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One of founders of NOW, 87, dies
Rossi advocated equality of sexes
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Published: November 9, 2009
Alice S. Rossi, a noted sociologist and feminist scholar who was a founder of the National Organization for Women, died at 87 on Tuesday in Northampton, Mass.
Rossi, who lived in Amherst, Mass., died of pneumonia, her son, Peter E. Rossi, said.
At her death, Rossi was the Harriet Martineau professor of sociology emeritus at the University of Massachusetts, where she had taught from 1974 until her retirement in 1991.
In her scholarship, Rossi explored the status of women in work, family and sexual life. An early public advocate of abortion rights, she was often quoted by the national news media on an array of women's issues. Her writings are widely credited with helping build the platform on which the women's movement of the 1960s and afterward was built.
Rossi was best known for her studies of people's lives -- those of women in particular -- as they move from youth to old age. She edited several books on the subject, including Gender and the Life Course; Sexuality Across the Life Course; and Caring and Doing for Others: Social Responsibility in the Domains of Family, Work and Community.
One of her most influential feminist articles was "Equality Between the Sexes: An Immodest Proposal," first presented in 1963 at a meeting of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
In the article, Rossi argued that for most women motherhood had become a full-time occupation, a state of affairs that hurt not only women but also the larger society in which they lived. For the well-being of both the women and the culture, she wrote, parity of the sexes is essential.
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