The author of "The Feminine Mystique" died yesterday. This is from the New York Times:

Betty Friedan, the feminist crusader and author whose searing first book, "The Feminine Mystique," ignited the contemporary women’s movement in 1963 and as a result permanently transformed the social fabric of the United States and countries around the world, died yesterday, her 85th birthday, at her home in Washington.

Betty Friedan, a founder of the National Organization for Women, led a march in Manhattan in 1970 for the Women’s Strike for Equality.The cause was congestive heart failure, said Emily Bazelon, a family spokeswoman.

With its impassioned yet clear-eyed analysis of the issues that affected women’s lives in the decades after World War II