The women's liberation movement arose only at the tail-end
of the sixties and, as of spring 1970, had not yet been the center
of any major university conflict.* However, while it came later
historically than Black liberation, the issue of women's liberati
on was posed in structurally similar terms. In both there was
the basic material issue of discrimination--in admissions policies,
for example. The two movements also shared a belief that culturally
imbedded patterns of subordinate behavior had to be overco me
by a strong sense of collective identity. In both, therefore,
there was a mix of economic and psychological concerns. Typically,
the less militant factions in each movement confined themselves
to the issues of economic discrimination, while the more ra dical
emphasized the broader cultural problems as symptoms of the society's
overall oppressiveness. Both were split between "integrationists"
and "separatists." It may turn out that the move toward
greater co-education in universities will wane in time just as
the movement for racial integration has weakened. Just as Black
students have raised the issue of the Black university, so female
students may begin to look at women's colleges as something ot
her than an anachronism. The following article from The Old
Mole provides a general discussion of the ways in which the
issue of women's liberation impinges on the university.
Phi Beta Kappa key or no, she can expect to make anywhere from $85 to $110 a week.--Boston Globe, July 27, 1969
Yes, prior to 1968, girls were much more flexible. Now they're asking for a good deal more. And in many cases they just can't get it. I honestly don't know how some of them are going to survive.-- Elizabeth Welch, Careers for Women
Girls really feel discriminated against. There's a great feeling of frustration, bitterness, and defeatism. A man's brain is saleable without skills. A woman needs skills and brains to be marketable. At the B.A. Ievel a girl might just as well have graduated from kindergarten.--Mrs. Lorraine Olson, dean of Hickox Secretarial School
Oh, I've heard all the answers. "I don't want to sit behind a typewriter all day. I didn't go to college to do that."--Mrs. Persis Blanchard, Women's Educational and Industrial Union.
When a girl goes to college, she probably isn't sure what she wants, what kind of life she wants to lead. The college and guidance counselors have told her that college is a place where she can explore and define who she wants to be.
But a college or university is set up to define and limit women's lives--as an educational institution and as an employer, the university perpetuates women's subordinate roles.
When she first arrives at college, a girl notices that the authorities are nervous about her in a way that they are not nervous about boys. Most schools have curfews for freshman women in dorms, maintained with a system of sign-outs and permissions. Upper class women may escape from these rules, but B.U.,* for instance, pressures girls to sign out when they leave the dorm, "for their own protection." The dorm rules limit women's freedom, and also say to women: you are somehow less able to live yo ur own life than a boy.
Many schools also have special talks and seminars for women throughout the time they are at school, giving "advice" on dating, marriage, the problems of working mothers, etc. Although men date and marry, the school makes no such fuss about that. The assumption is that women automatically have a special responsibility for home and children--whether or not you have a "career" this is your main job. College may help you get a job, but by the attitudes of the college itself, anything you do with your life is a "second income," valid only as long as it doesn't interfere with being a wife and mother.
While establishing rules and advice courses on the problems
of being a woman, the college provides no help for women who are
trying to take control of their own lives. The health services
refuse to give prescriptions for birth control devices, very few
co llege health centers have staff gynecologists, fewer have female
psychiatrists. Less obviously, many doctors will try to punish
a woman for having a sex life by making nasty comments, refusing
help, or even hurting her unnecessarily during examinations.</
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The college will not teach women how to protect themselves-- almost nowhere is self-defense offered as a part of the regular physical education courses for women.
In spite of the wide range of courses in the catalog, a girl quickly learns that only certain majors and extra-curricular activities are "appropriate" for a woman. If she tries to major in something unfeminine, she will meet resistance from the professors themselves, and from male students who refuse to t ake her seriously, or warn her that brainy women are not attractive. The majors girls choose reflect this pressure.
| Major | Men | Women |
|---|---|---|
| engineering | 627 | 7 |
| business | 457 | 9 |
| liberal arts: | ||
| math | 36 | 13 |
| physics | 20 | 0 |
| chemistry | 15 | 3 |
| biology | 41 | 13 |
| medical tech. | 0 | 23 |
| psychology | 29 | 17 |
| sociology | 21 | 41 |
| political science | 64 | 10 |
| history | 57 | 15 |
| english | 70 | 50 |
| modern language | 7 | 10 |
| economies | 32 | 1 |
| education | 65 | 67 |
Once in class, a girl hears women talked about as secondary, if they are discussed at all. History courses concentrate on people who have had power--they disregard working people, black people,_and women. A woman finds none of her own history in college, except maybe a week-long snicker about "suffragettes" in an American history survey course. Psychology courses based on Freud and Erikson tell her that a woman has an "incomplete ego" and isn't suited for accomplishing things; that women are nurturing and mothering, built around "inner space." Women's psychological problems come from "penis envy" (!)--a reluctance to accept their "natural" role.
If a woman can still decide to stay on in the university as a
graduate student, she is less likely to be accepted in graduate
school. Women receive less financial aid than men on all levels,
although often just as many apply, and girls' grades are higher
than boys' on the average. Women earn even fewer graduate degrees
now than 30 years ago--about 30% of masters' degrees and Ph.D.
degrees are earned by women.
If a woman decides to look for a job through the college placement office she is urged to be "realistic." Whether she is dropping out of Northeastern or graduating from Radcliffe, she finds that unless she is lucky enough to be trained for a traditional women's "service profession" (teaching, nursing), she had better forget about this "meaningful job" stuff and learn to type. She is a woman, and that makes her a secretary to American employers-- her BA is nothing compared to the strength of that discrimination.
But a girl can learn that at college, too, the university itself is set up like any other corporation in America. It has a rigid hierarchy of power, salary, and prestige, and women are at the bottom of that hierarchy. The important administrators and almost all high ranking faculty members are men--the secretaries who type and answer their phones, the workers who serve their meals in the cafeteria--are women.
The university as an employer shows the same contempt for women as any other employer. One Harvard administrator explained, "These girls are dying to work at Harvard to meet Harvard men. We figure that's worth $10-$15 less on the paycheck each week"--so women at Harvard get paid very little.
The university is part of the chorus that tells women their main fulfillment is motherhood--but as an employer the university takes no responsibility for the day care of children whose parents work there. Only one school we know of, Emmanuel, offers paid maternity leave to its employees.
If a woman happens to make it onto the faculty, she is paid less (the national average is $1289/year less than male faculty), promoted less, and meets a general attitude of skepticism or hostility from men on the faculty. Harvard, of course, has no women full professors--the B.U. and Northeastern liberal arts faculties have 2 each.
Here are approximate figures for the Boston University liberal arts faculty:
| Rank | Men | Women |
|---|---|---|
| professor | 116 | 2 |
| assoc. prof. | 71 | 13 |
| asst. prof. | 101 | 19 |
| instructor | 31 | 12 |
| academic administrators (deans, etc.) |
9 | 0 |
The black and white radical student movements have challenged the university's claim that it is a neutral, ivory tower, and shown many ways in which universities maintain and aid oppression in America--from supporting war research to tearing down the neighborhoods of working people. Women are now learning that the university is an integral part of the system that tries to keep us "in our place" as wives and mothers, low-paid service workers--servants to men.
* The one exception was the Marlene Dixon case at Chicago (see pp. 510-17) which also involved other issues such as student participation in tenure decisions and political criteria in faculty appointments.