Time shift - Jogging the collective Memory

More on Harvard: (Note: Harvard still has all-male final clubs)

I also want to say that I am loving the book. I especially love the fact that it is combining history and personal life, something that, as you mention, many women's memoirs fail to do. I am a few years younger than you, but you refreshed my memory about the obnoxious rule differences in college (the parietals) between men and women, and in general the vast differences in treatment which I never fully realized until the consciousness-raising groups of the early Women's Movement turned on that little lightbulb in my brain. Once it had, I wrote an article in the Harvard Crimson (I was a grad student then) that noted my new-found realization of the differences between the treatment of men and women at Harvard (in some ways a great test case for gender inequality, precisely because both men and women were so privileged, in general). Despite the fact that women at Radcliffe, which was a part of Harvard then(we were the second class to get a Harvard diploma) Women: 1. came from even higher income brackets than the men (I think football scholarships affected that) and did better academically than the men, we were not allowed to direct plays or edit the Crimson, or generally run an y clubs 2. had parietals and rules while they didn't 3. worked in our dormitory kitchens washing dishes and cleaning up, while they had maids to do that (my first memory of my Radcliffe dorm, when I came on an application visit, was seeing the beautiful daughter of Charles Lindbergh- Anne after her mother- drying dishes in the kitchen) 4. rode bikes and walked to Harvard Yard for classes (when they made the Radcliffe dorms co-ed, they provided bus service!) and of course, 5. had no female professors. Women authors were never studied in literature classes. Male science professors openly said women shouldn't be scientists. Some of these slights may have been small in themselves. I had no problem washing dishes or riding my bike, but taken as whole it made up an inferior status for women and a deep sense of inferiority for ourselves. I'm sure it played a role in my allowing myself to remain too long in a relationship where my Harvard boyfriend, in a jealous rage, beat me up in a parking lot behind the old Cahaly's, breaking both my nose and my best barrette.

Anyway, thank you so much for your excellent book. I will recommend it to my newly formed book club, which is composed of great women who are your and my ages, and lived through this time shift in one way or another.

Susan J.

On Doing It All!

Thanks and kudos for your wonderful book, which I've just finished. It's a brilliant validation that "all politics are personal", an invaluable history lesson, and, most importantly for me, an enthralling read! I'm a psychotherapist, and wonder at your skill at describing your own psychological development and personal growth; I can only imagine the effort and energy needed to access and relate this material, (never mind the research involved in the work as a whole).
Others' comments show how effectively you've evoked a response from women struggling to understand how feminist efforts and gains have led us to this weird place where women get to "do it all", including floors and botox; where women are news anchors - but apparently only if blond and coiffed - and to... Sarah Palin! - Good Lord, where to begin to deconstruct that piece of work! (Is she somehow the resurrected spirit of Louise Day Hicks with a makeover?). Your work does such a fine job of melding political and social history - I can't think of anything like it for the period of time covered.
My main thought, on finishing the book, (besides my jealousy at you having spent an afternoon with John LeCarre), was that this woman has a novel inside her! The moments when you describe inchoate knowledge of yourself and your needs, the travel anecdotes, the character descriptions, all convince me of it. Maybe someday? (I write book reviews too, will keep an eye out)
Anyway, heartfelt congratulations and thanks for a wonderful reading experience. Laurie S.

Questions Ellen from Albuquerque

Dear judy,
> I loved your book. What an achievement!
> So many experiences of yours were shared by so many of us.
> I'm passing the book on to Chris Van Norman who is coming over for lunch today.
> We all, certainly Chris and me, wanted to go to work. I ran into the "must type 65 words per minute" barrier and didn't learn on purpose.
> Today we all are in a far better place but it would not have happened without all the hard work necessary to change the status quo.
> My hat is off to you for this lovely rendition of our experiences.
> Thank you for writing this reminder of all we have been through,
> Ellen from Albuquerque


Question: Has your ex been a presence for your daughter?
How is Clarissa doing? Have you heard from her lately?
Chris marched off with the book and we're going to discuss it when she finishes it.
Yours,
Ellen


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Responding to Email Feedback

An excerpt from the book was published recently in Tufts Magazine. The email feedback has been different from men and women.

A former classmate, who's become a federal judge in Wisconsin, said he thought it was valuable to recall how recent this history is. He remembered that in his law class at Columbia Law School in the late 60's, there were only 5 women.

Another classmate, a woman, told me she already bought the book, read half of it immediately in the bookstore over coffee, and found herself crying in the car on the drive home because she remembered all the same experiences: not being able to get a job, being humiliated because of the discrimination and sexism that resulted in such low expectations for women. And ultimately, she felt our generation was not able to reach our full potential.

Here's her email:

Judy,

I bought your book today.

Read the first chapter while drinking coffee in Borders, and started checking off the same things I experienced either in or after grad school, looking for a job in DC, and all the same humiliating
experiences you had, I had.

Then when I got in my car to drive home, I found myself crying!

I guess because of reading about someone who experienced the same things I did, but also because of the acute regret that we had to go through all that humiliation. Some of it still dogs me, and maybe I should say "us", because I feel many women, like me, really haven't reached their full potential or dreams .

So congratulations!

Sally Willson J'62

What do you think?