Ellen Bravo Interview

Ellen Bravo discusses her book Taking On the Big Boys: Or Why Feminism Is Good for Families, Business, and the Nation. Enough about "breaking the glass ceiling." Here are blueprints for a redesign of the entire building, ground up, to benefit women and men-and even the bottom line. Bravo relates stories from business and government and women's testimonies from offices, assembly lines, hospitals, and schools and unmasks the patronizing, trivializing, and minimizing tactics employed by "the big boys" and their surrogates who portray feminism as women against men, and dismiss as outrageous demands for pay equity, family leave, and flex time. Bravo argues for feminism as a system of beliefs, laws, and practices that fully values women and work associated with women, while detailing activist strategies to achieve a society where everybody-women and men-reach their potential. Bravo is a long-time activist, author, and former director of 9 to 5, the National Association of Working Women. A well-known speaker, she has been described as "moving, witty, and sometimes bawdy." Bravo teaches Women's Studies at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee. Recorded May 8, 2007