Rigoberta Menchu is a hot item on the California lecture circuit and for $20 one can hear the 1992 recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize hold forth. Newspapers are hailing the Guatemalan – a poor woman whose property was stolen by the government and whose brother was burned to death by the army – as outlined in her book I, Rigoberta Menchu. It’s an inspiring story, but it has a problem. Not much of it is true.
Rigoberta Menchu was not a poor Mayan peasant; rather, she was from a family with some means, more than able to provide her with a good education. Her family was not deprived of property by a ruling elite descended from Europe; rather, they lost it in a dispute with other indigenous people. Her brother was not burned to death, as she wrote. She was also very cozy with violent Marxist guerrillas. These truths emerged in Rigoberta Menchu and the Story Of All Poor Guatemalans, a 1999 book by left-wing anthropologist David Stoll. Menchu’s own book was originally and revealingly titled, in Spanish, My Name is Rigoberta Menchu and This is How My Conscience was Raised.
Menchu attempts to explain the inaccuracies by saying that she was writing the story of all poor Guatemalans, a weak excuse for deliberate falsification but one that many journalists have unfortunately accepted. Something similar is true of another icon, Betty Friedan, author of the 1963 book The Feminine Mystique.
In the book, Friedan portrays herself as a downtrodden suburban housewife who discovered feminism at a Smith College reunion while learning of the dissatisfaction of her classmates who found traditional roles at odds with their careers. That’s not how it happened.
Friedan did indeed live an affluent life, supported by her husband, Carl, with a maid, in a house overlooking the Hudson River. But her antipathy to the American household, which she called a “comfortable concentration camp” ruled by an oppressive race of men, was inspired by Marxist hatred of America.
As left-wing Smith College professor Daniel Horowitz has revealed in Betty Friedan and the Making of the Feminine Mystique: The American Left, the Cold War, and Modern Feminism, from her student days well into her 30s, Friedan was a professional propagandist for the Stalinist left. As such, she believed that Soviet dictator and mass murderer Josef Stalin, as the politically correct line of the day had it, was the infallible father of all peoples. This is a very odd position for a feminist to take. But this helps explain why Friedan has tried to hide her past, and why Friedan-style feminism has always been the women’s auxiliary of socialism. In this world, Big Brother is always right.
Professor Horowitz’s book, like that of David Stoll, has been out since 1999, but the myths of the peace advocate and the feminist icon hold more traction with journalists than the facts. Friedan continues to draw rave reviews in the prestige press. Call it the fraud mystique, but it can be avoided.
Gender isn’t a reason not to scrutinize people who make lofty claims about humble origins and a love of peace, regardless of the prizes they might have earned. In the case of Betty Friedan, when anyone harangues an entire generation of women, tells them what to think and how to live their lives, this should act as an invitation to scrutinize the person’s background. Journalists who fail to do so are cheating the public.
Those who believe that the Nobel Peace Prize has been cheapened have a prime example in Rigoberta Menchu, whose book is still studied in American universities. Those who have long felt offended by Betty Friedan, or believe that she is increasingly irrelevant, can now enjoy full confidence that there never was any reason to give her credence in the first place.
Sally Pipes is the President and CEO of the Pacific Research Institute, a California-based think tank. She can be reached via email at spipes@pacificresearch.org.
