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You Have Nothing to Lose But Your Yoga Mats: "Betty Friedan always put me in mind of the rich guy who complains about the sky-high property taxes he pays on his several sprawling estates. Now Friedan, the original desperate housewife, author of The Feminine Mystique and The Second Sex, has passed away at 85. From her obituary in the NY Times: The portrait she painted was chilling. For a typical woman of the 1950’s, even a college-educated one, life centered almost exclusively on chores and children. She cooked and baked and bandaged and chauffeured and laundered and sewed. She did the mopping and the marketing and took her husband’s gray flannel suit to the cleaners. She was happy to keep his dinner warm till he came wearily home from downtown. The life she led, if educators, psychologists and the mass media were to be believed, was the fulfillment of every women’s [sp] most ardent dream. Yet she was unaccountably tired, impatient with the children, craving something that neither marital sex nor extramarital affairs could satisfy. Her thoughts sometimes turned to suicide. She consulted a spate of doctors and psychiatrists, who prescribed charity work, bowling and bridge. If those failed, there were always tranquilizers to get her through her busy day. Many more career and lifestyle opportunities are available to women today "