Working mothers

The COVID-19 pandemic has left many American families without child care and in-person schooling. Those new household burdens have largely landed on the shoulders of women, says Journalist Claire Cain Miller. She has been working from home, reporting on how the pandemic has affected the lives of mothers, in a New York Times series called "The Primal Scream."

Many think of the feminist movement as a thing of the past, but Debora Spar says the battle isn't won yet. She tells Fresh Air's Terry Gross about the misinterpretation that got us where we are, and the need to improve support and pay for working women.

In a cover story for The New Republic, journalist Jonathan Cohn examines the conundrum of day care in the United States. "On the one hand," he says, "improving the quality of child care ... is going to take more money. On the other hand, it already costs more than many families can pay."

Anne-Marie Slaughter left her position as the State Department's director of policy planning to spend more time with her children. Slaughter, now a Princeton professor, details what needs to change both in workplaces and in society to create equal opportunities for all working women.

Allison Pearson follows up her 2002 best-seller, I Don't Know How She Does It, with I Think I Love You, a novel about a teenage girl's obsession with teen star David Cassidy. The book wasn't hard for Pearson to write. When she was growing up, she was madly in love with Cassidy too.

The Daily Show's senior correspondent opens up about her crush on Jesus Christ, her introduction to sex and her ability to coax total strangers into conversation on national TV — all in her new memoir, I Know I Am, But What Are You?

Film director Nancy Savoca and actress Marianne Jean-Baptiste talk with Terry Gross on-stage at the Sundance Film Festival. Savoca's film "The 24 Hour Woman" received its world premiere at the film festival. Actress Jean-Baptiste stars in the film.

Canadian writer Alice Munro. Her latest book "Alice Munro: Selected Stories" will be published in paperback this November by Vintage. Alice Munro was born in 1931 in Wingham, a small town in southwestern Ontario, to a family of small farmers. Alice Munro is the author of one novel and six collections of short stories. She is a three-time winner of the Governor General's Award for Fiction which is Canada's highest literary prize. (Originally aired 11/7/96) (Interview by Barbara Bogaev)

For more than 40 years, Phyllis Diller has made a career out of her own poor looks, and the exploits of her bumbling, imaginary, husband, Fang. Diller paved the way for an entire generation of female comics. (Rebroadcast from 7.1.86.)