Visit BABBLERY.com. The Babblery features conversations about who we are and how we got this way. Modern humans can seem like the ancients building the Biblical Tower of Babel, cursed by God/nature never to understand each other. As Visiting Translators at the Tower of Babel, our guests delve into their work, their research, and their own experiences to try to explain the bits they've learned about Earth's most perplexing species. Though we all speak different languages, here at The Babblery we aim to promote understanding, one conversation at a time.
In her work in the Second Wave feminist movement, historian Ruth Rosen experienced a lot of revelations about the lives of women. But once that time was past, she experienced a different type of revelation as male historians described the 70s as "a decade when nothing of importance happened."
[Platform listeners: Visit https://babblery.com for the full show notes.]
For Ruth and the other women who were touched by the Second Wave—which includes almost all adult women alive at that time—this surge of feminist awakening forced a tsunami of change. Galvanized by male historians' ignorance about the fundamental changes that feminism wrought in our society, Ruth started the deep research that led to the publication of her book, A World Split Open: How the Modern Women's Movement Changed America.
In this conversation, we start with the book and the period that set the trajectory of Ruth's life. Originally aiming to be a concert pianist, Ruth realized that women's history—a field that didn't exist before her PhD was granted—was an open field of wonders. Her academic work and then her career as a journalist led her to be a series of firsts: wherever her work took her, she was almost always the first woman in the room.
Finally, we address the world that she and her cohort navigates now, experiencing lives as elder women that bear little resemblance to their mothers' lives. What is her advice to young women facing backlash? Listen and find out!
“If you don’t name the problem, you can’t change the law. And you can’t change custom, you can’t change the zeitgeist of the culture. There’s nothing that you can do until you have a name for it, and then you can get a collective grievance.”
Ruth Rosen is a professor emerita of history at the University of
California and a former editorial writer and columnist at the San Francisco Chronicle. Major books are The Maimie Papers, The Lost Sisterhood, The World Split Open: How the Modern Women's Movement Changed America and A Fearless Woman: A Memoir of Resilience and Resistance. Learn more on her website.
In this episode:
Music
"The Mantle" by the Magpie Arc, used with permission
"Wide Horizons" by Suki Wessling
Books mentioned
The World Split Open: How the Modern Women’s Rights Movement Changed America by Ruth Rosen (Amazon • Bookshop.org)
The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan (referenced by date as the 1963 book) (Amazon • Bookshop.org)
Our Bodies, Ourselves by the Boston Women’s Health Book Collective (Amazon • Bookshop.org)
A Fearless Woman: A Memoir of Resilience and Resistance by Ruth Rosen
Publications and organizations mentioned
Ms. Magazine
UC Berkeley
UC Davis
University of Rochester
Los Angeles Times
San Francisco Chronicle
Helene Curtis
The Experiment in International Living
National Organization for Women (NOW)
Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) (defunct)
Weather Underground (the Weathermen) (defunct)
Shameless Hussy Press (defunct)
Moral Majority (defunct)
9to5, National Association of Working Women
Our Bodies Ourselves (Boston Women’s Health Book Collective)
President’s Commission on the Status of Women (defunct)
Berkeley in the Sixties (film)
People mentioned
Betty Friedan
Gloria Steinem
Susan Griffin
Todd Gitlin
J. Edgar Hoover
Dwight D. Eisenhower
John F. Kennedy
Richard Nixon
Ronald Reagan
Hillary Clinton
Barack Obama
Topics discussed
Second-wave feminism
Women’s history
Consciousness-raising
Sexual harassment
Marital rape
Rape as an act of power
Violence against women
The New Left
Free Speech Movement
Civil rights movement
Little Rock Nine (the “four girls in Arkansas” reference)
Vietnam War
McCarthyism
Socialist feminism
Marxist feminism
Radical feminism
Lesbian feminism
Lavender Menace
Chicana feminism
Black feminism
Puerto Rican women’s activism
Women
5 Oct 2026
Minibabble: Swinging with Nora Germain
What is swing and why does jazz violinist Nora Germain love it so much? In this short outtake from our full interview, Nora explains what swing is, how it feels to play it, and why she believes that everyone would love it if they gave it a chance.
Listen in.
"It reminds me of sitting in a house, it could be a family member's house or just any house in front of a nice fire, and feeling a sense of warmth from the universe."
Check out the uncut video on YouTube
Check out the full audio episode, "The Giving Mindset with Nora Germain"
29 Sept 2026
Minibabble: Nora Germain is a player AND a person
At the end of my interview with jazz violinist Nora Germain, I realized that I had forgotten to ask her an important question spurred by her book. Why did she choose to write only one important sentence about her experience as a woman in the jazz industry?
"After many years of being underestimated, discarded, harassed, assaulted, fired, groped, robbed, propositioned, and abused, after looking over my shoulder and clarifying my comments, being put down, intimidated and assaulted, insulted, he at least was one musician, one older musician who I felt comfortable being around."Nora Germain, Go For It (Amazon)
I did incorporate some of this part of the interview into the full podcast, but I wanted to feature the full conversation here because I think Nora brings up some really important points. Women, she points out, don't just experience being a woman in a male-dominated industry at single points in time—women experience being women all of the time. Nora chooses not to highlight her struggles as a woman, but she ends with an important statement that I think everyone should hear and understand.
Listen in.
Check out the uncut video on YouTube (This part of the conversation starts at 1:06.)
Check out the full audio episode, "The Giving Mindset with Nora Germain"
Who has been a guest on The Babblery
Names identified in recent episode analyses. Showing up to five guests.
Coastal California residents
Joanne Foster
Patrice Vecchione
Dr Joanne Foster
Dr Peggy Antrobus
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Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.
YouTube views
245
Score snapshot 15 Sept 2025
Apple Podcasts (US)
5.0 / 5
10 ratings
Podcast Authority Score: 67 / 100
A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.
Quality
79
Social presence
0
YouTube
66
Engagement
71
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Suki Wessling host the show. Published by Suki Wessling.
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The show publishes weekly, based on its RSS feed.
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Yes. Guests have been identified in episode analyses.
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