When Everything Changed (61 page)

Sandra Day O’Connor with her husband, John, just after President Ronald Reagan announced he had nominated her to be the first woman on the Supreme Court.
(© Bettmann / Corbis)

Lori Piestewa was the first American woman to die in the Iraq conflict. (
Rudy Gutierrez
/ El Paso Times)

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

T
his book aims to tell the story of what happened to American women since 1960 by combining the public drama of the era with the memories of regular women who lived through it all. To get the second part, my team of interviewers and I sat down with more than one hundred women from around the country, ranging in age from late 80s to their early 20s, who generously agreed to talk about their lives. It breaks my heart that only a few of their stories could be told in any detail. Others are mentioned fleetingly or not at all. But all of them educated me, and the things they told us are, I hope, reflected in the book.

My thanks to interviewees Sylvia Acevedo, Lillian Andrews, Pam Andrews, Michele Araujo, Barbara Arnold, Lynnette Arthur, Dana Arthur-Monteleone, Judy Baker, Josie Bass, Myrna Ten Bensel, Verna Bode, Valerie Bradley, Roberta Brooks, Barbara Jo Brothers, Beverly Burton, Ruth Chesnovar, April Che Chisholm, Valerie Chisholm, Suzan Johnson Cook, Tish Johnson Cook, Rita Coury, Madene Cox, Mary Bell Darcus, Josephine Elsberg, Adelaide Farrell, Yana Shani Fleming, Alison Foster, Lillian Garland, Diane Gilbert, Noella Goupil, Sheri Zoe McWilliams Griffin, Jeannie Gross, Shirley Hammond, Della Taylor Hardman, Joanie Hawkinson, Anna Hay, Alyce P. Hill, Kathy Hinderhofer, Tawana Hinton, Tiffany Hinton, Camara Dia Holloway, Dena Ivey, Dorothea Janczak, Jaime Jenett, Djassi Camara DaCosta Johnson, Emma Jordan, Maria K., Donna Poggi Keck, Edna Kleimeyer, Annemarie Kropf, Joyce Ladner, June LaValleur, Gayle Lawhorn, Florence Lee, Barbara Lewis, Jo Meyer Maasberg, Linda Mason, Linda McDaniel, Virginia McWilliams, Connie Meadows, Annie Miller, Ellen S. Miller, Marie Monsky, Lucy Murray, Georgia Panter Nielsen, Angela Nolfi, Jennifer O’Connell, Elizabeth Patterson, Susan Meyer Pennock, Sylvia Peterson, Judy Pinnick, Tanya Pollard, Vicki Cohn Pollard, Gloria Pratt, Joanne Rife, Judy Riff, Georgia Riggs, Flori Roberts, Carol Rumsey, Frances Russell, Serena Savarirayan, Frances Sego, Mae Ann Semnack, Margaret Siegel, Jennifer Maasberg Smith, Alexandria Dery Snider, Laura Sessions Stepp, Katherine Stewart, Alice Stockwell, Lenora Taitt-Magubane, Althea Tice, Kimberly Tignor, Barbara Tyler, Gloria Vaz, Anne Tolstoi Wallach, Louise Meyer Warpness, Jane Washington, Mary Helen Washington, Marylyn Weller, Betty Riley Williams, Virginia Williams, Arlene Dent Winfield, Charlotte Wong, and Wendy Woythaler.

The team that interviewed them included Sarah Cox, Amy Jeffries, C. J. Lehr, Christina Lem, Kelly Pike, Daniel Reilly, Susan Rife, Tracy Rzepka, Leigh Shelton, Amy Smith, and Justin Weller. Bronwyn Prohaska provided much of the research for the early sections of the book, and Nick Bunkley helped me track down sources in Michigan.

Special thanks to Marcia Hensley, who brought me many wonderful stories from women in Wyoming, including those of Louise Meyer Warpness, her daughters, Susan and Jo, and her granddaughter, Jennifer Maasberg Smith. Sarah Belanger produced many great interviews, including those of Barbara Arnold and her daughter, Alex, as well as Laura Sessions Stepp’s. Carol Lee interviewed, among others, Gloria Vaz, her daughter Dana Arthur-Monteleone, and her granddaughter Lynnette Arthur; Judith Borger’s Minnesota interviewees included Dr. June LaValleur. Michelle Jamrisko interviewed Lillian Garland, and Johanna Jainchill interviewed Virginia Williams. Courtney Barnes found many interesting subjects, including one of the early readers’ favorites, Maria K., who contacted us as the book was being finished and asked to have her identity disguised to avoid embarrassing her family. Sala Patterson set the interviewing record, bringing me the stories of nineteen women, including those of Tawana and Tiffany Hinton and Sala’s mother, Elizabeth Patterson.

For me, one of the greatest pleasures in this project was talking with so many of the people who were involved in the public events described in this story. Thanks to Lisa Belkin, Pat Benke, John Brademas, Pat Buchanan, Jacqui Ceballos, Sherri Finkbine Chessen, Constance Cumbey, Jack Duncan, Mary Eastwood, Jean Enersen, Nora Ephron, Muriel Fox, Jo Freeman, Claudia Goldin, Madeleine Kunin, Grace (Linda) LeClair, Lilly Ledbetter, Pat Lorance, Wilma Mankiller, Gerald McBeath, George McGovern, Faith Middleton, Walter Mondale, Robin Morgan, Cynthia Pearson, Martha Phillips, Lynn Povich, Sylvia Roberts, Marlene Sanders, Pat Schroeder, Valerie Steele, Gloria Steinem, Janet Tegley, Jessica Valenti, Betsy Wade, Diane Watson, Lorena Weeks, and Randi Weingarten for helping me understand what went on. While the people involved in the 2008 presidential campaign talked to me for my
New York Times
column, the interviews they gave me served double duty, particularly those with Hillary Clinton and Michelle Obama.

Amanda Millner-Fairbanks provided me with several boxes full of research and, even better, her company through the last stages of this project.

Thanks to the friends who read this manuscript and shared their thoughts and critiques with me: in particular Trish Hall; my sister, Mary Ann Vinck; my sister-in-law, Kathleen Collins; Nancy Devlin; Eleanor Randolph; Anne Dranginis; and Ann Reardon. My amazing agent, Alice Martell, read it twice, which I definitely regard as service above and beyond the call of duty. Pat Strachan, my editor at Little, Brown, read it first and last and was a constant supportive presence in between. Thanks to all the people at Little, Brown for underwriting this project and being so helpful as we went along, especially Karen Landry, my copyeditor.

Fans of endnotes will notice that I relied on reporting in the
New York Times
along every stage of this narrative. There are a lot of wonderful papers in this country, but even if I weren’t biased, I think I’d be in awe of the way the
Times
has devoted its resources to doing serious reporting on American social issues.

Finally, one of the great boons of this kind of enterprise is the chance to thank the people who put up with me while it was being written. So many thanks to Arthur Sulzberger, the publisher of the
Times,
and Andy Rosenthal, the editorial page editor, for giving me a book leave and living with me when I returned in the middle of chapter ten. Thanks to my mother, Rita Gleason, who told me many stories and introduced me to friends who told me theirs. Thanks to my nieces, Becca Gleason and Anna McManus, and my nephew, Hugh McManus, for tutoring me on what the world looks like from the other side of 20. And finally, thanks to my husband, Dan Collins, for life in general.

NOTES

Some of the people interviewed for this book, such as Wilma Mankiller, Gloria Steinem, Jo Freeman, and Robin Morgan, have written books of their own that I’ve also used as resources. Information taken from their books is sourced in the notes. Other quotes are from the interviews, which are listed at the top of each chapter.

INTRODUCTION

Interview: Maria K.

3
    On a steamy morning: Jack Roth, “Judge Scolds Woman in Slacks,”
New York Times,
August 10, 1960.

4
    One early settler wrote: Collins,
America’s Women,
26.

4
    One New England Quaker: Chace and Lovell,
Two Quaker Sisters,
4.

5
    “Our men are sufficiently money-making”: Douglas,
The Feminization of American Culture,
57.

5
    “She reigns in the heart”: Wertz and Wertz,
Lying-In,
58.

6
   
Ladies’ Magazine,
a popular periodical: Douglas,
The Feminization of American Culture,
46.

6
    After the Civil War: Jones,
Labor of Love,
58–60.

6
    A 1960 story in the
New York Times:
Marilyn Berger, “Feminine Fashion Has a Place in the Mine,”
New York Times,
October 28, 1960.

6
    When Betty Lou Raskin: Betty Lou Raskin, “Woman’s Place Is in the Lab,”
New York Times Magazine,
April 19, 1959.

7
    Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren: Kerber,
No Constitutional Right to Be Ladies,
141.

7
    The National Office Managers Association: Charles Ginder, “Factor of Sex in Office Employment,”
Office Executive,
February 1961, 10–13.

8
    a spokesman for NASA would say: Levine and Lyons,
The Decade of Women,
35.

1. REPUDIATING ROSIE

Interviews: Beverly Burton, Linda McDaniel, Georgia Panter Nielsen, Angela Nolfi, Sylvia Roberts, Marlene Sanders.

11
    “Some of you
do
”: “Mlle’s Next Word,”
Mademoiselle,
January 1960, 33.

11
    “I think that when women”: Spock,
Decent and Indecent,
61.

11
   
Newsweek,
decrying a newly noticed: “Young Wives,”
Newsweek,
March 7, 1960, 57–60.

11
    Jo Freeman, who went to Berkeley: Jo Freeman, “On the Origins of the Women’s Movement from a Strictly Personal Perspective,” in
The Feminist Memoir Project,
171–72.

12
    And once
Mademoiselle
had finished: “The Professional Touch,”
Mademoiselle,
June 1960, 82–83.

12
    An official for the men-only: Anderson,
The Movement and the Sixties,
316.

12
    When
Mademoiselle
selected seven: “Quo Vadis?”
Mademoiselle,
January 1960.

12
    In 1950 only about 9 percent: Stark,
Glued to the Set,
33.

13
    “But all the slapstick”: Davis,
Say Kids! What Time Is It?,
5.

13
    “The harshness and crudeness”: Ibid., 109.

14
    On
Father Knows Best,
younger daughter: Douglas,
Where the Girls Are,
37–38.

14
    When Betty Friedan asked why: Friedan,
It Changed My Life,
67.

14
    Later in the decade:
Star Trek,
“Turnabout Intruder,” episode 79.

15
    A rather typical episode began:
Bonanza,
“Justice,” episode 252.

15
    More than 30 percent of American: Nye and Hoffman,
The Employed Mother in America,
8.