16. Read 30 books I haven’t read before and blog about them. (20/30)

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

If you are a woman: RUN and go read this book.  If you know a woman: RUN and read this book.  If a woman gave birth to you: RUN . . . now . . . and read this book.

The narrative and stories in this book are amazing.  I've been tinkering around in women's studies since college and so I've read plenty about how things have progressed, but the stories in this book still made me so incredibly furious at how things were not that long ago.  The book also made me grateful for what's changed, but then increasingly angry about what hasn't changed yet.

For example, did you know we almost had universal child care in the 1970s?  The amount of time I've spent reading, thinking, and talking about daycare is incredible and I don't even have a child yet.  We were almost there but, in episodes eerily similar to what is currently happening with the health care debate, rumors were spread about what exactly "government run child care" would be like and how it would "Sovietize" our children (*cough* socialism fears *cough*) and so it was voted down.  That was a particularly depressing and upsetting passage of the book to read because it hit so close to home.

Did you know that women weren't widely allowed to get credit until 1974?  That means credit cards, car loans, mortages, et cetera.  If a woman wanted to buy a car, the dealer would ask her about her plans to have children since (the assumption was) women who had children then didn't work and would no longer make their payments.  And, of course, there was nothing illegal about this question.  The part that was extra crazy-making to me?  I was born one year later in 1975 . . . so roughly until right before I was born, my mother would not have been able to buy a car.  It's unfathomable.

Did you know there were laws on the books preventing women from doing jobs that required them to lift more than 30lbs?  A woman wanted a promotion where she worked but it required pushing something 35lbs, so she was told she couldn't do that job.  She realized the typewriter she had to lift every day weighed 40lbs, so when they told her she couldn't have the new job, she refused to lift her typewriter, which, naturally, the company fought her on and penalized her for.  She continued to fight and eventually won.  Thank goodness for women like her.

And, you know, of course women shouldn't lift more than 30lbs... because, you know, I'm sure no woman ever lifts a child who weighs more than 30lbs.  Silly womenz, thinking they can do things like what their bodies are capable of.

Women were shot and run off the road just for being in the car with black men.  Women's workstations were defiled with trash and urine when they dared work in a traditionally male, blue collar environment.  Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg was denied a clerkship when first starting out because she liked to wear pants and the judge hated women who wore pants.  Female flight attendants (back when male flight attendants weren't allowed) were required to bend over to serve drinks and light cigars on "men only" executive flights.  And, per the book, if you go back far enough (if I recall, we're talking 100 years ago), men would never be punished for rape if the woman got pregnant because the theory was a woman couldn't get pregnant if she didn't enjoy the sex.  I couldn't believe that when I read it.  My heart goes out to the women who were negatively affected by that law.

Are you angry yet?  Because I'm furious just remembering these things and the thousands of other instances in the book that made my blood boil.  So, yes, I highly recommend this book.  It's amazing how far we've come and gives me hope that we'll be able to make it to true equality one day.