Strong women wear lipstick. (Scan).(Mary Kay Ash and feminism)(Brief Article)(Obituary)

Mary Kay Ash died on Thanksgiving Day at the age of 83. She should have been a feminist icon: a beautiful, savvy businesswoman who gave women the power to "have it all"--without abandoning their families. Her company's motto: "God first, family second, career third."

Of course, she never was embraced by feminism, because Mary Kay and her legion of pink-clad consultants who made up Mary Kay Cosmetics were anything but the victims feminists would have preferred. Mary Kay subscribed to what she called a "Yes, you can!" philosophy. "You can do it" she told her beauty consultants, and that they did. Consultants own their own businesses, set their own goals, and control their hours, and Mary Kay managed to reach out to all kinds of women, in all socioeconomic situations. With a refundable $100 for a startup-kit, and a closet full of incentives--most famously, the coveted pink Cadillac--consultants can and do go on to make six-figure salaries. (Mary Kay even made its way into Russia after the fall of communism. In 1995, Mary Kay's top Russian sales director earned more money than then-president Boris Yeltsin.)

Ash could easily have played the victim card. A woman in the South, she grew up on the poor side of Houston. Her husband died in 1963. But this made her only more determined to establish Mary Kay Cosmetics. She used her $5,000 savings and a skin-care recipe to ...