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Speaker 1: Where this story really begins is the place where all

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Speaker 1: good revelutions begin, which is the ladies.

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Speaker 2: Right.

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Speaker 1: Yes, I'm Jessica Bennett.

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Speaker 2: And I'm Susie bannakerm.

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Speaker 1: This is in Retrospect, where each week we delve into

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Speaker 1: a cultural moment that shaped us.

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Speaker 2: And that we just can't stop thinking about.

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Speaker 1: Most of the time we'll be diving into the past,

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Speaker 1: but sometimes there will be a thread we want to

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Speaker 1: follow up on. This is one of us.

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Speaker 2: So, jess we released an episode about a famous Newsweek

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Speaker 2: cover story that declared women over forty were more likely

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Speaker 2: to be killed by a terrorist than to get married

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Speaker 2: on it, And to be clear, that's absolutely not the case.

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Speaker 2: Cover absolutely not true, And if you're listening to this

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Speaker 2: and you haven't listened to that, you should go check

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Speaker 2: out that episode. But what we're talking about today is

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Speaker 2: something that came up kind of tangentially that I want

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Speaker 2: to ask you more about, which is the fact that

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Speaker 2: essentially we kind of have the women of Newsweek to

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Speaker 2: thank for our careers in journalism. So tell me why.

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Speaker 1: Yes, So this came up in the episode because in

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Speaker 1: order to understand how that cover story came to be,

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Speaker 1: you kind of have to understand the history of Newsweek,

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Speaker 1: and the history of Newsweek involves forty six female staffers

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Speaker 1: in the year nineteen seventy suing the company for gender

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Speaker 1: discrimination in the first lawsuit of its kind.

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Speaker 2: Oh wow, because there were other lawsuits after that, right.

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Speaker 1: It actually paved the way for many of the other lawsuits.

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Speaker 1: And essentially, at this time, women were told they could

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Speaker 1: not be writers at Newsweek.

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Speaker 2: So they were like, they could just be copygirls, right, you.

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Speaker 1: Could be a copygirl, you could be a researcher. I

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Speaker 1: mean effectively they were writing, but they would never get

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Speaker 1: a byline.

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Speaker 2: Oh god.

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Speaker 1: And so when you got hired, you would come in,

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Speaker 1: you know, they'd be like, whatever, here's your desk, here's

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Speaker 1: what you're going to be doing. But just so you know,

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Speaker 1: women don't write here. And they would say it bluntly

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Speaker 1: like that, and that was I guess okay at the time.

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Speaker 1: So eventually these women got fed up and they organized.

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Speaker 1: Seems reasonable, and they filed a lawsuit. And so where

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Speaker 1: this story really begins is the place where all good

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Speaker 1: revolutions begin, which is the ladies room. Yes, they began

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Speaker 1: chatting with each other in the bathroom and talking about

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Speaker 1: how messed up this was, And so they came together

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Speaker 1: and they organized, and they hired a woman who was

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Speaker 1: then a little known civil rights lawyer by the name

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Speaker 1: of Eleanor Holmes Norton, the congress woman and now congresswoman,

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Speaker 1: and they sued their bosses. And what happened was, after

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Speaker 1: they sued their bosses, it set off this chain reaction.

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Speaker 1: So then the women of Time magazine sued, and then

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Speaker 1: the women of Ladies Home Journal, which like, now we're

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Speaker 1: like Ladies' home Journal what, but back then was one

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Speaker 1: of the few places where women, you know, really saw

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Speaker 1: their stories represented.

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Speaker 2: But also, sorry, only men wrote for Ladies Home Journal, Like,

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Speaker 2: that's so crazy.

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Speaker 1: So all of the top editors at Ladies Home Journal

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Speaker 1: were men, and so they actually staged a sit in

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Speaker 1: in one of the editor's office. They and I think

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Speaker 1: they like jumped on tables. It was a whole thing.

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Speaker 1: And same with the New York Times. The New York

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Speaker 1: Times also sued in the same era. So you know,

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Speaker 1: in some ways, we actually have these women to thank

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Speaker 1: for the fact that we are now journalists. I can

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Speaker 1: of course be writers, like nobody would ever dare say

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Speaker 1: to us that a woman can't be a writer.

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Speaker 2: No, although I will say one thing that I noticed

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Speaker 2: when I started working in television is that most of

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Speaker 2: the staff was female and a lot of the bosses

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Speaker 2: were still well, that certainly still a thing, and that's

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Speaker 2: certainly still a thing in a lot of media newsrooms.

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Speaker 2: I mean, I think obviously I've been in the business

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Speaker 2: a long time, so things have changed to some I

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Speaker 2: mean they've changed because I was able to run a newsroom, right,

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Speaker 2: That in and of itself is progress, But it's not

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Speaker 2: as much progress as you would hope in some of

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Speaker 2: these cases. And what's certainly the case is, I know

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Speaker 2: I've never been paid the same as my male counterparts

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Speaker 2: of my newsrooms, and I have been well paid. I'm

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Speaker 2: not complaining, But what's very clear to me is that

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Speaker 2: I know what comparable men have made in these jobs,

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Speaker 2: and it's never been, Wow, the same.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, So how.

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Speaker 2: Did you come to kind of find this story about Newsweek? Oh?

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Speaker 1: Right, of course? So okay, the ladies room. That's where

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Speaker 1: I found myself in the year twenty ten.

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Speaker 2: What a fun parallel with two.

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Speaker 1: Of my female colleagues, I think you know them, Jesse

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Speaker 1: Ellison and Sarah Ball complaining as we were writers at

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Speaker 1: Newsweek about the fact that we felt like we weren't

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Speaker 1: getting ahead, and you know, we'd come of age and

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Speaker 1: come up with this class of interns at Newsweek back then,

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Speaker 1: and we could track essentially how the boys, the men

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Speaker 1: in that class were getting promoted more quickly than us,

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Speaker 1: and they were getting more bylines. And I think that,

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Speaker 1: you know, we started pulling the numbers in that year

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Speaker 1: all but I think four of the magazine's cover st

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Speaker 1: of which they were like forty or something, were written

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Speaker 1: by men. And so we were getting a little bit disgruntled,

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Speaker 1: and we were meeting in the lady's room to talk

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Speaker 1: about this. And so one day maybe word had gotten

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Speaker 1: out or like around friendly faces, you know, people knew that,

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Speaker 1: like this was an issue. I came back to my

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Speaker 1: cubicle and there was a book on it that had

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Speaker 1: been left there by one of our librarians, a man

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Speaker 1: who was lovely. It was Susan Brown Miller's feminist Classic

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Speaker 1: In Our Time, which I had not read at the time,

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Speaker 1: and there was a post it note on a page,

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Speaker 1: and so I'm like, oh, what is this? I opened

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Speaker 1: the page.

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Speaker 2: I love that it feels like very subversive. It does right, and.

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Speaker 1: So like he like slipped through the book exactly, and

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Speaker 1: on this page was a chapter about the women of

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Speaker 1: Newsweek whould sue the magazine for gender discrimination. And I

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Speaker 1: know this sounds crazy now in twenty twenty three to

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Speaker 1: think that, like we didn't know this story and it

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Speaker 1: wasn't googleable, but we did not know this story where

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Speaker 1: I had no idea that this had happened, and we

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Speaker 1: had no idea we were working in this very place

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Speaker 1: where history had been made.

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Speaker 2: Also, how would you know? It's not like the magazine

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Speaker 2: would have celebrated this part of its history, right, Like

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Speaker 2: I'm sure they weren't exactly talking about it.

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Speaker 1: And it sort of had just been lost to time.

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Speaker 1: Like once we started asking everyone, people would be like, oh, yeah,

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Speaker 1: like maybe there was a Supreme Court case, Like there

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Speaker 1: were all these sort of myths around it, but nobody

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Speaker 1: had talked about it in so long, and the original

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Speaker 1: articles covering it were all in like microfeche in the

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Speaker 1: New York Public Library. So when we frantically went back

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Speaker 1: to our desks and were like googling what had happened,

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Speaker 1: we couldn't find anything. Oh my god, that's wild, And

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Speaker 1: so what happened was, you know, like, as all good

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Speaker 1: reporters do, we started reporting it out basically in secret,

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Speaker 1: and did any.

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Speaker 2: Of your editors? Were there any female editors?

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Speaker 1: There were some women editors yet.

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Speaker 2: But none of whom were like, you know you felt

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Speaker 2: like you could go to, because I mean, let's be

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Speaker 2: fair to women who probably were editors at that time,

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Speaker 2: like if you made waves, you weren't going to stay

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Speaker 2: an editor for very long totally.

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Speaker 1: And so what we started doing is we reported it

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Speaker 1: in secret, and we found the original women who were

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Speaker 1: part of the suit. We were like calling them up, but

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Speaker 1: there are a lot of them still lived in New

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Speaker 1: York and they, you know, hadn't heard from anyone about it.

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Speaker 2: They must have been so happy to get it.

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Speaker 1: And then we eventually told male editor Mentor, a gay

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Speaker 1: man who we loved and really trusted, and he sort

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Speaker 1: of coached us through this because what we wanted to

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Speaker 1: do was actually publish this story. We wanted it was

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Speaker 1: coming up on the fortieth anniversary of that lawsuit, and

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Speaker 1: so we were like, yeah, well let's report it out.

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Speaker 1: Let's look at what has actually changed, Let's weave our

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Speaker 1: own stories is discrontled into it, and let's publish it.

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Speaker 1: But that, of course was controversial.

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Speaker 2: I mean I can only imagine they must have hated that.

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Speaker 2: But did you eventually publish it?

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Speaker 1: Yes, So what happened was and you know, this sort

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Speaker 1: of gets all lost in the chaos of Newsweek when

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Speaker 1: you would ultimately join it. This was like right before

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Speaker 1: the magazine was going to be put up for sale.

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Speaker 2: So wait, this was that close to when I worked in.

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Speaker 1: You because when did you start? Twelve?

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Speaker 2: Maybe twenty ten? Actually twenty now, maybe twenty twelve.

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Speaker 1: Wait, yes, it was about a year before, about a

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Speaker 1: year because the anniversary of this lawsuit was in twenty ten.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, because I sort of like remember this story, but

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Speaker 2: I don't think I had any idea that it was

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Speaker 2: so close to the time when I started working there.

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Speaker 2: I mean that was really recent.

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Speaker 1: It was pretty recent. Yes, And at the time that

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Speaker 1: this was happening, you know, there were a number of

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Speaker 1: complaints at different media institutions about sexism and gender discrimination.

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Speaker 1: This was also at the time that David Letterman had

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Speaker 1: that whole thing where he was found to be sleeping

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Speaker 1: with one of his assistants or his intern or something.

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Speaker 1: So there was just like pre me too. This was

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Speaker 1: in the air, and so yeah, what we did was

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Speaker 1: we reported it in secret for months and months and months,

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Speaker 1: and we ultimately wrote a draft in secret with this

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Speaker 1: editor helping us, and then we presented it to the

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Speaker 1: top editors and the editor in chief, who ultimately recused

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Speaker 1: him himself from the process.

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Speaker 2: John And had he been there at the time of

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Speaker 2: the lawsuit, No, no, no, no, that's so interesting that

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Speaker 2: he had to recuse himself because he felt like some

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Speaker 2: of the complaints were about the current state of Vedews round.

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Speaker 1: Yes, and because we had done all these tallies, we

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Speaker 1: had looked at bylines, we had looked at the staffing,

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Speaker 1: and we had put those data points into the piece

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Speaker 1: and so then it sat there and floated in this

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Speaker 1: like awkward limbo for a number of months.

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Speaker 2: Well, they must have just been like shell shocked, because

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Speaker 2: I can just imagine being on the other side. You're

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Speaker 2: like presented with this thing. You can't ignore it, and

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Speaker 2: you know you're going to take it somewlace else if they.

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Speaker 1: Don't know this, and we you know, this was really

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Speaker 1: the only job that the three of us had had.

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Speaker 1: It was the three of us who had co authored

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Speaker 1: it together.

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Speaker 2: And it's so Baldy so impressive.

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Speaker 1: Thank you. I mean now now I don't know if

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Speaker 1: it seems so much, but at the time it did

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Speaker 1: feel scary. But also we were so fed up that

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Speaker 1: we were like, all right, fire us, like we don't care,

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Speaker 1: Like you know, the worst thing that can happen is

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Speaker 1: we get fired.

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Speaker 2: For which actually we know would have been the best

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Speaker 2: thing that could have happened, because you would have gotten

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Speaker 2: so much attention for that.

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Speaker 1: It would be interesting to see if we had then.

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Speaker 1: But anyway, ultimately they did publish it. It went through so

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Speaker 1: many rounds of editing. Every single editor in the building

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Speaker 1: weighed in on it, but we ultimately were really happy

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Speaker 1: with it, and it was published, and we did this

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Speaker 1: whole photo shoot where we got those women from the

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Speaker 1: original lawsuit together.

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Speaker 2: We should post that on the Instagram, Oh yeah, we can.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, And then you know, shortly after that, Newsweek got

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Speaker 1: put up for sale, and it was like any progress

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Speaker 1: that this had made in that moment was completely forgotten

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Speaker 1: because we had bigger problems.

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Speaker 2: Also, I think there was this weird idea that because

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Speaker 2: Tina Brown was the editor after the sale and because

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Speaker 2: she was a woman, that somehow that like solved all

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Speaker 2: the problems.

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Speaker 1: Tina Brown, for those who don't know, was this famous editor.

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Speaker 1: She's British, but she had come over to run The

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Speaker 1: New Yorker and Vanity Fair and had made a huge

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Speaker 1: name for herself. She writes about the Royals.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and I mean she.

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Speaker 1: Had been brought in to run the new Newsweek.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean what's interesting about it is she is

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Speaker 2: a feminist by every measure. But I will say that

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Speaker 2: that newsroom did not feel not sexist to me for

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Speaker 2: a variety of reasons. Like I remember very clearly that

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Speaker 2: when I was there, there was a well known writer

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Speaker 2: who came to town and left for lunch with one

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Speaker 2: of the assistants and came back, and it was very

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Speaker 2: obvious to me what had happened at lunch. Okay, you know,

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Speaker 2: and that was very much scene as just like a thing. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: that happened in a newsroom. You know.

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Speaker 1: You saw me too when this stuff wasn't really talked about.

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Speaker 2: Okay, So wait, this does somehow connect to your book, though,

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Speaker 2: So I want you to tell that part of this, Yeah,

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Speaker 2: of course.

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Speaker 1: Okay, So we're meeting in the ladies room, we write

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Speaker 1: this story, we find the women from that original lawsuit.

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Speaker 1: And by the way, I should mention that in their time,

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Speaker 1: in the nineteen sixties and seventies, the women were called dolly's.

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Speaker 1: That was the nickname for them.

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Speaker 2: Why.

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Speaker 1: I don't know, Maybe because they were sort of like,

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Speaker 1: so those women when we call it, they were like,

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Speaker 1: oh yeah, yeah, we were, we were the dollies.

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Speaker 2: Go.

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Speaker 1: So then we started referring to them as the dollies.

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Speaker 2: I feel like we should just like take that back

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Speaker 2: and start referring to ourselves as the dollies.

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Speaker 1: I mean, it's kind of cute. And the coverage of

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Speaker 1: that original lawsuit at the time, some of the headlines

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Speaker 1: were things like hen party at Newsweek, hen Party. For

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Speaker 1: a certain point, I wanted to reclaim hen party, like,

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Speaker 1: I love, what is that?

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Speaker 2: Just a gathering party? Is in England at least it's

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Speaker 2: a bachelorette party. That's what they call a hen party.

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Speaker 1: I don't know if that's the use of so why

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Speaker 1: were they calling it a head But it's also.

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Speaker 2: Interesting that even the coverage of the sexism article was sexist.

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Speaker 1: Oh of course, right, like of course, yeah, and so okay,

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Speaker 1: so how this relates to my book? So one of

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Speaker 1: the women who would go on to become Newsweek's first

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Speaker 1: female senior editor. Is Lynn Povich, and if her name

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Speaker 1: sounds familiar, she wrote a book about that lawsuit a

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Speaker 1: few years later called The Good Girl's Revolt, And if

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Speaker 1: that sounds familiar, that book was made into an Amazon series,

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Speaker 1: a very popular Amazon series that to bring this all

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Speaker 1: full circle, was then canceled, and in the me Too movement,

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Speaker 1: it was revealed that it was canceled by a man

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Speaker 1: who would later be fired for sexual harassment.

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Speaker 2: Of course it was so.

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Speaker 1: Let me just take a bath of it. But anyhow,

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Speaker 1: Lynn Povich, you know, we spent a lot of time

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Speaker 1: with these women. I became very close with her. She

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Speaker 1: became a mentor, and she introduced me to her daughter

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Speaker 1: who was my age and was in this secret feminist group.

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Speaker 1: And that secret feminist group I would begin meeting with

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Speaker 1: and I meet with them to this day, and we

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Speaker 1: would joke that we were like a feminist fight club,

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Speaker 1: which is the title of my book.

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Speaker 2: And so you should explain like what it meant to

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Speaker 2: be in the club, Like it was really about your careers, right,

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Speaker 2: but also other things.

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Speaker 1: It was about our careers. We would meet monthly. One

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Speaker 1: of the members' parents apartments because at that time, you know,

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Speaker 1: we had these tiny studio apartments. They couldn't fit that

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Speaker 1: many people. And we would talk about our careers and

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Speaker 1: we would support each other, and we would talk about

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Speaker 1: asking for raises, and we would complain about sexism, and

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Speaker 1: the mentors the dollies would come in and give us

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Speaker 1: pep talks.

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Speaker 2: Oh God, I love this so much.

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Speaker 1: And the reason why we called it a feminist fight

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Speaker 1: club was because we didn't talk about it outside of

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Speaker 1: the group. And that sounds kind of crazy now in

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Speaker 1: twenty twenty three, when like everyone calls themselves a feminists

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Speaker 1: to the extent that it means, it's almost meaningless in

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Speaker 1: some cases.

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Speaker 2: But also the concept of like women gathering to talk

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Speaker 2: about work like this is Cheryl Sandberg thing, which actually

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Speaker 2: you work with Cheryl, Like there's a lot.

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Speaker 1: Of women's face, yes, But at that time, most of

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Speaker 1: the people in that group, and so it was journalists,

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Speaker 1: it was a lot of producers and television writers. There

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Speaker 1: was a couple of comedians. They felt like if they

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Speaker 1: told people in their workplaces that they were in this

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Speaker 1: feminist consciousness raising group, they would be you know, at best, stigmatized,

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Speaker 1: at worst penalized. Yeah, And so we didn't talk about

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Speaker 1: the club outside of the club. And so years later,

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Speaker 1: when I would go on to write my book, which

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Speaker 1: was a manual for fighting sexism at work, it was

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Speaker 1: and it is a great gone.

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Speaker 2: I mean, I do know some of this story just

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Speaker 2: because I read the book. And also I think it's

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Speaker 2: such a good book to give people, like when they're

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Speaker 2: entering the workforce. Like I gave it to my niece

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Speaker 2: and she read it, and I think she gave it

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Speaker 2: to friends, Like it's really a way to think about

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Speaker 2: the world, which you're not, at least for me, I

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Speaker 2: wasn't really prepared for because I was sort of raised

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Speaker 2: to think that it was all just like meritocracy, right,

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Speaker 2: like if I worked hard, I would get ahead. And

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Speaker 2: then I got into the workforce, and at first I

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Speaker 2: didn't really notice. But the longer I stayed in, the

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Speaker 2: more I was like, wait, there are things that aren't

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Speaker 2: quite adding up here.

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Speaker 1: And it wasn't as if people would tell you you

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Speaker 1: can't be a writer like those women of nineteen seventy.

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Speaker 1: It had gone sort of underground. It was more subtle.

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Speaker 1: It was like you just won't get as many bylines

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Speaker 1: and we'll tell you that you're great, but you'll notice it,

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Speaker 1: and then you'll start to think, like, is this is

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Speaker 1: it me?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, you just assume it's because you're not doing something.

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Speaker 2: I mean, I remember I used to say this actually

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Speaker 2: when I worked at ABC, is that often the boys

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Speaker 2: or men in my peer group would get selected for things.

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Speaker 2: And a lot of it had to do with the

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Speaker 2: fact that people nurture people that they see themselves in

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Speaker 2: of course, you know. And so all our bosses were

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Speaker 2: older white men, and they would see themselves and these

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Speaker 2: young guys and they would give them opportunities, and there

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Speaker 2: was no one who looked or was like me, And

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Speaker 2: so you know, in the end, I did end up

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Speaker 2: having a male mentor who really like helped me in

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Speaker 2: my career, a couple of them, and only one of

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Speaker 2: them tried to hit on me. So that's the benefit,

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Speaker 2: I guess. But I guess the thing is is that,

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Speaker 2: you know, it was almost like he saw something else

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Speaker 2: in me that reminded him of himself. There's this very

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Speaker 2: natural instinct to kind of nurture, and I really, you know,

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Speaker 2: now that I've run newsrooms, really make an effort not

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Speaker 2: to do that, right, to try and nurture everyone because

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Speaker 2: everyone deserves that. But that's not the environment we came

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Speaker 2: up in.

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Speaker 1: No, very much not. And so you know, that's what

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Speaker 1: the book tried to do. It told the story of

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Speaker 1: my own feminist fight club, which I still meet with,

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Speaker 1: and you know, we're a little bit more open about

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Speaker 1: it's not like as secret as it once was. You

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Speaker 1: can talk about the club outside of the club.

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Speaker 2: But also you never say the names of all of

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Speaker 2: the fight club in the book, like there are some still.

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Speaker 1: Secret message right yeah, and there's like some well known members.

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Speaker 1: I mean that's a really cool thing. It's like we

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Speaker 1: were all these like assistants, junior journalists, like really struggling,

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Speaker 1: and we have really built each other up and lifted

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Speaker 1: each other up in the process. And so the book

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Speaker 1: tells that story, but it also provides like actual tools

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Speaker 1: to push back against some of the daily sexism and

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Speaker 1: bias that we still face.

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Speaker 2: All Right, well, I feel like that's a good place

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Speaker 2: to stop. This wasn't meant to be a book plug,

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Speaker 2: but I feel like we should just tell everybody about

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Speaker 2: your book. No I'm doing it, not you, So.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and we can reclaim the dollies.

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Speaker 2: Maybe this is in Retrospect. Thanks for listening. Is there

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Speaker 2: a cultural moment you can't stop thinking about and want

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Speaker 2: us to explore in a future episode? Email us at

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Speaker 2: Inretropod at gmail dot com or find us on Instagram

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Speaker 2: at in retropod.

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Speaker 1: If you love this podcast, please rate and review us

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Speaker 1: on Apple or Spotify or wherever you listen. If you

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Speaker 1: hate it, you can post nasty comments on our Instagram,

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Speaker 1: which we may or may not delete.

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Speaker 2: You can also find us on Instagram at Jessica Bennett

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Speaker 2: and at Susi b NYC. Also check out Jessica's books

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Speaker 2: Feminist Fight Club and This Is eighteen.

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Speaker 1: In Retrospect is a production of iHeart Podcasts and The Media.

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Speaker 1: Lauren Hanson is our supervising producer. Derek Clements is our

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Speaker 1: engineer and sound designer. Sharon Attiya is our researcher and

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Speaker 1: associate producer.

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Speaker 2: Our executive producer from the media is Cindy Levy. Our

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Speaker 2: executive producers from iHeart are Anna Stump and Katrina Norbel.

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Speaker 2: Our artwork is from Pentagram. Additional editing help from Mary

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Speaker 2: Doo and Mike Cosparelli, Sound correction and mastering by Amanda

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Speaker 2: Rose Smith. We are your hosts Suzie Bannacarum.

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Speaker 1: And Jessica Bennett. We're also executive producers for even more

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Speaker 1: check out in retropod dot com. See you next week.