Coverage of American Feminism Garners Recognition
Caryl Rivers, a COM journalism professor, is included in the new book Feminists Who Changed America, 1963-1975.
Caryl Rivers, a College of Communication professor of journalism, has been included in a new directory of the founders, leaders, and writers who ignited the second wave of the women’s movement. The book, Feminists Who Changed America, 1963-1975, is edited by Barbara Love and published by the University of Illinois Press.
Rivers is cited for her media criticism, particularly Slick Spins and Fractured Facts: How Cultural Myths Distort the News; her collection of essays on feminism, More Joy Than Rage; her memoir Aphrodite at Mid-Century; and her novels about women’s lives, including Virgins, which sold a million copies around the world. Also mentioned are her books on gender and psychology, written with frequent coauthor Rosalind Barnett of Brandeis University
“I think I was included probably because a lot of the writing I did, starting from the earlier days of the women’s movement, was really about the issues in women’s lives and the problems they faced,” says Rivers. Her latest book, Selling Anxiety: How the News Media Scares Women, examines the news coverage of women’s issues over the last decade. It will be published in spring 2007.
“I felt really privileged as a journalist to cover the civil rights movement and then to cover the women’s movement, another civil rights movement,” says Rivers, who attended Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech in 1963.
Brittany Jasnoff can be reached at bjasnoff@bu.edu.