The Good Girls Revolt by Lynn Povich

The Good Girls Revolt by Lynn Povich
Published by PublicAffairs ISBN 978-1-61039-713-3
Hardcover $25.99

My sons like to tease me and call me a feminist (yeah, they don't get it), a badge I proudly wear, so I was surprised that I knew nothing about the revolt by the women working at Newsweek magazine, who in 1970 brought a complaint to the EEOC against the magazine charging discrimination against them in hiring and promotion practices.

Lynn Povich, a writer who worked at Newsweek and was part of the suit, brings the story to life in The Good Girls Revolt: How the Women at Newsweek Sued Their Bosses and Changed the Workplace. The women were employed at the magazine as researchers, but were never promoted to writer or editor, even though they had similar education and experience as the men hired as researchers and quickly promoted to writer and editor.

Nora Ephron, who worked at the magazine, described the "caste system"

"For every man there was an inferior woman, for every writer there was a checker", said Nora Ephron. "They were the artists and we were the drones. But what is interesting is how institutionally sexist it was without necessarily being personally sexist. To me, it wasn't oppressive. They were going to try to sleep with you- and if you wanted to, you could. But no one was going to fire you for not sleeping with them."

Mad Men's Madison Avenue offices weren't the only places where sex and booze ruled the workplace.

Povich is an excellent writer, and parts of this book, especially where the women were secretly meeting and trying to recruit other women to join the suit, read like a tense spy novel. Will they get caught?

They hired a young and pregnant Eleanor Holmes Norton to represent them. "The editors, who had supported the struggle for civil rights, were completely baffled by this pregnant black woman who questioned their commitment to equality."

The male editors, some of whom seemed like great guys, just didn't get it. What was worse in many of the women's eyes, was that Katherine Graham, who owned The Washington Post and Newsweek, didn't get it either. There is a powerful scene where Graham meets with the women and appears baffled by their action.

Along with the historical context of this story, I enjoyed reading about the inner workings of the magazine. We had a subscription for many years, and I always turned to read Anna Quindlen's back page column first. I had no idea that the struggle for equality there was so recent.

I recognized so many names in this book- Qunidlen, Ephron, Eleanor Clift, Jane Bryant Quinn and Maureen Orth among them. But it is the names that I didn't know, they are the important names, the ones who laid it all on the line so that the above mentioned women would be well known. Women like Povich, Pat Lynden and Lucy Howard paved the way for the other women with this lawsuit.

This book is essential reading for all young women starting out in the workplace. They must know who fought the battles for them so that they have the opportunities now available to them. The women of Newsweek are heroes, and I think that this book would be perfect for a high school or college journalism curriculum. I was also lucky enough to meet Ms. Povich at this year's Book Expo America, a true honor.

rating 4 of 5

America, You Sexy Bitch: A Love Letter to Freedom

America, You Sexy Bitch:  A Love Letter to Freedom by Michael Ian Black & Meghan McCain
Published by Da Capo Press ISBN 978-0-306-82100-4
Hardcover, $26
Source: copy provided by the publisher through NetGalley

Comedian Michael Ian Black is a forty-something comedian, happily married, father of two and a liberal. Meghan McCain is a twenty-something Senator's daughter, admittedly unlucky at dating and a Republican TV commentator.

They met when McCain was a guest on Black's pilot talk show for the E! network that did not get picked up. One night after he had taken an Ambien, Black and McCain were 'talking'  on Twitter when he suggested that they take a road trip across America to see if the country was as divided as our politicians are, and write a book about it.

McCain said sure, and the experiment was on. Black met McCain in San Diego at his mother's home, where his mom lives with her same sex life partner. McCain took Black to her family's home in Arizona, where Black met her mother and brothers, and they taught him to shoot a gun, which he thought was pretty cool. (Except for the part where Meghan's brother told Michael he was wearing his cowboy hat backwards.)

Then it was on to Vegas, where for some reason they thought it was a good idea to hang out with strippers. (It wasn't.)  Now I've been to Vegas, and there are plenty of opportunities to meet a wide cross section of Americans, and in my mind, they could gotten a lot of interesting opinions about what is right and what is wrong with this country, but that either didn't happen or wasn't exciting to enough to make the book. (Although I did learn that strippers are independent contractors and not employees of the club, which means they get no benefits, like health care, unemployment insurance and the club pays no employment taxes FICA, Social Security on them.)

The trip to New Orleans I found more interesting. They talked with some people about Katrina and how the government mismanaged the aftermath of the storm, how the Ninth Ward is still not back,  and the homes that Brad Pitt and his organization is building. (If you want to read a terrific book about New Orleans, try Nine Lives by Dan Baum.)

They made trips to Branson, where they mostly talked about how Yakov Smirnoff refused to meet with them and how dated and unfunny his show is, and Little Rock, where Bill Clinton has his presidential library and there is apparently no night life. They visited Memphis (Graceland!) and Nashville, and finally Washington DC.

They met Meghan's dad, Senator John McCain and Democratic Senator and perennial presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich, both of whom are hard-working and dedicated public servants who respect and like each other.

The book was really more of a travelogue than a book about how Americans feel about our political atmosphere and government. There was too much "this RV smells" and not enough opinions from everyday Americans who don't live in DC or New York.

As a travelogue, it works pretty well, and I'm not sure how Meghan, Michael, Michael's assistant Stephie and their driver Cousin John made it through the trip without someone totally freaking out; I mean, I couldn't make that trip with  people I know and love, let alone strangers. Kudos to them all.

Michael and Meghan take turns telling their story, and we get to know much about their thought process and why they are who they are politically. It is interesting that Michael is a liberal, yet he fits the mold of a stereotypical conservative: married over twenty years, lives in the suburbs, concerned about raising his kids. Meghan is a conservative, but she is young, single, and an advocate for gay marriage and women's rights, all traits you might say fit a stereotypical liberal. Maybe that is why they got along.

America, You Sexy Bitch website is here.

rating 3.5 of 5