Anna Quindlen "Living Out Loud"

I recently attended Anna Quindlen’s lecture, "Living out loud" which was held in Milwaukee at the Marcus Center.

Anna Quindlen began by describing herself as a liberal, a feminist, and an affirmative action employee (she was referring to her employment at the NY Times). She then told the story of three girls. The first was the story of her mother, who had a talent for art and a dream to attend art school, this dream of course was inconceivable; she was expected to marry and raise a family. The second was her story, she grew up resentful as her father pushed her relentlessly as if she were a son. He taught her to break down barriers if necessary to pursue her dreams. When she graduated from high school she entered a world that did not allow women entrance to West Point, Princeton or Yale. She described how she went on to become a columnist for the NY Times Op-Ed page. This came about, according to her, because of affirmative action. She then spoke of the life of her seventeen year old daughter. Her daughter lives in a world without barriers; a world where women have achieved all of the firsts. All of the firsts that is, except for the first female president and the first female pope. She then stated that feminism has opened many doors but this has not come without problems. Today women who are stay at home mothers are considered boring at cocktail parties. If a mother decides to work outside of the home her children are thought to eat only oreos and play in the snow without shoes. Feminism has also led to problems for boys; they no longer know where they fit in. She discussed her decision to leave the NY Times to become a full time author stating that success is an individual achievement. She ended with, "My gosh, how the world has changed for women I only wish we had started a little earlier so my mother could have gone to art school".

During the question and answer period she revealed several interesting facts; she will never be a politician, her favorite authors are Charles Dickens, Jane Austin and William Faulkner, she thinks Hillary Clinton will run for President in the next election and has a good chance of winning, yes she did feel like an imposter at the NY Times, but so did everyone else, she is formulating characters for a new book and will begin a book tour in September.

I attended the lecture with a friend who had enjoyed Quindlen's lovely little book, "How Reading Changed my Life. We both enjoyed the presentation and made tentative plans to attend another "Smart Talk" lecture next year.