Betty Friedan, who helped launch the contemporary women's movement, died of congestive heart failure on Saturday, February 4th at the age of 85. When she was young, she was active in Marxist and Jewish radical circles. She attended Smith College. In 1963, she wrote the groundbreaking book The Feminine Mystique. In 1966, she and 27 other women and men founded NOW, the National Organization for Women. During her time as president of NOW (from 1966 to 1970), the organization lobbied the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to enforce laws against sex discrimination in employment, and to ban ads that were segregated by sex. In 1968, NOW became the first national organization to endorse the legalization of abortion.

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