 | ||
| Betty Ford dancing on cabinet table on her last full day as first lady. Jan. 19, 1977 (photo credit: tumblr) |
Second in our line-up of women we love is the venerable
Betty Ford. We admire her so much that
we designed a Tee in her honor… BFF = Betty Ford Forever!
Born April 8, 1918 in Chicago, at the height of the Women’s
Suffrage Movement, Elizabeth Ann Bloomer, would go on to become a role model as
First Lady of the United States. She
gained fame for her candor as she commented on every controversial issue of the
time, including feminism, equal pay, and the Equal Rights Amendment, not to
mention topics that are still hot today – sex, drugs, abortion and gun
control. In 1975, Time magazine named her a Woman of the Year along with other
feminist icons of that era.
Only weeks into her job as First Lady,
Ford underwent a mastectomy for breast cancer.
Forthright to the core, she brought breast cancer out into the open and
raised public awareness of the disease causing what became known as the “Betty
Ford blip,” i.e. an increase in reported cases of breast cancer because women
were now self-examining.
A bon
vivant, she was known to dance the “Bump” along the corridors of the White
House, wear a “mood ring,” and chat on CB radio with the handle “First Mama.” It perhaps, then, came as no surprise when
her family staged an intervention and forced her to confront her alcoholism and
addiction to opioid painkillers. She is
quoted as saying, “My make-up wasn’t smeared, I wasn’t disheveled, I behaved
politely, and I never finished off a bottle, so how could I be alcoholic?”
After her recovery, she established the
Betty Ford Center, aka Hollywood’s Recovery Oasis, in Rancho Mirage,
California, where other SRBs -- Elizabeth Taylor, Mary Tyler Moor and Stevie
Nicks, to name but a few -- have since enjoyed recovery.
Betty died of natural causes on July 8,
2011, at the age of 93.
Why we love her? A woman before her time, she spoke up for
pro-choice, gun control and equal rights; issues that rage on today. She was brave, brave, brave… and a
survivor! After leaving public office,
she could have rest on her laurels, but did not. She is credited with rejuvenating the ERA
movement and, in 2004, reaffirmed her pro-choice stance and her support for the
1973 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade. That makes her a Champion!
We salute you Betty Ford.
No comments:
Post a Comment