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Young feminists celebrate women's history

By JACKIE L. FRANZIL

WASHINGTON, March 10 (UPI) -- As women throughout the United States honor influential U.S. females for National Women's History Month this March, Betty Friedan, a renowned feminist activist and author, announced that more progress must be made in the quest for gender equality.

"It's a powerful, magnificent revolution that I have been a part of," Friedan said during an appearance at the Library of Congress Thursday. "It's not over."

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As part of the library's 2005 National Women's History Month celebrations, Friedan spoke to a large audience, saying, "Women don't yet have the voice that they deserve, the power that they deserve."

According to Kim Gandy, president of the National Organization for Women, an organization that was co-founded by Friedan, young women today absolutely expect equal treatment. This contrasts from Gandy's own youth, when women were shocked when they did receive equality.

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"Young women now are such amazing activists," said Gandy.

NOW created a young feminist's task force of 14 young women throughout the country.

"They bring so many things to the discussion," said Gandy.

Gandy said that the newest generation of feminists had "a tremendous ability and willingness to connect the dots on different issues," adding that young women today are "really seeing women now in a holistic way."

She credits early feminists, such as Friedan, with starting the second wave of feminism in the United States, which forced women to start "talking about the personal being political."

Gandy said it was important to honor women with National Women's History Month, since women's issues are still largely ignored in school curriculums.

"We're still largely left out of history," Gandy said. "There are a lot of people that contributed to advancing good in the world."

According to Friedan, women in the United States are still brought up to believe that power is a bad word. "But power is not a bad word," she said.

"Women ought to have more power in America than they are using or assuming," Friedan said in her Library of Congress talk, pointing out the low percentage of women elected to Congress.

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"Women should assume 50 percent of the power," said Friedan. "They don't. Not even here. Not yet."

Friedan said that research shows that the addition of just two women to a state legislature would begin to change the agenda.

"There's much more power in the women of America than they're using. Much more," Friedan said.

However, Gandy said that the percentage of women represented in Congress has gone up seven-fold since 1992.

"We've gone from 2 percent to 14 percent since the 1992 election," said Friedan. "We're headed in the right direction. It's not going as fast as it should."

NOW has tried to increase the number of women in politics by training them how to run for office, contributing to directly to campaigns and by encouraging women to contribute on their own.

"Women have to put their money where their politics are," said Gandy.

Part of the problem, Gandy said, was that women earn less than men, so they don't have as much money to contribute to political campaigns.

"A woman with a college degree earns the same as a man with a high school diploma," Gandy said.

However, Friedan said that more women are earning college degrees, which may eventually even out the gender gap.

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"You can safely predict that in not too many years they will be half of the talent pool," said Friedan.

According to Gilbert M. Sandate, director of the library's office of workforce diversity, females hold four out of the eight executive positions in the library.

Sandate said that while women hold 50 percent of the library's executive power, more can always be done to improve gender equality.

"We've past the time that women are going to be told meekly what to do by men," said Friedan.

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