Heading Off the Next Social Backlash

Betty Friedan came to town a few weeks ago, and she asked a lot of questions.

The woman who brought us “The Feminine Mystique” more than three decades ago never stops asking the important questions of our time and beyond. Now Friedan, a distinguished visiting professor for USC’s Leadership Institute, is asking for a new vision of society to overcome the polarization she says is threatening our democracy.

What political conservatives have heralded as a revolution, Friedan calls a threat to women, children and the elderly. In a recent letter and a subsequent address at USC, Friedan argued that those groups are threatened with “impoverishment” by the combination of the nation’s current economic climate and the right wing’s “devolution.”

Addressing a crowd of elderly activists, academics, business leaders and members of the entertainment industry, Friedan drew an early morning crowd to USC to discuss the effects of corporate layoffs, the “angry white male” backlash, the danger of the young battling the old, the dismantling of social programs such as school lunches and the political war being waged against the Public Broadcasting System and funding for the arts and humanities.

And that was only the first hour.

In the second hour, she challenged the media. Have the movies and talk radio become too tolerant of the exploitation of violence? Are the feminist and mainstream media igniting a war between the sexes? Do the media focus on women as victims and strong women as monsters?

Before her remarks, Friedan was described by Warren Bennis, chairman of the Leadership Institute, as someone who keeps cresting. He cited her latest book about America’s older people, “Fountain of Age,” as yet another milestone. And, in what seems like one breath, Friedan--without notes--seamlessly ties together the crisis as she sees it: “We need a new vision of community in order to transcend the polarization of identity politics.”

The polarization created by the needs of minorities, women, gays and the elderly, she says, is being manipulated by those she sarcastically describes as the “Contract Against America” types. “They are making government itself the new enemy. And the powerless and the poor are being blamed for the country’s ills,” she said.

One reason, she said, is the 20% decrease of income for college-educated white males. And its effect was underscored by her recent experience teaching a class of future business executives in USC’s MBA program. “I became aware of waves of hostility that I hadn’t felt in a long time, and I was puzzled,” she said. So she asked students to explain their feelings.

“They were worried that the good jobs may not be there for them, and they were angry,” she recalled. “So I told them don’t take it out on women and African Americans--it’s not their fault if downsizing is the way business deals with basic economic change.”

At the USC leadership conference, she said: “Interestingly, the gap is closing between men and women because men are earning less, not because women are earning more.” And that, Friedan believes, will create a new backlash against women--especially those in their 50s.

Friedan says she wants no part of politics that pit one group against another. Men and women must work toward a society in which the common good is the central agenda, she said.

Speaking from Washington, D.C., by phone after the event, Friedan said: “We can’t make the same old noises. There has to be a new movement which transcends the polarization and brings people together.”

The last time Friedan asked some big questions, the country was never the same. Or as professor Bennis wryly cautioned: “Fasten your seat belts.”