I Knew One Thing. I Did Not

Over And Over Again, Stories In Women's Magazines Insist That Women Can Know Fulfillment Only At The Moment Of Giving Birth To A Child. They Deny The Years When She Can No Longer Look Forward To Giving Birth, Even If She Repeats The Act Over And Over Again. In The Feminine Mystique, There Is No Other Way For A Woman To Dream Of Creation Or Of The Future. There Is No Other Way She Can Even Dream About Herself, Except As Her Children's Mother, Her Husband's Wife.

All Year There Have Been These Cover Stories That The Women's Movement Is Dead And About The Death Of Feminism And The Post-feminist Generation Of Young Women Who Don't Identify With Feminism - And Then We Have The Biggest March Ever Of Women In Washington. More People Than Had Ever Marched For Anything - Not Only More Women, But More People.

This Idea That The Employment Of Women, The Movement Of Women Outside The Home Into The Work World, And Their Demand For Equality Is Somehow Responsible For Increasing Juvenile Delinquency Or The Increase In Divorce Rate, Is Just So Much Bullshit.

Who Knows What Women Can Be When They Are Finally Free To Become Themselves? Who Knows What Women's Intelligence Will Contribute When It Can Be Nourished Without Denying Love?

Each Woman Is Made To Feel It Is Her Own Cross To Bear If She Can't Be The Perfect Clone Of The Male Superman And The Perfect Clone Of The Feminine Mystique.