at. >> to be better members not just to get good job but better members of the community. i came to see the real tragedy for them from this exclusive group she could have pointed to the example of the demoralize group who did not think it was possible to say yes. there are women who can be wives and mothers and also workers and community activist the added support of that led be mentioned the findings of one sociologists the injury that upper middle-class moms are least likely to work outside the hall but the upper middle class a could have afforded to stay home with the most likely to work outside the home. in the white family when the husband did not want his wife to work, 90% did not do so but that was true for only half of the black wives whose husbands did not approve them black husbands are less likely to disapprove it could have been a model cannot say the african american community was any paradise even rosa parks has been said that the woman's place is in the kitchen but for this inability to explain that there were other models in the world. and it is terribly dangerous in many assumptions that we find so terribly offensive. she did not adequately credits the intellectual sources of her ideas and later allowed to be given and vocationally claimed too much credit and an older generation has been tenaciously working on behalf of gender and equality long before we started writing the feminine mystique and in the late 1960's a whole new generation came up to the movement on the basis of their own experience. people like myself was an activist of the civil-rights movement and really had not experienced the same kind of wife and mother type of mystique but saw we always we're asked to make the coffee and now i know we had not read the fifth and did -- feminine mystique but this is from the sideline wives and daughters of the greatest generation that usually only means the man when people refer to them and they might well happen lost to the women's centers they helped to found the woman studies departments pay went out to and also had friedan's not reach out to them and using the nonpolitical personal language to convince them this was a social injustice that needed to be addressed. i need to leave time for questions and informal conversation. i will end by mentioning a couple other things that i came to appreciate. one, the price that been paid for this division of labor that prevailed in the '50s and '60s. men had a lot more privileges than and i have rated to men who are nostalgic for those days. [laughter] but they constantly had to prove their entitlements and had to recreate that manhood everyday partly by a challenge jane them masculinity or by a suppressing their own impulse and while the men became to be depressed from the culmination of what they looked for in life, then did not often find out this is all there was until they reach the culmination of what they were told of their own life when they retired with a gold watch and the pension and found out they were strangers to their own children and often to their own wife. a gave me much more of the flora the men in this position and i talk to a lot of young men in particular who vowed they would not make their fathers mistakes. as a result some of them had seen the mother read the feminine mystique. i know was the band book that data should not know about but going off and reading it himself it changed what he wanted out of marriage. i talk in the last chapter of my book about the gains women have made and not made since then but i want to end by suggesting erotically one of the things what we owed to the work of betty friedan and other feminist is that so many of these are not just women's issues. now been report greater conflict than women do or earth it has been raised of the men's participation in family life. it has made our whirled much more complex than when it is just a low hanging fruit of these legal inequalities that we had to fight. be enough women have cracked the glass ceiling or lease of to the top of the escalator that now the lack of good jobs, only eight days living wages and meaningful work cannot be something all women suffer from or only women suffer from especially when mrs. but having to the real wages of men. the intersection of the masculine mystique within new occupation and and come trends in some ways disadvantage low income been in comparison to their female counterparts especially in their teens and twenties although it is true traditional prejudice against mothers tempted-- continue to plague working women alike. the old the men mystique may be mostly gone but it is counterpart for men it is there and there are also new mystiques that kick and other ages what i call the mystique that you can do anything the guy as long as you are sexy. the other is yes you can you have previously perfect mother and you should fight with other women about what makes to be a perfect mother. but i want to leave time for the question so i just end by saying this was one of the most moving books i have never reach seven -- research largely because of the stories that i heard from these women but also because in researching and talking to the women and men who share their stories with me, it did three new-line confidence. and that has sometimes flag in the last 10 years that when a deaf people start asking questions and naming problems that have not yet been named a week can work together to find answers and implement solutions and come an extraordinarily long way what is a store at shea short period of time if we could turn over the massive loss of social prejudice that existed back in the mid-1960s as much as we have we can move forward from the problems that are plaguing us now from something that is very pessimistic but i feel better finishing the book i hope you will find some hope and let's open two questions or comments from the audience. [applause] please come to the microphones we can get those questions or comments on tape. >> in process of interviewing people has a interviewed and a women who are african-american and/or otherwise minorities and what their experience is? obviously the problem is that it does not speak to these women so whether being a working class or minority women and reading the book helps them to get them as them anyway war in general? >> i interviewed several african-american women and the ones that were turned off did not finish the book and just read enough to know it was not relevant to them. but at least three african american women who went on to become professionals and felt that the book helps them. they understood it did not talk to their experience as a black but their experience and fears as women. the interesting thing about working class women and whose mothers definition of moving into the middle-class was to say you will not have a job like i do your way of moving is to get married. and to settle down. these women said they did not want the same job as their mother but they did want a job. they like the book because it helped them to think through that way. but if my remarks, a wonderful sociologists coming from a working-class family when she read the book the only one of her many siblings to go to college, she said the other things that bothered her about this is that friedan's thought women could get a self-confidence and meeting only from high prestige and academic jobs and she interviewed ribbon who did the kind of jobs that friedan stuck her nose up act like putting food on to the plate in the cafeterias and these women said i am proud of what i do. i am good at it for cry like the social interaction. she found when you look at lots of studies that back her up look at blue-collar housewives, they were less contemptuous of housework and the middle-class counterparts and less worried about whether they were normal if they did want to go to work. them as well as the middle class if they work outside the home were less depressed and that held across the glasses. other people? >> thank you so much. i am interested vivian's writing about the activism of the thirties and how the failure of those movements in the cold war would affect that and i have not read your book i would love to know what you have to say about mccarthyism. >> there is a couple of ways it is very relevant. one of those that friedan left the association never a member of the communist party but had been around and had seen what had happened and was determined she would not be painted by that brash. this was a period read most of you have heard of what happened during the red scare with mccarthyism people would be blacklisted not just because they were communist but because if they had known anybody who known anybody who belong to an organization that might have been associated that was communist was a terrible time. it was a time you want to pull the covers over your head. all those that were impacted but in the '30's and 40's progressives turn their attention with the fight against nazism and fascism and those that were continuing behind-the-scenes and were less assertive than they had in the 20s. >> by a teacher glasses with gender and politics it is a pleasure to get to hear you to talk. i am so glad to see anticipate reading sections of the book that have to do the impact but the question has to do with the ways that you work of the book and also in terms of domestic labor today, talk about work and family balance, but give them the career pressures that we are referring to, it seems odd there are so few sharp interrogations' of the fact our solutions still look a lot like friedan that women of families hire another woman to come into the house to for four domestic labor and we are what do think about that? >> one of the route ways that mr. paige was directing and mocked a lot, she has been painted by people who have never read her as anti-mail or marriage she loved flirting with guys. but she also wanted the epitaph to read she made with midfield better about the women and therefore better in their relationships with men. she had the idea if men and women shared access it would be better and it turns out she was the right more than the sociologists there was a big increase in the divorce rate once the women were allowed to view the marriages also male and female conflict when they began to enter the work force and demanding men step up to the plate. the divorce rate has been falling since then and has fallen the most among college-educated women and couples to have more egalitarian views. this is why work family we have to constantly fight about this being seen as a women's issue. the lack of family friend labor policies starting to call them neanderthal in the interview then i knew enough that they did much better with their family and carry giving the and we do. [laughter] so whatever we want to call it, i can understand why the wife would quit work but the problem is it is so hard for her to go back yen and the research shows it is a tremendous price to get back on to the on ramp but also solving a problem that way she is writing her husband or partner to equal access to the kids and the kids of the black says to her. there was a book called ask the children. and she found the children of working parents did not one more time with their mother, if anybody it was their father and they wanted their mother to stop feeling so guilty and distressed about the work. that is how we have to rephrase a male / female issue that challenges the old definition of work that was formulated when "the feminine mystique" did make women stay home so the men did not have to think about anything else or were not allowed to think of anything else. >> i hope to run a very infamous parity group made up mainly of affluent parents. i want to ask a question about middle-class parents and middle-class mothers because i see a lot of hostility to helicopter parents and although i have to say personally it drives me crazy, i can also see them this scapegoating of parents has a counterpart with parents who are not working class. there seems to be a movement to redefine poverty as a deficit of guaranteeing so there is a counterpart. said given the experience of looking what happened to see any parallels how do explain the connection from those in the middle class? >> there was a lot of issues there. one big difference through the 1960's is we feel much more compelled to spend much more time interacting with our kids. study showed that parents today, and others as well as fathers spend exponentially more time and stay at home mothers spend slightly more time than a working mom but the working mom spends more time interacting with their kids banished at home moms did and the 1960's. some of that is good that we pay attention to kids did you ever watch madmen go play with the of plastic bag that is very realistic why they put the warnings on them. part of it is good but another part reflects the collapse in the society that we owe our children something collectively and asking parents to prepare our kids for the world of work in ways that we once expected the committee to prepare them so in particular with what people call the hollowing out of the middle class, if you make it, you can make it very, very high but if not, you fall down more. it is harder and harder for families to see the children replicate their own middle ground and the result is that parents feel more and more pressure to give their children every jump-start they can put it exacerbates the problem to economist recently compared the time educated americans spend with educated canadians. all groups in both countries had increased their time with the kids. but the educated american parents increase tremendously while the canadians have not done so and they suggested pass to do with the difference in the hierarchy of the university's. the canadian regional universities are about the same do not have the hierarchy of the high prestige colleges so the parents can be more relaxed. you will be okay where americans also think they have to get into the very best. another example how this exacerbates the problem, another study shows in the united states states, 40 percent of parents and come a vantage is passed on to the child where canada only 20%. the more we institutionalize hard and the passing on a social inequality, the more parents will feel desperate at the individual level instead of at the social level. other comments? >> my name is jennifer perhaps not read "the feminine mystique" because i lived with my feminist mother. i should read it and i am looking forward to reading your book. but those of us who came after and we are that third wave of feminist, the combat that happens, if you could speak a little lowered to that, i know we're struggling with class is a and social definitions and capitalism, but i think it is interesting that the working class women we're-- were so much more comfortable with who they are with a 3% paradyne and that women of privilege, were so psychologically tortured in some way, i think that she spoke to her own group for aerobee to much to speak to the whole world wide group of women at that time. she had to speak to the group that she knew. i did not finish school. i am finishing school that out and i gave of school school, had a career somewhat because -- and raised a daughter who is now and college traveling. think i adopted in some ways a rebellion to that need for myself in order to give to her that i saw my mother's struggle with and more of a working-class woman perspective of needing to live with my child in a different place instead of myself. it is a struggle with those issues of self indulgences vs. health care. think this is the mom a war with the second first is the third. could you touch upon that? i don't know if you touch upon that in your book. >> let me make one thing very clear purpose of the working class women of the time were not comfortable, were not living lives that two except for a little material one dae feel very secure in my own skin. they have experienced different and security. i was lucky to run across a marvelous source that was one "in-depth" interview that took many years of market research for true confessions magazine. of course, that was marketed to the wives of the blue-collar workers per but they're interested in working-- knowing what makes these women tick as opposed the motivational researchers to sell to the middle-class women. and they did some interesting comparisons that i thought were so interesting that they would tell stories and asked the middle-class and working-class women to finish the stories. they would show pictures and one that stood out is they showed the women a picture of lawmen in the middle of the room with people pointing fingers at her. the working class women said she has done something wrong, she will be punished, she is played, she is in trouble, they will come get her, she has stolen some things. >> and the middle class women said her conscience is hurting her. there was the working class women stories always and did it sad if somebody was stooping over they thought the person was being beaten up the zero working-class was -- middle-class was being held up favor insecure because of the extra zero things facing them in the world. they just live a tough life for the middle-class women were more secure material ways the more inclined to doubt themselves if they were not happy with those lives. for me, it was helpful to get past some of the class differences that are raised. the other thing in terms of sacrifice that others make, writing this book was good for me because it helped and so many of women told me reading "the feminine mystique" help to forgive their mothers and this is something you heard from working-class and middle-class women alike. one of them said it was like going back to get to see my mother's whole life from the director's cut so i understood why she was pushed in one direction and in another direction. working-class women said now i know why my mom pushed me so much and did dampen down my dreams and aspirations because of what she went through. one quote is from a woman severely depressed small rudder as six days later while she was at camp saying how wonderful the famine -- "the feminine mystique" was and she did not know what she was talking about and went back later to say really felt i understood my mother two times. once when i read the book of job and also "the feminine mystique". write-off no fed as a result of the issues but it is a start. >> i have not grown up in the world period that was writing about and i feel very strongly about her book remember when i read it it was as if the whole book was written about her or for women that they knew who are started brooklyn college at 16 and graduated 19 and was a teacher, a magazine editor and had a life of her own before she married. my father was older and thought he was doing her a favor to take her out of the work force and that favored the story alive and a lot of ways. when i read that book i immediately understood the truth nine shura discussed much more in your book i know that betty friedan did things after "the feminine mystique" that are not always glorious and some were pretty bad but she is an incredible hero. and a pioneer, and if they she is as nearly as celebrated as she should be. perhaps it is still too close to when she lived. we still have people live who fought the battles against her and have grievances. but i believe over time people at understand this is a great visionary pioneer whose book was a gem and made all of our lives better. [applause] >> host: i said "the feminine mystique" was stated but it is important when we talk about choices is still possible to get into a spiral of self doubt win you are isolated and two examples that brought it home to me, one what is gay historian i interviewed that said he had a job, and his partner did not and was staying home terribly depressed. and his partner was to read "the feminine mystique" although it was repellent with the attitude of homosexuality of health to my partner to understand the depression. even now there are women in isolated areas who can read "the feminine mystique" and gave hope. i got a letter sent by a what to tell you about. brainman wrote to me. he said i listened to your interview on fresh air and what you described about how sad and low self-esteem these women have and i think i am like that. i always wanted to become an academic but my wife got a high-paying job and i loved staying home with children. now she says you do it so well you should stay with it and going over my finances you spend too much on books. you have to spend time with your kids and we don't know what to do. it broke my heart. i am not a psychologist in don't like to play one on tv but it felt as though it is not just a gender thing if intake with women if they get trapped they should not just the women's issue that is not directly related but i just when your employment what is your take on women who are basically using the ganes the second wave movement had made? i am talking specifically about politics with sarah palin and her ilk who use of language that comes about from "the feminine mystique" the second wave was made popular and a sense to roll back the gains the second wave feminism has made and "the feminine mystique" was a cultural touchstone? >> we're living in such a complicated time the fact that gender is no longer the master status and even in the arena of our political system that has always said women should not work when they have kids, sarah palin feels entitled to go out to run for vice president is a victory of feminism itself it is. at the same time she is opposing the other reforms that are necessary to consolidate women's positions there is an interesting debate about who gets to call themselves a feminist. said she was against abortion issue cannot call herself a feminist. i do not agree. if your moral lines if you believe abortion is murder you could be a feminist and oppose abortion however you then have to support contraceptive choice and the development of good quality child care for the unwanted kids who come into the world so to my mind it is a little more complicated to say who is a feminist or who is not work even what is a feminist two men? sometimes i feel uneasy saying i am a feminist when i talk to a group of working-class guys who want to know what am i trying to offer them? i have tried to be a good husband or a good father and yet they are falling behind. we're in a situation where drug being tactics and strategies and alliances are more difficult when it was just against a series of boggs we could all come together. and now the difference is about class and race and politics and religion are coming forward. >> we need to end it here. thank you stephanie coontz and everybody for coming and rebecca for the introduction in. we have "a strange stirring" and "the feminine mystique" for sale. maybe you will sign both? [laughter] i don't know. >> host: i could not sign her book. that is way too much. [laughter] >> thank you very much. have a good evening. >> mr. gingrich can you tell us about your latest release standard text writing project? >> guest: sa if botha book on ronald reagan and start with the name rendezvous with reagan and came up with the idea we should do what an honor of his 100th birthday some lire excited to bring it out where that the reagan library and it lasted three and a half hours we were thrilled and there is a lot of interest because of the renewed interest of president reagan. >> host: what comes next? >> we have a book on american exceptional as some from regnery and is sold or not allowed in the fall and we're looking forward to both of those petitions by the shriveling of book reviews space and a lot of book review sections have folded, shrunk and it is harder to find information what is going on in the world of books these days. so we decided to try to do something ourselves it is from the old judy garland and mickey rooney movies of but put on a show and we decided we would creator of book review and 70 adaptation 777 engagement we just launched in had a great response and it is very gratifying. >> host: what type of books are your reviewing? >> guest: day ride -- wide range of fiction and nonfiction right now we will not be looking at children's books or romance literature but beyond that, we are quite open. we will be revealing recently released books and we hope to get our reviews up in the first 30 or 45 days after publication. you can come to us for current information about what are the new books out there? >> host: can people submit books to be reviewed? >> we would rather not get the bucks but we can bring it to our attention we will decide. you can get a lot of books that way that are hard to deal with. we invite people to the mehl or bring their books to our attention or send us the publicity packet so we know and plenty of time it is coming and we can decide if it is what we want to take a shot at revealing. >> host: mr. stewart, a lot of your reviewers and people involved washington independent review of books have backgrounds give us a snapshot of people who are participating. >> guest: i was a lawyer for many years but now i am an author and have done a couple of books on american history one on the constitution and one of the impeachment trial of johnson and another one coming out this fall of lead aaron burr western conspiracy. the other folks come from journalism we have been so lucky for a book on the eichmann trial in israel they are able to get to the war crimes tribunal for yugoslavia and a leading constitutional scholar we had a terrific response from people having a wonderful book out to and a new book by a cord and would. we have been able to get topnotch reviewers and it is an exciting thing everybody works for the same amount of money, nobody is paid it is just willing to see people pitch again to see the conversation about the world of books what we are about. >> host: and has been a decline of traditional media of books but online there is quite the active marketplace of reviewers. what do bring to the table that is different? >> we will bring the depth and quality of our reviewers. we also do features, author interviews, question-and-ans wer, a radio interview partners who will be putting up podcast, we will provide a full range of information and the other operations that are trying to do the same thing are doing the lord's work as well and i support what they are up to. but there is room for a lot of voices. that is important with books. there are a lot of voices to you're not just talk with one are to reactions to a new book that maybe idiosyncratic. >> host: i looking at politically slanted books as well or books from the left or the right or the middle? >> of course. we are predominantly of the washington area writers we have a lot of interest in political and historical topics. we will take them on from every point* in the spectrum. >> host: how often will you put up new material? >> we will have new content up every day. either as an interview, or new review. in the year early days, we try not to set the bar to high but as time goes on we expect content to become richer and richer and we're looking forward to that. >> host: mr. storey said you have the seed money from the eight i w freedom to write fund? >> association of american independent writers here in the dc area. and it is 501(c)(3) affiliated with aiw we have done very modest of fund-raising and we need to do more but enough to get us up and running and a great sponsorship. >> host: president of the washington independent review of books, >> thank you it is a delight to be here. i appreciate your taking an hour of this bright and perfect afternoon to listen to the account of the single darkest chapter of the history of the modern west. what i would like to talk to you about very briefly is a catastrophe, a catastrophe in which 14 million people chiefly children and the aged were killed over the space of just 12 years by two regime's nazi german and stalinist in the soviet union this total figure of 14 million it is too large to grasp i well see what that tries to mean but it tells us something very special about the two regimes. we now know or have a pretty good certainty about the total number of people killed by these two regimes. it was about 17,000,014,000,000 were killed in a place called the blood plans to say not so much russia were germany but the land between berlin and moscow belarus, ukraine and most of poland. what this means of all of the killings that took place come up organized by hitler and stalin from the atlantic to the pacific, the tremendous majority of the mass murder was concentrated in the relatively small territory. this is the event that caught my attention and strikes me that once we know the numbers and we can localize the numbers and time and locate in a place, what we see is an event that has few comparisons in the history of the world. the question is, why is there no history of this event? why has no one see that as the event? why wasn't there britain before? i'd like to say a few words why i think that is. in the last 20 years the reason we have had the opportunity to write the history is a soviet union collapsed in 1991 this was very important obviously in terms of understanding the history of the soviet union and communist eastern europe. however it was also incredibly important to understand the history of nazi germany. why is that? very simple. the germans carried out almost all of their killings on territories then immediately after the war fell behind the iron curtain. the line that they killed as the same line that marked off the soviet postwar empire. if we have an idea of nazi german policy we have to have archives the concern those territories were the germans did most of the killing. a surprise results of the end of communism is now have a much stronger basis on which to talk about not only the history of communism but also on nazi germany. why hasn't this book been written by someone else in the last 20 years? this is not a book that i particularly wanted to write. had someone else written that i would it hit my cap but i rode out of a sense of obligation and then to have a more stronger feeling that perhaps it never would be written. in any event, the reasons why it has not been written are three. they have to do with certain weaknesses three impressive schools of historical writing. the first of these to start with of mea culpa i am the eastern european historian. of the we have learned a tremendous amount in the last 20 years, what has happened was almost all the we have learned to, the estonians and croatians, ukrainians the russians and hungary and, almost all of it has been framed within the national context. the enormous tragedies that i am discussing war will discuss can only be seen from a certain point* of view and can only catch part of it. probably the country that this would apply the least is the ukraine were half of the killings happened did even from the ukrainian point* of view you cannot see the totality certain not of the events beyond the famine. the second problem with a history of the soviet union, i would upsize russian, ukrainian, american and other historians working on the soviet union has discovered incredibly important things for collectivization and terror. what has not happened is the findings have not been integrated into a geographical approach. the consensus has shifted on what collectivization meant for the ukraine and now that it was a deliberate action designed to starve people. we know much more about the great terror. says same territories where a few years later the germans would kill in the largest numbers, the overlap is almost never notice but the one of the reasons is so be history tends to jump from 1941 from 1945 treated as a separate subject but once we treat the territory as the framework we can make the observation and that the places where stalin killed were the places that hitler killed for the third reason has to do with what is the strongest body of history which is the story of the holocaust. in the last 20 years, the health history of the holocaust has been raised a very high levels mainly buy german historians but also by israelis and americans. this has been tremendously important but there are applications to the holocaust the first is language based upon germans are sins which can get you far if what you're trying to do is understand german decision-making. you can still go further if you have languages and eastern europe, but german language sources of help very much with the victim's whether jewish or non-jewish. 97% of the jews killed in the holocaust did not know german. even concerned with the victims and then there were less likely to speak german most of the polish and ukraine victims left behind traces but not in the german language with few exceptions. the second limitation it tends to take the perspective to begin the story and extend our words rapidly into eastern europe the most important history of the holocaust but most important, most histories that are widely read do not give on a strong sense of what type of a society in ukraine and belarus or poland was or what sorts of jews live in those places. to get the sense beyond germany, one has to start from eastern europe. a particular test that i apply to holocaust literature is this. what does it say about the other german crimes in eastern europe? they killed more than 3 million soviet prisoners of war. the second largest german war crime. in general this is mentioned very briefly or sometimes not at all but in my view it is important to understand the holocaust and even if i am wrong about that, it strikes me if one were concerned about german war crimes we would want to bring in all of them to check to see if there is some kind of a relationship. the final difficulty has to do with comparison. what i have been edging toward is the argument one has to understand eastern europe and the soviet union to understand the crime germany committed which i like to think is an obvious place but i am afraid it is sent. one of the things that has held us back is comparison to different ways. on the one hand there is a strong tradition of comparison that begins that these regimes are both totalitarian. i have a lot to say about that if it interest you but the problem to note is the totalitarian school you look at soviet society and the nazi german society as two examples of a larger phenomenon. you look at the situation which policies and the capital affect german or soviet citizens. you're not looking at how the two regimes interacted. cents a central observation of my book is people died where the two regimes interactive, it is very important. totalitarianism can explain why that happened to. on the other hand, they cannot compare at all it is a taboo to what i will return if i have the moment but i will make the simple observation that if the taboo on comparison you're depriving history of the basic elements of what actually happens. so how do we get buy? what can we possibly do? i would like to begin by stressing my major concern to write the book was not to compare my major concern was to describe an to explain a one to describe who these people were how they could have been killed in such a small place over ace short period of time. my thought was when we understand the killing policies which i think we would agree our fundamental aspects of both sides then we're in a position to compare the was my view we needed to understand these better whether comparative other rise so mehmet bid to describe and explain was as follows a straightforward and conventional to the historical method which it consisted of three parts the first was to say history happens in a time and place the blood lands third 1945 allows me to see the crimes from the perspective of the victims because this is where they lived or died but allows me hopefully in a fruitful way to bring the two regimes into the story without constantly comparing one to the other. this is where german and soviet power killed so one sees german and soviet power at their most dangerous individually they can check to see the places where they did lowered did not interact a second part of my historical method is i distinguish between killing and letting dae which is a difficult distinction of moral philosophy per paramount trying to say letting dye is not significant. being sent to the gulag or a concentration camp is a horrible fate or ethnically cleansed and lead too very many millions of deaths however i am not discussing those within my 14 million. if i add those, the gulag and deportation and ethnic cleansing adds a