Women with her brains who were 10-20 years her senior actually spearheaded the second wave of feminism. They'd gone to college, gotten the obligatory "Mrs. Degree" along with the baccalaureate, and had settled into suburban domesticity and had either developed a fondness for pills and gin or had gotten the last kid into first grade and gone to grad school.
Then, armed with master's, PhD, even a few MDs, they went forth and found out they were just dumb, boring housewives and there were precious few job offers. My engineer mother got stonewalled and got her teaching certificate. 2 years later, she was the principal.
Betty Friedan, whose book "The Feminine Mystique" put the boredom and discontent into print, was born in 1921. Gloria Steinem in 1934. Most of the feminist pioneers were born in the 20s and 30s, not in the 40s and 50s. We Boomers just came of age at the time they were upsetting patriarchy's apple cart and embraced their leadership fully, if we had any brains at all. Hillary Clinton had plenty of brains.
We refused to put up with the lousy deal that suited men so well but we didn't start the process, nor will we finish it.
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