"The Good Girls Revolt" Book Review

First published on July 26, 2012 at http://www.hercircleezine.com/2012/07/26/the-good-girls-revolt-by-lynn-povich/

AVAILABLE SEPTEMBER 2012

NEWSWEEK published a cover story on the feminist movement entitled “Women in Revolt” in March of 1970. The day the issue was released, women employees at NEWSWEEK filed a discrimination complaint with the EEOC against the magazine. THE GOOD GIRLS REVOLT: HOW THE WOMEN OF NEWSWEEK SUED THEIR BOSSES AND CHANGED THE WORKPLACE (by Lynn Povich,PublicAffairs Books, September 2012) tells the story not only of the lawsuit but also its aftermath and shows how the NEWSWEEK women’s actions and their complaint are still relevant today.

Povich describes the late 1960s and early 1970s at NEWSWEEK, and credits the magazine with evenhanded reporting even as it began to express an opinion and take sides on issues such as civil rights and the war in Vietnam. While those in senior positions, such as Oz Elliott, worked to promote equality between races, equality of women was not part of the equation. So distinct was the divide between women’s rights and the civil rights movement, that no black women atNEWSWEEK joined the forty-six white women who signed the lawsuit. Povich describes how, at the time, the black women identified more with race than with their gender. This divide is interesting given that it was Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act under which the complaint was made. Povich points out that this divide “was one of the chilling contradictions of the culture: advocating civil rights for all while tolerating—or overlooking—the subjugation of women.” Not all women at NEWSWEEK supported the lawsuit. Not even all women at the magazine were privy to the details of the lawsuit before it was filed, either. Helen Dudar at first couldn’t understand her colleagues’ actions, as she did not consider herself a feminist.

Helen Dudar, who worked for the New York Post and was hired by Newsweek as a consultant to write the original article, couldn’t understand her colleagues’ actions, as she did not consider herself a feminist. Povich quotes Dudar, “I have spent years rejecting feminists without bothering to look too closely at their charges…It has always been easy to dismiss substance out of dislike for style.” This comment deserves further analysis, as later in the book, Povich describes how when the fortieth anniversary of the lawsuit approached, and an article about it was published at NEWSWEEK, with writers commenting on what was accomplished and what remained to be accomplished, the feminist blog Jezebel reacted harshly to what was written. The writers felt attacked “from within” the current feminist tribe.

While Dudar may have rejected substance because she was put off by style, I believe this is true with what are considered “extreme” feminist publications today. Rather than attack one another for not being “feminist enough,” we need to rally around causes and issues. We may work to expand the issue or awareness without attacking the messenger or the style of the message. I don’t advocate herein for sugarcoating or taking the “good girl” approach to a brasher one. I am merely against infighting.

In light of the past several weeks of articles here at inContext that I’ve written, there is one quote I think is extremely relevant as we look at women in positions of power and how that changes things. Povich describes being approached by one of her writers when she was promoted to an editorial position. The writer, Ken Woodward, told Povich how he, at first, did not want to work with her and questioned her credentials. As he came to realize her talent and abilities, Woodward felt Povich’s presence actually humanized the work environment. He admitted to Povich that he previously claimed a doctor’s appointment if he wished to leave early to see his son’s baseball games. However, with a woman boss, he no longer felt the need to lie. Considering that this comment was made back in the 1970s, it is astounding to consider the implications of this today. THE GOOD GIRLS REVOLT is am important reminder of what has happened in the past forty years, even as it serves as a lesson about what work lies ahead of our society. As part of changing the rhetoric from things being “women’s issues” to being issues affecting everyone, I purposefully chose “society” versus claiming that changes in the workplace are needed specifically for women. Woodward’s desire to be an active father makes him an unwitting precursor to the current movement toward changes needed for families in how childrearing and work combine (or don’t).

THE GOOD GIRLS REVOLT: HOW THE WOMEN OF NEWSWEEK SUED THEIR BOSSES AND CHANGED THE WORKPLACE by Lynn Povich will be available September 10, 2012 from PublicAffairs Books.

The Mommy Wars Continue: Birth Choices As Battle Zone

First published July 12, 2012 at http://www.hercircleezine.com/2012/07/12/the-mommy-wars-continue-birth-choices-as-battle-zone/

PHOTO BY DENNIS MOJADO

Women at baby showers bristle or exchange knowing looks when the guest of honor starts down a path describing her natural birth plan. What would otherwise be close friends or family members become “frenemies.” As soon as they can excuse themselves, those who have already had children, and who chose epidural or other anesthesia to assist their labors, gather around the punch bowl to exchange glances or to make predictive comments. “We’ll see how she feels about natural childbirth when she’s had seventeen hours of labor,” an aunt says to the mother’s best friend, who smiles and nods in agreement, both with eyebrows raised.

Why do women continue to attack one another for choices about how each chooses to conduct her pregnancy and how she gives birth? The most recent victim of this backlash is Miranda Kerr. The lambasting is particularly vengeful when a model or actress, who has inevitably recovered her pre-baby body, with seeming ease, claims the benefits of long-term breastfeeding or advocates for natural childbirth. Women bloggers take umbrage and claim they want the offending fellow mother to keep it to herself.

This article will be published on my son’s birthday. My son was born at home and I had the care of a midwife. Throughout my pregnancies (my son is my second child), coworkers, friends and relatives chided us about our choice to have midwifery care and home births. “What if something goes wrong?” was the inevitable question. No one could name that “something” so that we might be able to reply intelligently about each possible instance and what the midwives would do to handle it. It was always a mysterious “something” that was ominous yet unnameable.

I understand that women who plan on epidurals before even seeing the plus sign on the pee stick or getting the call from the lab are sometimes attacked, as well. They’re cornered by people they consider “birth Nazis” who pepper them with statistics about complications from epidurals, about the need for antibiotics for epidural fevers and about their increased chances of Cesarean section when epidurals are used. These women feel as equally attacked and under pressure as I did, just from another angle.

What I advocate for is for choice for women. I specifically desire informed choice, yet defining the word “informed” is a daunting task. Not everyone wants to be informed about everything. Especially where medicine and medical care are concerned, many people just want someone to “fix it” and want to leave judgments about what is o.k. and what is not o.k. to their doctors. When the doctor makes a decision or allows a woman to make a choice and she later determines she was not as informed as she might have been, lawsuits occur. There are presently lawsuits against doctors who did not perform Cesarean sections, and there are dead babies and disabled babies lined up in pictures in courtrooms. There are also women who sue for unnecessary Cesareans. They claim the doctor acted too soon, that his or her prediction of a large baby was inaccurate and/or that they had complications from the surgery of which they do not feel they were informed adequately. What are doctors and mothers to do?

Like novels that re-imagine history with alternate outcomes, we can never know what would have happened had any of us chosen different care providers, places of birth or even what we ate for breakfast (or didn’t) the day we began labor. Each woman can tell only her story of her birthing experience. For me, I believe (believe, not know) that had I been seeing an obstetrician, my first child would have been a C-section. She was large and I dilated and effaced before her due date. The doctor who had been my ob/gyn at the time would have offered to induce me, at the very least. Instead, I had midwifery care, and a planned home birth, wherein I labored at eight centimeters for six hours. I then labored at nine centimeters for two and a half more. I then pushed three times to birth my nine pounds, twelve ounces daughter. Other women, friends of mine, believe they would have died had they been at home for their births. They believe that their epidurals and C-sections saved them and their babies from certain death, grave illness or injury. They cite extended labors and intense pain, which they believe would have made them transport to a hospital for relief. Then, when labor stalled (possibly because of the epidural and possibly not because of anything done medically), and their baby’s heartbeat crashed upon the addition of pitocin to augment the stalled labor, they believe the subsequent C-section was medically necessary and also a lifesaver for all.

Who is to say who is right and who is wrong? None of us can turn back the experience to attempt it through the alternative. As such, we need to stop judging one another and our choices. We can validate the birth experience of a woman who felt relieved by epidural or other anesthesia and also the woman who chose an elective C-section so that her mother who lives across the country could plan to be there for the birth and early weeks. We can support the woman who chose a home birth and no intervention, and not chastise her for the supposed risks she took or call her “lucky” as a way of explaining away her “good fortune” of a birth as she desired it.

While I am firmly rooted in childbirth as a natural process, I am more deeply rooted in individual experiences of women as valid and worthy of respect. I’d like nothing more than to have every woman educated about all of the risks and benefits of each and every choice in pregnancy and birth. I’d also love it if that once that education was in place, and each woman felt as informed as she wished to be, that we could honor one another even as we make different choices for our children and ourselves. We need to stop attempting to silence women, as I know plenty of people who feel hesitant to speak of their planned C-section at a La Leche League meeting as I know of people hesitant to let on about their planned home birth to colleagues or relatives. Why silence any experience? Why not add to the discourse without judgment and validate each individual woman?

Delusions of Gender and "Having It All" - Book Review and Reflection

First published July 5, 2012 at http://www.hercircleezine.com/2012/07/05/delusions-of-gender-and-having-it-all/

Over the past few weeks, inContext has looked at “dangerous questions” about possible differences between male and female brains, then mommy guilt and identity and motherhood. Last week, we took up the mantle of women in positions of power in government and business. Considering these related topics, I did some research on what information might shed further light into these issues.

Cordelia Fine attempts to debunk a lot of what gets passed off as solid science where male and female brains are concerned in her book DELUSIONS OF GENDER: HOW OUR MINDS, SOCIETY AND NEUROSEXISM CREATE DIFFERENCE. Fine contends that much of what we read in books and magazine articles about differences in female and male brains is actually more culturally and socially based than biologically “wired.” The author proposes two arguments to support her theory that there is very little difference between the actual brains of men and women and that the difference stems from culture. She also states that where gender and the brain are concerned, there have not been a great number of studies. Fine believes the psychological differences that we read about or hear about, which are expressed as hard science, are actually expressed in the ways they are because the researchers themselves are cultured to think of men and women in a particular way already.

This relates to Slaughter’s “having it all” article significantly, as Slaughter claimed women were not in positions of power because the jobs required extraordinary hours and time away from family that she and other women colleagues did not wish to take. The problem was characterized as that facing families, and men should not be away as much as they are, either. I claimed this was wishful thinking on the part of the author. I don’t mean to be cynical or a black cloud over the desired utopia wherein women and men are treated completely equally and that family time is valued by business. It is not the nature of business to value family, since family does not make businesses money, which is what they are in the business of doing in a capitalist society and economy.

Yes, there are employers who value individual employees, and that have generous leave time that allows employees to structure time away from work in a way that allows honesty and relationships to be fostered between managers and employees. For the most part, this is not the case. Across the job spectrum, from minimum-wage positions to those in the highest brackets, all things are not equal in this area either. Hourly wage earners with lower incomes can’t typically take time off, not only because their employers are inflexible, but also because they can’t afford to lose the pay that time off would inevitably cause.

In light of Fine’s book, the “dangerous question” of whether the majority of female brains are different from men’s brains still looms. Even asking the question begs neurosexism as when we ask, we typically do not see it as differences between two types of brains, but rather how one is different from the other. This is a subtle nuance, and the main point of what Fine discusses in the first part of her book. How we ask the question is shaped by how we are cultured. Since Slaughter’s article, James Joyner,managing editor at THE ATLANTIC Council, stood up for the male side of this issue and stated exactly what I did: men never have “had it all” and that a job needs your full attention and so do your children. (His response, from the male viewpoint, is extremely compelling since he is the father of two young children, and after the death of his wife, has turned down career opportunities to spend more time with his children.)

As more women enter the workforce, and remain there after having children, we’ve seen the great divide between men’s and women’s experience of this cultural and societal change. In some instances, we’ve seen families suffer due to the demanding career or work of one or both parents—at all ends of the income spectrum. Where “mommy guilt” comes in is for those in the upper income brackets who look at it like they choose to work when they could easily live off of one salary. Kids of wealthy parents who work a lot sometimes fall through the cracks or get into trouble or do poorly in school. However, the statistics about poverty tell the same sad tale of kids and their potential being cut short due to parental work schedules.

While we should not stop reaching for ideals, or dreaming about an actual balance between the requirements of work and raising children, we cannot think there are any easy solutions or once-size-fits-all fixes. I’m not sure that even legislation that extends or builds upon that which is in place presently can solve the situation, either. Certainly, legislation helps extend equality to employees across the income spectrum. However, as most of us have experienced ourselves or seen others deal with in their respective jobs, a piece of legislation does not help when the culture of a workplace casts a negative eye on it. As Joyner says, we cannot view childcare issues or work/family balance as women’s issues. We must include men’s voices and experiences when we think about parents, not just mothers, being active parts of their children’s lives. And, I suppose for now, we can also put aside questions of whether there are or are not differences in the actual brains of women and men, and focus on the ways in which culture and socialization ask different things of each sex. Maybe asking the question about differences between female and male brains is not so much a question for neuroscience to answer, especially until we unravel the culture and society that are the context for such a question. Thus, when Slaughter claims she felt more compelled to be home with her struggling son than did her husband, this may not be biology or neurology after all, but rather social and cultural conditioning.