Taking on the Big Boys: Or Why Feminism Is Good for Families, Business, and the Nation

Taking on the Big Boys answers - finally! - the one question that students, staff people at my university, and audiences at feminist gatherings most frequently ask: "We know about the injustices working women face," they say, "but what can we do to change it?" Writing with wit, anger, compassion and joy, Ellen Bravo tells the stories of women who have banded together to wrest victories from the top guns who profit from their labor in business and government. Drawing from her own experiences and those of the many, many people she worked with during her years as a feminist labor organizer and long-time director of 9-to-5, National Association of Working Women, Bravo recounts their successful struggles for pay equity, child care, welfare rights, parental leave, health care, quality family time, and equality in the home. In Bravo's writing, all of these issues reclaim a fresh urgency as essential building blocks for a socially just society: "We have to do more than smash the glass ceiling - we have to redesign the building," she says. What makes this book such a page-turner is that it works on many levels at once. Every chapter is packed with factual information, as Bravo uses surprising statistics to shatter the myths the Big Boys and their mass-media buddies have concocted to justify gender discrimination. The narratives recount tragic injustices toward working women and inspiring victories. There are plenty of practical, creative, effective - and hilarious - strategies for taking on bosses, legislators, and government bureaucrats. All of this is wrapped in accessible and succinct progressive feminist theory that clarifies how a small class of "Big Boys" can profit from discriminating against women, and how we can change all that.

Taking On The Big Boys, should be required reading for all. Ellen's years of experience and hard work are now captured in writing and ready for the rest of us to enjoy, learn from and laugh with. I've been waiting decades to receive practical tools for social change. Ellen Bravo's insightful myth-busting should be front page news.

I loved this book. In an accessible and entertaining way, Bravo explains how the "Big Boys" operate to maintain the status quo and then, more importantly, describes how change can be and is being made. It reenergizes and inspires those who have worked for years on issues like equal pay, welfare, sexual harassment and balancing work and family. It is also invaluable for those to whom these issues are less familiar. Particularly for young women who are just being faced with sex discrimination for the first time, this book helps illustrate how the Big Boys affect their lives (not just that of their mothers and fathers) and how they have the ability to fight back. And the book is fun to read! Bravo has had so much experience and so many experiences that really make the discussion come alive, instead of being just theoretical.