Published in 2000
335 pages
Brenda Feigen is a lawyer. She was a manager of Entertainment Goes Global, a joint project of the Annenberg School for Communication and the Pacific Council on International Policy. She serves as a literary manager and is president of Reel Life Women, a production company; she is also a member of the Board of Directors of California Lawyers for the Arts. She has been a contributor to the Harvard Law Bulletin, the Harvard Women’s Law Journal, Ms. magazine, Vogue, The Village Voice, and various entertainment newsletters. Ms. Feigen lives in Los Angeles with her partner, Joanne Parrent.
What is this book about?
From an outspoken feminist, a leader of the Women’s Movement in the 1960s and ’70s–a candid, wide-ranging and deeply personal memoir that is, as well, an illuminating historical document of a time and a fight for profound societal change.
Brenda Feigen has lived many lifetimes within one–lawyer, wife and mother, civil rights activist, politician, Hollywood movie producer–and in each she has faced down the specter of discrimination against women. She describes how at Harvard Law School she fought to change blatantly sexist practices such as Ladies’ Days and law-firm interviewing processes; how she waged battles for women as National Vice President of NOW; how, with Gloria Steinem, she founded Ms. and cofounded the National Women’s Political Caucus in the early 1970s; how she became director with Ruth Bader Ginsburg of the ACLU’s Women’s Rights Project in 1972; and how, in Hollywood, she met obstacles at every turn while fighting for movies with strong, positive roles for women. She describes, as well, the struggles and triumphs of her private life: her marriage (she and her husband were once considered “the perfect feminist couple”); being a (feminist) mother; her relationships with women; her breast cancer. Finally, she chronicles recent advances and losses in the Women’s Movement, making clear how far women have come, and how far they have yet to go.
