nonfiction books and authors. twitter.com/booktv. .plead >> feminism has become a very hot topic. i suppose the reason for that is sarah palin. feminists cannot resist attacking sarah palin. it's not just because she's a republican and a conservative, it's because she's a successful woman. she has a cool husband, a lot of kids, a great career, making

lots of money. she is, by any standard, a success. and they can't stand it. and acid in their wounds is that she's pretty too. [laughter] so the feminists don't believe that women can be successful in the united states. they think women are oppressed by the patriarchy. they are held down by mean men, and they need the government to rescue them and give them more advantages. and that's very unfortunate. but you never hear them talk about really successful women; margaret thatcher, condoleezza rice. what about all the wonderful women who were elected last november the 2nd, 2010? well, it turned out they were all republicans. in fact, they were all pro-life. and that wasn't what the feminists planned at all. they simply do not recognize success. i really think one of the reasons i was able to beat the equal rights amendment was because they did not believe i

was doing what i did. l they, they conjured up conspiracies like the insurance companies were financing me or some other nonsense like that. now, this ideology of telling young women that you are victims of an oppressive society is so unfortunate. if you wake up in the morning and believe that, you're probably not going to accomplish anything whether you're a man or a woman. and many of the real feminists, in fact, most of them think that abortion is the litmus test for being a feminist. but one of the new feminists, jessica valenti, wrote in "the washington post" just a few weeks ago that the definition of feminism is that we are under an oppressive patriarchy, and they've got to work to overturn it and stop it so that's what feminism is. it is also not true that they are working for equality.

the feminists are for empowerment by the female left. you find that they're not empowering all women, they want to make an alliance with the left wing, and so it's the female left that has become so powerful when it aligned itself with the obama administration. now, when the feminist movement got underway really in the late '60s, early '70s, they called themselves not feminism, they called themselves the women's liberation movement. and you have to ask what did they want to be liberated from? they wanted to be liberated from home, husband, family and children. and so you find that they were, are encouraging women to be independent of men. that's why they were big supporters of divorce, and they looked upon marriage as a very

confining role in life. gloria stein them in said that when a woman gets married, she bells a semi-- becomes a semi nonperson. breathty friedan said the woman of a wife and mother was live anything a comfortable concentration camp. that was their attitude. the degradation of women was a major goal of the feminist movement, and it wasn't -- they were really not using the argument that it takes two incomes to support the family. that really wasn't why they wanted to get her out of the home. they wanted to get her out of the home not for economic reasons, but for social and cultural reasons because they tried to tell women that you're just a parasite, your life is not accomplishing anything. the only way to have fulfillment is to be independent of men and have your own career.

it's kind of interesting when they have a divorce, you know, while they're married they're all the time griping because the men aren't changing half the diapers and washing half the dishes and getting up half the time in the middle of the night to take care of a baby. they want him to do 50/50. but once they have a divorce they think only the mother can handle. they want sole and exclusive custody, and the father just to become a visitor in his child's life maybe twice a month. so they told young women that your only fulfillment is in the labor force. i guess reporting to a boss instead of a husband. and they thought that was so great. they wanted to treat men as irrelevant, unnecessary, and they're also anti-masculine which we see in what they have accomplished with their agents this department of education --

in the department of education through title ix. they have bit on an anti-man campaign to get rid of men's sports in colleges, and now they're working on the high schools. and there is a cultural difference between the way men want sports in college and women. when i went to college, i did everything to avoid any kind of sports. but the men like it, and they have gotten the colleges to cancel hundreds of men's sports. but the one that annoys me the most is they have gotten colleges to ban 450 wrestling teams. now, you tell me what good that does for women. and it shows you that this campaign has nothing to do with equalizing the money that is spent on sports because wrestling is the cheapest sport you can have. all you need is a mat. but that's one of the things they've done, and they're proud of it. and they have this idea that men

and women are really the same, and it's only this patriarchy that's keeping them down. now, it is taught in the women's studies courses and maybe some other sociology courses too that there really -- you know, it's kind of funny. when i started fighting the feminist movement, their ideology seemed to be that god goofed in making us of two different kinds. and they took it as their responsibility to correct his mistake. or should i say her mistake, which they frequently did. [laughter] but now they seem to have shifted to the different theory that really god got it all right in the first place and that all these differences that we think we see are a social construct. they are built into you by your stereotyped upbringing, by the terrible thing that mothers give their girl babies dolls and their boy babies trucks. and so a lot of what they are

doing is based on this ridiculous idea that there isn't any difference physically, emotionally, culturally, sexually or any other way between men and women. in fact, in a lot of colleges you can't even get a grade or a major in the women's studies department unless you buy in to that philosophy. so there are so many lies that they taught, really, feminism is the fraud of the century. but one of the lies is that there's no difference between men and women, and that's simply not true. another lie is that the hook-up culture is liberating, and they tell girls that, you know, to be equal you've got to engage in the sex and be just as promiscuous as men are alleged to be. and that's a dead-end mode for girls as i'm sure many of you know. and then they tell the girls

that you've got to structure your life so that you have a career, and there just isn't any space for a marriage and babies. and a lot of, a lot of feminists have discovered after 40 that there was, indeed, a biological clock which they denied. and some of them have written very bitterly about it. one of their chief theorists, jermaine greer wrote bitterly about her -- another one you see on public television made a very bitter comment in her book about how she longed for the baby she would never have. and one of these feminists,

sylvia hue -- hewlett wrote a book in which she thought she had made an amazing scientific discovery, that women over 40 are less fertile than women under 40. women didn't want to hear that. another example is that society expects mothers to look after their babies. and this burden has got to be lifted from women. and that's why the taxpayers should be responsible for providing taxpayer-paid daycare for all children. and this was a tremendous fight that we fought around 19 88, '89, '90 to try to establish a federally-financed daycare for all children. nothing to do with need for it. but just as a matter of course to lift this burden off of

women's backs. and, fortunately, we did beat them on that. i notice that bernard goldberg wrote in his book about the bias of cbs. he said the biggest story you will never see on cbs is what's wrong with daycare. because the feminists and the network will not allow that on as a story on cbs. another myth that is created is that the feminist movement has created so many opportunities for women. well, yeah, if you think there are a few opportunities, you can get a job in a coal mine if you really want to and a few jobs like that. [laughter] but i remind people i worked my way through college as a gunner working the night shift in an ammunition plant and got my degree from a great university in 1944 with absolutely no discrimination against me of any

shape or form. i got my master's at the harvard graduate school, absolutely no discrimination. i competed with all the boys. that was 1945. my mother got her college degree from a great university in 1920. those opportunities were there if women wanted to take advantage of them. i'll say maybe in those eras most of my friends preferred to get married and get going having some babies, but that's a matter of individual choice. and they don't respect the individual choice. in fact, the big mama of feminist movement taught in all the women's courses, simone debove story who wrote "the single sex" said that you should not give women the choice to be a full-time homemaker or have a career because too many women will make that choice. so they understood that, but they didn't want them to have the choice because they wanted to get all the women in the work force.

and, of course, i guess i'm kind of known for defeating the equal rights amendment in if a ten-year battle, and what got me on to that. prior to that e was writing and selling -- i was writing and selling books on politics and the strategic balance, the soviet missile threat. anyway, i got into e.r.a. because it was such a fraud. it pretended to give a benefit to women and put women in the constitution. it didn't do that at all. i testified in 41 state legislative hearings, and the only time the other side came in and said we have a law in the our state that discriminates gwen women that e -- against women that e.r.a. will remedy was a state where they said they had a law that said wives could not make homemade wine without their husbands' consent. now, for this we need to mess up our constitution? the. [laughter] and then they said we put women in the constitution. but men are not in the constitution.

the constitution is a beautiful sex-neutral document. it only talks about citizens and residents and we the people and electors and presidents and senators and representatives. women had every constitutional right that men had and have had since the constitution was originally ratified. so it was such a fraud. what e.r.a. would have done was to make all laws sex-neutral. well, a classic sex-specific law was the draft registration law which said male citizens of age 18 must register. well, i had sons and daughters about that age then, and my daughters thought this was the craziest thing they ever heard. you're going to give women a new constitutional amendment, and the first thing is we have to sign up for the draft like our brothersesome that was unsalable. we were still in the vietnam war when e.r.a. came out of congress. so the whole idea of feminism is a fraud, and it's, it's even

worse than a fraud because it's leading young women down a dead-end road. and that's why i was so happy to have the collaboration of my niece, suzanne, who speaks to the issue from the younger generation and in a voice and words that i think appeal to the younger people. they may think i'm an old fogie, in fact, i see some of these writings about obsolete version of marriage that some people are clinging to. but suzanne can give you the young people's viewpoint, and i think we've provided a book that is a road map for a happy life for young women and also a warning to the guy about what you can't say now, but we hope to open up the subject of feminism so you'll be able to talk more frankly about some of these issues. it's "the flipside of feminism: what conservative women know and men can't say."

and i think you'll enjoy the book when you get it. thank you very much for listening. [applause] >> hello. it is so great to see so many young ladies here. i have to tell you. because you all are the group that we are most trying to reach through this book. because i truly believe that it is your age group that is getting such a bad message today. it is often said that when something gets repeated often enough, people ultimately accept it as truth. with no other subject is this psychological phenomenon more applicable than feminism. the modern generation has absorbed the myths of feminism like a sponge. they believe, essentially, what they've been taught to believe. they think a feminist is someone

who's strong and independent. they think feminism is what allowed women to get college degrees and pursue careers outside the home. and they also believe that feminism freed mothers from their cages, and we all have seen in hollywood movies that have depicted the 1950s' mother who's so despondent after her last child goes off to kindergarten, and she's alone in this kitchen, and it's dark, and she doesn't know what to do with herself. and that's sort of the image we have of the 1950s mother. to give you some evidence that this is how the modern generation thinks, i thought i would read for you some comments that were made online. in the last few weeks. as a result of two publications, one in the huffington post and one in boston university today which is my alma mater. there were these several articles, q&as about "flipside

of feminism," and there were several thousand responses from some angry women. who were clearly raised by baby boomers. [laughter] my mother raised me not to fend on anyone but -- depend on anyone but myself, and that is hard to do, but my happiness fends on it. if venker and schlafly had any sense, they would thank the feminist movement for making it possible for both of them to have college educations. were it not for feminists before suzanne's time, she never would have gone to college or been able to be a published author. obviously, it's okay for women to have a career as long as the career involves putting women down and keeping them in their place; at home, barefoot and present and submissive whenever a man is present. that is what i try to do in "the flipside." they're right. [laughter] women still, after all this time, earn less money than their equally-educated and experienced

male counterparts. we are penalized for having a womb. and my favorite one: feminism saved us from the horrors of the role women were expected to play in the early half of the 20th century. anyone who denies that is just insane. [laughter] so that should give you a flavor of the kind of knee-jerk responses that anyone who speaks out against feminism is going to get. that's why we say what men can't say. it's worse if a man says what we're saying. that's definitely worse. that would never fly. but if a woman says it, well, she's a traitor to her sex, of course. feminism means different things to different people, but we prefer in "flipside" to use the definition that phyllis mentioned from jessica valenti who is sort of the head honcho of the third wave feminist

movement. and she provided in "the washington post" a working definition for feminism. she said, feminism is a structural analysis of a world that oppresses women. an ideology based on the notion that patriarchy exists and that it needs to end. this is what it means to think like a feminist. if you believe that, if that is your world view, you're a feminist. but being a feminist does not mean being strong and independent. in fact, just the opposite since feminism transfers dependence on a man, a husband to dependence on uncle sam. and if feminism is not what allowed women to get college degrees and pursue careers, we have men and technology to thank for that. and that is a completely new concept for young women. because they have never heard that before, and we explain what we mean by that in "flipside."

so how did feminism become so thoroughly absorbed in american culture? very easy. it is women on the left who hold the power in this country. there is a chasm between everyday american women who are a right-of-center bunch and the women that you see in it's, magazines, movies and academia. those women are left wing, and to their rebel conflicts with the message -- message conflicts with the message that most young women need and want. what are some of these myths? there's a bunch. i'm going to focus on three. the first is the wage gap. we probably, i know i have so i'm sure i have, heard endlessly lately in the media, actually, about how women still don't make what men make throughout their lifetimes. they're constantly harping on this gender gap. there is a gender gap.

there is a wage gap -- they use both phrases. there is a gap, there always will be. but there's a good reason for it. when women become mothers, they freely choose to care for those children. that means they're going to be out of the work for the for some period of time. for some people that's five years, for some people it's ten, some people it's 20. maybe they don't ever go back. but most women take time out to care for those children. when they do return, most of them return on a part-time basis and often after the last child has trotted off to kindergarten. they also don't take the dangerous and unpleasant jobs that men do. so you add those things up, and there's a very good reason why there's a wage gap. but that's not what the message -- that's not the message that you get from the media. the women in the media don't explain that. they just tell you women, despite all the gains they've made, still don't make what men make. making you think that women are

discriminated against. another myth is the idea, phyllis brought this up as well, that casual sex is somehow liberating. that the more sex you have or the freer that you are with your body is somehow meaning you own your body, and it's empowering and liberating for you. it's a horrendous message. and we have a copious amount of research in "flipside" that is very politically incorrect that will tell you the truth about the horrible fallout of what we call our hook-up culture. we also provide in the appendix permits from -- excerpts from an excellent pamphlet that a dr. miriam grossman put together concerning this issue. and then, also, phyllis mentioned the other myth that i was going to talk about which is this idea that gender differences don't exist, that

there's really no difference between males and females. in a recent interview gloria steinem was asked about her thoughts on the latest research between male and female brains which there's been a lot lately in the last few years which has been great. and a doctor wrote both the female brain and the male brain, and this is all in the last few years, and it's excellent material to prove that, yes, men and women are actually different which, of course, we know. but now it's in print. steinem's response to this? well, you know, every time there's a step forward, there's a backlash. so now we're seeing another backlash about brain differences. even if they're right, it doesn't have to continue to be so. [laughter] what makes human beings the species that has survived all this time is our adaptability. when the interviewer pressed further and asked, but aren't there inherent differences we cannot ignore, steinem replied: society can certainly intervene at a cultural level to change that behavior.

fortunately, just this past january -- just two months ago -- a dr. katherine hakim from the lennon school of economics published a report that highlights a dozen feminist myths, some of which we've already mentioned but she provides a full dozen. and these myths she said, quote, have no solid basis in social science theory yet are widely believed and constantly reiterated in the media. feminism is not what people think it is. it has nothing to do with equality for women, and it has nothing to do with making women more independent. not at all. feminism is about power for the female left. it's an emotional issue. people feel very strongly about feminism. but those who are able to detach from their emotions and read

"the flipside of feminism" with a genuinely open mind will see that what feminists want is no different from what president obama wants: to fundamentally transform america. thanks. [applause] >> we will be glad to take questions. there are microphones in the room which we would ask you to wait for for recording purposes, and if you'd be so kind as to identify yourself and give an affiliation if you would like, that would be appreciated too. i could not help but think of during suzanne's litany of quotes the famous reagan quote: our opponents are not necessarily ignorant, they just know so many things that aren't true. [laughter] which takes a while to get around. do we have any questions from the floor? surely.

it's on. >> al milliken, am media. looking back at american history, when women gained the right to vote, do you believe feminists viewed that era differently than you do? >> is the mic on? >> yes, it is. >> is the mic on? is i don't think it's on. >> with it's on. >> they claim credit for it, and they don't deserve any credit for that. it was an entirely different movement to get women a positive benefit. i'm certainly for women voting and being active in politics, but they claim they were therefore mothers or something. and there's no relation. those women were all pro-family, and in particular they were anti-abortion. and i don't know how the current feminists can trace any lineage to them, but i think that's all another myth.

>> if i could just add to that. i think that that issue is what makes the whole conservative women movement so confusing when it comes to feminism. i think that's what causes problems is because conservative women want to hold on to that label because they do associate it with the suffrage movement. so one of the things we do in "flipside" is sort of delineate between those two movements and say really all of our discussion about feminism is from 1960s on. and we explain why it should not be connected with the suffrage movement. but it's that confusion that people think be they chuck the label, then you must think that women shouldn't vote because the movement really goes all the way back to the 19th century. but, in fact, those two movements just aren't related. in a broad sense they might be, but in the real sense they're not. >> you can't believe how many times i've debated a feminist, and she's crying around about one of the injustices was women didn't have the right to vote.

now, i don't even know anybody who remembers that time. [laughter] i mean, move on. get with it. [laughter] >> another question. yes, at the back. i'm suspicious it's only men asking questions. [laughter] >> see, we told you. it's things they can't say. >> peter sprig with the family research council. i wanted to ask you about women in the military. i just have seen a couple of articles recently, one i think just this morning saying that women who serve in the military have higher divorce rate than men who serve in the military. and lo and behold, there are more single mothers serving in the military than there are single fathers. and a few weeks ago there was information that there is an effort underway to expand the roles that women can take in the military to let them be in all forms of combat roles except for

ground infantry which, it's been expanding over time anyway. can you comment on, you know, what the feminist movement says -- and part of the reason for this, i might add, is that's presented for this is in order that women have more career opportunities to advance to higher ranks. and i just wondered if you could comment on, you know, the feminist movement and what it's meant for the role of women in the military. >> yes. the feminists are complaining that there are not enough women generals and high rank, and you get high rank when you face the enemy and have fought for our country. i think it's, i think it's very wrong, what's happening. in fact, i don't really have respect for men who send women out to do their fighting for them. women have an important place in the military, i have a lot of friends who served honorably in

women's jobs in the world war ii. but as far as putting them in combat, i think it's ridiculous. they simply cannot do the physical work that men can do, there's just no the way they can. and then they make the men lie about it and say they're doing the same work. and if men don't lie about it and accept it, that's a career killer for them. i think it's very wrong, but the feminists are pushing that. and always have. and at the very beginning of the fight on the equal rights amendment in 1972 their, their document, their platform was 100-page article written by a famous professor who wrote at the yale, in the yale law journal. and he just said as between brutalizing men and brutalizing women, there is little to choose. women should be in every combat job, and that's what they've been for, and the feminists have

never denied it. >> another question. this is too reticent an audience. [laughter] yes, down here many front, in if i can get -- down here or in front if i can get a microphone. >> i'm charlotte. now that this victim mentality is in place, what is the best way for people and young women especially to overcome it, and how did you refrain from feeling like a victim as you received these different attacks? >> it's really difficult to stand up against this, no question about it, because it does seem as though everyone around you thinks one way. i have found or i did find that really the best way is to surround yourself with people who are like-minded, that really helps a great deal. but have you ever, have you ever spoken out and said opposite of what they're telling you, that you don't think women are victims? that's something to think about.

because if you just throw it out there and sort of put the question back on them, it's interesting to hear how they respond as to why they think that. and often times they don't really have a good reason for it. they're just simply passing on what someone else told them. so what i always do is tell people to ask them the questions, ask them why they think that, where did they get that? what are the examples of that? and then prove them wrong through getting them to see that they're wrong while you're telling them they're wrong. [laughter] i don't know if that helps. >> well, i don't think it's difficult at all. i think it's a lot of fun. [laughter] they are so wrong. when betty friedan said in a debate she'd like to burn me at the stake, i thought, are you trying to make me into joan of arc? you know? [laughter] they are so wrong and so foolish and put out so much nonsense, and i'm not going to let those slobs ruin my day. [laughter] >> i will say she's extra

thick-skinned. [laughter] and -- >> i had to learn it though. >> that's true. that is true. and, actually, my experience has been the exact same as hers from that angle. and it does get easier over time, for sure. but you get to the point where when the accusations are so outrageous, i got an e-mail yesterday that told me -- not yesterday, last week -- that told me i'm worse than hitler. [laughter] and you, and you -- and it takes you aback for a moment, it does. but then eventually you realize, who thinks like that? i mean, how can you, do you really mean what you're saying? so when you realize the kind of mentality you're dealing with, the worst thing it does is sort of tell you how many people there are like that out there, and that's really awful. [laughter] that's the worst part. but just in the last few weeks alone the attacks on me specifically, particularly because of this boss telephone university -- boston university article where i went to school, and it was just an interview with me since it's my alma mater, was off the charts.

crazy, crazy. and it's -- when conservatives talk about indoctrination on canvas, they're not kidding. it's very real. and all you have to do is go to "the flipside of feminism" web site, read through those comments, and you will be -- well, maybe you won't be -- shocked. >> yes. down here in front. i'll stay on this side for a minute. colette. >> hi. you lead right into what i was thinking. has there been any inroad in academia for your message, and do you envision inroads for your message? >> >> and if so, where, so the children can go to those schools? [laughter] >> it's just starting, so i'm, i'm very cautiously optimistic about where it's going to head. i know i'm going to be on an npr affiliate next friday in response to this boston radio

call, and it's going to be a lion's den, for sure, because they're going to want to single me out as the enemy. so i don't know. i know that, certainly, phyllis has been more involved on, in terms of college, the college environment because she's given a lot of speeches there. for me at 43 i'm just sort of starting out on that area, so i don't know what's going to happen. i'm concerned, and that's why i said when i stood up when i see all these young ladies' faces and it's just so wonderful because, again, that's the group that i'm trying to reach. >> well, i think the colleges have been infected in nearly all the departments. if you want to be safe, take engineering. but don't waste your education dollar on women's studies. they, they are absolutely the worst. and it's just a lot of feminist/lesbian propaganda. >> and it goes back decades.

my husband would get lower grades from these feminist professors, and this is in the early '90s because -- '80s because he would argue -- yeah, argue with or take issue with what they were teaching him. or he'd attempt to provide an alternative viewpoint, well, maybe it's not this way, or maybe -- and he was penalized for that. the power is off the charts. it's just awful. >> i have one more down here and one at the back. >> hi. my name is lynette willhelm. i was wondering what you both would say to men as a result of this feminist generation on both sides of the aisle it seems that men have become weakened by the feminist movement even if they do agree with things that are advocated in your book. they don't -- >> right, exactly. my hope is that men will use this opportunity to have a door open and say, you know, i really

think this isn't so great for either our marriage, society, our family, my kids or what have you. it's going to be difficult because the women rule the roost. i know feminists don't want you to think that they do, but they certainly do on the home front, and all the research proves that. that despite all the power that we search for outside the home, there's tremendous power within the home. if you're female. and so it's really about encouraging men to feel that they can argue with or take issue with some of those issues within the feminist movement and still -- and not be taken as a chauvinist. but, of course, you have to be married to or surrounded by women who encourage that and think that way as well. so that will depend on how much he speaks up. the average person. >> well, the speaking out has to come from women. >> yeah.

>> the men just can't do it. sorry. [laughter] >> no-win situation. >> yeah. there's no question that it won't come out of their mouths the same way as it would from women. so, hopefully, there'll be part two. >> back row. middle. >> angela wolf. could you comment a little more on what you think the effects have been on men and what they will continue to be if feminism movement isn't stopped? >> now, say that again. >> could you comment on the effect of the feminism movement on men and what they will continue to do if feminism movement isn't stopped or halted or reversed? >> well, there was a fantastic in the last few weeks -- there was a spread in "the wall street journal" about kay's book, "manning up." and it said where have all the men gone? the i think that's the right title. and it was a focus on how men are now stuck in this sort of prepewpubescent quandary becaus- and the question is, why? they didn't understand why this

is, why are men not becoming men? why are they still boys? and the answer is feminism. it's feminism that has not allowed them to be men. and part of being men and growing up is getting married and having a job, okay? and so that environment since it's no longer there since women are shacking up with them, since everyone's getting married later, since they don't need to support a family because everyone says we don't need men anyway, here's your man, you know, he starlets out like this, and he's still down there because he needs somebody, he needs a system to force him to grow up. that's just sort of -- who's the man we talk about? george gilder? you love george gilder. and we quote him several times in "flipside." >> his book is called "men and marriage. ". >> and he has an excellent grasp of male and female nature and how they can work in tandem. but what you need from women in order for men to be a certain

way, and now with feminism we are not promoting that anymore. so now men are not growing up. it's really very simple; but it didn't come out in the article. >> well, i would add to that the domination that women have, feminists have in the educational system. and it starts in the elementary grades which are mostly run by women and now largely feminists because of the power of the teachers' union. and your typical -- not all, but your typical elementary schoolteacher looks upon unruly boys as just unruly girls. and they need to be made to behave like girls, and they need to sit still and do the work with a pen and pencil that girls can do very easily. and, unfortunately, a lot of new schools are being built without playgrounds, and recess is being canceled in a lot of schools. now, this is a direct attack on the boys who have got to go out and run around and beat each other up so they can come in and

learn something. [laughter] and the feminists won't tolerate that because that is an insane idea that boys and girls are the same. and i've already mentioned the whole problem of sports. they're trying to take sports away. so the colleges are now 60/40 female-male. nobody likes this. the girls don't like it, but they've done it. the feminists have done it. >> we have a whole chapter called "the emasculated -- no, not the emasculated, the ec pend bl male, sorry. we couldn't decide on that one. the whole chapter is about men, and it starts from when they're schoolboys, and it goes through sort of the stages of manhood and talks about precisely what has happened with boys and men, males, as a result of feminism. >> do we have one more question? somewhere? one -- far side. >> josh damon with the

congressman's office. i just wondered way back on the first question talking about the suffrage movement and how that contrasts with the more modern feminist movement, would you attribute the, when they throw the you can only get a college education because of us thing because of the suffragists? >> no. i think they honestly believe because they've been raised bay baby -- by baby boomer mothers and a culture that has thought them in no uncertain terms feminism is what gave women opportunity, and that opportunity includes college degrees and careers. and without feminism the world as you see it today would not exist. that's what they believe. and what we're proving in if "flipside "is that there's a whole other reason why the world is the way it is now, and it would have happened exactly the way that it did with or without this movement. but that's a great question. >> and i wrote my first book in 1964 before the feminist

movement and sold three million copies out of my garage. [laughter] >> and so can you. [laughter] finish. [applause] >> well, while we are having some enjoyment with this discussion it is, of course, a very serious topic, and we do recommend that you get a copy of "the flipside of feminism" just to see where we are on this agenda. we do want to thank again our special guest suzanne venker and phyllis schlafly for a wonderful presentation. [applause] >> and to find out more visit the book's web site, the flipside of feminism.com. >> this is a sad day, i have to say, in mrs. kennedy's life. this is the red room, and the reason i show this is that was the first room she complete inside the restoration, but this was the day of her husband's funeral. and she insisted that she meet

those who were coming from afar, those who were diplomats, the diplomatic corps from abroad. and so she stood with her brother-in-law, senator edward kennedy to her right, and she insisted on greeting everyone who had come to pay tear respects to her -- their respects to her husband. again, we remember her for her state entertaining. in the short amount of time that she was in the white house, and it was only a little over a thousand days, she and her husband threw 16 state dinners. in the first term, full four years of the w. bush term, they held, i believe, it was two. now, mind you, 9/11 happened during that time, there were security issues, but the second bushes from texas were just not as interested in that. they weren't as interested in state entertainment. they weren't as interested in bringing people from abroad and entertaining them at the white house. the kennedys loved that lifestyle.

they pote came, you know -- they both came, you know, from the northeast, they both had ties to new york city. president kennedy had ties to hollywood going back to his father's days there in the 1920s. so they loved that glitter and that panache of entertainment. but they also, particularly mrs. kennedy, loved the arts. so she would use these occasions to bring artists to the white house. >> you can watch this and other programs online at booktv.org. >> ben tarnoff, who was owen sullivan? >> one of the most notorious counterfeiters in colonial america. he came to this country in the 1740s from ireland, and he ends up in boston in 1749 as a silversmith, and that's where he begins to counterfeit colonial massachusetts notes, and over the next five or six years builds a huge intercolonial network that spans from rhode island, new hampshire, massachusetts, all over.

>> host: how easy was it to counterfeit? at that time? >> guest: well, the printing quality of the bills is fairly primitive by our standards, but it did require tremendous skills as an engraver. one of the things you see in the early period, most counterfeiters are former silversmiths or engraves because it requires tremendous dexterity. >> host: how much -- well, first of all, was there a national currency? or were there 13 different types of currency that were official? >> guest: in the colonial era, there were 13 different types of colonial currency, and after the revolution it become even more confusing because instead of governments, you have private banks all across the country all printing their everyone notes. and the peak of it is more than 10,000 different types of notes in the 1850s circulating all over the country. >> host: how did that system work? if somebody lived in the massachusetts at the time and

wanted to go to a store or a mercantile? >> guest: it's so confusing. i think this was the biggest discovery for me in my research was just to think of it from the ground's eye view. if you wanted to buy an apple from the local her chant, you could show up and present one of 10,000 different types of money. so there were ways to manage it. one of the things that happens in this period, they have something called a bank note reporter, so you could actually look up twice a week in a little magazine the differing values of different notes and also see which are counterfeit, you know, that there are certain counterfeit detectors. if this stroke is a little too thin, you might be dealing with a forged note. >> host: so was it, was it a common, everyday thing to have money passed, forged money passed? >> guest: extremely common. the one statistic we have which is fairly rough is at the height of counterfeiting in america around the time of the civil war you have between a third and a

half of all currency is forged. even if it's half of that, it's just a tremendous amount of fake money in circulation. >> host: well, ben tarnoff, how did you find the story of owen sullivan and a couple of other counterfeiters when you were writing "moneymakers"? >> guest: i started researching the book during the financial crisis, and i was reading a lot about the history of american currency and finance and really struck by the really powerful parallels between the past and the present. and these three characters seemed like excellent windows into our very tumultuous financial past. >> host: did owen sullivan make a lot of money in his lifetime? >> guest: he certainly did, it's probably in the vicinities of hundreds of thousands of pounds, colonial currency. but differing estimates especially because if he engraves a plate, his accomplices can use it long after he uses a particular community. so it's not just what he prints himself, but it's his tremendously diffuse network of

people. >> host: so money was localized at the time? >> guest: well, it was. you could have different types of currency in different communities. in a colonial period you could have different colonial currencies pass anything a single colony. you didn't have to be in massachusetts, for instance, to spend massachusetts money. >> host: so if somebody was traveling from philadelphia to new york city -- >> guest: yeah. >> host: -- what would they bring with them? >> guest: well, it depends. in the early republic period what you'd want to do is buy eastern paper or city paper, bank notes printed by reputable banks in the east, places like boston, new york and philadelphia. but if you were traveling particularly to the west, you would see quite a bit of what's called wen paper which was -- western paper which was passed at a discount based on the reputation of the bank that issued it. you'd want to have the strongest paper currency with you, and you'd be able to buy up the cheap paper at a discount. >> host: did the continental

congresses or the constitutional convention address the issue of money? ing? well, the continental congress gets into a lot of trouble during the revolution because they start printing their own paper currency to fund the war. they are, they need money. i mean, there's really no options for them. they're isolated by a british blockade, they can't tax the states, so they start printing a legal tender currency which becomes hugely inflationary and almost sinks the revolutionary effort and becomes a major disaster in that period. >> host: but no addressing of the thousands of different types of currency? >> guest: well, what happens is when they sit down to write the constitution, the memory of both all of those colonial current says and, more vividly, the crisis with the continental currency means that virtually none of america's leading men in the american revolution advocate a paper money. so the constitution explicitly prohibits states from printing their own paper currency. >> host: what happened to owen sullivan?

>> guest: well, owen sullivan does very well for a period and then is tracked down by a posse of individual vigilantes and isn 1756 in new york in what is now city hall park. >> host: now, who were the vigilantes who tracked him down? >> guest: well, that's the thing. in this period law enforcement is very primitive and amateurish, so if you want someone who's willing to do what it takes and travel across many jurisdictions to find a counterfeiter, you need to pay them well. and there's a man who's from connecticut and who was paid by the connecticut colonial legislature to track down sullivan and bring him to justice. >> host: you profile two other counterfeiters of the time. one was david lewis. who was he? >> guest: david lewis was born in the allegheny back country of pennsylvania in 1788, and he learned the counterfeiting trade in the money-making enclaves along the border between canada and the united states which is a major counterfeiting hot spot in this period. he returns to his home state of pennsylvania just in time, in

1814 or so, when the state charters a bunch of new banks which is part of this broader movement in the first few decades after the revolution. an explosion of both banks and bank notes across the country which really opens up the opportunity for counterfeiters. so lewis is perfectly poised to take advantage of the new events. >> host: samuel upham. >> guest: he is probably my favorite of the three because he's the least conventional. he's not a bandit, he's a shop keeper in downtown philadelphia. he runs a store on chestnut street. and when the civil war comes in february 1862 or so, he starts to print confederate currency which he sees preproduced on the the coffer of the -- reproduced on the cover of the "philadelphia inquirer". he doesn't call them counterfeits, he calls them facsimiles, and the idea is they were going to be souvenirs which was credible because people mostly thought the rebellion

would be crushed fairly quickly. but as the war goes on, he expands his enterprise to become a major counterfeiting operation. >> host: and did he get caught or punished at the end? >> guest: he's never punished. the south hates him. i mean, his name appears in this a ton of richmond newspapers. but he is never punished because he is counterfeiting the currency of a government that is emphatically not recognized by the union. and the federal government certainly knew what he was doing. there's endless speculation and conspiracy theories about whether he may have received funding from the secretary of war, but there's really no evidence either way. they probably just let it happen. >> host: at what point, ben tarnoff, did this country get to a single currency? >> guest: well, it happens during the civil war. and there's a number of remarkable and unprecedented steps the federal government takes in the 1860s which really wouldn't have been pretty create possible -- politically possible without the civil war. before the war, as we've said, you had more than 10,000 types

of currency. after the war the only paper money is federal. it's either printed directly by the treasury in the form of greenbacks, or it's printed be by a system of federally-chartered banks. and counterfeiting, subsequently, declines quite dramatically. not only because of that, but you have the founding of the secret service in 1865 whose original mandate is to aggressively go after counterfeiters. >> host: was it controversial to get to a single currency? is. >> guest: extremely controversial because there's a number of steps the federal government has to take. the most dramatic is to break the power of the state banks which are deeply entrenched interests, you know, states like new york and pennsylvania have congressmen and senators who advocate very aggressively for these interests because they benefit e nor -- enormously from a fairly chaotic monetary system. >> host: ben tarnoff is the author of "moneymakers: the wicked lives and surprised

adventures of three notorious counterfeiters." >> sunday, from the los angeles times festival of books, "in depth" with your questions for professor and co-founder of reason magazine, tibor machan. he'll take your phone calls and e-mails live sunday at noon eastern on c-span2's booktv. >> hi, mr. gingrich. can you tell us a little bit about your latest release and what your next writing project may be? >> well, the latest thing we did is a photo book on ronald reagan which started from our movie of the same name, and callista had the idea we ought to do a book in honor of his 100th birthday. we did a book signing that lasts three and a half hours at his library, and there seems to be a lot of interest in it because of the renewed interest in

president reagan. >> and what comes next for you writing wise? >> >> well, i have a book out this summer on american exceptionalism from regnery. we don't have a title for it yet. i'll have a civil war novel out in the fall called "the crater," we're looking forward to both of those. >> the comanche and the story of quanah parker and indians in texas is just such a great story generally. it's one that we all grow up hearing, we see on movies, televisionings, we read books about it. my sense is that every book has an occasion, and so what was it for you to write this particular history at this particular time? >> that's a good question. about 12 years ago i read a wonderful book by walter prescott webb called "the great plains." and inside this book, and even though it was about the great plains, it was really about texas mostly. and inside this book there was a chapter or even a subchapter about the comanches. and it put forth this presence that there was this enormous

force sitting in the middle of the continent that determined how everything happened. and i'm a yankee. i'm going, what? wait a send. i might know a pequot or the odd algonquin, but i didn't know from comanches at all. you know, comanches was something in john wayne movies was code for, uh-oh. [laughter] oh, we're in trouble now, that's a comancheer row. that was -- arrow. that was pretty much what it was. that's what set off my interest. i did all the normal things you would do if you're interested in comanches, but beyond that i think it was about a yankee's love affair with the state of texas. when i was time bureau chief, i traveled all over the state, when i was a writer at texas monthly, i traveled all over the state. i loved the plains, we all looked forward to getting assignments where you had to go to amarillo or lubbock -- [laughter] i know that sounds kind of strange, but it was true.

>> [inaudible] [laughter] we love you equally. >> so it was a bit of just understanding that what the plains were and what a plains indian was, and to me it was all -- and i think a lot of that comes through in the book, this kind of, oh, wow, the yankee's learning some stuff about the state. and i think that informs a lot of the book pause none of -- because none of this was normal to me. it was like, wow. >> we're at the conservative political action conference talking with author mark joseph about his next upcoming book. please tell us what it's titled. >> "wild card." >> tell us how you came up with the idea. >> sure. i wrote it during the '08 campaign and continued to write it since then. my publishers didn't think it'd get out in time for the campaign, so it gave me the chance to update it over the last two years. but, you know, it's really an overview of sarah palin's life and politics and sin t