2022 End-of-Year Recommendations
For those who have some sacred free time over the upcoming long weekend, our President Stacey Young recommends some great stuff from the last year to read and watch, all of which touch on DOJ GEN issues.
Books that show us how much things have changed (or, how everything is still the same)
The Great Stewardess Rebellion, by Nell McShane Wulfhart. Working conditions for flight attendants in the ‘60s and ‘70s were brutal. Not only did they endure unchecked sexual harassment, but they could be fired for getting married or pregnant, putting on weight, or turning… 32. This book details the fascinating and inspirational story of a network of flight attendants who decided to stop taking misogynist crap from their employers and passengers. Through innovative labor organizing strategies, they won better pay and basic workplace reforms, and successfully pushed the EEOC to expand its enforcement of Title VII in cases of sex discrimination. They even founded a non-union employee organization called Stewardesses for Women's Rights, which actually sounded kinda like DOJ GEN.
There is Nothing For You Here, by Fiona Hill. Full disclosure: I’ve only read one chapter so far, but that chapter alone is reason enough to get the book. Fiona Hill, a prominent former official at the U.S. National Security Council and current senior fellow at Brookings, explains in chapter 7 why her past employers’ consistent consideration of her salary history landed her with lower pay than her male colleagues, and how that pay disparity followed her through most of the her career. Her story perfectly encapsulates the need for comprehensive salary history bans, which we’ll continue urging OPM and DOJ to issue them.
Lady Justice, by Dahlia Lithwick. I’m including this book even though there’s not much about it I’d recommend except the chapter about Associate Attorney General Vanita Gupta, whose life story and transformative career are worth learning more about.
She Said. Based on the much better book of the same name by NYT reporters Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey (definitely worth the read), the movie describes the groundbreaking reporting that exposed Harvey Weinstein’s sexual predation and helped launch a cultural reckoning, which in turn inspired reforms at DOJ and workplaces throughout the country. It’s a story not only of dogged reporting, but the ways in which powerful systems cover up sexual misconduct and protect predators, and how survivors blowing the whistle has helped fuel the #MeToo movement.
Incredible stories about abortion.
Here are just a few:
The Janes. Please, please watch this documentary. It tells the remarkable story of a collective of women in pre-Roe Chicago who risked everything to help others access abortion when it was illegal in Illinois. Like many of the movies and books on this list, it will leave you enraged and inspired.
Happening. Perhaps the most devastating aspect of this French movie about a women desperately seeking an illegal abortion in 1960s France is that it no longer feels like a glimpse into the distant past.
If you’re into law review articles, take a look at The New Abortion Battleground in the Columbia Law Review, in which law professors David Cohen, Greer Donley and Rachel Rebouché suggest creative state and federal responses to Dobbs. Elie Mystal also wrote in The Nation about steps the Administration could be taking but isn’t. I expect their sequels will cover DOJ GEN’s recommendations for what the Administration should do to protect abortion access for millions of federal employees and their family members.
So many brave people shared their personal stories about abortion—in newspapers and magazines, on social media, at protests, and in amicus briefs. Two standouts came from Professor Michelle Goodwin, who described the abortion she had after she was raped by her father, and Merritt Tierce, who discussed how not being able to have an abortion at 19 changed the course of her life.
If you haven’t already, check out the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization. Of course, the only way to approach it is to hold your nose, turn away while you quickly scroll through the first 148 pages of absolute nonsense, and read the dissent. Justices Sotomayor, Kagan and Breyer concluded their epic repudiation with the following: “With sorrow—for this Court, but more, for the many millions of American women who have today lost a fundamental constitutional protection—we dissent.” Ugh.
As the Guttmacher Institute’s interactive state law map shows, the legal landscape looks grim; but there’s hope. In The Daily podcast’s December 14, 2022 episode, NYT reporter Kate Zernike talks about how advocates have achieved important wins through litigation, state legislation and ballot initiatives. And of course, we’ll let you know if DOJ GEN’s ongoing abortion advocacy yields success in the coming year.
If you read/watched/listened to anything great this year that touches on DOJ GEN issues, please share!
Happy New Year.