The Good Girls Revolt (23 page)

The next day I had an appointment with my therapist at lunchtime. I remember walking into his office, sitting down, and saying, “Well, I guess my marriage is over.” I was so confused between feeling elated by Ed’s offer and feeling depressed that my husband couldn’t understand the opportunity I was handed. It clarified some things in my mind that I had been talking about with my shrink: why our life always seemed to revolve around him and what I had to do for myself after spending so many years encouraging him. I walked out of the office still not believing that after seven years our marriage was actually ending. That night, Jeff called me from LA. He apologized and told me he loved me. He said he would come back to New York to be with me. The next month, he returned and found a job directing a soap opera.

My tryout lasted several months that spring of 1975. I was nervous and exhausted, staying late several nights a week to get the job done. But I quickly realized that I enjoyed editing more than writing. I felt more suited to it and it fit my nurturing personality. I had lots of ideas and a strong sense of structure, and I enjoyed working with talented writers, relishing the give-and-take in making their work better. What proved more daunting was being the only woman in the story meetings. Despite Ed’s support, it was clear that most of the editors didn’t take me seriously. In a room filled with testosterone and egotism, I had to learn to speak up and defend my stories and my writers. As I struggled to push myself forward, I was surprised by the passivity of some of the men. One of my former editors, who was always insisting that he had fought hard for our stories, just rolled over whenever he encountered an objection from the top guys. And he wasn’t the only one.

My relationships with my writers were more rewarding. The most surprising was with Harry Waters, my old boss whom I now was editing. Mensch that he was, Harry couldn’t have been more supportive or less threatened. We continued to work well together and I always valued his counsel. Ken Woodward was more skeptical of the decision to let me audition for the job. Ken was the longtime Religion writer at
Newsweek
and a man with old-fashioned values. But he was a good writer and an expert on religious topics. One day, Ken came into my office to tell me that initially he had been against my becoming a senior editor. He was against affirmative action and felt I was being considered only because I was a woman. But he had changed his mind after he realized I really was interested in the material and not just using the position as a stepping stone to get ahead, as had the men before me. He also told me that he had never asked to leave early to attend his son’s baseball game because he was afraid to say that to a male boss; instead, he would say he had a doctor’s appointment. But he felt that he could tell me the truth and I would understand. We had come to a truce.

That summer, Jeff and I went on vacation to Los Angeles to visit Mary Pleshette and Jack Willis, who had married and moved there. We decided to drive to the Grand Canyon and we were there when, on August 1, Oz announced that he would move up to become editor-in-chief and that Ed Kosner would be the next editor of
Newsweek
. When we got back to LA, Mary told me that Ed had phoned and to call him in New York. When I reached him, Ed told me his news. I was very happy for him and gave him my congratulations. Then he congratulated me. He told me that he had decided to promote me to senior editor and had already announced it effective September 1.

I’m sure I thanked him but I remember only that I was dumbfounded. I hadn’t expected Oz to leave so soon, although it was clear that Ed was the next in line. Nor was I given any indication that I was even succeeding in my tryout. Although many of my ideas were picked up and my stories were getting through, I had no idea whether I was doing well. When I asked Ed years later, “Why me?” he said, “You had an editor’s mind. You could see structure and you didn’t have the kind of ego that had to be out there. The best editors were analytical and if our edited stories didn’t sing, it was because we were on deadline and fixing a structural problem. And, no disrespect, but you had an iron ass. You would sit in the chair and work until it was done—late nights, late hours, and all.”

I was pleased with Ed’s confidence in me. He had been my mentor and was good to me, but it turned out that he wasn’t exactly an equal-opportunity employer. When I returned to New York, Ed proudly told me that he was raising my salary from $27,000 to $32,000. Then I found out that Charlie Michener, another writer who had been promoted to senior editor in the Arts sections, would be making $40,000 a year. I couldn’t believe it! Consciousness finally raised, I confronted Ed. He explained that my percentage raise was much higher than Charlie’s, which meant only that I was making much less to begin with. Since Ed had already announced my promotion, I had him cornered. I told him that I wouldn’t take the senior editor job unless I got the same amount as a man doing the same work. He reluctantly agreed and I felt great. When I called my parents to tell them the good news, my father was thrilled and cheered me on. My mother’s response was true to form. “Now you’ll never have children,” she said.

Three weeks later, I encountered the editing nightmare I feared. On Monday, September 22, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis announced she was taking a job as a consulting editor at Viking Press.
Newsweek
decided to crash a six-column story describing “Jackie on Her Own,” to be reported and written by Liz Peer and edited by me. I was nervous about how Liz would respond to my editing her, but she was a pro. We discussed the story and she spent the week gathering information. On Friday evening, around six, I got the first half of her story. Unlike most of her pieces, this one just didn’t work, and I was dismayed that Liz hadn’t nailed it. I showed it to my top editor, Ed Klein, who agreed and told me the story had to be rewritten. Normally I would talk through the problems with the writer and let her fix it. But Liz was still writing the second half of the piece and I needed her to finish. So I shut my door and began to rewrite the copy. When Liz handed in the last part, she came into my office and I explained what I was doing and why. She took it well, but she was exhausted and said she didn’t want to work on it anymore. I stayed until 4 A.M., returned early Saturday morning to finish the story, and handed it in by noon. It sailed through. I was relieved that I had passed the test, but I will always appreciate Liz’s professional behavior. She never held it against me.

Becoming the first female senior editor in
Newsweek’
s forty-two-year history was a personal as well as a professional victory for me. I had never thought of myself as ambitious. I had been lucky in that most opportunities had come to me—I didn’t have to ask for them. I pushed myself forward by looking around and saying, “Well, if that guy can do it, then I surely can.” Now I had to recognize that I did have drive (my preferred word to “ambition”) and some talent. I was anxious about succeeding in my new job, but for the first time I felt confident in my career, armed with the kind of outside affirmation that I—and many of the women I knew—needed. It was one thing for your parents or teachers to tell you how good you were; it was another for the world to chime in.

Professionally, my elevation broke the editorial barrier. Now women had a voice in the meetings, a representative in management, and an advocate for them and for their story ideas. There was still resistance. I was told that Bob Christopher, the executive editor, said that my becoming a senior editor was the worst mistake management ever made. But it didn’t matter. This time, something truly had changed. We
Newsweek
women, who had never wavered in demanding our rights, had finally prevailed in our five-year fight for equality. I was amazed that as one of the women who had been a leader in the lawsuit, I was rewarded with being named the magazine’s first female senior editor. That wasn’t true for most women on the front lines in the media lawsuits. But the barricades were falling, and women were rushing in.

CHAPTER 11

Passing the Torch

B
ETWEEN 1975 AND 1985, women pushed their way into every position on the magazine except top management. Liz Peer, who was promoted to Paris bureau chief at the end of 1975, was sent to cover the war in Somalia in 1977 as
Newsweek’
s first female war correspondent. Elaine Sciolino, hired as a researcher in the international edition in 1970, flew to Iran in February 1979, on the same plane as the Ayatollah Khomeini, where she covered the Iranian Revolution and then the hostage crisis. (She later became Paris bureau chief for the
New York Times
.) In December 1976, Eleanor Clift from the Atlanta bureau rode into Washington with Jimmy Carter as
Newsweek’
s White House correspondent, the first female news-magazine reporter to cover the president in the West Wing (not the first lady in the East Wing).

Phyllis Malamud was promoted to Boston bureau chief in 1977 and Mimi McLoughlin became one of the magazine’s star writers and editors. In the early 1980s, Mimi became the first female to edit the Business section and then National Affairs, the most important section on the magazine. Mimi had that natural newsmagazine talent: as a writer, she could synthesize pages of files on nuclear power and polish off a complicated and comprehensive cover story the next day; as an editor she had a nose for news and a keen ear for the language. She was also popular with her troops—tough when she needed to be but never leaving bruises—and we loved that she could drink any of the boys (including the “big boys”) under the table.

During the years of our lawsuits,
Newsweek’
s coverage of women was beginning to change, although an August 1971 cover story on Gloria Steinem (“The New Woman”), reported by three women and written by Dick Boeth, “a writing minority of one,” still carried the sexist subline, “A Liberated Woman Despite Beauty, Chic and Success.” A content analysis of the magazine between 1969 and 1975 by a student at the University of Missouri showed that the number of lines devoted to women or women’s issues nearly doubled in those six years, the greatest increases coming in the Sports and Business sections. Most sexist adjectives had been deleted, and when bylines were added in 1975, women writers and reporters were highly visible, especially in the Religion, Medicine, and Justice sections.

With more women reporting, writing, and editing, there were more diverse story ideas, more quotes from female experts, and fewer cheesecake photos in “Newsmakers.” As fatigue from Vietnam and Watergate took hold, the news focus began to shift inward and the back-of-the-book areas became more important. As we had predicted, women brought new ideas to the magazine. In my first few years as senior editor, I was averaging almost a cover a month in my five sections (News Media, Television, Life/Style, Religion, and Ideas), including “Who’s Raising the Kids?” “Living with Dying,” “How Men Are Changing,” and “Saving the Family,” the first newsmagazine special report on such family issues as stepfamilies, family therapy, and how the family is portrayed on TV.

Unfortunately, my family wasn’t saved. In November 1976, after nearly nine years of marriage, Jeff and I separated. The confidence I had gained on the job allowed me finally to deal with the problems in my marriage. We had tried everything, including couples counseling, but nothing seemed to work. One day, when I was telling my therapist that Jeff wasn’t giving me what I needed emotionally, my doctor simply asked, “Is he unwilling or unable?” That’s when I realized I had to leave. I felt very sad but also relieved. I think Jeff knew it was over, too, and he moved back to California soon afterward.

I became consumed with work and as luck would have it, that paid off professionally and personally. Not only did I flourish as an editor, but I also found the right man. Steve Shepard was hired at
Newsweek
as a senior editor in the Business section in May 1976. Steve had been a top writer at
BusinessWeek
and was on leave at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism to direct the Walter Bagehot Fellowship, a mid-career business journalism program he had created with his friend Soma Golden from the
New York Times.
When he came to
Newsweek
in 1976, Steve was married, as was I, and we became friends, collaborating on several
Newsweek
covers and feature stories. Steve couldn’t help but notice the close camaraderie on the magazine. “Gosh, there’s so much sex at
Newsweek,
” he said to me shortly after he arrived. Assuming this was standard practice at most weeklies, I asked whether this wasn’t true at
Business Week
. “Not like this,” he replied.

From the beginning, everyone respected Steve and he was regarded as a “comer” at the magazine. In story meetings, he was smart, sensitive, and supportive of his writers and reporters. I admired how he was able to cut through all the posturing and get to the essence of the idea. But I also thought Steve was cute. A great dresser, with a tall, slim body to show off his English double-breasted suits, Steve sported aviator glasses and longish hair that curled around his neck. Although he had grown up in the Bronx, he was nothing like those “pushy Jewish guys” from New York my Jewish mother had warned me about. He was soft-spoken and had an impish sense of humor. We got along well. He gave me wise advice about my writers and stories, and when he had his doubts, I supported his move to edit the National Affairs section in early 1977.

And that’s where things stood when Steve’s marriage ended in June 1977. I had been single for almost a year, going out with various guys but not really involved with anyone. (I did have a few dates with Warren Beatty, which set the office chattering for months.) In September, Steve asked me out. Although I was very tempted, I thought that dating a colleague, even one on an equal level, wasn’t wise. We were in the same meetings every week and if things didn’t work out, it would be awkward. So I refused several times. Finally he stopped asking. Annoyed, he told me that if I ever wanted to go out with him, I would have to do the asking.