The road to herstory

Rice’s acceptance into George W. Bush’s inner circle and the nation’s top foreign policy establishment is in many ways the epitome of the stunningly radical change wrought by the aligned forces of civil rights and feminism - and it is the history of the latter that Gail Collins retells in her engaging account, “When Everything Changed: The Amazing Journey of American Women from 1960 to the Present.’’ With the exception of the Civil War, it’s hard to imagine anything that has so permanently altered the course of American history for the better as the magnificently successful movements for racial and gender equality that emerged after World War II - known collectively and colloquially (if inaccurately) as “The Sixties.’’ The feminist transformation chronicled by Collins brought about a victory so complete that the vanquished sometimes still don’t even acknowledge they were beaten, so fully have they internalized the core values of the winners. Sarah Palin for president, anyone? Hello?

Collins, an op-ed columnist for The New York Times who also was the first woman to edit the paper’s editorial page, has produced a sequel to her 2003 volume “America’s Women: Four Hundred Years of Dolls, Drudges, Helpmates, and Heroines.’’ (In the interest of full disclosure I should mention that Collins is at the top of my guest list for my imaginary dinner party, the theme of which would be: “Famous fun people I’d like to meet and talk with, but probably never will and wouldn’t know what to say to if I did.’’) Focusing on the drama of the past 50 years, Collins zeroes in on the women and events that finally kicked the can over completely.

Like the millions of viewers addicted to “Mad Men,’’ the brilliant TV series nominally about advertising in the early 1960s but actually portraying the closing moments of America’s collapsing gender and racial hierarchies, readers will appreciate the exceptional detail with which Collins lays out the accepted universe of closed opportunities and limited horizons that women faced in 1960. Collins interviewed a variety of women from around the country, and it is fascinating to hear them describe a world that seems unthinkable now but which few could imagine challenging at the time.

Yet challenge some did. We hear, for example, from Lorena Weeks, whose 1966 lawsuit against Southern Bell for denying her transfer request from company clerk to the higher-paid switchman position set off years of litigation, personal struggle, and ultimate victory for all women wanting legal access to previously “male only’’ jobs. Collins doesn’t try to sugarcoat the cost to those who fought back or make exorbitant claims about the extent of each success. But throughout, she reminds us that this transformation was slow and cumulative, occurring in many locations over many years - from the so-called “radical’’ women who (never actually) “burned their bras’’ to working-class women who filed risky lawsuits to the extraordinary work done by African-American women during the civil rights movement. Although feminism has been criticized as being by, for, and only about upper-class, white women, Collins reminds us that in one form or another this was a revolution in ideology that spread throughout the country and crossed traditional lines of class and race - even when individual women often had difficulty finding common personal ground. The central idea - that women needed equal access to achieve their greatest potential and that they should be the ones to define that potential - found a home in many quarters.

The stories that emerge are really the book’s strongest suit. Deeply moving, they drive the most engaging sections. The rest, to be fair, is well-trod territory. Collins acknowledges this and shares an exhaustive bibliography. So why read this volume instead of one of the many books she lists? Collins is certainly a zippier writer than most upon whose work she so heavily relies. Still, she does seem oddly housebroken here, sobered perhaps by the extent and gravity of her task. Her delightful trademark snark is somewhat muted, and most of the best lines come from her interviewees, particularly Nora Ephron - the funniest person in many books, including this one.

Of somewhat greater concern is a kind of generational self-absorption. While the outline of national scope and breadth do emerge, this book isn’t really the history of all American women in the period. It’s more often the history of women who are of Collins’s generation. Most of the victories she celebrates were won by professional women who came of age as the movement began and who finally achieved success after years of struggle. As to the women who followed them? Let’s put it this way, a chapter titled “The 1990s - Settling For Less?’’ (uh oh) comes shortly before the end, and the last chunk covers the Hillary/Sarah political celebrity death match from 2008. Sure that’s fun, but something is clearly missing here. I guess the next generation of women will just have to write their own book. Anyone know Ana Marie Cox’s phone number? I have more room at my imaginary table.

Sharon Ullman is an associate professor of history at Bryn Mawr College and author of “Sex Seen: The Emergence Of Modern Sexuality In America.’’