Beyond Gender: The New Politics of Work and Family.

• Author: Williams, Marjorie

It was a bad day for public discourse when Jim Pinkerton, an aide in George Bush's White House, announced his search for a "new paradigm" as a corrective (or cover-up, according to Bush's critics) for the domestic policy ennui that was one of that presidency's hallmarks. "Paradigm" has since become the favorite five-dollar word of every policy maven who hopes to persuade the reader that he or she has something bold to say. Betty Friedan's new book is, alas, another example of this phenomenon.

Beyond Gender is a rambling recap of a pair of seminars that Friedan chaired, in 1994 and 1995, at The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. These gatherings, ominously billed as New Paradigm Seminars, aimed to define a progressive political movement--or ethos, at least--that would subordinate the identity politics that have dominated liberalism (and feminism) since the late '60s to some vision of the common good. Rounding up the usual suspects from labor, the women's and civil rights movements, academe, journalism, business, and the land of think tanks, Friedan led discussions about the economic instability, the growing gap between rich and poor, and the middle-class time squeeze that she sees as the proper business of progressive politics.

This is, of course, rich territory. But if this slim volume has any virtue, it is as proof that fame, influence, and the well-earned sense of respite that comes at the end of an illustrious career are the enemies of good writing. For it has almost every flaw a non-fiction book can have, including the maddening shallowness that inevitably characterizes even the most lively group conversation. In addition to being scattered and poorly organized, it's full of dizzyingly bad language--sentences that draw a deep breath, sprint to the end of the diving board, and ... never quite land anywhere. The new movement she envisions, Friedan writes, "has to be political to protect and translate our new empowerment with a new vision of community, with new structures of community that open the doors again to real quality of opportunity." These cul-de-sac sentences which don't actually say anything, abound. "Too often the so-called debate on family values is a debate about abortion or sexual immorality or divorce, but when we talk about the value of families, we are talking about conditions that support and nurture family values." Huh?

Beyond Gender is also out of date, appearing more than two years after most of the...