First Things RSS Feed - Jessica Gress-Wright https://www.firstthings.com/author/jessica-gress-wright en-us Copyright 2025 First Things. All Rights Reserved. ft@firstthings.com (The Editors) ft@firstthings.com (The Editors) Mon, 20 Jan 2025 16:52:48 -0500 https://d2201k5v4hmrsv.cloudfront.net/img/favicon-196.png First Things RSS Feed Image https://www.firstthings.com/rss/author/jessica-gress-wright 60 Feminism: Beyond the Second Stage https://www.firstthings.com/article/1990/10/feminism-beyond-the-second-stage https://www.firstthings.com/article/1990/10/feminism-beyond-the-second-stage Mon, 01 Oct 1990 00:00:00 -0400 Barbara Bush finally got to speak at the Wellesley commencement last June, despite protests from 150 seniors that she did not embody the qualities that Wellesley seeks to instill in its students because she had dropped out of Smith to become a wife and mother. At about the same time, another Smithie from the forties spoke during Smith’s own commencement weekend. Betty Friedan, the mother of American feminism, gave a rousing speech to a packed audience. She began by saying that “We have some real problems in feminism.” She said that something was seriously wrong with feminism today, when a group of Wellesley seniors could repudiate Barbara Bush as their commencement speaker simply because she had chosen to be a full-time wife and mother. She reminded all of us in the audience that Barbara Bush hadn’t really had any choice in the forties except to drop out of Smith to put George through law school. She described for us how she and other “first-stage” feminists fought to restore a fully legitimate place for women in the professions and in careers, a place they had won in the twenties and thirties but lost again as the post-war “feminine mystique” tightened its grip.

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