“But do we want to be the first?”Clara asked.
“Of course we do,” Doris said.“Do you know what that would do for our sales figures?And we can’t ignore an invention that could fundamentally change women’s lives.”
This was why Emily loved working atChatelaine, and specifically for Doris Anderson.What they did here was different.There was no other publication like this in Canada just for women, where topics of substance were tackled.It was only ever the men’s publications that engaged and challenged their readers with real-world questions, debates, and investigations.No one but Doris, it seemed, thought women could handle it—or would want to.But since Emily was responsible for reviewing the letters to the editor, she knew women were eager for it.Even the ones who disagreed with the articles were at least engaging, making their voices heard.They’d send an outraged letter about the February issue, then race out to buy the new edition as soon as it hit the stands the following month.
Clara chuckled a little nervously, then glanced at the clock near the door.“Shoot, I need to get going.Sorry, Doris.Tommy’s sick, and I told my sitter I’d be home early.”
Doris waved her hand at the door in polite dismissal.“Off you go.I think we’re done here anyway, girls.”As Clara left and the others gathered their things, Doris muttered under her breath about the need for public access to child care.She was nearly forty, Emily guessed, and had a young son who was minded by a nanny while she worked.
The women dispersed in a flurry of skirts and perfume, and the noise of the office crested again outside Doris’s door.But Emily hung back.She had a question for her boss that had been nagging her since she’d finished reading this batch of letters in response to the battered women piece.
“What can I do for you, Emily?”Doris asked.
Emily opened her mouth, then shut it again.She didn’t typically shy away from making herself heard, but she also didn’t want to be seen as impertinent, which, truth be told, she sometimes could be.But she knew Doris was always open to input from her team.From the time Emily had first joinedChatelaine, she’d noted the sort of maternal yet unpatronizing way in which the editor-in-chief gathered “her girls” under her wings, like some great mother swan.A soft embrace with a sharp beak.She took pride in being a mentor and teacher, and always seemed gratified when one of her fledglings learned to fly.
“Come on now,” Doris said.“I didn’t think any child of William Radcliffe would be shy about speaking her mind.”
Emily smiled appreciatively.Her father wastheWilliam Radcliffe: the Second World War correspondent who had covered the Canadian troops’ invasion of Sicily in 1943, losing half an arm and his vision in one eye in the dispatch.He’d left theStara decade ago to write long-form articles forMaclean’supstairs, and had pulled more than a few tight strings to get her this job.It gave her no small sense of responsibility to perform well and prove herself capable to Doris, both to uphold her father’s good name and wriggle out from beneath it.
“The battered women piece, birth control,” Emily said with a flicker of hesitant daring.“If this is the direction you really want to take with the magazine, why bother with all the fluff?The decorating and fashion pieces?Why not just make it harder-hitting, likeMaclean’sis?Set us apart entirely fromLadies’ Home Journaland the other women’s mags?”
Doris eyed her.“I like the way you think, Emily, and I know you’ve got a lot to live up to.But we have to meet our readers where they’re at.”
“What do you mean?”
Doris opened her palms to the ceiling.“You know how Jan always wants to run the designer stuff in the fashion pages?All those clothes she’s got stuffed on the rolling coat racks in her office?”
“Yes.”
“And you know how I make her change it, almost every issue?”
Emily nodded.Doris always insisted that the fashion section of the magazine showcase styles from common department stores like Hudson’s Bay, Sears, and Simpson’s.She said the magazine’s readership wanted advice on how to wear the main street fashions they could actually afford.They didn’t want to waste their time fantasizing about a five-hundred-dollar silk dress they would never in their lives be able to lay their hands on.They want to feel like a million bucks, not spend it, Emily had heard her say once.Show them how to do it on a housewife’s allowance.
“That’s us meeting them where they’re at,” Doris continued.“The ‘fluff,’ as you put it, the budget and beauty tips, the decorating trends…this is the context of these women’s lives.The frame, if you will.We need to have it to draw them in to the magazine, get attached, feel as though we understand them.We need to bring value to their lives, and then hope they’ll follow us,trustus, when we try to open their eyes to things like equal pay and birth control.”
Emily tried to hide her scowl.“How do those things bringvalue, though?”She knew she was perhaps pushing too hard.
Doris clasped her hands now.“Don’t take this the wrong way, Emily, but you don’t quite understand these women yet.Once you have a husband and children, you will.”
Emily pressed her lips together, a thin line of anger, which Doris noted.
“I apologize,” Doris said, looking concerned.“I’ve touched a nerve?”
Emily’s jaw tightened.“Yes, but it’s fine.I’m sorry.Please continue.”
Doris didn’t press further.“Well, the pressure toperformas a wife and mother is enormous,” she said.
Emily thought immediately of her twin sister, Eleanor, who had propped herself up in her hospital bed hours after her son was born to roll curlers into her hair as tears poured down her pale cheeks.“Harry will be coming in soon,” she’d told Emily, who reluctantly handed her a can of hairspray from the bedside table as she watched her sister struggle to make herself presentable for her husband.
“And?”Emily had asked her, outraged.“You just gave birth, Ellie, he can’t expect you to—”
“Except hedoes,” Eleanor replied.“You don’t understand, Em.”
Women—married women with children, specifically—always seemed to be telling Emily she couldn’t understand certain things until she was married.Emily didn’t care much that other women sometimes made her feel lesser-than, but she was still tired of the insinuation.
“This magazine,” Doris continued, “whether you’ll believe it or not, is a lifeline for many women.It validates their lives, and for some women—the ones who are already struggling to find meaning in their efforts—these messages and tips and instructions are everything.”
Emily considered her boss’s words.She didn’t want to relate to a woman whose biggest concern was how to lay a proper table for Sunday dinner; she wanted a more substantial life than that.More like what her father had.What Doris had.But she supposed Doris was right.If she was to do her job properly, she would have to try her best to relate to those who were different from her.
