How Betty Friedan Got It Wrong and How Her Ilk Changed My Life
I was in my late thirties when I became a birdwatcher. Which might be considered an odd statement in this introduction to my eulogy, such as it is, to Betty Friedan and the other "pioneers" of the women's movement.
Perhaps it was the peace and quiet of sitting on a shady porch while watching the wildlife live their happy lives on a spit of land that was such a beacon for both flying and mammalian animals that I nicknamed the lot "Critter Cove". Perhaps it was the thud of dawn breaking over my marble head as I watched the animals in my surround make their houses with naught but twigs and protect their families with no weapons. Perhaps it was because I was, then in solid middle-age, was finally at a point in my life where every minute was not a constant rush to get here, go there, work overtime, pick up the teenager, bring home the bacon and fry it up in a pan.
But during those bird watching moments I began to realize how I'd spent a lifetime being absolutely wrong about all involved in being a woman in today's society.For during my early twenties until those more peaceful mid-40's, this born-again conservative was rabidly liberal and I was an especially vehement feminist. In fact me and a friend dressed from head to toe in green and actually went to D.C. for Ronald Reagan's inauguration.
"Join us in protest," the literature read. "Dress in green and show this new president that women will not be reduced to second class citizenry."
Well we saw not one other soul dressed in green that day, male or female. Still we marched all over D.C., myself determined to wend my way to the site of the inauguration speech that Mr. Reagan would see my fine self dressed in green and prepared to stomp all over him should he get any notions about taking away my "rights".
I hailed the day the Roe vs. Wade decision came down from the Supreme Court, considering it a new era when women are finally released from the prisons of their bodies. I could not believe that the ERA did not pass across the states of this country. How could this country not believe in the inborn right of women to be equal, I used to lament.
Yes I was a pretty, intelligent, curvy and lusty young female of my day. I had a college degree earned through thirteen grueling years of night school. I always held responsible high-paying positions and indeed, was myself the recipient of high-paying jobs that my company, mighty AT&T before its breakup, urged females to take as a bow to the political correctness of the era. I took a position of Quality Control Inspector for the company and hated every minute of it. Before me, that department had been all males. When I showed up on the scene they treated me like so much dirt and even sabotaged my efforts to learn the job duties.
My picture should have been under the phrase "liberated female".
Yet I was not happy. I was angry, bitter and desperately disliked all males in my life as they were my oppressors. At least as I saw it.
Now don't go thinking there were no heterosexual male partners in my life. No indeed. I had boyfriends everywhere, all nationalities, all shapes, all sizes. One of my greatest sports of the time was dating a fellow then breaking his heart. Oh my, the incredible joy this gave me. And I was attractive enough to catch them too. Of course at the time I didn't know this. Females spend their lives thinking they are ugly, too fat, and in possession of zero taste. I look at pictures of my younger self and consider how beautiful I was. I was no more beautiful than most other young females but they too likely thought they were ugly. Hey, I have a beautiful daughter who doesn't know it because women don't think like that. Someday she too will gaze at a younger picture of herself and wonder why on earth she never realized how attractive she was.
This constant obsession with my looks is part of the reason I disliked my "brothers" so intensely. Because I knew that no matter how much money I made, no matter how much education I got the very hard way, no matter how many people I supervised or talents I possessed, that man would only be attracted to me if I was pretty. "But you said you were pretty," the reader might wonder. Well yes. Yes I was. First, as stated, I didn't think I was pretty and still assert that females don't consider themselves attractive until they get old and wonder where it all went. Second, on those rare occasions when I thought I looked nice I was still bitter. Bitter because the fellows might crowd around me but they weren't crowding around me because I was smart, had a fine sense of humor and could, well that bacon and the pan thing.
Add to this weirdness going on in my young life, I was living in the era of Women's Liberation and I immersed myself in the cause with a passion. Every male in my surround was a male chauvinist and I was not shy about telling boss, co-worker, even dates, this very fact. I devoured "MS" magazine, and was, in fact, one of their premier subscribers.
Betty Friedan, Betty Rollins, Gloria Steinham...these women were my heroines.
Then I started watching birds.
Indeed by the time the birds taught me a thing or two I was married to the man I am still married to, my daughter was grown and on her own, and life began to take a peaceful turn.
The male bird would come in and search the area for a fine territory. Then he would sing all manner of songs to attract a mate. The females, who often migrate later than the males, would consider the many males singing on their established territories and choose a mate with a territory best suited to raising the nestlings. Human females too want a fellow with a decent job though men seem to not only resent this, many don’t seem to get it.
It is the female bird that generally builds the nest and many a time I watched a female robin mold and design a waterproof nest using only twigs and yard debris brought to her by her mate. If the male robin brought an unusable twig the female would scold noisily and throw the useless object to the ground.
It didn't matter if the bird couples were wrens, robins, finches, blue jays. It was always the same. The male found and defended the territory. The female built the nest and kept her mate in line.
I began to wonder, as I watched the busy birds, if God wasn't trying to tell me something.
These startling revelations began to filter through my head during the time in my life when I was finally settled into a comfortable domestic routine. With a fine husband who loved me very much.
This is where Betty Friedan got it wrong. Because now solidly in a handsome middle-age, I realize that males and females are different. And there's a reason for those differences, a reason having everything to do with survival of the species and continuation of life on the planet.
For some thirty-five years of my life I ignored those differences, pooh-poohed them as propaganda dreamt up by male chauvinists who would have me barefoot and pregnant. That's the message I got from the Women's Lib movement.
They were wrong.
There is an inherent difference between men and women and the difference is not just physical. Females are the keepers of the “nest” and no, such an instinct is in no way demeaning as Friedan would have it. Not to mention the many technological advances enabling the management and maintenance of the domicile to be a relatively simple thing. A woman lucky enough to stay home with her small children is a lucky woman indeed.
Ah, the children. Why yes, a child needs a full-time caregiver at least until school age. Ideally the caregiver would be the female but I’m still liberated enough to allow that it could be the male of our species. Oh, and children need a father. Betty Friedan and her friends fostered a complete disdain for fathers and the role they have in children’s lives.
Come twilight I’d watch the male robin go to the area where his children were well-hidden for the night after fledging the nest. He’d perch on a branch over the scared baby bird and he’d sing to them. Thus comforting them that parents are nearby and teaching them the song of their species. The baby males would one day need to know that song that they may sing it; the baby females would need to know the song as the call of a mate.
The Women’s Liberation movement was not without accomplishments. Though they never did manage to make men stop looking at women as sex objects completely, I’m a lot smarter and understand the innate call of the human species.
It’s an inborn thing, being a female; being a male. With all of Betty Friedan’s rhetoric, this fact has never changed.
A little bird told me.
More Editorials HERE
Missing the Shore Birds
It’s been three years now since husband and I moved from our Maryland homestead, nicknamed “Critter Cove”, to our new home in the swamps of Delaware. Known as “Serendipity Shore”.
While we love our little spot of land in the First state, there is nowhere near the bird activity on this lot as there was on Critter Cove.
Although Delaware birds get hungry, make no mistake, and are only too happy to partake of seed offered at the feeders.
It’s the shore birds we miss.
For Critter Cove was land placed on a few drops of water that they called a cove off of the Chesapeake Bay. Yes it was but a puddle of that vaunted Chesapeake Bay water but the water birds loved it.
We regularly had Blue Herons, Swans, Ducks, Geese, and one of my own precious favorites, the Red-Belted Kingfisher.
Though Delaware is a swamp, there are no water birds visiting our land as listed above.
So when I spotted the Great Blue Heron flying from some place on my Delaware lot to parts unknown, I sat still and mused. I haven’t seen a Great Blue Heron in ages. The sight of that guy flying low and straight over my land-locked Serendipity Shore gave me great joy.
A few days later husband leaves for work. A few minutes later he phones me at home from his cell.
“Guess what I just saw,” I heard his excited voice say over the phone lines. “A Great Blue Heron,” husband continued. “He took off from somewhere right when I closed the front door.”
My mind raced. I didn’t want to mention my own sighting of the Blue Heron a few days prior because husband was too excited at his own morning sight of the big bird.
Later that day I did tell husband about the day I saw the Heron and pondered if maybe there wasn’t some nest building going on somewhere on our lot.
Great Blue Herons did regularly fish the waters of our small pool of water behind Critter Cove. We’ve never seen one build a nest. As I understand, Great Blue Herons build their nests in trees, well off of the waterline.
I told husband that it was too early for nesting but still, it was odd. Two days we see this beautiful bird, both times flying from somewhere on our lot and as a result of our human activity. I can only hope this bird likes it here. Because to have a Blue Heron live with us, maybe raise a family on our lot…would make it almost as great as Critter Cove.
In addition to our beloved water birds, Critter Cove also had a fine bounty of land birds. With our location on a water way, such as it was, the migrations and searches for territory brought all sorts of birds to our lot. Here in Delaware…not so much.
Although we do have a fine collection of pine siskins here in this area with so many evergreen trees. And Goldfinches are here by the hundreds. So our new eco-system has provided birds we didn’t see so much in Critter Cove. The variety of bird visitors, however, simply isn’t as plentiful as it was on our Maryland lot.
So the other day when I heard the “yuk,yuk,yuk” sound I remembered it well. It’s a sound like Curly of the Three Stooges made when he’d done something impossibly clever. Though this was a bird making this noise and I had to listen well and search my middle-aged memory bank for its identification.
It was a white-breasted nuthatch and soon enough I found the little guy. He was scurrying up and down the oak trees as is the bird’s wont. For twenty minutes I sat and marveled at the sight of this bird. It was the first time I’d seen a nuthatch on our Delaware lot. A bird that was plentiful, and quite vocal, on our Maryland lot.
It was deja-vu all over again.
More Gardens and Bird posts HERE
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