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

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From June Cleaver to Hillary Clinton, Gail Collins` new book, When Everything Changed, reminds us of both how much everything has changed for American women in the last 50 years and just how little. Collins writes skillfully about the "olden" days when a glamour career for a woman was to be a stewardess and when the reason most women went to college to get a "Mrs.".

As accessible as she is on the Op-Ed page of the New York Times, and as wryly funny, Collins illustrates the historical facts with the stories of real women including those whose names we all know (Hilary Clinton, Sarah Palin and Michelle Obama) as well as those we would probably not know unless we read her book.

What Collins does particularly well though is to highlight that there still isn't gender parity in America's workplaces or homes. She ends on a note that celebrates how far we've come with a reality check - the gender pay gap still exists, too few women serve as CEOs or sit on corporate boards and the work-life balance conundrum has yet to be resolved.

When Everything Changed is an inspiring book. If we have forgotten the sacrifices and struggles of women who blazed the trail and take the fact that they changed the world, we should be reminded. And even if we haven't, Collins shows us that we have miles to go before we sleep.

Revolutions with the greatest lasting impact are sometimes the quietest events of their time, a description that applies to the dazzling struggle for equality that American women waged from 1960 to the present.

Former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra O'Connor tells of graduating from Stanford Law School and being unable to get a job in any Phoenix law firm except as a file clerk. She grew up on an Arizona ranch where her Dad expected her to handle almost every job done by men; yet, even with a Stanford law degree, she was virtually shut out of the legal profession in Arizona.

Her court nomination was heralded as a major breakthrough. Why? Why is recognition of anyone's intelligence a "breakthrough"? Collins is a gifted writer who explains why equality is so radical, yet so just and inevitable.

O'Connor's career, and that of millions of other women during the past 50 years, is a genuine "revolution" in social attitudes. It changed America and the world without a shot being fired and only a few bras burnt. Accepting women as equals in all endeavours doubles the intelligence of any society. Fifty years ago, women had the choice of career or housework. Today, women have the right to hold almost any job (except submarine crews) they want.

It's a long complex and continuing effort. After the Equal Rights Amendment was abandoned, women by the millions set out to win their rights one issue and one job at a time. Collins tells a masterful story based on personal efforts. The "revolution" was privatized; nothing could stop it. This isn't a book of dull theory, bewildered opposition, political theory or arcane legal savvy; it is the stories of hundreds of people who made Equal Rights a fact of American life and an example for the world.

Often, great events are the product of great leaders motivated by great ideals. Instead, the campaign for women's rights involved dozens of leaders plus millions of individuals. This mass movement made it an inevitable event, despite the rage of Schlafly, Bryant and other conservatives who can't respect the right of people to make their own decisions.

The difference is subtle, yet profound. Personally, I grew up in a society whose formal head is the Queen of England. It took until the 1980s, and Canadians hailed it as a major breakthrough in equality, for a woman to be named Governor General of Canada (the Queen's representative). Really. Is it a cultural breakthrough when a woman is appointed to represent a woman? Or is it a century overdue?

For Canadians, a woman representing a woman is major progress. Yet, this incident typifies similar idiocies in the U.S. It is so logical as to defy explanation. However, changing attitudes is a genuine revolution. What is so strange about allowing anyone to use their full intelligence? Yet, as Collins deftly illustrates, it takes a lot of quiet cleverness to penetrate the fog of the status quo.

Collins cites example after example, showing how individuals overcame the idiocy of the incumbency. It is a beautiful, inspiring and very timely book in response to those who always say "No!" to every decent new idea.

Gail Collins has written a revealing book both for those women of a "certain age" who lived through the events she chronicles and for those who are too young to know how difficult a journey it has been. The names everyone knows are here but the real beauty of this book lies in the stories of those unheralded and brave women who, at great personal cost, stood their ground and made a difference. Collins's witty, concise, reportorial style makes for a delightful read, once past the somewhat leaden introduction.

I learned many surprising things about where we were in the decades of my early adulthood and about how we came to be where we are now, as well as how far we have to go if we do not backslide. Collins skillfully puts the progress of women into the larger picture of social history.

This book is my holiday gift of choice for all the women in my family, especially daughters and daughters-in-law. They are the ones who will continue the amazing journey, provided they heed the warnings Collins implies.

There is something ironic in finding a link to an excerpt of this book in AARP's website. This is a book as much for my daughter as for those in my generation who lived through this entire period. Gail Collins has done a stellar job of telling the story of women's struggle for equality during these past five decades, with enough wit and anecdotes to make the narrative always lively. But I hope others will follow suit and write about stories she didn't have the space to include -- for example, about the women who flooded therapy programs, graduating with a new consciousness which was passed to their primarily female clients; about the women whose novels and criticism changed a generation's mind (e.g., THE WOMEN'S ROOM, WRITING A WOMAN'S LIFE, BELOVED, THE WOMAN WARRIOR, et al); the women who bankrolled the movement at critical moments, such as Peg Yorkin, Joan Palevsky, and Barbara Dobkin, among others and those that changed the landscape using the resources of major institutions like the Ford Foundation); the women whose efforts on campuses transformed undergraduate and graduate learning, including curriculum, pedagogy, and the canon; the women who fought for and gained some equality in the major religions; the women, like Judy Chicago, whose The Dinner Party opened the door to looking at herstory from a new artistic perspective. So my only quibble with the book is that it did not include as much social, intellectual, literary, and artistic history as I may have wished. However, its political history is superb. I hope Ms. Collins or others will follow suit and write a companion volume.

Finally, someone has written an accessible, readable book about a critical period in American history. I thoroughly enjoyed reading "When Everything Changed." This is a wonderful, creative, and informative book about a revolution that seems to have gone unnoticed. For those of us who lived through these tumultuous times, the book is a refresher, a reminder of the struggle that was both personal and historical in nature. For those of you under thirty-five, it is a must read. You must know where you have been, to know where you are, so that you can know where you are going. You must understand your Herstory. (My only negative is minor. I understand that Ms. Collins did not set out to write the "definitive" history of the time period. But, I was distracted from some of the main points by too much reliance on the individual stories. On occasions, I felt overwhelmed by too much anecdotal information, too many quotations, and too many stories of individuals; albeit, fascinating in there own right. More analysis and less reliance on individual stories would have made this a truly great book.) On the whole, however, I highly recommend this book to all. I only wish this book was published when I was teaching my Herstory Unit! Oh, the stories you would be able to tell your students....It should be in every library from middle school and up. It should be on the reading list of every history teacher. Everyone will enjoy this excellent history.

I lived through all of this, so I thought I would be familiar with all Collins had to report. I was in error. I may have been alive, but I was not noticing. I remember many of the events, but I did not react at the time to their importance. This book became, then, a necessary lesson in what I lived through and profited by but paid too little attention to.

Most informative to the reader are the author's many personal interviews that portray the details of the daily lives of American women of the era. This is not library research. It is woman to woman sharing of memories, frustrations and small victories that took place as "everything changed".

I asked for this book for Christmas, I have given it several times as presents and when it gets to paperback, I may just stand on a street corner and give it to every woman passing by.

My lovely and accomplished daughter gave WHEN EVERYTHING CHANGED to me for the holidays. This was a most thoughtful gift, since Gail Collins is among my favorite newspaper columnists. IMHO, her columns are sensible and elegant and often hilarious. Further, she never wastes her space. To me, she reads like the second-coming of Russell Baker, albeit more focused on politics than the strangeness of modern life. She is superior with my morning coffee.

The subtitle of WEC--The Amazing Journey of American Women from 1960 to the Present--pretty much sums up the intentions of Collins in this book, which is to provide an overview of how everything changed over 50 tumultuous years. To do so, she devotes the first section of her three-part book to the expectations and opportunities women faced in America in 1960. Then, part two examines how opportunity exploded for women in the mid 1960's. Finally, section three explores the backlash provoked by social change and then follows the experiences of a range of American women through the 70's, 80's, 90's, and the 00's.

At the end of section three, she observes: "So there you are. American women had shattered the ancient traditions that deprived them of independence and the right to have adventures of their own, and done it so thoroughly that few women under 30 had any real concept that things had ever been different."

There was much to like about this book. But I especially enjoyed the story of Howard Smith playing games with the Civil Rights Act and its historic unintended consequences; the overview of women in the civil rights movement; the respectful treatment of the maddening Phyllis Schafly; the analysis of the failed Comprehensive Child Development Act; and the discussion of Clinton's run for the presidency and its aftermath. For me, Collins's treatment of these subjects was especially fresh and revealing. At the same time, this work had, like the rest of the book, great clarity, sly humor, and a light touch. Never is her work pedantic, poorly paced, or boring.

Regardless, there was one tiny shortcoming in WEC, which I must point out to the Amazon.com community. Not to spoil everything; but Collins wrote this 471 page book without a single reference to Seamus, the Irish setter Mitt Romney strapped to the roof of the car during a family trip to Canada. (Her loyal readers know what I'm talking about.)

Otherwise, excellent and recommended.

Can you figure out this answer to this riddle?
"A man and his son were in a car accident. The man died on the way to the hospital, but the boy was rushed into surgery. The surgeon said "I can't operate, for that's my son!" How is this possible?"

When I first heard this riddle as a girl in the `70's I was stumped for the answer. Thanks to the women's movement modern girls are probably (hopefully!) quickly able to discern the answer. This is because everything has changed for women. While the glass ceiling still exits and stereotypes abound, generally, women are free to be, do, and own almost anything that was once reserved for men only.

When Everything Changed by Gail Collins details the historical changes from 1960 to the present, and examines the impact of these events on the lives of ordinary women. As Collins explains, once upon a time, men and women existed in different societal spheres, with men occupying the higher level:

Then, suddenly, everything changed. The cherished convictions about women and what they could do were smashed in the lifetime of many women living today. It happened so fast that the revolution seemed to be over before either side could really find its way to the barricades. And although the transformation was imperfect and incomplete, it was still astonishing.

When Everything Changed is an entertaining, but more importantly, a knowledgeable book of recent history that should be read by women of all ages!


Oh and here is the answer to the riddle: the surgeon is the boy's mother.


Publisher: Little, Brown and Company (October 14, 2009), 480 pages
Review Copy Provided Courtesy of the Publisher.

An optional University Text for a requirement course on Women's studies, this book is a fluid history of the growth of women in our society from the early roots of their emancipation to the present. And along the way, significant events in the civil rights movement are exposed and presented in context. For older readers, it can be nostalgic. For younger readers, it's likely a revelation regarding a time when things were not as they are today. This is not a book for just women. Men, like myself, can learn much from these pages. It's an enjoyable and fluid read.

It took me a long time to read this book, because I wanted to understand everything that best-selling author and New York Times columnist, Gail Collins, had written. I found myself reading certain sentences over and checking dates on the previous page and filing names away only to double back to where they had appeared earlier in the book.

Collins interviewed over 100 women for "When Everything Changed: The Amazing Journey of American Women From 1960 to the Present". She talked to every kind of woman, from age 20 to late 80s, politicians, lawyers, teachers, nurses, housewives, students, feminists, lesbians, construction workers, athletes and full time activists. To make her story, Collins follows generations of women, from mother to daughter to granddaughter. She sites TV shows, books and pop culture that influenced womens' dress and attitude in their time. She references major court cases and political races. She champions each struggle as a victory, even the ones that looked like defeat. She gives women their day in this book, honoring the strength and perseverance that is present in every woman from a stay-at-home mom to a presidential candidate.

This book is a complete and detailed overview of the female fight for equality. I can say I've been changed by this book. It helped me see where I fall in the grand scheme of women suffrage. I was part of the generation that barely knew gender discrimination. I played sports. I wore pants. I went to college. I majored in a subject that had a largely male student body and I only wondered once, at graduation "Why didn't more girls sign up to be illustrators?" I only vaguely knew what kind of battles lay just behind me as I floated through my choices.

I am far more appreciative of my mother and all the women who paved the way for me to have the opportunities I had as a young woman in America. Thanks, Mom, for being a Navy Veteran. Thanks for being the first one (male or female) in your family to graduate from college. Thanks for voting, and making me vote. Thanks for working so hard, and proving yourself not only worthy of equal pay, but exceeding expectations in your career, so there could never be an argument against it.

Thanks to all the women who are holding a place in the work force. I've never felt guilty about staying home to raise my kids until the last chapter of Collins book, where many aged ERA veterans wonder if feminism failed, because the number of women in the workforce is less now than it was in the eighties. I promised to get back to it. Thanks for holding the line while I took a time out. And thanks to all the Moms who work hard to raise their daughters and sons to be independent, self-confident, and tolerant. We have a direct impact on the future of the world. It's an amazing feeling, having read this book. I feel like I have billions of sisters, everywhere.

Cat York
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