When the ‘Good Girls’ Revolted

The men in the office called them “Dollies,” and they had had enough. In 1970, 46 women who were not allowed to be writers sued Newsweek magazine for gender discrimination – paving the way for generations of women journalists to follow. Jess reflects on discovering that story when she was a young staffer at Newsweek four decades later, and how it led to her first book, Feminist Fight Club, which was inspired by those women. Plus, Susie asks what’s changed for women reporters today.  FOR MORE:  Are We There Yet? Forty Years Later, Revisiting a Landmark Sex Discrimination Suit (Jessica Bennett, Jesse Ellison and Sarah Ball, Newsweek, 2012) The Good Girls Revolt: How the Women of Newsweek Sued their Bosses and Changed the Workplace (Book by Lynn Povich) Good Girls Revolt (Amazon TV series based on the book) Feminist Fight Club: A Survival Manual for a Sexist Workplace (Book by Jessica Bennett) See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Is there a cultural moment from your past that looks different in retrospect? Maybe it’s a scandalous tabloid story seared into your teenage brain or a political punchline that just feels wrong now. It might be a very specific red swimsuit that inspired a decade of plastic surgery (see: “Baywatch”) or the inescapable smell of an entire generation of prepubescent boys (Axe body spray, anyone?). Each week on IN RETROSPECT, Emmy-winning journalist Susie Banikarim and New York Times editor Jessica Bennett revisit a pop culture moment from the 80s and 90s that shaped them — to try to understand what it taught us about the world, and a woman’s place in it. Talk to us at @inretropod, @susiebnyc and @jessicabennett on Instagram. New episodes each Friday.