When Everything Changed

is the name of Gail Collins' new book on the history of feminism.
I plan to read it, but this brief discussion exerpted from a much longer dialogue between her and Joan Walsh from Salon brings back a very clear memory, one of those events in life that made me a contrarienne for life.
I had joined and become active in Seattle NOW radicalized, I like to joke, by being at home alone all day with a two-year-old. (She was four when I joined.)
Somewhere along the way, I helped organize a workshop by Alinsky acolyte Heather Booth and her husband, whose name I forget.
Booth told us right up front. It wasn't our in-the-streets, in-the-face activism that was opening doors. It was the economy, stupid. I knew she was right. I never forgot that.


For more Walsh/Collins snippets, go here.