Gail Collins When Everything Change Analysis

In Gail Collins’, “When Everything Changed”, Collins writes about the path of American women from 1960 to the present day. Collins describes the series of events that led to where we are today, examining the moments in time when things began to shift and women began to observe changes in society, taking the opportunity to facilitate the changes they wanted to see. However, rather than it being a single moment when everything shifted, Collins describes the accumulation of events as well as certain circumstances that led to and allowed for these changes to occur. It was external forces rather than internal ones that precipitated to the moment when everything began to change for women, as Collins explains that the women have always been the same, …show more content…
When Lorena Weeks married William Weeks she had three children in the period of 5 years she took off from working for the telephone company, Southern Bell. At Southern Bell, Weeks constantly looked for jobs that offered better pay. When a switchman’s job became available, Weeks, feeling confident that she fill the position, applied. However, the company rejected her application, saying the job was not awarded to women. Weeks contacted the EEOC, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, however Southern Bell refused to comply, citing a rule that prohibited women from lifting anything over thirty pounds in Georgia, which was absurd considering the amount of women who regularly carried around thirty pound children. Weeks filed a legal appeal, but lost her case in district court. Following this loss, Weeks found Marguerite Rawalt and Sylvia Roberts, members of NOW, National Organization for Women, who told Weeks that NOW would represent her case. Weeks vs. Southern Bell was an extremely influential case at the time, “Everyone understood the potential importance of Lorena Week’s case. Southern Bell pointed to a section in the Civil Rights