So, I will put up the first thread to talk about Gail Collins’ When Everything Changed: The Amazing Journey of American Women from 1960 to the Present on Wednesday, June 8, at 8pm EDT. Part I, the first three chapters, is just 60 pages, but we’ll see how far everyone gets…
My paperback copy reprints a Jezebel interview with Collins. An excerpt:
In your book… you write about two books, The Feminine Mystique and Sex & the Single Girl, both of which had a major impact on women’s consciousness. I wonder if it would be possible for a single book to have such an impact today.
__
Both of those books were partly the huge things they were because they just caught a moment… It’s harder to do that now, because once a thought gets out there it gets devoured so much faster, by so many.
__
Is that why there hasn’t been a clear successor to Betty Friedan, Gloria Steinem, and other big names of the feminist movement?
__
No, it’s the same reason there’s not a clear successor to Dr. Martin Luther King. There are these crystal moments in history when something that’s so obviously wrong gets tackled in the context of a society that’s ready to hear it, and it happens very fast and it’s very dramatic. Everyone who’s part of it remembers it for the rest of their lives.
What else is everybody up to, on this fine Sunday evening?
RossInDetroit
Well, we have 100% chance of severe thunderstorms and there’s a Civil Defense siren going off right now. I think it’s about to get interesting around here.
El Cid
Psychology Today has apologized for and withdrawn the blog post from the crazy ‘evolutionary psychologist’ written piece (with statistics!) “Why Are Black Women Less Physically Attractive Than Other Women?”
From one scientist reviewing Kanazawa’s use of data, one point:
From another with a more general comment:
Apparently his superiors at the London School of Economics are investigating him after the student union unanimously voted for dismissal. I’m not too crazy about that bit, but I guess it depends on his employment requirements.
Professor
All that women achieved from the 60s are being undone by the Republicans in the USA in 2011. Do women have control over their reproductive organs? Please think about their breasts, uterus, filopian tubes, ovaries etc! Now they could be jailed if they have a miscarriage without permission!
Just Some Fuckhead
I’m preparing for Family Game Night which means hiding Draw 4s and Monopoly money in my pockets.
Uncle Clarence Thomas
.
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Would that Sarah Palin at Rolling Thunder were such a crystal moment.
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eemom
@Uncle Clarence Thomas:
omg — do my eyes deceive me? Did UCT actually make a comment that WASN’T an Obama slam??
And about Palin, no less! One might almost think Uncle is actually waking up to the fact that there are WORSE people than Obama who could be runnning this country. Be still my heart….
Larkspur
I just started a novel by Anna North, America Pacifica. It’s post-apocalyptic dystopian science fiction – mmm good, my favorite kind of fiction. It’s pretty absorbing and has a unique Shock Doctrinesque quality to it.
Good luck to everyone in dicey weather situations.
Martin
Using the power tools. Not sure the glue-up time will let me finish today, but it’ll be close.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@RossInDetroit:
They got to you quickly. There were warnings in Battle Creek only about 1-1 1/2 hours ago.
The next two days are going to be ugly- supposed to be close to 90 in GR, and muggy.
RSA
I am writing a book, which means that I can’t find the time to do much reading of other books. (Blogs, however, seem to be manageable.)
lamh34
Raw Video of President Obama Touring Joplin, MO
RossInDetroit
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again):
It’s gettin’ ugly out there. When the sky turns greenish it’s never a good sign. I think we’re about to get meteorologicaly clobbered. I’d better power down everything just in case. This one looks like a power system killer.
I just ordered Dark Horse Comics’ anthology of Mike Mignola’s Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser stories. Too bad it’s not here. That would be ideal to read by candle light.
See you when it clears. I hope.
lamh34
Being from New Orleans, FEMA is still a four-letter cuss word to many, but in answere to the question posed in this article’s title: Turning FEMA Around
Has Obama saved the once-maligned federal agency?
I would have to say that the Obama admin has done alot to redeem FEMA, but like I said, it’s still a four-letter synonym for F(CK in most of NOLA.
Anyway, here is an excerpt of President Obama’s speech at a memorial service for Joplin’s confirmed dead today: Obama: We’ll Be With Joplin Every Step
I have no real numbers to support it, but it seems to me that this President has spent an abundant amount of time visiting and consoling areas hit by disasters. And yet people like Maureen O’Dowd still like to perpetuate the meme that Obama unlike Clinton doesn’t know how to “feel your pain”.
Ah.. well.
Violet
@RossInDetroit: Green sky is never a good thing. Stay safe.
PurpleGirl
Question for BJers. I may be hired for a self-publishing project — to convert a novel (I typed originally) to a form that can be displayed on an e-reader. (I’ve been doing some research into file types used by various e-readers.)
I have the text as a .PDF now, but it’s static.
Is it important to readers that the text be able to flow?
kdaug
Today I don’t feel like doing anything.
(+Spock, again. It’s like Takai and Nimoy are conspiring to take over “cool” from us plebes. Or the internet. Or whatever generates memes.)
Watch it now, so when you go back to work next week you’ll be “in the know”.
Linda Featheringill
Gloria Steinem may have influenced the Movement but I really don’t think she influenced the average woman all that much.
Some other women did.
Angela Davis did. Many a young woman of any race or ethnicity had respect for her courage. You had to admit, the girl was out there, moving and shaking and trying to make a difference. Gotta respect that. She was a role model.
Betty Friedan influenced a lot of women aged about 40 or so, with kids getting older, who started thinking about what to do with their lives. Something other than being a blasted maid and servant.
“Sex and the Single Girl” was written by Helen Gurley Brown. Another role model. She came up from poverty and went on to lead an interesting life. The money she made didn’t impress me as much as the adventures she had when she set a goal and then went for it. She wasn’t really political but she was assertive. She was a great believer in “The Sisters Doing It for Themselves.”
And I think we should give a moment of recognition for probably the greatest liberator of poor women: Al Anon. At their meetings, they spent hours discussing what was each woman’s responsibility and what wasn’t. They liberated many a women from the idea that she was created to make some man happy. Screw that. Take responsibility for your own actions and let other people stew in their own juices. Through the years, lots and lots of poor women have discovered and nurtured their feelings of self worth at Al Anon meetings.
I haven’t read the book yet, of course. Maybe all of this is covered.
Violet
@kdaug:
That is excellent. I love Shatner on the TV. LOL.
Martin
@lamh34:
He’ll never understand the pain of being an oppressed white man in a black man’s world.
jnfr
I’m plotting sedums for a new garden in my front yard.
Collins’ book is fantastic, by the way.
Francis
Studying for the US Patent Bar exam. [blech.]
Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Do you sock each other with Income Tax Evasion if you get caught hiding money after you’ve drawn that card? That was one of our favorite moments playing Monopoly as kids.
Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason
@Uncle Clarence Thomas:
It sounds to me like this is what UCT intended. Not to put words in his mouth or anything.
MikeJ
@Francis: That’s patently false! That’s patently obvious! That’s a patent lie!
How hard could that be?
(Good luck.)
lamh34
My fav summer guilty pleasure is back!!! I’m finally watching the So You Think You Can Dance premiere audition episode. Who watched it last Thursday?
NeenerNeener
@PurpleGirl: Well, I think PDF reflow is important, but I’m only one data point. If you don’t get enough responses here you might want to ask over at http://www.mobileread.com in the General Discussion forum.
PurpleGirl
@NeenerNeener: Thank you for your response.
cckids
@Linda Featheringill:
I have to say, not so much for me, after I read something she wrote (autobiography?? article?? it was 18-20 years ago) where she dissed women suing their employers for sexual harassment as whiners. She told a story (from the swinging 60-70’s) about the men in her office chasing any attractive girl down the hall, catching her & stealing her underwear. All in the spirit of good fun & office camaraderie!! Nobody minded!The “plain” girls had sadz because they didn’t get chased. So quit your bitching & learn to have fun!! Sorry, I was in college when I read it & the sheer obliviousness of the woman stunned me then & now.
Linda Featheringill
@cckids:
One woman’s hero is another woman’s jerk. ‘Twas ever thus.
Who was [were] your role model[s]?
Martin
@PurpleGirl: I think it’s quite important, in fact. There’s a variety of e-reader form factors out there – 7″, 10″, and landscape and portrait orientations, and one of the main benefits of e-readers is the ability to change the type size for readability. Reflow is quite important to e-readers working as intended.
Cat Lady
@Linda Featheringill:
Barbara Kingsolver or Harper Lee. If I had only ever done one thing in my life by writing either The Poisonwood Bible or To Kill A Mockingbird and then immediately died, it would have been WAY enough. I’ll just keep feeding cats instead.
Linda Featheringill
@Cat Lady:
As ye have done to the least of these . . . . . :-)
cckids
@Linda Featheringill: My main role model was my great-aunt. My mother died when I was a year old, leaving my dad with 3 girls, aged 1,2,& 3. She took a leave of absence from her job to care for us for 2 1/2 years, while Dad got out of the Air Force & went to a trade school. She was a teacher in a small town in Nebraska, who started teaching in the late 1930’s, in a one-room schoolhouse with grades 1-8, & finished her career in the mid-80’s, teaching first graders, including special needs kids & computer classes. She accomplished more every week than lots of us do in month. After she was 60, she took up oil painting & showed talent. She learned to write grants & set up a Meals on Wheels program for her county, also a program that matched unemployed people with older neighbors who needed housework/yardwork help-giving one group some income & allowing the others to stay in their homes.
She was the only “pro-life” person I’ve ever known who walked the talk–she helped pregnant girls/women who didn’t want the baby, yet didn’t want an abortion get funding to live & find an adoption agency; she took in many who were kicked out by their parents until the child was born & they moved on with their lives; for those who decided on abortion, she helped them get set up with a safe clinic & didn’t judge. She was a rare person, secure in herself & not needing to sway others to her point of view. She’s been gone for 5 years now, & I still miss her.
Linda Featheringill
@cckids:
Sounds like quite a woman.
Mrs. A
After having been served ‘apple pie moonshine’ at a picnic in the wilds of the Kentucky countryside, I’m taking it easy on my couch. Love a three-day weekend.
Phyllis
Spent most of the day reading the Manning Marable book about Malcolm X. Got the Braves game on; pleased to see the Phillies go down in flames against the Mets.
tom
Newsweek put Grand Rapids, MI on its list of 10 cities most in decline. G-Rap responded with this video, which is really charming in its own way. It was shot all in one 9-minute take.
Leo Strauss
In the the Jezebel interview she’s completely right to rephrase the question into the Civil Rights framework. She’s in alignment with Ackerman’s High Constitutional Moments argument. (Happen to share that perspective, some (many?) don’t).
As for the weekend, spent part of it subverting her intent by emphatically embracing the concept of today’s commercial womanhood as CGI-esque fast cut, ephemeral disposable eye candy trivia for a video cut.
The late Andrea Dworkin would have much to say about the ironic posing, and likely would agree with parts of her analysis. Don’t go so far as Catherine MacKinnon would thinking that this calculatedly manufactured experience (her term would be ‘objectification’) is the actual real world physical equivalent of raping the supermodels.
After all, Sex and the Single Girl led to this:
From the Cosmo ‘Man Summit’ (Sept. 2010)
What’s new and good to see about the movement now is how natural and widespread mentoring and networking has become. (Say from the early 1990s). Sometimes the ‘quiet’ successes can provide vitality when it’s not obviously present.
Leo Strauss
As usual, Chrissie Hynde expresses it better:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pywkt4aTgXk