and she quotes from one of Friedan's editorials,powerfully defending the right to organize unions as a dem-ocratic and American right: "As the Nazis rose to power inGermany they attacked and destroyed labor unions . . . Forfascism to survive all free and democratic institutions musthe prohibited . . . Union . . . members are . . . as American asthe fiinny papers they read, the movies they see, the beerthey drink, the streets they live on; their aims are basic tothe protection and expansion of democracy in America."Judith Hennesee, Betty Friedan: Her Life (Harmondsworth:Penguin, 1999), p. 26.

9.Daniel Horowitz, Betty Friedan and the Making ofTht Fem-inine Mystique.- The American Left, the Cold War, and Mod-

em Feminism (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press,1998), pp. 147-148.10. Horowitz, Ch. 6.U.Horowitz, Ch. 7.12. Horovritz, p. 139.13.Ibid.

14. Horowitz, Ch. 8.

15. See Betty Friedan, "The Way We Were — 1949," in ItChanged My Life: Writings on the Women's Movement (NewYork Dell, 1976), p. 27.

16. He continues and neady summarizes all significant de-tails missing from the popular narrative of her life: "She hasrarely, if ever, puhücly named Federated Press or the UENewsas publications she worked for, or revealed her authorship ofthe 1952 pamphlet on sex discrimination against workingwomen. Nor has she talked ahout the distinctive nature ofthe suburbs in which she lived beginning in 1950s, or howshe saw this innovative program as an answer to McCarthy-ism. She has not noted that she had to excise references toclass and race in what she wrote for popular magazines inthe 1950s, or the way she questioned Cold War consensusin the published versions. When discussing The FeminineMystique, Friedan has not mentioned how, from first draftto final product, she changed its tone and narrowed its fo-cus. Finally, she has offered only the vaguest hints at theconnection between her book and her earlier experienceswith Marxism or progressive feminism. These omissions fi-omher story have enabled Friedan to insist that until 1957 shehad little or no knowledge of women's issues. As late as No-vember 1995, she reiterated key elements of her story, espe-cially her denial that she had any interest in women's issues

before 1957." Horowitz, p. 237.

17. See Hennesee, Friedan.

18. Arguably, despite significant candor in her autobiogra-phy, Friedan continues to present her political commitmentssomewhat ambiguously. For instance, in the following pas-sage, she appears to be a decidedly passive student of radicalpolitics. Of her early days in New York City, Friedan com-ments, "In our classes at the Jeiferson School, we learnedthat communism was a system that put the interests of thepeople first and in which private profit from the exploitationof workers was abolished . . . With Spain as an example, Ialso learned that communism, to protect the revolution fromits enemies, at home and in the world, had to suspend thefreedoms of speech and the press and other democratic rightswe hold dear. We were told that under capitalism, demo-cratic freedoms, like religion, are 'opiates' for the masses, serv-ing the interests of profiteers by keeping the people divertedand quiet. We were told that both political parties in Amer-ica were controlled by big business and their networks, news-papers, the arts, etc." Betty Friedan, Life So Far (New York:Touchstone, 2001), p. 72.

19. For an excellent book which elaborates on the activismof American Communist Party women and their contribu-tion to 1960s feminism see Kate Weigand, Red Feminism:American Communism and the Making of Women's Liberation(Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press,2001).

20. Horowitz, p. 245.

21. Horowitz, pp. 242-43.

22. Horowitz, p. 322, in n. 26.

23. Horowitz, p. 12.

24. Horowitz comments that unlike the voluminous accountsof "troubled conversations" among men of the Old and NewLeft there is an almost complete absence of such discussionsamong women, "Remarkable for their absence are frank dis-cussions among Old and New Left women, one consequenceof which is that most 1960s feminists had littie or no inklingof what their progenitors, even those among them, hadlearned and experienced." Horowitz, p. 249

25. Horowitz, p. 13.

26. Friedan. Li/e, p. 111.

27. Horowitz, p. 134.28. Horowitz, pp. 10-11. For an excellent discussion of thegeneral trends and divisions in approaches to the history ofthe CPUSA and related issues see Mautice Isserman, WhichSide Were You On?: The American Communist Party Duringthe Second World War (Middletown, Conn., Wesleyan Uni-versity Press, 1982), pp. vii-xii.

29. Horowitz, p. 11.

30. Horowitz, pp. 12-13.31. Horovntz, p. 11. As I argue below, I find this definitionsingularly evasive. It fails to indicate the extent to which therelationship between the domestic and international frontsof political battles in this era for CP members, allies, fellow-travelers were inseparable. Consider, for instance, theCPUSA's massive shift in approach during the notoriousperiod of the Hider-Stalin Pact (August 21,1939 -June 22,

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1941) from a militant non-interventionist stance in WorldWar II to an equally militant pro-interventionist stance basedsolely on the dictates of Stalin's regime's needs. For a discus-sion of this see Isserman, Chs. 3-6.

32. Friedan, in a wonderfully evocative passage in Life SoFar which combines candor with concealment, evades thequestion of party membership. She tells a colorful story aboutapplying for party membership — but never actually offersthe punch line. She writes, "One day before I left for Berke-ley, I looked up the address of the Communist party head-quarters in New York and, on my day off from the hospital,went into their dark and dingy building on 13''' Street andannounced I wanted to become a member. The woman atthe desk looked a little surprised. Maybe it was unusual for awell-dressed college girl, in Braemar twin sweater set, pumpsand pearls, to come in out of the cold and announce shewants to be a communist, or maybe it was not. There wasnothing illegal then in America, or even incriminating orsubversive, about being a socialist or communist orTrotsky-ite. Of course, when I went home and told my parents, myfather had a fit. 'Is that what I sent my daughter to Smithfor, to be a communist?' But I talked vrith such pseudo-so-phistication then about everything. Using all those sexualwords I'd now learned in psychology class, while still fight-ing the good backseat battle to keep my virginity intact."Friedan, Life, pp. 57-58.

33. Horowitz, pp. 11-12. Despite Horowitz's exaggerated

definition the evidence is ambiguous here. Certainly, as men-tioned later, Friedan appears to have been very preoccupiedwith a Soviet-American alliance for the post-war years. Inaddition, she wrote about the atom bomb and spying, call-ing for civiUan control of the atom bomb. Moreover,^shedenied the existence of Soviet spying. She referred to "thesmokescreen ofthe Canadian spy scare" (that is, the Gouzen-ko case) from which she spun the notion of a conspiracybeing hatched to prevent the use of atomic energy for peacefulpurposes. Horowitz, 116.

34. Horowitz, p. 115.

35. Horowitz, p. 109.36. This is in the context of a discussion of Friedan's writingabout the Congress of American Women "whose 1946 for-mation Friedan had helped announce in Federated Press.Horowitz refers to this as "the most important Popular Frontorganization of progressive women. It was the Americanbranch of the Women's International Democratic Federa-tion (WIDF)." Horowitz, p. 126.

37. Horovntz, p.l44.

38. Horowitz, p. 150.

39. Horowitz, pp. 150-151.

40. David A. Hacker, "Jewish Life/Jewish Currents," in En-cyclopedia of the American Left, Mari Jo Buhle, Paul Buhleand Dan Georgakas, eds. (New York ÔC London: Garland,1990).

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