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The Good Girls Revolt: How the Women of Newsweek Sued their Bosses and Changed the Workplace - Lynn Povich
The Good Girls Revolt: How the Women of Newsweek Sued their Bosses and Changed the Workplace
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It was the 1960s––a time of economic boom and social strife. Young women poured into the workplace, but the “Help Wanted” ads were segregated by gender and the “Mad Men” office culture was rife with sexual stereotyping and discrimination.Lynn Povich was one of the lucky ones, landing a job at... show more
It was the 1960s––a time of economic boom and social strife. Young women poured into the workplace, but the “Help Wanted” ads were segregated by gender and the “Mad Men” office culture was rife with sexual stereotyping and discrimination.Lynn Povich was one of the lucky ones, landing a job at Newsweek, renowned for its cutting-edge coverage of civil rights and the “Swinging Sixties.” Nora Ephron, Jane Bryant Quinn, Ellen Goodman, and Susan Brownmiller all started there as well. It was a top-notch job––for a girl––at an exciting place.But it was a dead end. Women researchers sometimes became reporters, rarely writers, and never editors. Any aspiring female journalist was told, “If you want to be a writer, go somewhere else.”On March 16, 1970, the day Newsweek published a cover story on the fledgling feminist movement entitled “Women in Revolt,” forty-six Newsweek women charged the magazine with discrimination in hiring and promotion.  It was the first female class action lawsuit––the first by women journalists––and it inspired other women in the media to quickly follow suit.Lynn Povich was one of the ringleaders. In The Good Girls Revolt, she evocatively tells the story of this dramatic turning point through the lives of several participants. With warmth, humor, and perspective, she shows how personal experiences and cultural shifts led a group of well-mannered, largely apolitical women, raised in the 1940s and 1950s, to challenge their bosses––and what happened after they did. For many, filing the suit was a radicalizing act that empowered them to “find themselves” and fight back. Others lost their way amid opportunities, pressures, discouragements, and hostilities they weren’t prepared to navigate.  The Good Girls Revolt also explores why changes in the law didn’t solve everything. Through the lives of young female journalists at Newsweek today, Lynn Povich shows what has––and hasn’t––changed in the workplace.  
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Format: ebook
ISBN: 9781610399241
Edition language: English
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Community Reviews
TeaStitchRead
TeaStitchRead rated it
3.0 The Good Girls Revolt: How the Women of Newsweek Sued Their Bosses and Changed the Workplace by Lynn Povich
Lynn Povich was one of the women involved in the two class action lawsuits that occurred in the early days of the second wave feminist movement. She was a researcher, a reporter, a writer, and moved all the way up to the number 3 spot as an editor. She recounts the story in vivid detail, sometimes a...
Jammies' books
Jammies' books rated it
2.5
This book should have been a favorite for me--a fascinating true story of women working together and fighting sexism plus some mid-century details. Instead, I read the whole book without feeling anything other than an academic interest in the fates of the protagonists, including the writer/narrator...
Libromancer's Apprentice
Libromancer's Apprentice rated it
5.0 The Good Girls Revolt: How the Women of Newsweek Sued their Bosses and Changed the Workplace
After the work put in, the legal battles fought, and rights won, we tend to take for granted the opportunities that now exist and wonder if we still need feminism. This book is not only a well written narrative of how one group of women fought to over turn the norm, it is consistently anchored with...
Memories From Books on Booklikes
Memories From Books on Booklikes rated it
2.0 The Good Girls Revolt: How the Women of Newsweek Sued their Bosses and Changed the Workplace
Review first published on my blog: http://memoriesfrombooks.blogspot.com/2013/01/the-good-girls-revolt.htmlThe Good Girls Revolt is a memoir of a group of women - the first women in the media industry to initiate a class action suit against their employer for sex discrimination. The "good girls" are...
florinda3rs
florinda3rs rated it
As 2013 begins, 80-year-old Newsweek magazine will enter a new phase as an online-only publication. It’s not the first time that changes in the socioeconomic landscape have forced it to change how it operates. Forty years earlier, the magazine was sued by almost fifty of its female employees when th...
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