In the midst of our nation’s mourning of the beloved Coretta Scott King, Betty Friedan, another luminous female figure in the pursuit of civil rights died Saturday on her 85th birthday.

Friedan, upon writing “The Feminine Mystique” in 1963, could have been solely responsible for sparking feminism’s second wave. She was also the first person to publicly expose ‘the problem that has no name’ — the feeling of worthlessness many women experienced because of the intensely limited ways in which society viewed women in the mid-twentieth century. When Friedan assessed the general discontent of suburban housewives and dared to ask if housekeeping was all women were good for, women everywhere began to answer, “No!”

Since the days of “The Feminine Mystique,” the women’s rights faction has swelled with the force of an exceptionally politically-critical generation. What then were radical notions of gender, equality and civil rights pertaining to women became revolutionary thought processes that broadened the range of possibilities in American women’s lives. Friedan fought alongside other feminists for equal pay for women, maternity leave and legal abortion, among other issues. Like King, she was able to see our society make great leaps in the sphere of civil liberties before she died.

Unfortunately, some feminist scholars are beginning to wonder if Friedan’s legacy might disappear right along with her.

Forty-three years after “The Feminine Mystique” was published, women continue to be framed within damaging gender roles.

Women still sell so well as sexual objects that our ever-more-visual culture has little place to hide from the pressure of these increasingly younger, skinnier and more pervasive images. According to government census data, females still earn just more than three quarters as much as males, the political administration in power is still condemning birth control and the business world’s general attitude toward working mothers is anything but hospitable. On top of this, women’s studies programs are rapidly losing ground in many educational institutions. As far as much of the new generation is concerned, feminism has run its course and the momentum behind a gender-specific revolution is wavering timidly in the winds of our society’s apathy.

What is most ironic about this situation is ‘the problem that has no name,’ which Friedan spoke of. It has manifested itself in its indifferent, lethargic manner all over again in our society, just in another form. All the symptoms are there: the growing generation’s boredom with life, sex morphing back into a strangely joyless national compulsion and many of us still asking ourselves, “Is this all?”

In memory of Betty Freidan, the initiator of a movement that has benefited all of us, we should remember and reinstitute as best we can the morals behind her most celebrated work. By questioning the ideals and limitations imposed on us by society, we can truly challenge the feminine mystique, and keep Freidan’s precious legacy alive.