And Wendy Wasserstein. Here go our feminist foremothers, leaving this planet but also leaving behind a legacy of female independence and empowerment. Friedan's crucial work The Feminine Mystique changed generations of women's lives simply by letting housewives tell the truth, that they felt bored, trapped and unhappy, and that everyone around them ascribed these feelings to their own personal shortcomings rather than something central to the insitution of marriage.

The personal is political, says Friedan, and that simply means what we experience as individual women actually relates to larger cultural forces. What an amazing and liberating concept. All of the body loathing that we feel, for example, is not because there really is something wrong with our bodies, or because we aren't strong enough to discipline ourselves, but because the politics of gender today dictate unnatural thinness.

Knowing these things enables us to resist them. And in honor of Betty Friedan, today I will reject self-loathing and will refuse to lie to myself about what I am feeling, even if that makes people in this sexist world uncomfortable. The truth shall set us free. Rest in peace, Betty.