Gail Collins

Gail Collins marches the reader through women's history in the United States from colonial times to the present, with particular attention to older women (the definition of "middle age" has changed with life expectancy), and always with her wonderfully dry, understated sense of humor. Clearly, it has been a long fight and it remains unfinished.

Quotes

The Colonies

...an important rule in American history: when there aren't enough people, outsiders who wouldn't normally get a chance to shine are show more suddenly in demand. (10)

The 1800s Arrive

The Revolution had brought a spirit of out-with-the-old that extended to more than governments. (31)

...motherhood was glorified to make up for all the other things that had been cut out of [women's] portfolio. (31)

Perhaps the moral here is that if you have money, you can afford to ignore social rules. [Eliza Jumel, widow of Aaron Burr] (40)

Mid-1800s

That was the catch: the world might be willing to accept older women taking greater roles in public life. But nobody thought they should dodge the responsibility of caring for aged relatives. So a lot of gifted, ambitious women wound up getting stuck....[Louisa May] Alcott wrote in her diary that she would "never live my own life." (58)

1920s

The attitude toward the unmarried is one of the critical markers that determine how well women of any age will fare in society....Another marker is whether women who do get married can also have careers. (124)

1970s

"the media are still male-dominated, with the male ego as the retina" (Caryl Rivers, NYT) (250)

1980s

...men had almost all the advantages, except for longevity and self-sufficiency. [retirement communities] (257)

The 21st Century

"men are judging women by beauty more than women are judging men by looks. And the standard of beauty is a youth-based beauty." (Paula England, NYU sociology professor, 293)

Onward and Upward

...due to a Supreme Court ruling in 2000...state employers do not have to pay damages to people they've discriminated against on the basis of age. (308)

When women fought for a future in which age didn't matter, nobody talked much about whether there would be enough room at the top for everybody who deserved to be there. (314)

But this is still America, and wherever there's money, there's eventually going to be attention. [Marketing attention to Boomer women vs. 20-something males, 320) show less

[When Everything Changed] by [[Gail Collins]] is a history of the women’s movement and of women’s place in the US. It’s well-written and full of interesting details. Collins covers issues of class, race and sexual orientation as they relate to women’s roles, so the book is quite comprehensive. It’s broad, rather than deep, but well worth reading.

I was impressed at how far we have come since the early 60’s when women were marginalized and accepted the marginalization. The story show more that resonated with me was an anecdote about JFK. Katharine Graham told how the president wanted to know why Adlai Stevenson, balding and chubby, was regarded as so attractive by his many female friends. Told that it was because Stevenson actually listened with interest to what women had to say, the president responded “Well, I don’t say you’re wrong, but I’m not sure I can go to those lengths. “ show less

How refreshing! I'm a major history buff, so probably know more than most "laymen" about American history, but this book made me appreciate just how much American history goes unexplored because our traditional approach to "history" is largely male-centric, focusing on wars, politics, and technology. This book explores the same material but views it through a different lens, focusing on home, family, and social issues/mores/trends. In the process, the book reveals an astonishing amount of show more rarely-addressed information, wholly as important and relevant to understanding our country as all those books about world wars.

The book moves chronologically through time, from Virginia Dare to 2000, and is comprised of many short (3-4pg) chapters, each focused on a particular life or issue. The text is heavy on primary source information - actual quotes from women's diaries and historical documents - which makes each vignette feel refreshingly authentic. Yes, "women's issues" like the sufferagette movement receive attention, but they comprise a small part of the vast sweep of this book, which explores the changing ways in which Americans of various genders and race, over the past 400 years, have approached family, health, gender roles, politics, and culture.

I read this while on vacation at the beach and on almost every page found some tidbit of information so interesting that I had to share it with the family. As a result, there's now a queue to borrow my copy of the book - a queue which includes more men than women, by the way. show less

This book is a modern history of women in the United States from 1960 through the 2008 US Presidential campaign. Gail Collins, the first woman to serve as editor of the New York Times editorial page, begins with a detailed review of the role of women, and societal attitudes towards women, in 1960. There were virtually no women doctors or lawyers. Television had taken the nation by storm, with 90% of American families owning a TV, and most programs portrayed the men in lead roles and women as show more subservient. Housework was very time-consuming, with labor-saving devices only just beginning to enter homes. Most women did not feel poorly treated; it was just the way things were. Surprisingly (at least to me), the civil rights movement was a trigger event that set waves of change in motion. Collins takes the reader decade by decade up to the present time, showing how women gradually earned rights, both legally and informally, and celebrated the early pioneers who made it all possible.

The book effectively covers my entire life (I was born in 1962). And while I had some idea that we’d “come a long way baby,” (as the ad used to say), I didn’t realize how much radical change had occurred until reading this book. I also found it very interesting to reflect on my personal experience during each decade. In that regard, the most meaningful chapters were those covering the 1980s and early 1990s: the time in which I came of age, went to university, got married, started a career, and had a family. But the chapters covering the 1960s and 1970s were compelling, because they put into perspective events that were somewhat of a mystery when seen through a child’s eyes (Roe vs. Wade is one notable example).

I recommend this book for all American women who would like to better understand the key people and events that shaped the society in which we live today. show less