When Everything Changed: The Amazing Journey of American Women from 1960 to the Present

by Gail Collins

  277 it was not until 1968 that the Supreme Court: Levy v. Louisiana.

  280 “My friends are”: O’Reilly, The Girl I Left Behind, 9.

  281 “I knew that I wanted”: Vicki Cohn Pollard, “The Five of Us,” in Dear Sisters, 222–24.

  282 Robin Morgan, living: Morgan, Saturday’s Child, 232.

  282 The estimates of the number: Miller, The Hippies and American Values, 88.

  282 the thirty-member New World: Noun, More Strong-Minded Women, 71.

  282 It had been discussed: For more information on this subject, see The Grand Domestic Revolution by Dolores Hayden.

  283 “The meal is as expensive”: Bellamy, Looking Backward, 101.

  283 “What would shoes be like”: Ceplair, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, 129–30.

  284 Madeleine Kunin, whose political: Kunin, Living a Political Life, 113.

  286 Actually, the child-care: Cohen, “A Brief History of Federal Financing.”

  288 One reporter noted, in wonder: Chamberlin, A Minority of Members, 317.

  289 “Seldom does a bill”: Robert Signer, “Child Services Bills Stir Storm,” Chicago Daily News, March 27, 1976.

  289 One letter writer: Judith Miller, “Someone Out There Hates Day Care,” Harper’s Weekly, March 22, 1976, 83.

  290 they created such a stir: Richard Fly, “How ‘Rights’ Letter Came to Houston,” Houston Chronicle, November 9, 1975.

  12. THE 1980s—HAVING IT ALL

  Interviews: Sylvia Acevedo, Lynnette Arthur, Sherri Finkbine Chessen, April Chisholm, Suzan Johnson Cook, Jean Enersen, Yana Shani Fleming, Alison Foster, Lillian Garland, Tawana Hinton, Tiffany Hinton, Camara Dia Holloway, June LaValleur, Jo Meyer Maasberg, Wilma Mankiller, Linda Mason, Annie Miller, Ellen Miller, Elizabeth Patterson, Jennifer Maasberg Smith, Laura Sessions Stepp, Randi Weingarten.

  293 Mademoiselle, which had: Annie Gottlieb, “Do Men Love Women Who Love Work?” Mademoiselle, February 1981.

  293 A study prepared for: “Poll Finds New View of Women,” Washington Star, January 6, 1981.

  293 A third of the law students: “Law Colleges Add Women as Students,” New York Times, January 6, 1981.

  293 The stubborn gap: Blau, “Trends in the Well-Being of American Women,” 129.

  293 Cosmopolitan, in a welcome: Ruth Franklin, “The ’80s Woman—Her Man, Her Job, Her Life,” Cosmopolitan, November 1980.

  293 Ellen Baer, an associate: Ellen Baer, “The Feminist Disdain for Nursing,” New York Times, February 23, 1991.

  294 A Gallup poll showed 88: “In a Poll, Many Women Say Life Is Good,” New York Times, August 25, 1988.

  294 “It really blew”: Whittier, Feminist Generations, 144.

  294 John Molloy, a “wardrobe”: Susan Faludi tells the suit story in Backlash.

  295 A report on the 1985: Jane Mingay, “The High-Style Shoulder,” Maclean’s, May 6, 1985.

  295 “We’re trying to be”: Jennet Conant, “Hold On to Those Hems,” Newsweek, April 27, 1987.

  295 “Shoes have become”: Angela Taylor, “Far from the Classic Pump,” New York Times, August 30, 1983.

  296 “When blue jeans”: Brownmiller, Femininity, 80.

  296 Fonda had taken: Kagan and Morse, “The Body Electronic,” 164–80.

  297 “If you want to trace”: Jane Leavy, “Jane Fonda, Good as Old,” Washington Post, January 26, 1985.

  297 The American Society of Plastic: Faludi, Backlash, 217.

  297 In 1982 the country heard about: “Four Pounds Imperiling Job of a Drum Major,” Associated Press, September 26, 1982; “Twirler Fails by 1½ Pounds,” Associated Press, September 30, 1982.

  298 The average American woman: Faludi, Backlash, 171.

  298 By the late ’80s, there were estimates: Brumberg, Fasting Girls, 12.

  301 In 1943 the sociologist: Komarovsky, Women in College, 91.

  301 Striving for “it all”: Joe Hagan, “They Fired the Most Powerful Woman on Wall Street,” New York Magazine, May 5, 2008, 36.

  302 While pay for women: Blau, “Trends in the Well-Being of American Women,” 130.

  302 For the first time, more than half: “Mothers with Babies—And Jobs,” New York Times, June 19, 1988.

  302 But that extra effort: Blau, “Trends in the Well-Being of American Women,” 152.

  302 In her book The Second Shift: Hochschild, The Second Shift, 4.

  302 In one of the most: Claudia Wallis, “Onward, Women!” Time, December 4, 1989.

  303 In 1983 the New York Times: Georgia Dullea, “When Parents Work on Different Shifts,” New York Times, October 31, 1983.

  303 Harriet Presser, a professor: “Child Care Hassles Cause Birth Decline,” Los Angeles Times, August 5, 1987.

  304 But by 1987 the Bureau: Pamela Mendels, “The Stigma Facing Mommies,” Newsday, March 27, 1989.

  305 The columnist Ellen: Rosen, The World Split Open, 327.

  305 When she won: Kunin, Living a Political Life, 244.

  305 Kunin’s husband, a doctor: Ibid., 199.

  306 Perri Klass, who’d had: Klass, A Not Entirely Benign Procedure, 132–33.

  308 In 1980 half of American: Komarovsky, Women in College, 4.

  308 the place where, the New York Times: Chafe, The American Woman, 243.

  308 The number of people: Coontz, Marriage, 258.

  308 In 1981, in The Second: Friedan, The Second Stage, quoted in Faludi, Backlash, 324.

  308 A headline for New York Magazine: Patricia Morrisroe, “Born Too Late? Expect Too Much? Then You May Be… FOREVER SINGLE,” New York Magazine, August 20, 1984.

  308 In 1986 a Yale: Faludi, Backlash, 9–14.

  309 Newsweek’s cover showed: Eloise Salholz, “The Marriage Crunch,” Newsweek, June 2, 1986.

  309 As time went on: Felicity Barringer, “Marriage Study That Caused Furor Is Revised,” New York Times, November 11, 1989.

  309 In fact, the career-driven: Faludi, Backlash, 15.

  309 It was as if the world: Ibid.

  310 At one point, Johnson: Cook, A New Dating Attitude, 22–23.

  310 The national fertility rate: Faludi, Backlash, 34.

  311 The fertility rate for: Robert Pear, “Sharp Rise in Childbearing Found Among U.S. Women in Early Thirties,” New York Times, June 10, 1983.

  311 Among women who graduated: Goldin and Katz, “Transitions.”

  311 When Perri Klass got pregnant: Klass, A Not Entirely Benign Procedure, 44.

  312 In 1982 Time: J. D. Reed, “The New Baby Bloom,” Time, February 22, 1982.

  312 Georgia Dullea of the New York Times: Georgia Dullea, “Women Reconsider Childbearing over 30,” New York Times, February 25, 1982.

  312 A government study reported: “Infertility Increases in Young Women,” United Press International in the New York Times, February 10, 1983.

  312 There were 2: Kathleen Doheny, “A Boom for In Vitro Fertilization,” Los Angeles Times, August 7, 1990.

  312 When word came that Whitehead: Barbara Kantrowitz, “Who Keeps Baby M?” Newsweek, January 19, 1987.

  313 Whitehead’s lawyer said the baby: Richard Lacayo, “Is the Womb a Rentable Space?” Time, September 22, 1986.

  313 The Sterns’ lawyer played: Mary Shaughnessy, “All for Love of a Baby,” People, March 23, 1987.

  313 “I will never feel”: Katha Pollitt, “Contracts and Apple Pie,” The Nation, May 23, 1987.

  313 “Bill and I”: “The Life and Custody of Baby M,” Maclean’s, April 13, 1987.

  313 who legally adopted: “Now It’s Melissa’s Time,” New Jersey Monthly, March 2007.

  315 “It was only later”: Tamar Lewin, “Partnership in Firm Awarded to Victim of Sex Bias,” New York Times, May 16, 1990.

  316 In 1982 Christine: Unless otherwise noted, this section is based on information in An Anchorwoman’s Story by Christine Craft.

  316 The station claimed the focus group: “Is She a Mutt?” New York Times, August 11, 1983.

  316 “I have the strong”: “New Face of TV News Fi
rst Seen in the ’70s,” Washington Post, July 23, 2006.

  316 “Harry Reasoner didn’t want”: Virginia Heffernan, “Barbara Walters: The Exit Interview,” New York Times, September 5, 2004.

  317 By the early 1980s: “Television: Keep Young and Beautiful,” The Economist, August 13, 1983.

  319 “The Revolution Is Over”: John Leo, “The Revolution Is Over,” Time, April 19, 1984, 74–78.

  319 By the mid-1980s: Faludi, Backlash, 30–31.

  319 It was, Time said: Claudia Wallis, “The New Scarlet Letter,” Time, August 2, 1982.

  320 Near panic ensued: Susan Duerksen, “Millions Must Revise Sex Habits,” San Diego Union-Tribune, November 7, 1986.

  320 In 1981 Newsweek announced: Harry Waters, “Television’s Hottest Show,” Newsweek, September 28, 1981.

  321 Laura (played by): Readers who want to experience this particular moment of TV history can find it on YouTube.

  321 “Rape me”: Eric Gelman, “A Perfect Couple,” Newsweek, September 28, 1981.

  321 There had been a great: Brownmiller, Against Our Will, 15.

  322 Susan Estrich, a Harvard: Estrich, Real Rape.

  322 On the other side: Katie Roiphe, “Date Rape’s Other Victim,” New York Times, June 24, 1993.

  324 In that poll for: “Poll Finds New View of Women,” Washington Star, January 6, 1981.

  324 Ferraro, who was: William Safire, “On Language: Good-bye Sex, Hello Gender,” New York Times Magazine, August 5, 1984.

  324 “Fathers brought their”: Kunin, Living a Political Life, 306.

  325 “Because our tribe”: Mankiller, Mankiller, 240.

  326 “It must be a secretarial”: Unless otherwise noted, this section is based on information from Sandra Day O’Connor by Joan Biskupic.

  328 She took exercise classes: Toobin, The Nine, 39.

  329 made Sandra Day O’Connor into a jurist: Ibid., 87.

  13. THE 1990s—SETTLING FOR LESS?

  Interviews: Sylvia Acevedo, Lynnette Arthur, Dana Arthur-Monteleone, Alison Foster, Kathy Hinderhofer, Camara Dia Holloway, Dena Ivey, June LaValleur, Jo Meyer Maasberg, Linda Mason, Jennifer Maasberg Smith, Alex Dery Snider, Laura Sessions Stepp.

  330 “I must have been”: AnnJanette Rosga, “Notes from the Aftermath,” in The Feminist Memoir Project, 472–73.

  331 “The things I fought”: Claudia Wallis, “Onward Women!” Time, December 4, 1989.

  331 “We don’t feel”: Farrell, Yours in Sisterhood, 105.

  332 The cost of college: Coontz, The Way We Really Are, 57.

  332 Married women who worked: Ibid., 57.

  332 In 1989 Felice Schwartz: Felice Schwartz, “Management Women and the New Facts of Life,” Harvard Business Review, January 1, 1989.

  333 “My points touched”: Mary Sit, “Derailed by ‘Mommy Track,’ ” Boston Globe, October 25, 1989.

  333 By 1990, 60 percent: Cotter, “Moms and Jobs.”

  333 New York Times had not dubbed: Tamar Lewin, “ ‘Mommy Career Track’ Sets Off a Furor,” New York Times, March 8, 1989.

  333 A coalition of forty-four: Brian Couturier, “Coalition Warns Against Supporting Idea with Legislation,” Los Angeles Times, March 23, 1989.

  335 Reagan never used: Cannon, Ronald Reagan, 457.

  336 The real Taylor: “Chicago ‘Relief’ Queen Guilty,” Associated Press, March 19, 1977.

  336 “When we started the current”: “Excerpts from Debate in the Senate on the Welfare Measure,” New York Times, August 2, 1996.

  337 “When the original welfare”: Maureen Dowd, “Washington Talk—Q&A: Daniel Patrick Moynihan,” New York Times, February 19, 1987.

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

  338 Jason DeParle, who had: DeParle, American Dream, 304.

  338 “On welfare Angie”: Ibid., 321.

  338 In 1995 Norma: McCorvey, Won by Love, 242.

  339 “They could have been nice”: Douglas Wood, “Who Is ‘Jane Roe’?” CNN, June 18, 2003.

  339 Even many of the: E. J. Dionne Jr., “Struggle for Work and Family Fueling Women’s Movement,” New York Times, August 22, 1989.

  339 The abortion rate peaked: “Facts on Induced Abortion in the United States,” Guttmacher Institute, New York, January 2008.

  340 Americans were most likely: Ibid.

  340 In South Dakota, an antichoice: Monica Davey, “South Dakota to Revisit Restrictions on Abortions,” New York Times, April 26, 2008.

  340 More than a century: Collins, America’s Women, 245.

  341 A native of Oklahoma: Mayer and Abramson, Strange Justice, 84.

  341 Time reported that although complaints: Nancy Gibbs, “The War Against Feminism,” Time, March 9, 1992.

  341 Changing planes in Houston: Mayer and Abramson, Strange Justice, 28.

  342 A poll found that 55: Priscilla Painton, “Woman Power,” Time, October 28, 1991.

  342 A Pentagon report: Eric Schmitt, “Senior Navy Officers Suppressed Sex Investigation,” New York Times, September 25, 1992.

  342 The “commonsense guideline”: Gloria Steinem, “Feminists and the Clinton Question,” New York Times, March 22, 1998.

  343 Senator Barbara Mikulski, for one: “Year of the Woman,” senate.gov.

  344 “Maybe you could find: Solaro, Women in the Line of Fire, 197.

  344 In the most famous: Cornum, She Went to War.

  346 It was not until 1991: Allison Askins for Knight Ridder, “Interracial Marriages on the Rise but Hurdles Remain,” Times-Picayune, October 19, 1997.

  346 If the country needed: Jane Gross, “In Prom Dispute, a Town’s Race Divisions Emerge,” New York Times, August 15, 1994.

  348 Nora Ephron once joked: Ephron, Heartburn, 81.

  348 In 2005 Maureen: Maureen Dowd, “What’s a Modern Girl to Do?” New York Times Magazine, October 30, 2005.

  349 “What most lesbians remember”: Van Gelder and Brandt, The Girls Next Door, 31.

  349 In the Washington Post, Kara: Kara Swisher, “We Love Lesbians. Or Do We?” Washington Post, July 18, 1993.

  349 New York Magazine put K. D. Lang: Jeanie Russell Kasindorf, “Lesbian Chic,” New York Magazine, May 10, 1993.

  350 In a reverse case: Yvonne Abraham, “At 80 Schlafly Is Still a Conservative Force,” Boston Globe, September 2, 2004.

  350 Diane Salvatore, a gay: Kasindorf, “Lesbian Chic.”

  14. THE NEW MILLENNIUM

  Interviews: Lisa Belkin, Alison Foster, Claudia Goldin, Lilly Ledbetter, Tanya Pollard, Vicki Cohn Pollard, Serena Savarirayan, Valerie Steele, Gloria Steinem, Laura Sessions Stepp, Jessica Valenti.

  351 “I am the innocent”: Margalit Fox, “Betty Friedan, Who Ignited Cause in Feminine Mystique, Dies at 85,” New York Times, February 5, 2006.

  351 Looking back, she said: Friedan, Life So Far, 375.

  351 By the beginning: Jonathan Glater, “Women Are Close to Being Majority of Law Students,” New York Times, March 26, 2001; Yilu Zhao, “Beyond Sweetie,” New York Times, November 7, 2004.

  351 They dominated some fields: Yilu Zhao, “Women Soon to Be Majority of Veterinarians,” New York Times, June 9, 2002; Hacker, Mismatch, 2.

  351 Forty percent of the new: Hacker, Mismatch, 2; Anderson, The Movement and the Sixties, 20.

  352 More important, 40 percent: “Gender Issues: Women’s Participation in the Sciences Has Increased,” United States Government Accountability Office, July 2004, 3.

  352 Even in the small: Goldin and Rouse, “Orchestrating Impartiality.”

  352 “The reality is that”: Jennifer Delahunty Britz, “To All the Girls I’ve Rejected,” New York Times, March 23, 2006.

  353 Newsweek, in a cover: Peg Tyre, “The Trouble with Boys,” Newsweek, January 20, 2007.

  353 In Milton, Massachusetts: Elizabeth Weil, “Teaching Boys and Girls Separately,” New York Times Magazine, January 20, 2008.

  353 Margaret Spellings, George W. Bush’s: Tyre, “The Trouble with Boys.”

  353 Only 17 per
cent: Timothy O’Brien, “Why Do So Few Women Reach the Top of Big Law Firms?” New York Times, March 19, 2006.

  353 While women held nearly half: “Fortune 500 Women CEOs,” Fortune, April 16, 2008.

  353 More than three-quarters: David Cay Johnston, “As Salary Grows, So Does Gender Gap,” New York Times, May 12, 2002.

  353 By the time CBS: Paul Fahri, “Men Signing Off,” Washington Post, July 23, 2006.

  354 But the divide: David Leonhardt, “Scant Progress on Closing Gap in Women’s Pay,” New York Times, December 24, 2006.

  354 The number of male: Cindy Kranz, “Higher Pay Could Attract Men to Teach, Some Say,” Cincinnati Enquirer, December 23, 2008.

  357 One of Ginsburg’s: Linda Greenhouse, “Supreme Court Memo,” New York Times, May 31, 2007.

  358 A study by Andrew: Sam Roberts, “For Young Earners in Big City, a Gap in Women’s Favor,” New York Times, August 3, 2007.

  358 By the new millennium: “We the People: Women and Men in the United States,” U.S. Census Bureau, January 2005.

  358 In 2009, as the recession: Catherine Rampell, “As Layoffs Surge, Women May Pass Men in Job Force,” New York Times, February 6, 2009.

  359 Google, the cutting-edge: Joe Nocera, “On Day Care, Google Makes a Rare Fumble,” New York Times, July 5, 2008.

  359 In 2008 Lisa Belkin: “When Mom and Dad Share It All,” New York Times Magazine, June 15, 2008.

  362 Belkin, who had a gift: Lisa Belkin, “The Opt-Out Revolution,” New York Times Magazine, October 26, 2003.

  363 Claudia Goldin, a Harvard: Goldin, “The Long Road to the Fast Track.”

  363 A follow-up study: Goldin and Katz, “Transitions.”

  363 And another study of graduates: Ibid.

  363 In September 2005: Louise Story, “Many Women at Elite Colleges Set Career Path to Motherhood,” New York Times, September 20, 2005.

  364 “It really does raise”: Ibid.

  364 Nicholas Kulish, a 30-year-old: Kulish, “Changing the Rules for the Team Sport of Bread-Winning,” New York Times, September 23, 2005.

  365 In 2006 the United States: Rob Stein, “U.S. Fertility Rate Hits Thirty-five-Year High,” Washington Post, December 21, 2007.

  365 A study at the University of Turin: Russell Shorto, “No Babies,” New York Times Magazine, June 29, 2008.