Marilyn French, the writer and feminist whose novel The Women’s Room sold more than 20 million copies and transformed her into a leading figure in the women’s movement, died at 79.
French died of heart failure on Saturday at a Manhattan hospital, said Carol Jenkins, a friend and president of New York’s Women’s Media Center.
She was an academic in 1977 when The Women’s Room, her first novel, was published. Her aim, she said, was “to change the entire social and economic structure of Western civilization, to make it a feminist world.”
PHOTO: AP
The landmark novel, which was translated into 20 languages, details the journey to independence of a 1950s housewife who gets divorced and goes to graduate school. The book mirrored aspects of French’s own life experiences, including the rape of her daughter.
She was called anti-male after a character in the novel says: “All men are rapists, and that’s all they are. They rape us with their eyes, their laws, and their codes.”
“Those words came from a character, and she was not a man-hater and never said that in her personal life,” Jenkins said. “But she wanted men to accept their part in the domination of women.”
Still, the novel “connected with millions of women who had no way before of claiming their anger and discontent,” Jenkins said.
The male subjugation of women is the main theme of French’s novels, essays, literary criticism and her four-volume, nonfictional From Eve to Dawn: A History of Women.
A Brooklyn native, French graduated from Long Island’s Hofstra University with a master’s degree, studying philosophy and English literature. She taught there in the 1960s. After her divorce, she earned a doctorate from Harvard and was an English professor at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts.
A smoker, she survived a battle with esophageal cancer in 1992 that included a 10-day coma she described in Season in Hell: A Memoir.
Her last novel is to be published this fall; she was also working on a memoir.
BACKLASH: The National Party quit its decades-long partnership with the Liberal Party after their election loss to center-left Labor, which won a historic third term Australia’s National Party has split from its conservative coalition partner of more than 60 years, the Liberal Party, citing policy differences over renewable energy and after a resounding loss at a national election this month. “Its time to have a break,” Nationals leader David Littleproud told reporters yesterday. The split shows the pressure on Australia’s conservative parties after Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s center-left Labor party won a historic second term in the May 3 election, powered by a voter backlash against US President Donald Trump’s policies. Under the long-standing partnership in state and federal politics, the Liberal and National coalition had shared power
CONTROVERSY: During the performance of Israel’s entrant Yuval Raphael’s song ‘New Day Will Rise,’ loud whistles were heard and two people tried to get on stage Austria’s JJ yesterday won the Eurovision Song Contest, with his operatic song Wasted Love triumphing at the world’s biggest live music television event. After votes from national juries around Europe and viewers from across the continent and beyond, JJ gave Austria its first victory since bearded drag performer Conchita Wurst’s 2014 triumph. After the nail-biting drama as the votes were revealed running into yesterday morning, Austria finished with 436 points, ahead of Israel — whose participation drew protests — on 357 and Estonia on 356. “Thank you to you, Europe, for making my dreams come true,” 24-year-old countertenor JJ, whose
NO EXCUSES: Marcos said his administration was acting on voters’ demands, but an academic said the move was emotionally motivated after a poor midterm showing Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr yesterday sought the resignation of all his Cabinet secretaries, in a move seen as an attempt to reset the political agenda and assert his authority over the second half of his single six-year term. The order came after the president’s allies failed to win a majority of Senate seats contested in the 12 polls on Monday last week, leaving Marcos facing a divided political and legislative landscape that could thwart his attempts to have an ally succeed him in 2028. “He’s talking to the people, trying to salvage whatever political capital he has left. I think it’s
A documentary whose main subject, 25-year-old photojournalist Fatima Hassouna, was killed in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza weeks before it premiered at Cannes stunned viewers into silence at the festival on Thursday. As the cinema lights came back on, filmmaker Sepideh Farsi held up an image of the young Palestinian woman killed with younger siblings on April 16, and encouraged the audience to stand up and clap to pay tribute. “To kill a child, to kill a photographer is unacceptable,” Farsi said. “There are still children to save. It must be done fast,” the exiled Iranian filmmaker added. With Israel
RSS