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Jul

9

Marilyn French, RIP: “Men stumble over pebbles, never over mountains”


I’d say, not unless you’re Mark Sanford in the Appalachian Trail but that would just be too off-color.

Who was Marilyn French? This BlogHer post does a great job at describing what was embraced, questioned and adored about the battles she fought and the path created for others by the work she did. For a simpler review, you can check out this article and a list of quotes attributed to her.

Bookslut published an exclusive interview w/French, posthumously, here.  The comments in this post at Shakesville are also illuminating.

This passage from the NYT obit seems particularly apt now, even though it was said literally decades ago:

Gloria Steinem, a close friend, compared the impact of the book [The Women's Room, published in 1977] on the discussion surrounding women’s rights to the one that Ralph Ellison’s “Invisible Man” had had on racial equality 25 years earlier.

“It was about the lives of women who were supposed to live the lives of their husbands, supposed to marry an identity rather than become one themselves, to live secondary lives,” Ms. Steinem said in an interview Sunday. “It expressed the experience of a huge number of women and let them know that they were not alone and not crazy.”

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By Jill Miller Zimon at 11:24 pm July 9th, 2009 in Gender, Politics, Sexism, Social Issues, Women, Writing, leadership 

Comments

One Response to “Marilyn French, RIP: “Men stumble over pebbles, never over mountains””

  1. 1 Matthew on July 9th, 2009 11:43 pm

    The type of hate she espoused toward 1/2 of world’s population and her goal of eradicating from our culture everything that is masculine does not particularly impress me.

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