That certainly was a revolutionary idea when The Feminine Mystique was published in the early 1960s.

By the time I read it in college (late 1980s), it almost seemed quaint and a bit antiquated. I can remember thinking damn that book is long "and your point is?"

Yet as I grew older, I began to appreciate that I was indeed raised to be my own person, to value my own happiness...and I began to really understand that this was not always the case for women in American society. It was your work that helped to make this a given, rather than some radical concept.

Rest in peace, my friend.