Ding dong the witch is dead

Wendy McElroy on the late, unlamented Betty Friedan:

Friedan’s assessment of the housewife may well have been instrumental in the decades-long devaluation of women who chose that option. She wrote, “Housewives are mindless and thing-hungry…Housework is peculiarly suited to the capabilities of feeble-minded girls; it can hardly use the abilities of a woman of average or normal human intelligence.”

That pretty much sums up why working women feel superior to homemakers, and why homemakers used to feel the need to apologize for or somehow dress up their occupation. Because, of course, it requires so much more ability and intelligence to arrange pretty pictures in a Powerpoint demonstration or work out UPS charges and send the same three invoice forms out to your company’s client base.

And as for the smart ones… like we really need more lawyers generating income by interfering with the productive classes. Or more high-priced consultants getting paid in order to give the executives cover for their screw-ups.

Friedan was a Marxist, a myth-maker and a moron. I’ll urinate on her grave if I ever happen to stumble across it. She was one of the most ruinous public figures of the 20th century and it’s truly a shame her mother wasn’t an abortionette like the vast majority of her followers.