Crazy Salad

Finished August 10

Crazy Salad by Nora Ephron

This collection of articles dates from 1972 to 1974 and was published in 1975. The articles all have a focus on women or issues relating to women. Some are related to social events of the times, some to politics (there are quite a few around Nixon and Watergate) and some to specific female figures. I really enjoyed the essays, and found many of them were still very relatable nearly fifty years later, which is definitely sad to contemplate. Ephron is a very good writer, and she lets her personality and some of her personal bias come through here, which makes the essays feel more intimate and relatable. Having recently read Dorothy Parker, I particularly liked the essay on her, and I also really enjoyed the two Crazy Ladies ones which speaks to expectations on women and women who defy those expectations. A few of these are reviews and Ephron does not mince words when she doesn't think a book lives up to its buzz. 

Altogether a great collection and one I found both enlightening and engaging.

The Good Girls Revolt

Finished October 14
The Good Girls Revolt: How the Women of Newsweek Sued Their Bosses and Changed the Workplace by Lynn Povich

The story of the women of Newsweek began in the sixties, but continues into the present. Lynn follows the development of the case from its inception through its public unveiling to subsequent cases and slow change at the newsmagazine. While she was beginning to write this, she was approached by women working at Newsweek in the early twenty-first century, who were still feeling unfairness in the workplace and had just discovered the historic case. This present situation became part of the story included here, and brings in the changes, and gaps that still exist 42 years later. This was a landmark case for women's rights, and one of the interesting elements is the reaction by women both then and now to the term feminism. Among women today, there is a lack of knowledge of the history that partly explains this, but there is also a mindset among many women across time about what feminism is.
A very interesting book, about an important historical change that had long lasting impact on the workplace.