By AUDREY FISCHER
With a theme of "Women Change America," a month long celebration of National Women's History Month at the Library of Congress began with a conversation with pioneer women's rights activist Betty Friedan.

Betty Friedan - Michaela McNichol
"I can tell from your warm reception that the battle for women's rights is being well-documented" [at the Library of Congress], said Friedan during the March event in the Mumford Room.
"It's a powerful, magnificent revolution that has changed lives, and it's not over," she added.
In Friedan's opinion, the women's rights movement of the 1960s could only have happened in America, where there is "an assumption of equality and the belief that anything is possible."
But, according to Friedan, before the 1960s the notion of full equality under the law had not been applied by women to their own situations. She was a founder of the National Organization for Women, the group that spearheaded the campaign for an Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution in the early 1970s.
Friedan published her observations on the status of women in America in "The Feminine Mystique" (1963), a controversial best-selling book that galvanized thousands of women into changing their situations. Her book explored the dissatisfaction of many American housewives. It dared to discuss "the problem that has no name"—a feeling that something was missing that could not be found in the conventional roles of housewife and mother.
"When I read the book in the 1960s I had two small children, but it prompted me to go back to school and prepare for a career," said Peggy Pearlstein, who moderated the program. Pearlstein is the area specialist in the Hebraic Section of the Library's African and Middle Eastern Division.
Like Pearlstein, many American women began to explore options outside the home after reading Friedan's book, and the result was nothing short of a revolution. Today approximately half of the work force is female (women comprise 51 percent of the Library's staff) and a growing number of women are chief executive officers of major companies. More are seeking degrees in law and medicine.
"We're moving in the right direction," said Friedan, "but we're not there yet. In some cases, women contribute 50 percent to the household income, "but do men do 50 percent of the housework? Do men do 50 percent of the child care?" she asked.
"Women own a lot of the wealth in this country, but do they control it?" she asked. "Women ought to have more power than they are assuming or using."
"Women don't yet have a voice," she said, noting that although women comprise 51 percent of the population, they constitute only 12 percent of Congress. "That's not something to brag about. It's pitiful," she declared to applause.
One key to power, she said, is being able to influence or control the political agenda, and one reason there aren't more women elected to Congress is that they don't have the money to get elected. "It takes money, money, money," she said.
"I'm not saying there should be a Women's Party, but it's important to have women's caucuses in each of the political parties," she said.
Friedan said she thinks the time for a woman president is now. According to Friedan, the addition of just two women to a state legislature can make a huge difference in the legislative agenda. "When women get power, they will use it for life"—social issues, such as health care, housing and education, that will benefit all people—children and the elderly, women and men, the poor.
"Nobody talks about the poor any more," she said. "The discrepancy between the haves and have-nots is increasing, and that is not good." She noted that women are often at the bottom of the economic ladder.
"You have your own power," she said, speaking to Library staff members in the audience. "And I assume you are raising your consciousness or you wouldn't have invited me to speak," she joked. "So use it in your work, by choosing what to record and by including the deeds of women. And have a good time of it."
Audrey Fischer is a public affairs specialist in the Library's Public Affairs Office.