We continue our consideration of the theme of outliers, those people whose achievements exceed those of their peers, with When Everything Changed:The Amazing Journey of American Women from 1960 to the Present by Gail Collins.Collins is herself an outlier--she was the first woman to hold the position of editorial page editor for the New York Times from 2001-2007. In the clear, humorous style with which she writes her current column for the Times' op-ed page, Collins describes the radical change in the lives of American women between 1960, when female doctors, lawyers, and engineers were rare and women needed their fathers' or husbands' permission to sign a lease or obtain credit, and Hillary Clinton's historic 2008 presidential campaign.
Using both statistics and oral history, Collins vividly depicts a rapidly changing world that young women today would not recognize. Malcolm Gladwell argues in Outliers: The Story of Success that outliers "are invariably the beneficiaries of hidden advantages and extraordinary opportunities that allow them to learn and work hard and make sense of the world in ways others cannot. The culture we belong to and the legacies passed down by our forebears shape the patterns of our achievement in ways we cannot begin to imagine." In our discussions, we will talk about what these advantages and opportunities were for American women, and what was fortuitous about the particular cultural moment of the 1960s.
We hope you will join the conversation: Tuesday, September 7, at 6:30 p.m. at Main Library; Thursday, September 23, at 11:00 a.m. at West Ashley Branch Library; or here on the blog.
And take a look at our book for October, Half the Sky: Turning Oppression Into Opportunity for Women Worldwide by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn (also available as a downloadable audio book), an inspiring companion read to When Everything Changed. Kristof and WuDunn explore how we can help women in African and Asia rise out of poverty and oppression to make remarkable contributions to their communities.
