The fall o the Berlin Wall -Adieu Betty Friedan

The other day I was watching a documentary on the fall of the wall of  Berlin ,it was interesting since I was also reading about it in a book  by Ian mcEwan "black dogs", the narrators' father in law an ex communist calls him and simply tells him to pack his bags "make a diversion. it's a historical moment", "I began to feel an impatient excitement, a need for adventure after days of somestic duties.." This is a man writing!

The fall of the Berlin wall was seen through the eyes of   the chief of security at  check point charlie, it seems that there was much chaos at the point of decision. The documentary shows the German chief of security coming home as usual, his wife a stern looking housewife greets him at the door with her efficient expression she hands him his house shoes and prepares a meal, she puts his feet up on a stool and hands him an after dinner drink while she continues to do the dishes and rid the house of dust..he is relaxing in front of the t.v .as the images of the Berlin wall begin to register, suddenly the phone rings, wifey hands him the phone, he answers with his family name, as is the way in Europe (one of our first fights was over  that..i insisted on my right to remain anonymous when answering the phone, my husband insisted it is rude and one should always say one's name when you answer the phone, my sister in law once hung up on me when i only said hello when picking up the phone)  It seems that the head of security has to leave his happy home and go back  to work-the wall is about to come down..

Whats' the connection?Plenty..it's the way of life in Europe, the official way things are done which made the collapse of the Berlin wall   so memorable to view, the tamed and in control Germans (except after a few beers ) doing something so spontaneous such as walking towards  the wall, then some people grab an iron poll they are hitting the stones, the wall that has divided the city and separated the communist east from the capitalist west  is about to come down! families and friends who were separated will meet..i all of the sudden felt very moved, almost cried, usually i reserve my tears at Germans and walls for the holocust documentaries but this one really overwhelmed me..you see people just walking past the place where the wall which divide their city and lives stood , people walking from the east meeting people walking from the west and all this is done at a gradual pace ,first they are just walking like an after dinner stroll then they are in each others' arms, brothers meeting eachother at  check point charlie.

And the head of security finds himself out of a job. He ends up being unemployed till finally he finds a job nursing.

The man so finely catered to by his dutiful wife is now tending to the needs of others-now that is what i call  justice.

What about Betty?She is moving into the focus point right away.

On February 4th 2006  on her 85th birthday Betty Friedan a much contraversal hero of the women liberation organization in the U.S.

had died of heart failure.

Born as  Betty Naomi Goldstein in 1921 to a Miriam ,like me,(the mother's name)  she grew up and went to college(like me) and then gave up a brilliant career to be a mother of  3 to an unappreciating husband (like me)till she saw the light which resulted in her famous ground breaking  writing "The feminineMystique"in 1963(i was born in 1964, almost like me-i saw the light of the world ,she saw the end of the tunnel)  

"The problem  that has no name-which is simply the fact that American women are kept from growing to their full human capacitites-is taking a far greater toll on the physical and mental health of our country than any known disease."

             "The feminie mystique" 1963

"she cooked and baked and bandaged and chauffered and laundered and sewed.she did the mopping and the marketing and took her husband's gray flannel to the cleaners. She was happy to keep his dinner warm till he came home wearily from downtown.(*the checkpoint charlie guy)The life she led was to believed the fulfillment of every women's most ardent dream yet she was unaccountably tired,impatient with the children,craving something neither marital sex nor extramarital affairs could satisfy(*Amen!)

Her thoughts sometimes turned to suicide. She consulted a spate of doctors and psychiatrists who presecribed charity work,bowling and bridge. If those failed there was always tranquillizers to get her through her busy day."

Another snap shot, Tel-Aviv 2000 -I have come to show my youngest to my family and celebrate his first year with my mother, also escaped a very outraged husband-forgot what the fight was all about-

I am now sitting in the indoor secured playground in the shopping center next to my mother's apartment in the center of  Tel-Aviv , to get in you have to pass several Russian looking guards..who check your bag and I.D. ..I am sitting on the bench next to a small plastic slide it is 10:00 a.m. a warm April as desert winds dry my sweat, i have left my warm European sweaters at home,my son is climbing the plastic slide and showing off to the few toddlers around, he has a winning smile,a great big dimple in his left cheek , a few blond hairs like a small baby chick, he claps for himself, bravo me!   I am so proud of him and want to show off too, to tell the other mothers that he made his first steps in the Israeli  airport so Grandma Miriam could see! How much more proud can you be?!...but where are the mothers?                                     I hear Russian and Philippine..and come to realize i am the only mother in the playground, where are the other mothers i so longed to converse with? A small chat with the Russian bleached blond middle aged one and i realize that all the mothers are at work, the women here are working in child care..

"Some  people think i'm saying women of the world unite-you have nothing to lose but your men,it's not true. You have nothing to lose but your Vaccuum cleaner.."

                                  (Betty Friedan 1963 in "life")

I feel  very useless everytime i come to Israel, almost all the mothers are working and full time , my mother relives me (by force) of any domestic chores i could imagine doing(at teh age of 70 plus!)  and somehow i feel guilty sunbathing with my single friends on the beach..in Switzerland this is different ,in  the average Swiss family you can find the mother tending to all the domestic duties without a word of complaint, this is after all their chosen lot..an exception is in the Jewish community  where i belong..there almost all the women work and leave the children to child care workers..

I watch the small blue bellied bird toiling on the tree ,searching for worms in winter..when i had come to Switzerland my husband made me a promise, "You have children and then you don't have to work", after all his mother (a.k.a. the church lady) a native to Holland was also home when he came home from school ,till he came back from university..i was working in a vocational high school in Tel-Aviv fearful of bombs catching mimicabs to the central bus station every day to my work place behind the bus depot..standing in the middle of a teenager dispute, correcting endless exams, searching for "lost" pupils, i could live without that, i had thought at the time..switzerland, paradise, "you'll be a millionaire",a pupil from an ambitious working class announced when i told one class i was leaving at the end of the year..already with child ..

Yes, there was also  the Mediterranian ocean, lapping at my feet, i was living a street away from its spleandor ,my negging mother (i love you mom, still) my   single friends -endless talks of finding love, my dog Gemma, my handyman brother-what is it this time-his kids-my maiden aunt (advice ,advice)...swimming in the ocean, running into everyone you went to high school and university with pushing a baby carriage or already holding hands with a child ..couples holding hands on the promenade. typing poems on my sister's Olivetti .. .that too..

all for him? not exactly there were fringe benefits  i thought as i carried groceries by myself up the three floors of my new  two room apartment in Zurich loaded with his books, his records, his unwashed cloths..

One day the old lady downstair had hid the key to the washroom as i had to wash the baby's cloths..yes, there was a washroom common to all the tenants.."I thought you could work in Zikana-the local old peoples' home-they're jewish they'll take you" mused my husband ...as i arrived..leaving behind the secure pension of the Israeli board of education..the next ten years raced by ,now my husband demands i work or else..he will cut off my psychiatrist and dentist bills-all the result of my child bearing years-teeth and mind gone to the dogs..

So Betty, whose name i heard of in psych class at university in my gender comaprison class , i must say goodbye ,got to go to a parent-teacher talk at my son's school and then to my daughter's theater ,she gets to play the mother in the school play as she is the tallest girl            I I don't really mind being a housewife with a masters degree but sometimes "Good days-aint got no rain ,Bad days i sit and think of things that might have been"(slip sliding awas, Paul Simon )

I think you opened some can of worms Betty, but not for everyone,somewhere near the Berlin wall housewives will still put their husband's feet on the table and open a beer..

but not this one.