May 2022 Friday’s e-links: How the Pill Empowered Women

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I like to think of them as my e-links:

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Friday’s e-links 5/13

I recommend taking a look at Harvard economist Claudia Goldin’s new book, Career & Family. Empowering us with analysis, data, and good stories, she follows the trajectory of women from the home to the workplace. This week though, I especially appreciated Chapter 6, “The Quiet Revolution.”

Dr. Goldin starts the chapter with a quote from the Mary Tyler Moore Show. As some of us recall, Mary was one of the first unmarried career women in a long running sitcom. During a visit from her parents, Mary’s mom says to her husband, “Don’t forget to take your pill.” However, both Mary and her Dad say, “I won’t.”

The era is the 1970s and the significance is women’s newfound ability to delay marriage for a career, for graduate degrees, for financial independence. The reasons are the pill and legal abortion. Dr. Goldin reminds us that Mary was the role model showing us what we could be.