Episode 8: The Good Girls Revolt

September 10, 2012

Lynn Povich never considered herself career savvy or ambitious. After all, she started work in the middle of the 1960s, when nice girls like her could aspire to be a secretary, teacher or nurse once they graduated from college (if they didn't marry right away). But after Povich landed her first secretarial job at Newsweek in 1965 the journalism bug bit, and she was soon working as a researcher for the magazine. Still, all was not well. At Newsweek, men were writers, and women ('the dollies' in office parlance) fact-checked their pieces. That's just the way things were, and the women accepted it. Until they didn't. Lynn and her colleagues sued Newsweek for sex discrimination in 1970, the first ever female class action lawsuit.

Tune in to hear about the suit that changed so much for women in the media and the workplace in general, and let me know how much, if anything, you think has stayed the same.