for having us. i in particular am very honored to be a moderator because up until now this late date in my career, no one has ever found me moderate enough in my views -- [laughter] so i'm really happy to tonight, for the first time in my life, moderate a panel. and it's, obviously, a great honor to talk about breathty friedan's "feminine mystique" on its 50th anniversary. obviously, it's a book that has put this mark under the culture, and really that very, very rare book that one could make the argument that it actually changed people's lives and that it actually changed the culturement of it's also come under criticism more recently for not, for only reflecting the lyes of a very -- lives of a very small group of people, for not talking about working class women who had no choice but to work all along and not talking

about people of other sexual preferences who may have already found themselves kind of askew or outside of conventional life. but what i want to do today a little bit is talk about, um, the ongoing power of this classic. and i recently taught this book to my undergrads at nyu, a couple of who are here in this audience, who do not ever hesitate to tell me if something is boring,er v.a. relevant, dated, no longer worthy of their important attention. [laughter] so it was actually kind of amazing to me that in this class, the class really came to life. and the book sort of spoke to them in really interesting ways. so i want to talk about the new feminine misstocks that are oppressing us -- mystiques that are oppressing us still, and i want to talk about the old feminine mystique and whether it still oppresses us. and, you know, it's very

complicated because we, obviously, live in a world that has been so transformed by both this book and the movement that followed it. kind of most of us in the room who were born after the feminine mystique came out. it's hard for us to imagine those days at all. and i just think about the rapidity of change in my own family with mom sitting here, i can bring this up. when my mother was a child, her father told her only ugly women become lawyers, and that was the world she grew up in. and i grew up in a world where, um, my mother removed the barbie beauty palace that my grandfather gave me and told me the next morning when i got up really eager to play with it that it was lost. [laughter] 1970s new york city. and then my daughter, we were watching the obama/hillary presidential election, and she was tiny, she was, like, 5. and she said, um, i said, you

know, she was a big obama supporter, and i said, you know, wouldn't it be cool if there was a woman president? and she looked at me really disdainfully, and shelfs like, mom, of course there's been a woman president. >> that's awesome. >> it was within that short time we went from only ugly women become lawyers to of course there's been a woman president in a 5-year-old girl. so that said, it's very hard for those of us who grew up in the world in which our feminist class, books that are kind of causing people to talk today have names like the richer sex, or the end of men. more women than men get a college education, women are for the first time in the majority in the workplace, in managerial positions. so it's very hard for us to look back to that other time. and i was, you know, even though abstractly understand that things were different, we don't know, um, we we can't really see and feel it exactly. i interviewed janet malcolm for

the paris review, and she told me that when she was in college, she had not a single woman professor. and i was just shocked. even though i know that life was like that, it was kind of astonishing to me. so my first question i was going to ask our two panelists who were alive for the feminine mystique to just describe for a moment one, um, your experience when you first read the book, and it is overblown or exaggerated to say that this book changed people's lives? >> oh, i don't think there's any question. i mean, of course, it changed people's lives. it's till changing people's lives. it is passed down true the culture. and it was the greatest social revolution probably since the suffragists. and that movement took 100 years. this movement will take 100 years. we're only halfway through -- [laughter] and we have to count on the younger ones to really push it along.

but i remember reading the feminine mystique in my mother's bathroom. it was one of the few books that she read. but it wasn't possible for her to move on it because although she was a gifted singer and she was quite attractive and a natural businesswoman, and she was eager, eager, eager to work, but she was living in a suburban housewife role with two children, and my father refused to let her work because it would have suggested -- many men thought that at the time -- that he couldn't support his family. so she was frustrated. she, you know, it was east valium or vodka, you know? that kept these women going. and it wasn't until she was in her 50s and they were divorced and she went to aa and met another man and became a businesswoman. but she lost, you know, half of her life. i thought i was going to be

totally different from her. i loved her. i was compassionate, but i, you know, certainly saw that that route was not the right one. but what happened to me? i married a man who i loved, but he was going, starting medical school. so i thought, aha, this is cool because i have to support us, so i have an excuse to have a career. that was my strategy. and i was totally rejected by the other wives of medical students because i was such an oddball, you know, having a career. you know, that's just so ballsy. and then, um, we got divorced and having put hubby through before there was any sense of recompense for that sort of thing, i was a single mom like katie. and then that changed, you know, my whole trajectory. then i really became a feminist. but at that time, i mean, i started the herald tribune, i

was in the women's department because that was the only place you can get a job as a woman writer. i had to dare across -- to go across the dmz to get into the office of the sunday magazine editor, clay fell kerr, and pitch him a story. and thereby i developed a mentor who allowed me to, you know, move ahead. gloria stipe them in, who was a little older than i and much more politically sophisticated, what did she do? she had to take a job as a bunny to get a story, and then that hung on her forever. but it was only clay who was starting new york magazine where iowa y'all was an editor -- ariel was an editor for a long time who had a mother who was a journalist. and so he really had no attitude about women. he thought if they're talented, let's move them up. and we would also pay them a little less. so he actually not only fostered

my career, but he gave gloria the very first column written by a woman in politics, a political column, city politics which lasts for many, many years. and then when she wanted to start ms., of course she wouldn't raise money. who was going to give money to a woman who wanted to publish a magazine about, you know, strident women? so clay said this is a great magazine idea. i'm going to -- let's put it inside the covers of new york. so he midwifed this building, i mean, this magazine, 30 pages inside new york magazine with the cover on the outside as well as the inside. and it sold out. gloria called in a panic because she couldn't find it in california where she was, i don't know, leading a grape pickers' strike, i think. [laughter] and said, well, you know, there's no magazine out here, and clay said, it's sold out. so that was a great exhibition of a collaboration between a male mentor and a female aspirant, which i think we've sort of lost sight of today.

we think only women can help women. but, actually, why not, you know, seek out a sponsor who's already at the top? >> great. mom? when you read the feminine mystique, do you remember where you were? how it affected you? >> no, i don't remember where i was. i'm not even sure i know exactly how it affected me. but i do know how everything that came before affected me, and i can only say that there was no, there were so few possibilities for women that we were, um, expected to be married by 21 or 22, we were expected to raise children, we were not expected to do anything, we were not expected to make money, and we were not protected against what would happen if we were divorced or someone died. we had no resources to earn our

own living. and the vulnerability led us to behave towards men, um, as if they were demigods. and some of them were maybe, some of them maybe not. [laughter] i think that when the feminine mystique came out, betty friedan, and really it was betty friedan herself, we have to remember this, changed, put into words what was in so many people's hearts that they couldn't themselves have articulated. they couldn't have said. and she managed to say it. and the effect across this country was like an electric shock. >> uh-huh. >> it was as be if somebody -- i don't think of anything else, perhaps martin luther king. but i can't think of anything else that's happened in my lifetime that actually you felt that together we were going to change the world. we went on a feminist march to

washington. we went on peace marchs together. groups of women. and us isenly -- suddenly we were, we had a voice. we were different. we -- somebody had to pay anticipation to us. and it was overwhelming. which is what made me vigilant about barbie and the hairdresser. [laughter] but i remember, i remember going to the brooklyn museum to see judy chicago's dinner table. with plates of all different, dedicated to the different women throughout history who had made contributions. now, i'm not judging this as a work of art. that's not my field. but i can tell you i was there with katie and her younger sister, and i felt as if world was turning. we were going to do this thing. now, i may have thought it was sitler than it turned -- simpler than it turned out to be.

i may not have anticipated what would happen if you had three children and a corporate lawyer job. there were lots of things we didn't figure out completely. but the exhilaration of it, the extraordinariness. i just want to say one more thing, and then i'm going to stop. i took a writing class with sarah lawrence. the year was 1956. the professor was somebody namedhorse gregory who was a -- horace gregory who was a poet, and it was an all girls' school at that time. we sat around the table, and we read our papers. and some girl, woman had gone to reno to get a divorce, and you had to live there for six weeks. and she came back with a detailed report on everything that had happened during her six weeks in reno. and i was spellpound by this report -- spellbound by report. i mean, you know, the whole -- the world she was describing, the way she felt, rivetted.

she gets to the end of it, and horace gregory turns to her and says what makes you think anybody would be interested in your divorce? and there was this silence, you know, because i couldn't have been the only one who was rivetted by this story. [laughter] but there was also the possibility women can't write because we don't have subjects. what would my subject be? what would i do? i wasn't in a war, i can't write like hemingway. the sense that we were pushed aside. and, yes, there was doris lessinging and, yes, i must have read doris lessing 110 times, but that was just doris lessing. [laughter] the voices that everybody has now, the voices that i really believe betty friedan liberated in our world are so many and so

amazing, and i am so grateful that i lived to at least see this happen. [applause] >> great. now to ariel, i was going to say and to everyone given how radically this transformation occurred and how just when you think about it in terms of, you know, the history of social changes how rapidity this change occurred, how unbelievably fast the world transformed so that we went from the feminine mystique to the place where, you know, the idea of a woman working is so subversive and progressive and all of that to where we are now where women are the majority in the workplace, etc., etc. we can say there's all kinds of problems to be addressed. but certainly in terms of opportunity women have the kind

of opportunity that could not be imagined in 1963 when betty friedan sat down the write this book. >> right. >> and so i want to talk to iowa y'all about whether we've -- ariel we've really cast aside totally the fen anyone mystique she was writing about. and the reason i ask this again is have we given up this kind of romanticized vision which now is called stay-at-home mothers, have we given up this idea of family, the kind of all of that, the fantasy of what conventional life is supposed to be like that friedan -- >> and what motherhood is? >> and what motherhood is. do you think we've walked away from that? >> no. i don't think we've walked away from that. it's something that interests me when we're talking about this, is that it's so exciting to hear you talking about, you know, we really thought that we could do this, because you bloody well did, you know? and listen when you start talking about, okay, here are all the things that have changed, and here's what we

couldn't do then, and now her daughter's asking her, of course there's been a woman president. but what i think is remarkable, probably the single most striking thing to me looking at the book now was that this notion of, okay, we don't appreciate all the change was the notion people had when she wrote this book. .. home you can do everything and this is not the fault of feminism. this is an opportunity feminism

has enabled. you cannot do everything at the same time. it can't be done. at the same time. a feminism fallacy. it can't be done. i don't think we have given up the idea at all the romantic station of family or motherhood, the we can do all at once. >> it is not a fantasy to have a family. it is a wonderful thing. the vast majority of women do want to have a family at some point but also of educated women, 40% of educated aspirations women have children not to have children by the age of 40 which is pretty dramatic. we have attachment which came up

in the last decade. where women were encouraged to really be very close to their children for the first five years and interestingly, studies that have been done about women who once they were educated to the ideas that if you really dropout, go all around, go off ramp in your job in your 30s for five years to have children, you will get back on where you left off and pay in all kinds of ways, seniority, women still choosing to do that, the majority of women still using a nonlinear path. the encouragement is to stay connected in some way or become an entrepreneur where you can

work from home. >> not everybody has that skill set. >> that is true. >> we may have forgotten after the feminine -- "the feminine mystique: 50 years" was published we had a war. i won't even college the feminist movement. within, between women who made different choices, i have to say we had better not glorify this, there was real nastiness going on between the women who had jobs and working for careers who felt themselves infinitely better or threatened by the women who were making cookies. the women who were baking cookies were put down and humiliated by the women who are climbing up some kind of professional ladder and it was extremely unpleasant. >> never lost its punch.

that is what hillary clinton said. i could have stayed home and baked cookies and people were appalled. >> i want to read a quote that speaks to this from "the feminine mystique: 50 years" which shows what was. as women move into the work place. she wrote another hazard a woman facing on her way out of attracting to hostility of other housewives. and over and over again said she was for choice. she did not say you must get a top level job. she said you need to be free to choose what kind of life you want which includes work or may not. she was not -- even though i looked at "the feminine mystique: 50 years" again, not very kind to the housewife staying home.

i think politically she saw very quickly you cannot dismiss many hundreds and thousands of people, you have to respect them and make it possible for them to feel pride in themselves or they will come and kill you. >> you don't want to be denigrating. i don't think it is in feminism's interest or the interest of reality to be denigrating how difficult child care, that is work. >> i am very encouraged by the feminist spirit among young women. they really have it, a lot of them. one of the things i found interesting, a woman who says -- she started out as 22 joining

the only black own investment firm in the country and identified right away by the president being a person of great talent and promise. when she was 24, took her to meet one of the biggest ceos in the country in the investment business and said i am grooming you to be president of ariel and she elected to the his grasshopper. she jumped whenever he spoke. including writing thank-you notes to the parents of his children's sleepovers and at 28 he made her president and she was completely career oriented right up to her mid-30ss when she looked around and said it might be nice to have a date once in awhile or meet men and she went out with costs somebody prominent, the film maker of star wars and they are now

engaged and she is 43, she probably will never have children because she didn't have time and what she says about young women who come to her to be mentored is if they talk about work/likes balance chinos they will never move up to senior positions in her firm or any other because they will have to be unidirectional for a least the first ten years of their careers. there are not a lot of women who find that appealing to also be a ceo where you give 110% of your time. for those who inspires that, more power to them and i hope we get more and more of them but it is a narrow portion of the female population that find that appealing. >> that is because we only have half of a revolution. if we have actually changed the world and changes news and we

would have -- what we have is half and we are not satisfied with half and half isn't going to work. it is not because the failure is not permanent. is something that is happening now because we haven't changed the whole society. all we did is change what women once, now we have to change what men want and what society is willing to do for a family for universal day care. we have to make the world completely different for ourselves. >> that is such an important point and one thing that makes me so sad is we were really close. the 1971 thing, walter mondale, was bipartisan. comprehensive -- they were going to have universal preschool and day care like they do in scandinavian countries. and was nixon who vetoed that

who said we don't want to put the moral authority of the federal government behind a nontraditional family structure. that would have changed so much, i think, that would change so much. >> paid paternity leave would be an enormous leap. is going to have to come through private companies because the government isn't going to do it. the government can't say the entitlements that are already out there, marching on washington, we have to work on companies and there is enough pressure if young women, less in a new movement towards that, that can happen. there's a lot of precedent in companies like google, google in new york expanded to 12 weeks'

paid maternity leave because they had too many women leaving. that is what happens. once they got -- improved their retention rate it is paying off. >> i want to shift, her name is in the air already, cheryl sandberg and what she has been attracting. when we talk about how we solve this problem, there are some women ceos who stepped forward and most notably sandberg, she has received a kind of astonishing analysis of vitriol. on one level, i have written about this, on the one level we want more women ceos but the same people who say that kind of hate the women ceos we have. we look at cheryl sandberg and can't stand a million things about them and it is worth

thinking about why and some of the critiques are interesting because she is trying to use some of the things that we think about this sort of next stage revolution and she is trying to talk to women about how to succeed in a kind of cutthroat high-level business structure while not sacrificing family. and to a great deal of anger from women critics, from feminists, from lots of nice thinking liberals. i'm curious what you make of that, her efforts and the hostility toward her in trying to think the way through this problem. >> so interesting, working at a job like that.

i can't relate to it at all. everybody here as a writer, can anyone relate to having that kind of corporate job? i have no idea what it entails. i don't know what it means. >> a piece of that, what is up with the nursing, that is the other one. >> the reason you're missing them up this our giant hatred merged into a. cheryl sandburg has written a book in which she is talking about leaving the work place before they leave the work place, some really practical advice, it is not a kind of lofty thing in spite of the critiques, pretty nuts and bolts way, she goes, 5:30 to have dinner with her kids. she has this privilege and

obviously is very rich. a weird thing to attack a successful ceo 4. >> i think they are valid. what a lot of criticisms were. this is a white privilege, well-educated elite situation. that is true. that is a valid critique of that book and if you are the c e o u f to say getting up 5:30. on the other hand, they have power so -- that is not so bad. >> not reproduceable. it does make when it -- many women who are struggling to figure out the balance to be fair, to actually go through that terrible baby hundred that women feel at six months when their unpaid maternity leave is over and they have to go back to

work because they have to work and don't want to leave their child. that is a reality for most women who have children and a good job and they don't get to go home at 5:30 to have supper with their kids if they want to move up. it is natural antipathy to having a book say you are not working hard enough. figure it out. >> it is a fair representation. there was a great piece in the new yorker which argues the people criticizing this book have not read this book. >> they don't have enough copies. >> but i do think it is not saying we are not working hard enough. that is an unfair situation. unfair on what she is saying. >> many of you in the room remember, lois gould said that

in this culture if someone raises the head out of the general muck and takes a deep breath and says something, someone on the shore will throw a rock at that head. that is completely true. there is an inbuilt hostility of women towards women that we have not begun to deal with. any woman who says anything slight the at variance of what the dogma says you should say, they get viciously attacked by another set of women. it is not a question of rights are wrong side. i am not saying that. i am just saying the urge to attack is very strong. i don't know what we do about it, how to cut it down and i

don't want a sentimental we all love each other and from our arms around each other and kelly to their how good we all are. that is not doing it. something about social movement, any kind of movement, anything that moves is going -- it really is. >> very telling, one of the things that happened is representing sandberg's position, how we came to view her the way we view her there were two prominent journalists, really irresponsibly quotation of her, one was on the front page of the time and the other was maureen dowd and she said something, i am paraphrasing, i always saw myself running a social movement and they stopped the quote there and the actual long close which was very boring was mainly working for a non-profit or something and by taking that first part of the closed, has the grand visions

and aspirations, people pounce on her and mock her and very telling, well thought of journalist for the new york times, do something so borderline unethical to the extent that the times put in a correction because it is wrong to misquote somebody like that. let's just say she had the original quote i want to run a social movement, should we take our guns out and shoot her? to have this grand vision or grand idea, automatically cause a lot of anxiety and anger and hostility. >> i would point out that speaking of women who are all in love and one big cuddle bowed. a piece of work. lesbians were a lavender minute to the movement and she warned

against the man hating brow burning segment of the movement when there was no such thing as broad burning. not somebody who's said if you are a feminist you are fine with me. >> you are distorting the history of little bit. there was a group within the feminist movement that was disapproved of the family side of the feminist movement so that there got to be a lot of hostility. a book tour for i don't remember which one of her books was greeted at various libraries by not only tickets but bomb threats and these did not come from some beaded terrorist, they came from women's groups that were very angry at her so that

we have to remember, i don't believe -- i don't know who started at. is true that betty was not a woman's woman. if there was a rule of ten women and one man in a corner betty was certainly going to go to the corner to talk to the man. that was part of her charm. what i really think was there was for a while and it fortunately died down and looked as if it could explode the whole movement completely. for those of us who rivera was not a matter of family women or white or anything of this work, it is what are you doing to our movement? >> there was another part to that. there were the man haters. there really were a lot of man

haters. they were given the name the ball buster's, the strident ball busting man hating women and the whole movement got that wrapped in the mainstream and it was very threatening. i didn't become a feminist until 1970 and neither did gloria mainly because i didn't want to be part of that and i was scared that the man i loved would think i was. i went on the margins and did the things but had a real struggle between i don't want to give up the loving, compassionate, nurturing, sexy, man loving side of myself to be part of this movement. do i have to? that was a real struggle for many of us. >> i can't remember if it is in "the feminine mystique: 50 years" but in an interview, some women or some people read her as saying join the revolution.

all you have to lose is your man. she said all you have to use -- lose is your vacuum cleaner. fabulous marketing. i want to think a little bit more about how we can identify our own problems which have no name and our alert feminine mystique which by definition are hard to recognize when you are living in a culture, how do you talk about it? i want to think about that. one of my students said it is like we have that feminine mystique and all this new other stuff. both of them which speaks to having it all and we were talking about that earlier. a book called the conflict talked-about our new style of parenting. the child is king. the ways in which we parent which take this ominous amount of energy that could be spent on

other, more intellectual pursuits. so what do you think is the new feminine mystique? problems that don't have a name? >> so funny that is coming from a french woman and have a giant best seller. anyway. i don't think this is the most important problem but i do think it is a misconception to some extent that the port of vacation of the culture means we are sexually liberated. it is a myth. not the most important thing but it is a myth. i think -- i did a book about this interviewing young women about why are you flashing for girls gone wild?

why are you, before you have ever -- when you still experience sexual desire why do you think is your responsibility to look as gangly as possible as one woman said. there is confusion about the difference between -- it is confusing, the difference between filling a new role, antithesis of the angel in the house and being totally sexually liberated and it is confusing and another issue that was always confusing when you talk about what caused -- sex and corn was pretty fractious. >> yes we did. we had many demonstrations against it. >> hustler -- >> i am not clear why this is a feminist issue that divides young women.

i don't understand what you said. would you mind saying it again? >> i think that first of all from the assumption there was such a thing as anti porn feminists, and pro sex or sex positive which got changed to feminists who thought feminism is about freedom and choice and if women want to participate in pornography or watch it, that is choice. that is where this is starting and i think no american -- anti porn feminism failed spectacularly as the shakers. if you look at our shakers -- our culture now you cannot say it is less than it was then. there's a lot of confusion about if that means women have come so far they're free to express themselves and living in a sexually liberated world tour the we have internalized our

obligation to be sex objects to a different extent. it is a confusing question. >> i wonder if we wouldn't want to rephrase that as the puritan affect on our culture which is still raging no matter what we do. i don't see this precisely as a feminist issue because surely it affects our mates and sons equally. >> it is the feminine mystique. she starts saying to the new men too. >> the one she was waiting for. the sex issue which i imagine every generation struggles with in a slightly different name to it, but i would be happy if we

were able to solve the question of how can a woman get through her work life and her family life without losing her mind? if we solve that problem that will be wonderful. then we can go on to what can we do about war in the human nature. that is an underproblem. >> one last question and there's much to talk about with this book. are want to ask one question about broadening it out. weiner now that she was a marxist with serious political ideas that she was not expressing overtly. talking about our country's, quote, studies with assistance

to the but the ideas. on some level one would say she was critiquing lonely crowd america, critiquing the ideal bourgeois life with vacuum cleaners with the selling that was not just about men or about women but men. everybody living in this culture trying to get these things and accumulate them and conventional life and wondering what she would make of our world now because if we think of some of these subtexts to this book i wonder what she would make of the dream of -- you know more about this. the idea of a successful family life is still quite narrow in this country and not that different from what it was in 1955. >> i would say it is very different because both men and women spend much more time

preparing themselves educationally and occupational the until the 20s or 30s. at the ten years from when we were young, women married at 21, to let 23, now is more like 28 and women have made mid 30s, late 40s having children, reproductive revolution, people could postpone that. we are in an entirely different economic situation. some would say a declining country economically. the job opportunities for young women coming into this long recession are so -- so truncated that one of the good things i see now is women who are aware of this tour coming out of college having worked through college coming out if they pay for their own college and

graduate school they come out in their 20s with maybe 200,000 college loans that they have to pay off. wanting to be a social entrepreneur with so many do don't want to, then they take a job in some high-paying position and if they went to law school they go to corporate law and may be bored to tears but want to do it for five to ten years to get the money to then be able to do their passion and that is the difference. when i wrote passages in the 1970s, the most famous business book and remains today what color is your parachute and the thesis was starch out following your passion. who can afford to do that as of 25-year-old who has finished college? they have to work and get some -- takes a decade to take -- pay off those college loans unless they came from a wealthy family.

the other thing that i think is a big advance is the blue regeneration which was the generation that inherited the feminist revolution was 80% white. the generation of young people today is far more diversified and there are a lot of young african-american, asian-american, indian american, hispanics who voted for obama or very much responsible for the reelection of obama and are helping to mentor younger poor women which were left out of the first feminist revolution. poor women really didn't have a lot to do for them or even lower middle-class. there was a lot of argument and tension about it but they didn't get included a lot and neither did women of color.

but now it is much more horizontal in that way. one of the things i find exciting is young women starting at 18 and 22 to try to help younger poor women to learn code, learn how to do code and web site and a skill like the typing of the past that allows them to get into low-level positions and move up because they now know the technology of the future. >> the marxist that betty undoubtedly was would have been ostracized and killed in 1962. remember joseph mccarthy. there is no way that she could have expressed anything that could have been traceable to a marxist position in anything that was going to be read. >> look at her class critiques

then and apply it to no. look at the culture and our and say we are involved in these things even though we are not reading vacuum cleaner ads. >> that is probably all true but using the word marxist let's remember one of the things that happened in the whole country was we saw what marxism raj and having seen what marxism rocked in russia the word becomes a dirty word and the idea isn't so good either. so what now happens is we are in a very imperfect world, but it is the perfect imperfect world without ideologies that we can hang on to. i imagine most people here are not having coffee fighting over ideology. you may be fighting over various sorts of things you want to accomplish and disagree with political disagreements, find out what is going on in your

world, but you are not sure you have the answer and that is the thing that has changed enormously. >> open up for questions. to anyone or everyone. >> i want to make a comment. i was at a panel about women and the law and it was and why you's first conference on women and the law. the reason i was there was my mother was a speaker, she was past president of the national association of women lawyers and she started an annual survey, first a sociologist. when she was growing up she was told she had to be a teacher. at the age of 40 graduated law school land was a major partner in two major law firms and then she always felt very upset by what she saw and how the treatment of women in law firms

and even though she rose to the managing partner of a major law firm started this survey, annual survey of national law firms across the country, and 15% of women today in 2013 make equity partners across the board in her annual survey about roughly 15% of women are able to make equity partners, and the statistics they found was really sad and someone got it from the audience and settle lot of times women just want to leave and climb the himalayas and look at michele obama and the law firm -- they going to do great things. we climb the himalayas.

wire they leaving these law firms? you can point to michele obama has this great life but what is it about the structure of these law firms caught and become equity partners. plenty of associates for five years, forced to leave in one way or another. and structurally, concrete we in america's work forces. >> i hesitate to address the law firm, technical question. what is the things about. and in law firms, hand to

curtailment. i am not trying to say the himalaya question. i wonder if the model we have where educated women should be using their brains in law firm culture that is, and punishing. and whether you can have a life outside the law firm of a man or woman, and are you ever going to see that? and for both men and women it is a difficult punishing culture, and it occupies their life, and -- >> 15 years ago one and all girls will have a career day, and a very fine feminist invited a corporate lawyer partner who is the mother of a child in a

school. and talked about all the wonderful thing she did as a partner and there was a question period and these are girls between 14, and 18. first question is what time do you get home for dinner. the second question is what if your child is sick, how often are you able to spend the whole weekend with your child, not one of these girls asked this woman a thing about the law firm or her political beliefs or corporate beliefs. the pressure on women who are corporate lawyers and underneath them, generations they are raising is complaining and with justification perhaps and something needs to be done, not

so simple, let them have a route to success in the law firm because it is not going to work. >> we're talking about working fulfillment and corporate law firms, and in 1960, the vast majority of whom and working at the height of world war ii when all men were away and we had jobs. and not that women didn't work but they didn't work for fulfillment. plenty of women had to work and did. >> thank you so much. my question, feel free to answer for one or the other. the privilege of teaching this book and talking to my students, the first question is whether

today -- there's a backlash to the idea of staying at home, something bad about that, a dirty word and it is something not everyone should sort of entertain as the goal or an aspiration. on the other side of it when i talk about this, so many students practice what they want to say by saying i am by no means a feminist and they are incredibly feminist. i wonder whether you think there is this stigma around the word feminist and what we can do to fix that? >> maybe we shouldn't fix it. when we look at most recently people say taylor swift doesn't consider herself a feminist. and argued maybe the fact that she doesn't consider herself a feminist means the term is no

longer useful. she believes many things we think of and to believe all these feminists things. should they wear a big sign that says i am a feminist or should we view the fact we may not see this work as a sign of the success of the movement? it is a sign of tremendous success of the women who went on those marshes. is it succeeding the we don't have this word anymore and assimilated into our dna. >> we could call ourselves women's advocates. it is a much more neutral term. feminists became head dirty word, a lot of millennials and students, we do get away from

that but you do need a name. what is the brand? women's advocates, women's activists? helped women understand how to succeed and lives and need to help. >> i wish i knew. >> i wish i knew too. >> gloria steinem was very glorious steinemy saying this woman be moaning how her daughter and feminists, and to know who she is, i do think that is like -- and there has been a woman president. she doesn't say i am a feminist, more than one way to look at

that. that said it is perfectly nice word. >> there's a lot more to say that maybe we could talk among ourselves. >> two points. one of them is betty always advocated to change the workplace and the values, not the structure so people could penetrate the glass ceiling though she was for that all the values of the workplace a planned women could have it all and that hasn't come out here. it was in future books and what i learn, and women now, if they want to have it all they do it by navigating the workplace, the sort of solution, direct upward

track. that we should have societal sf1 o c'ters#ó

things. in >> time for one more question. make it a good one. >> a comment based upon the last thing, identifying as a feminist and it has to do with what ariel levy writes in her book and there's a hesitation to stand up for yourself because you don't want to be that woman. and by reading the feminist mystique and someone says something very feminist the refusal to identify as a

feminist in that sense shows that there is the extreme backlash that still exists, did you see the oscars? and we are beyond the word feminism, is maybe wishful thinking. and it is not actually true. that is all. [applause] >> thanks, everyone. [applause] [inaudible conversations] >> you are watching c-span2 with public so -- politics and fellow affairs with the u.s. senate. on weeknights watched the public policy events and the latest nonfiction authors and books on booktv. and on social media sites.

you are watching booktv, 48 hours of nonfiction authors and books every weekend on c-span2. here are some programs to look out for. at 1:30 p.m. eastern john mccain takes a look at the restaurants of fire followed by stephen hess at 3:30 to update on the careers of washington reporters we talk to in the 1970s and tonight at 8:00 eastern booktv is live from the 2013 virginia festival of the book, discussion between john lewis and john carlos. at 10:30, john locke presents his book at the brink. will obama push us over the edge? and at 5:00 eastern we bring you a selection of programs honoring the tenth anniversary of the start of the iraq war. these programs and more all weekend long on booktv. for complete scheduled visit booktv.org.

>> this system of mass incarceration is so deeply rooted in our social political and economic structure is not going to just fade away or downsize, we are on a major upheaval, fairly radical shift in public consciousness. there are many people today who will say there is no hope of ending mass incarceration in america. no. there is no hope. pick another issue. just as many people dying to jim crow in the south, that is a shame and that is the way it is. i find that so many people today view the millions cycling in and out of the prisons and jails today is an unfortunate but in alterable fact. i am quite certain that dr. king

would not have been so resigned. if we are truly, truly to honor dr. king, if we are to ever stepped up with dr. king we have to be willing to continue his work. we have got to be willing to go back and pick up where he left off and do the hard work of movement building on behalf of poor people of all colors. in 1968 dr. king told advocates the time had come to transition from a civil rights movement to a human-rights movement. meaningfully quality could not be achieved through civil rights alone without basic human rights, the right to work, the right to shelter, the right to quality education, without basic human rights, civil rights are an empty promise. in honor of dr. king and all those who labored to end the old jim crow i hope we will commit

ourselves to building a human rights movement to end mass incarceration. a movement for education, not incarceration. a movement for jobs, not jail. a movement to end all these forms of legal discrimination against people, discrimination that denies them basic human rights to work, shelter, into food. what must we do to continue this movement? we must begin by telling the truth, the whole truth. we have got to admit out loud that we as a nation have managed to recreate a cast like system in this country. we have got to be willing to tell this truth in our schools, in our churches and places of worship, behind bars and reentry centers. we have got to be willing to tell this truth so that a great awakening, the reality of what has occurred can come to pass.

the reality is this new tax like system doesn't come with signs. there are no white only signs any of now signs alerting us to the existence of this system of mass incarceration. in prisons today there of sight and out of mind. often hundreds of miles away from communities and families that might otherwise be connected to them. the people whose cycle in and out of these prisons typically live in segregated, impoverished communities. the middle class folks, upper-middle-class folks. you can live the whole life in america today, having no idea that this system of mass incarceration, and the harm it

reeks even exist. pull back the curtain and make visible what is in plain sight so that an awakening can begin and people could begin to take the kind of creative constructive action at this moment in our history surely requires. and it is not going to -- we have got to be willing to get to work. in my view that means we have got to be willing to build an underground railroad for people released from prison. an underground railroad for people who want to make a genuine breaks for real freedom. people who want to escape the system and find work, find shelter, support their families, by the true freedom in america today. we have got to be willing to open our homes and schools and

workplaces to people returning home from prison and provide places of support for families who have loved ones behind bars today. how do we create these face a places? one thing we can do? we can begin to admit our own criminality out loud. our own criminality. because the truth is we have all made mistakes in our lives. we all have. all of us are sinners. all of us have gone wrong. all of us have broken the law at some point in our lives. if you are an adult you have broken the law at some point in your life. some people will say i am a sinner. i made mistakes but don't call me a criminal. don't call me a criminal. i say maybe you experimented

with drugs. if the worst thing you have done in your entire life is speed 10 miles over the speed limits, you put yourself and others at more risk of harm than someone smoking marijuana in the privacy of their living room. there are people in the united states serving life sentences for first-time drug offenses. life sentences. the supreme court upheld a life sentences for first-time drug offenders against an eighth amendment challenge that they were cruel and unusual in violation of the eighth amendment and the supreme court said no, it is not cruel and unusual punishment to sentence the young man to life imprisonment for a first-time drug offense. virtually no other country in the world does such a thing. we have to end this idea that the criminals are at them, not us. and instead say there but for

the grace of god go i. all of us have made mistakes in our lives, taken wrong turns, but only some of us pay for those mistakes for the rest of our lives. barack obama himself has admitted to a little more than drug use in his lifetime. he has admitted to marijuana and cocaine in his youth and if he hadn't been raised by white grandparents in hawaii, if he hadn't done much of his illegal drug use in predominately white college campuses and universities, if he had been raise in the hood, the odds are good that he would have been stopped and frisked and search and cost and far from being president of the united states today he might not even have the right to vote depending on the state he lives in. >> you can watch this and other programs online at booktv.org.

>> are you interested in being a part of booktv's online book club? each month we will discuss a different book and rather. this month we will discuss michelle ng alexander's the new jim crow:-incarceration in the age of color blindness. post your thoughts about the book and twitter with the hash tag booktv book club. and got our facebook page, facebook.com/booktv and tuesday at 9:00 eastern join our live moderated discussion on twitter of hash tag be tv book club. sinuous suggestions which books we should include in our book club on twitter, facebook or e-mail us at booktv@c-span.org. >> we have to take back media. independent media is what will save us. the media are the most powerful institutions on earth. more powerful than any bomb, more powerful than any missile.

it is an idea that explodes on to the scene but it doesn't happen when it is contained by that box, that tv screen that we all gaze at for so many hours a week. we need to be able to hear people speaking for themselves outside the box. we can't afford the status quo any more. from global warming to global warming. >> offer, host and executive producer of democracy now amy goodman is taking your calls, e-mails, facebook and tweets, three hours sunday, april 7th on booktv on c-span2. >> katie pavlich is the author of fast and furious:barack obama's bloodiest scandal at its shameless cover. tell us where we are currently in litigation. >> currently we are caught up

where the justice department wanted it. the questions at hand executive privilege that president obama overdocumented last june, june of 2012 and whether those documents have to be turned over to congress. thousands of documents have been requested in the justice department that are not being turned over and the courts will provide what has to be. that is where we are as a battle with going over the deal and what needs to be turned over or can be turned over and we are waiting for that break. march is a good month to see if it happens or not. >> to understand what that is, a brief overview. >> brief overview of a complicated and or is essentials be the department of justice using their bureau about colin tobacco and firearms under the department of justice under the jurors diction, 2500 ak-47 style 50 caliber rifles into the hands

of cartels in mexico resulting in hundreds of runners in mexico and also those weapons left at crime scenes are federal agents in the united states. lots of illegal gun trafficking by the government and dead people. >> a guest on the afterwards program last year, go to the booktv archive and search for katie pavlich or fast and furious. moving on to your book, recently you made some news by tweeting out that you are 25 now and in five years you may be interested in running for john mccain's seat in arizona. >> john mccain hinted he might retire. i doubt that he will but the door is always open and being from arizona and living there my whole life not that people like john mccain, he has been the only option for a long time. we will see what happens.