What: The Center for Politics and Governance at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs will present a speech by Gail Collins, New York Times columnist, author and noted women’s historian. This event is part of the center’s ongoing Perspectives@CPG series and is co-sponsored by the New York Times inCollege program, which works with universities to plan engaging events to promote learning outside the classroom.
Collins will talk about her 2009 book “When Everything Changed: The Amazing Journey of American Women from 1960 to the Present.” She will tell the story of women’s struggles and successes from the time the first colonists arrived in America, to the open sexism of the 1960s, to Hillary Clinton’s historic run for president.
When: Thursday, Oct. 13 from 12:45-2 p.m.
Where: Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum Atrium
2313 Red River St.
Austin, TX 78705
Background: Collins joined The New York Times in 1995 as a member of the editorial board and later served as an op-ed columnist. In 2001 she became the first woman to be appointed editor of The New York Times editorial page.
Beyond her work as a journalist, Collins has published several books, including: “When Everything Changed: The Amazing Journey of American Women from 1960 to the Present,” “Scorpion Tongues: Gossip, Celebrity and American Politics,” “America’s Women: Four Hundred Years of Dolls, Drudges, Helpmates, and Heroines” and “The Millennium Book,” which she co-authored with her husband Dan Collins.
Her discussion will focus on “When Everything Changed.” The book begins in 1960, when most American women had to obtain their husbands’ permission to apply for a credit card. It ends in 2008, with Hillary Clinton’s historic presidential campaign. This was a time of cataclysmic change, when, after 400 years, expectations about the lives of American women were smashed in just a generation.
A comprehensive mix of oral history and Gail Collins’ keen research encompassing politics, fashion, popular culture, economics, sex, families and work “When Everything Changed” covers five crucial decades of progress. The enormous strides made since 1960 include the advent of the birth control pill, the end of “Help Wanted Male” and “Help Wanted Female” ads, and the lifting of quotas for women in admission to medical and law schools. Collins describes what has happened in every realm of women’s lives, through the testimonies of both those who made history and those who simply made their way.
