It was the 1960s––a time of economic boom and social strife. Young women poured into the workplace, but the “Help Wanted” ads were segregated by gender and the “Mad Men” office culture was rife with sexual stereotyping and discrimination.

Lynn Povich was one of the lucky ones, landing a job at Newsweek, renowned for its cutting-edge coverage of civil rights and the “Swinging Sixties.” Nora Ephron, Jane Bryant Quinn, Ellen Goodman, and Susan Brownmiller all started there as well. It was a top-notch job––for a girl––at an exciting place.

But it was a dead end. Women researchers sometimes became reporters, rarely writers, and never editors. Any aspiring female journalist was told, “If you want to be a writer, go somewhere else.”

On March 16, 1970, the day Newsweek published a cover story on the fledgling feminist movement entitled “Women in Revolt,” forty-six Newsweek women charged the magazine with discrimination in hiring and promotion.  It was the first female class action lawsuit––the first by women journalists––and it inspired other women in the media to quickly follow suit.

Lynn Povich was one of the ringleaders. In The Good Girls Revolt, she evocatively tells the story of this dramatic turning point through the lives of several participants. With warmth, humor, and perspective, she shows how personal experiences and cultural shifts led a group of well-mannered, largely apolitical women, raised in the 1940s and 1950s, to challenge their bosses––and what happened after they did. For many, filing the suit was a radicalizing act that empowered them to “find themselves” and fight back. Others lost their way amid opportunities, pressures, discouragements, and hostilities they weren’t prepared to navigate.

The Good Girls Revolt also explores why changes in the law didn’t solve everything. Through the lives of young female journalists at Newsweek today, Lynn Povich shows what has––and hasn’t––changed in the workplace.

About Lynn Povich

Lynn Povich began her career at Newsweek as a secretary. In 1975 she became the first woman senior editor in the magazine’s history. Since leaving Newsweek in 1991, Povich has been editor-in-chief of Working Woman magazine and managing editor/senior executive producer for MSNBC.Com. Winner of the prestigious Matrix Award, Povich edited a book of columns by her father, famed Washington Post sports journalist Shirley Povich. She is married to Stephen Shepard, former editor-in-chief of Business Week and founding dean of the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism. They have two children.

Editorial Review

Journalist Povich began her career in the mid-’60s at the magazine’s Paris bureau as a secretary, photo researcher, telex operator and occasional reporter. In 1975, she became the first female senior editor in the magazine’s history. Here, she chronicles the five-year legal battle that she and the women of Newsweek waged against the company, laying the groundwork for women’s advancement at the publication and in other careers in the areas of journalism, law and society. The Newsweek case was also the first female class-action suit filed in the United States. The women were a cohort of educated well-mannered “good girls” of the ’40s and ’50s, raised to be apolitical and accept the status quo in the workplace and society. But Povich and her co-workers found themselves stymied professionally and personally by the male-dominated work environment atNewsweek. Today it may be difficult to comprehend, but when the case was filed, there were few professional women in the United States. “Until around 1970,” writes Povich, “women comprised fewer than 10 percent of students in medical school, 4 percent of law school students, and only 3 percent of business school students.” The author describes the women’s initial trepidation, followed by a feeling of empowerment. By standing up for what they believed they were entitled to, some flourished while others fell prey to a hostile work environment. As one of the plaintiffs said, “A lot of women were prepared socially and emotionally for it, but for those of us who were traditional women, you couldn’t switch off overnight just because we won a lawsuit.” – Kirkus Reviews

‘Good Girls’ Fight to Be Journalists

The New York Times Book Review – September 1, 2012 (Excerpt)

WHEN I graduated from college, before the Civil Rights Act of 1964 took effect, sex discrimination was legal. I wanted to write for a newspaper or newsmagazine, but despite an armload of credentials and skills, I soon learned the score: Women could do research, be secretaries and, if very lucky, work for the ghetto called the women’s page. But other than that, the guys were hired as the writers, and that was that.

“The Good Girls Revolt” by Lynn Povich (PublicAffairs), scheduled for release next week, is the little-known story of how a small band of women at Newsweek successfully challenged this industrywide practice. They fought the men of Newsweek in the early 1970s, becoming the first women in the media to sue on the grounds of sex discrimination.

At Newsweek in the mid-1960s, Ms. Povich writes, the problem was sexism, pure and simple. Although the women were graduates of the same top colleges as the men, and had the same or better qualifications, they were hired for the mail desk, or as fact checkers, and rarely promoted to reporter or writer. [Read the full article...]

‘Good Girls Revolt’: Story Of A Newsroom Uprising

NPR Book Review – September 9, 2012 (Excerpt)

In the 1960s, Lynn Povich worked at Newsweek — where she became part of revolution.

“At Newsweek, women were hired on the mail desk to deliver mail, then to clip newspapers, and if they were lucky, became researchers or fact checkers,” Povich tells NPR’s Linda Wertheimer, whom she knows personally. “All of the writers and reporters were men, and everyone accepted it as, that was the way the world was — until we didn’t.”

Povich’s new book, The Good Girls Revolt, tells the story of how the women sued their bosses and changed the workplace. The first spark that set off the rebellion was in 1969 — five years after the Civil Rights Act made gender discrimination illegal.

“It was only as the women’s movement started gaining steam that it suddenly dawned on us that, oops, there’s something wrong with this picture here — that this movement doesn’t just apply to those women, it applies to us, and we have to do something about it,” Povich says. “And it’s illegal.” [Read the full article...]

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