How the Women of Newsweek Sued their Bosses and Changed the Workplace
Ratings4
Average rating3.5
It was the 1960s--a time of economic boom and social strife. Young women poured into the workplace, but the "Help Wanted" ads were segregated by gender and the "Mad Men" office culture was rife with sexual stereotyping and discrimination. Lynn Povich was one of the lucky ones, landing a job at Newsweek, renowned for its cutting-edge coverage of civil rights and the "Swinging Sixties." Nora Ephron, Jane Bryant Quinn, Ellen Goodman, and Susan Brownmiller all started there as well. It was a top-notch job--for a girl--at an exciting place. But it was a dead end. Women researchers sometimes became reporters, rarely writers, and never editors. Any aspiring female journalist was told, "If you want to be a writer, go somewhere else." On March 16, 1970, the day Newsweek published a cover story on the fledgling feminist movement entitled "Women in Revolt," forty-six Newsweek women charged the magazine with discrimination in hiring and promotion. It was the first female class action lawsuit--the first by women journalists--and it inspired other women in the media to quickly follow suit. Lynn Povich was one of the ringleaders. In The Good Girls Revolt, she evocatively tells the story of this dramatic turning point through the lives of several participants. With warmth, humor, and perspective, she shows how personal experiences and cultural shifts led a group of well-mannered, largely apolitical women, raised in the 1940s and 1950s, to challenge their bosses--and what happened after they did. For many, filing the suit was a radicalizing act that empowered them to "find themselves" and fight back. Others lost their way amid opportunities, pressures, discouragements, and hostilities they weren't prepared to navigate. The Good Girls Revolt also explores why changes in the law didn't solve everything. Through the lives of young female journalists at Newsweek today, Lynn Povich shows what has--and hasn't--changed in the workplace.
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Mid-70's. Same time I was living in NYC as young career woman. Age of feminism. Hired as “girls can only be researchers” and did not advance to writers. Changed the lives of women forever in the workplace.
I had a hard time he ting through this book. Not because it was hard. But because so little has changed. I am a female working in a very male dominated field. Building Operations. When I started this job 18 years ago (1999) I was the first female at the company in my position. When I changed companies in 2004 again I was the first female. I didn't think to much into it. In 2015 I again switched companies and again I am the first female. At this point it's just sad. They are not hiring women and the certainly are not promoting them. They just hire 1 or 2 and then sit about patting themselves on the back about how forward thinking the they are. So this book really hit home for me. Because for me a woman working in a mans field. Nothing has changed.
A good reminder that progress in equality isn't just a natural evolution, and will never be initiatited by those that are in power. Every step in the right direction is the cause of a brave fight led by those discriminated against. And mostly they can't even reap the benefits of their win, but have to pass it on to those that come after them.
Half a century ago, and we're still not there.
It's a good story, even if the book sometimes reads too much like a historical document trying to list everyone and everyone's credentials.