Nora Ephron on the Women's Movement and Divorce | 92Y Talks

I do want to read something from your book cause you talked about the women's rights movement and it's in the chapter do you the D word from Knorr book I remember nothing you write my first marriage ended in the early 1970s at the height of the women's movement Jules Feiffer used to draw cartoons of young women dancing wildly around looking for themselves and that's what we were all like we took things way too seriously we drew up contracts that were meant to divide the household tasks in a more equitable fashion we joined consciousness-raising groups and sat in a circle and pretended we weren't jealous of one another we read tracts that said that personal is political and by the way the personal is political alone not as much as we wanted to believe it was but the main problem with our marriages was not that our husbands wouldn't share the housework but that we were unbelievably irritable young women and our husbands irritated us unbelievably tell me what your question is about well about going through what you were going through during the women's movement well I think you know I think that there the women's movement of my era of the 70s was was many things but one of the interesting things about it and I think Robin Morgan said this was that divorce became a political act you know we had all gone to college you know it at Wellesley the motto of the school was non Minister re said Minister re which was not to be ministered to but to minister but it was always the big joke was not to be ministers but to be ministers wives and if you were really interested in medicine you were supposed to marry a doctor that's that's what almost everyone in you know in my generation thought life was about was that you married your life and and so you know and we all entered into marriage you know we all changed the rules we all pretended that's we all thought that's what we were supposed to want and then we got very cross because if it's it's not a good deal so so then we all stop doing all the things we were you know and and and everyone walked out it was was just a wave across the country I divorce you I divorce you I divorce you really and you know that I mean it's divorces of is a very interesting subject I mean as you know we've started a vertical on Huffington Post about divorce because it you know as I always say you know marriages come and go but divorces forever but but it is you know it is like reproductive choice it is something women were not allowed to do it's it's amazing how brief the history of divorce is it was impossible to get a divorce until this last century anywhere anywhere and in some places you still can't get one and and so I'm I'm always I'm just completely riveted by it as a as a subject and we all are we all love reading about other people's divorces you

Channel: 92nd Street Y

Views: 8,955

Rating: 4.4418607 out of 5

Keywords: Nora Ephron, women's movement, divorce, Alison Stewart

Id: UoFkOruLq08

Length: 4min 1sec (241 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 27 2012