RIP Judy Brady

No, Judy Brady wasn’t a famous writer. But she wrote one short and very powerful essay that rapidly became a feminist classic: “I Want a Wife” (sometimes found under her married name, Judy Syfers). This essay, which was published in 1972 in the first issue of Ms. Magazine, and was republished countless times in various anthologies and college textbooks, dramatically and in detail made the point that women could be much more devoted to and successful at their educations, careers and other outside pursuits if, like men, they had wives to take care of all the labor of domestic life. Who wouldn’t want a wife who would cook, clean, care for one’s children, keep track of appointments, organize one’s social life, and take care of one’s emotional and sexual needs? These and many other details of family life were, at the time Brady wrote, considered the expected work of wives. Unfortunately, to varying degrees, these are still considered by many to be the duties of wives. Believing the essay to still be highly relevant, I taught it in a class as recently as two years ago. Brady was, however, not a one-note writer (although that is such an important note!); she was an activist and fought for various social justice causes such as health and the environment, edited two books, and wrote many articles. I was sad to see in the San Francisco Chronicle’s death notices that Judy Brady, who was born in and a longtime resident of the San Francisco Bay Area, died on May 14, 2017 at the age of 80. Thank you, Judy Brady, for your activism and your writing, and for the way you dedicated your life to social justice and to equality for women.