Unknown Speaker  00:01
The scholar and the feminist number for April 23.

Unknown Speaker  00:15
When I'm going to talk about developing institutions of feminist own making, for the pursuit of any kind of human knowledge, then they'll the lectures that we heard this morning, I mean, I really, I hadn't read them before, but but I couldn't have planted it better. I don't want to argue for Sagaris. I'm not concerned with that at all. I mean, we, the people who were on that collective made a particular time and Institute's, the only thing that's important to me is that there was an attempt to make something independent, something outside of the usual institutional, feminist studies. The we are not the only attempt at all there are many there. There's the New York School for women, there's women school, as you all know, there's Columbia and California, and there will be more this really kind of proliferation of such feminists need schools. And I come with the experience of my own, and so I'll use it as a case in point. But I don't have any particular commitment to the way we are doing it or whatever, I think there's a valuable lesson to be learned from that study. Any attempt to set up kind of extra institutional, schoolwork or Learning Center Research Center. I'm very intrigued by what Gerda Lerner is talking about because she was forced to do the same kind of thing. And I don't know what she has in mind, but it would be interesting to compare. I want to just to begin by explaining what we are, since I'm going to be talking we'll be using Sanders as an example. We had conceived, starting a feminist and independent feminist Studies Institute about five years ago, when several people this is Deborah Singletary, who is also on our collective and will be joining us for discussion. Hopefully, you found it the the impetus for setting up the power is to really came from a kind of dissatisfaction with the way kind of studies has been done, particularly at that time at Goddard. Several of us were connected with Goddard College, and connected with a very fine department. But but one that was like alternative Studies Department struggling for its existence most of the time, rather than really getting the business of doing fellowship. And so we decided, why not just do it ourselves. And we went off with a lot of enthusiasm and no money to try and do it ourselves. And we really talked about filiation, and all kinds of different forms for two years. Before we started, okay, okay, I'll give us some detail. I'm began with 13. People just thought of it that way. Initially, Marilyn Webb was the head of thermosetting, Sam was a part of our collective and we made granted, we had such a loose concept, we were going to do everything very different. There was no structure God within any structure. And that was that was very important. During that time period, if you were a feminist, you didn't have any organization of people flooded in, floated out and, you know, kind of left an idea on the table and came back three weeks later. And this obviously couldn't continue. So we really kind of had to become a more solid working group. And once we insisted that people come to meetings, and so on, so forth, it really whittled down to about nine. And we've worked with this group for two years, mainly finding out the difference, in our case between theory and practice. I mean, we've had very grandiose ideas for what we wanted, and very, very limited funds, very little access to publicity, distribution, all the things that really are absolutely necessary for starting something. We also had very serious political disagreements in our own groups. And we spent a great deal of time trying to talk them over. And I'd like to use some of this material later for what I want to talk about is some of the theoretical problems or some of the problems inherent. Mostly there was there were two kind of camps one that very definitely wanted to completely open structure, one that that couldn't resemble in any way feminist studies within institutions, because there was the feeling that women who are studying institutions have always been oppressed have never felt connected to those institutions. And we don't want to do anything the same, throw it all out, have a very loose format to kind of women come there and do whatever they want, almost, which, by the way, is the model with Olivia shows, and I'll tell you about that later if you're interested. And others of us wanted a much more structured model. I was I was in that group, in fact, that felt that that if you didn't have an overall I'll structure and courses and so on and so forth, that it would end up being a kind of very chaotic situation where people really couldn't learn, because it would, it would end up being more social than intellectual. And we went back and forth.

Unknown Speaker  05:15
Our choice for a facility, for example, was very important. We only found although we have, we looked into all kinds of facilities, including convents and hotels and everything we could think of, we only the best one, the cheapest one that we found, which was important was a small college up in Vermont limited State College. And that further associated our particular model with a kind of collegiate model of education, and three of the people in our collective became more and more discontent with our Collegiate focus or, or our resentments to regular college structures. And left our collected left us with seven. So the working unit then became a group of seven people. And we were the ones who, like 30, are still working on it, put Sagaris into Women's Day College, which is what happened for summer. And we had a program that was extremely I mean, I think that the the two most extreme things I can say about it is that Greta, who was there maybe say more, that is probably the most exciting learning experience and social experience for most of the women there by how unusual it was by the level of energy, by the self motivation, by all of those things by how much, we gained the kind of intellectual and social strength from being together, and also the most controversial and hostile environment, many of us are that within. And this these two aspects of, I don't know, how do you feel better, do you think? Okay, and I'd like to talk about some of the reasons for folks why each is true, and which, which are perhaps on avoidable which parts of this and which aren't? And of course, our experiments really just been one I mean, I, I keep on insisting that it's nothing but a modeling example, and hope that other people will try Oh, sure. Did you recruit new students wrongly? No, no, not that what we did was, we recruited a faculty and we were fairly limited by our own isolation. We were up there in Vermont. We didn't know everybody in the world, nor did we have any money for doing outreach. Even to put an ad in the paper. I mean, we literally have no mind. So we were limited to reading feminist books and writing away to the couple of publishing companies saying, Would you please send this letter on to whoever the feminist scholar was, and see whether she would come and teach at our school, and we were very successful. Often, people did respond. I mean, obviously, the institute itself men, and even among people who might teach just as well as from people might want to come and learn. Once we got a faculty, we also got an advisory board of women who had institutional affiliations, they'll have institutional affiliation, who would basically sponsor us although they weren't doing any work, but they would be there to both sponsor and evaluate us. And then we also have a list of sponsors, I mean, step by step, we kind of need one in order to do the next in order to do the next and then we were able to get the funding, we're able to get enough funding to put out for sure, which we then sent all over the country. But that was basically our only advertising and one engineers magazine, which brought in by the way, most of the students most people saw or heard about Sanders through the wasn't an ad and Miss Maxine was in the present actually. Which, which tells us something about, you know, the need for some kind of national feminist magazine, everybody kind of looks to it nice to find out what's going on or what's available. We do have cities like city woman, for example, here in New York City that basically has nothing national grid at conferences are New York people are the woman's best women's Music Festival, for example, or million others that probably all of us missed, because we just didn't know about them. In any case, we advertised in that way, in a very, very limited way and sat there and waited and prayed that that this stream of hours was was going to have any effect on what people actually did. We had no notion about whether anybody become more people will take your mat or whatever. And it turned out that there was a very big response. And now these needs, people were interested women wrote us from all over. We had some students from South America, two students from South America, we have five students from Canada. Our students were from 1767, their mother daughter teams.

Unknown Speaker  09:47
We have women of all different backgrounds,

Unknown Speaker  09:52
colleges, welfare mothers, people with high school education and no more, etc. So it was very nice.

Unknown Speaker  10:00
Your faculty were they teaching with pay or without?

Unknown Speaker  10:03
They were all teaching with pay. We had, in our grandiose plan originally, we had a very definite theory that you paid women for the work that we did. And of course, we found that we didn't have very much money to pay women for the work that that we all did. But we did have more money, the first time that we have now, as John Kelly, was trying to be one of our teachers this time can tell you, the first time we paid women we offered women I think, was $500 for five weeks, and was $1,500 Yeah, 300 a week. 300 a week is what we were offering women who would teach, we then ask all these women to give back 500 of the $1,500 because we simply didn't have enough money. And everybody was was pretty much amenable to that plan. Hi, these are some brochures for the new institution that indicated that you might just take this as a reference Yeah. I was just talking about the advisory board, and Katherine was on the members of the advisory board. And let me just begin again, very, very briefly by saying that I'm talking mostly about the need for alternative institutions and are using Sagaris. As an example of one attempt to do that, our attempt was riddled with conflict, and brought up many of those problems. And in a way of starting such such an institution in a way, that's kind of what I feel that we've had to offer, as a critique of feminist studies, some of the problems involved with trying to do alternative work, but also much of what we learned, as affected, for example, my role in teaching and being part of institutional feminist studies. So I think that there's a very different relationship I'd like to what I'm doing now mostly is getting some background information so that people know

Unknown Speaker  11:59
a little bit about what services.

Unknown Speaker  12:03
In any case, we could pay our teachers initially, although we could have to ask them to give us some of their salaries back, when we found out that it was slightly more costly to do many of the things that we knew, for example, insurance, many things came up the last minute that we didn't know we would have to pay for or hadn't thought of. And they did we also, we also paid ourselves as administrators, although in planning capacity, we hadn't paid ourselves at all we paid ourselves exactly what the teachers were paid, and also pay back our salary when there wasn't enough money. The problems with that first plan, were most apparently that there wasn't enough of more of a variety in terms of the student body, or really the teaching the teaching staff. There were no black students at all. There were two Spanish speaking students, and it was primarily primarily older, not at all entirely white, middle class and self defined middle class, student body, although that became a very important issue. And people were very concerned with class and

Unknown Speaker  13:10
they feel that it Yes, so many students are there many faculty to work with faculty, this is 75 years.

Unknown Speaker  13:16
This is 75. And I actually, I can pass around the original brochure, and maybe that would make it a little bit easier. But originally, we had conceived we wanted just a plain old feminist study stool, just like plain old feminist Studies Institute, that was originally what we define as having a little bit of everything, some feminist art, some feminist history, so on and so forth. And we decided that was slightly too smorgasbord. And we really needed to focus this, we only had five weeks, that it would become much too superficial to do a little bit of everything. And now our focus, in a way our concentration or major would be political theory. And our reasoning for that was that that's the one thing that's very, very threatening in institutional feminist studies. And so we would really be making a contribution, something that wasn't available or readily available outside, inside. So we did choose political theory and an each five week semester, we have three political theory teachers the first time you can read my brown Charlotte punch and tennis ball, each teaching a different political theory really. And Mary Daly, I think that she was teaching there too. And we've had what we call electives which or individual disciplines that women found themselves in we picked what we thought were the most popular disciplines for for women, journalism, education, psychology and creative writing, so that we can begin an analysis of how someone's own discipline what you actually did with your work time every day related to the political theory that you might be a part of larger than this way. And what happened. They are some of the problems therapists, or so the student evaluations said that people felt very disconnected that Canada's folks Marxist feminist course didn't really have anything to do with or didn't seem to have anything to do with nearly daily spirituality. And we debate Browns course on leadership didn't connect with, you know, that kind of thing. What perhaps kids child's was doing in, in kind of psychology and people couldn't make connections. And we felt that there was, although there was tremendous excitement, there wasn't a kind of center, there wasn't a kind of intellectual center to what we were doing, or that type of community thought there was, there was some feeling of being lost a little bit credit here, anything to people who we'd rather be consumers. Anyway, you stop, you know, just let me know if there's something that could be helpful. And the second semester, we had our theories for tea Grace Atkinson, out, Alex Kate Schulman, who I know she's known most for being a novelist, she she has also been regular forefront anarchism, and she was teaching a course on feminism and and because of

Unknown Speaker  16:13
that, I don't have I thought I had one of the earlier version was, and

Unknown Speaker  16:20
Jacob Lewis was teaching feminism and the black woman and our electives the second time or the same areas, the same four areas, different teachers, we also have body development. That was another problem. People complain that, you know, we were participating in mind while your body split. But many of these complaints I'd like to talk later, a little bit later, the second time we had, our school itself became a kind of forum for one of the biggest problems in the women's movement, which are very different points of view very different political theories, we thought we would offer school with the different political theories to come and somehow talk about it all together, and so on and so forth. And that became very difficult when the school itself, of course, participated in a particular political theory. And when that when that was at odds with one of the political theories that weren't the teachers, or Tuesday's how many were teaching, what happened was split. And the split began at least over our acceptance of money from Miss Miss Foundation, which was initially $5,000. And we accepted another $10,000. This was at a time when Gloria Steinem was being accused of being CIA agents, she had responded to charges that were made against her. And several of our teachers felt very, very strongly that by accepting such money, we were affirming of side of this debate over that, that might at least, that symptomatically, was about Gloria Steinem, and so on so forth, but was actually about a much deeper issue in the women's movement, about a client a kind of leftist analysis, as opposed to a more separatist analysis in terms of feminists not being allied with the left. And that gets complicated we can go into later if you're interested. But the reason why I bring it up is to say that the school itself began to split in terms of these different political theories. And that became a very, very, very painful and difficult experience for everyone involved on all sides. And the people who felt that we should not accept the money because we were that affirming the position is to in terms of Jane Albert visa, vie cadsuane, which is part of this division, and also affirming that Gloria Steinem somehow innocent that these charges even though she hadn't made himself clear, they went and formed their own school, and we had a different view of the accepting of that money and about what we should be about as a school. And so we remained and functions in a way that we had tried to start it out with kind of half the faculty from one place to another, the

Unknown Speaker  19:15
students divided up to what is the other school?

Unknown Speaker  19:18
The other school was called the August 7 Survival School. I'm not sure that I mean, obviously it started on August 7, I'm not sure it's, I don't know. And we didn't feel one of those interesting things really that many interesting things come out of this many important things just in terms of as one one person put in Canada squawk was teaching more sports said in in a

Unknown Speaker  19:44
way this is a very very good experience for women who struggle

Unknown Speaker  19:48
to learn what it is to fight with one another and to come out hole and move on. And and that that's not necessarily good to see what it means to fight but many of us don't ever get into positions where we If we do that kind of battle, and this was very passionate and very serious and very important, every move we made have important implications for what we felt was on both sides. And there were, for example, 15 hour debates that we had as a community. And this was a very important experience for everyone. You know, it was a negative experience that sense of division rather than unification thing, the result. Also, I think that what's so very good is that we saw that we really needed different things Sagaris a one thing wasn't enough, we needed different kinds of schools based on different assumptions rolling in different directions. And if we had that, perhaps with a mutually nourish each other rather than fight against each other, as if, you know, because we're such a small group, as feminists, or as Mary Daly said, because we live on a margin, we kind of want all band together and hovering kind of center. And yet, we're very different. And we have very different views. And we don't have a coherent feminist theory, that's an umbrella over all of us yet, even though that's where we're working towards, so we have to have the air, we have to have the space to develop those separate theories, and then come together from a position of strength in our own thinking, and our own theories, and kind of work out one that will bring us all together, or at least that's, that's one way of looking at it. And because we are so kind of, on the defensive visa vie the real world, the unreal world, and in the very unreal world, we don't give ourselves that kind of space, we also don't have the resources, we also don't have the time. I mean, there are many reasons why we try to band together maybe in ways that aren't so good at this point in history. And they really should set to more separate work in terms of, you know, if you're lesbian, separatist or Marxist feminist, and wherever these overlap, it's, it's a different story. But perhaps we need to do that kind of thinking and then come together.

Unknown Speaker  21:51
In relation to that first cross section of service was what I thought was alright, but there's so many different theories of representing but there wasn't, there were people representing the theories were never on one, one panel at one time, so the discussion that took place was always behind the person spam, and other little cliques in social settings and things like that. And it made it very difficult to, you know, to come to a real thing. So what happened with one teacher beginning lecturing, someone else would be in the audience, and she would, you know, raise her objections from the audience, rather than, you know, it's a whole different situation. The only thing about the binding together, or the the central focus of the that was the whole issue was it, everybody wanted St. Louis to come out at being some kind of a national film organizing bodies, which had never said what's never pretended to be. And then people came down with that assumption, that was their assumption. And they could try to do that. But I didn't think that it was necessary that that's what the policy was the direction that causes them to go to a disadvantage for I say that amount of time. And save money. One, and number two, you know, when you grow up with all your dependents, inflation, every circumstance, you have your escape, there is no place to escape. I mean, I do it step by step and walk off. You didn't have your own friends, or your dog, or whatever you did at home to go do you know, you just kind of every single time, so sometimes you just is totally exhilarating. And you believe I was 100 feminists, and the Smarthub controlling environment. And other times, yeah, it's the loneliest place in the world, be without these people and feel so bad they have done. So say something that everybody's gonna come down at the end. I mean, it changes every five minutes, you know, totally change your entire outlook and everything. And I'm really good. So, so

Unknown Speaker  23:52
as, as Candice pointed out, when he was teaching social studies, there was a real kind of lesbians, a Gemini there, that, that we didn't really

Unknown Speaker  24:06
know how to handle. In other words, the school itself became a cultural center in a very particular set of values about what was what was good, and what was hip and what was feminine. And it was a very hard situation to be against use the terms of the morning objective, when there was a socialist when that when there was a social situation, as well as a complete electric situation. These are just some of the problems that we face at the same time. It really was, I think, in a very pure sense. There really was a very self motivated quest

Unknown Speaker  24:47
for knowledge. People didn't come there with any

Unknown Speaker  24:51
objectives of getting credit

Unknown Speaker  24:52
or being able to use a degree people came because they wanted to learn and and that was being educated. And myself and having been in university for more than anything else in my life, I mean I, I can say that it was a very different experience to be in a learning situation where people had no ulterior motives, and there was nothing else but the desire to understand and to, to create our own knowledge and so on. And that made it intellectually, it's really exciting to be in this kind of data, so just briefly, the new plan is to see we, we tried very hard to respond to many of the problems that came up the first time, for example, in order to make it more accessible to people with different classes, women of different classes, we made it two weeks rather than five weeks so that people like to meet vacations could come in and be a part of things we, we did our collective itself, realizing that if we have a predominantly white collective, we're going to have an end result that is predominantly white, and we now have a multiracial collective, and a commitment to have at least half what we're calling first oral teachers, teachers, we are calling what is called now a new part of language. And we feel that that will create a very different center. Also, by the way, in addition to who's on there, Jacob Lewis is teaching the first session, we didn't have time to, or the new brochures have these two new names. It wasn't hard to get them on the old ones. In the first session in June Jordan is also teaching in the last session. So there will be more teachers to the corporate brochure, certain time lag when you do this kind of by hand, which is what we do. Also, we try to respond to the need for coherence by making topics each session is a particular topic. As you can see, we've had different points of view on that topic. But everybody who comes to a particular session is interested in in really learning, for example, about feminism and economics as opposed to art politics. So there won't be that sense of a kind of dilettante ish more this smorgasbord approach that we could really go more deeply into one subject. And we have gotten a commitment from the various teachers to be on a panel discussion, such as Greta was saying, we didn't pass the first Sacher so that we can, at the end of the session, there'll be two days of synthesis where hopefully things will come together when we can work on, you know, how can we use the the different theories and so on and so forth. And a greater emphasis on organizing, which has to do with how our student has changed. In any case, where all this where all this comes from in terms of feminist studies, I keep on wanting to talk particularly about Mary Paris paper this morning, when she talked about the institutionalization of knowledge are introduced for beginning really was in a large part, that sense of the institutionalization of knowledge, typically about women, particularly about politics, and that we felt it was almost impossible to do free thinking in an institution where almost every woman in it is torn between doing work that's rewarded within the institution, and work that might actually change the lives of women. And that was a very, very difficult experience for all of us who have, like ever taught in a school I've ever seen students, I mean, the students really are in the same exact situation, we know how to get your A's and roles and sometimes doesn't make any sense and so on. So we wanted to place where women wouldn't be hampered in any way, by the kinds of

Unknown Speaker  29:03
assumptions about what's important, what knowledge is what we think of, and particularly in relationship to political theory to changing the world. I mean, the most radical political theories we have anarchism and Marxism are, are in themselves at this point parts of institutions. And we wanted to be able to be critical of them from maybe a different perspective. We kept on saying maybe there will be a feminist Marx and she will build on Marx perhaps, or we don't know where to come from, or how but it would be different if we had a place to come and sing. Women have never had Departments of Social Science, political science or grants to study or whatever. And could we provide such a place? Could we provide this all of these codes by the way, or I mean, part of the idealism that we started out with, and I feel very proud of having just having having been a part of doing this for sure, but as I say it's it certainly wasn't perfect. In anything If that was one of one of the ways that we started our thinking and the institutionalization of knowledge, really, as described this morning was a primary reason I was, I was just taking some notes to during during her to let her lecture this whole notion of what is knowledge? What are the what is the data, how is it defined by many, many of these things were challenged at satirise, especially in terms of bringing together women who had an academic background, but women who didn't have an academic background, but who were very much a part of creating theory. And that was a very interesting combination, a very important combination. Because of course, we don't want to throw out all the things we've been taught and academies on the other hand, many of it is much too abstract, much too patriarchal bound. And some of it is just useless and ridiculous. And we're not in a position to say that in the institutions.

Unknown Speaker  31:01
So So we tried to, you know, to bring them the scholarship into an arena where it would have a much more direct relationship with the problems facing humanity.

Unknown Speaker  31:18
Let me leave that alone for a while. I'll come back to some of this some of what she talked about this morning, because I think it's very important. But the whole notion of doing something outside was brings up some interesting questions about the nature and purpose of doing studies in the academy. There are two models, it seems to me a feminist studies in the planning ones are kind of remedial, or the word that was used is additive, I believe, an additive model that you add on studying women that we've studied. Male history, now let's see what women were doing in 1224, or whatever it was. And that model is not the one that that seems to be going in any direction that you really want to stand behind. It doesn't it doesn't change the nature of knowledge. And the nature of knowledge seems to relate in some way to why we are in a in a in a terrible position we're in in the world. So we have to have a very different model of what we're doing and how we're breaking down knowledge, we have to be able to use it for women use it in a way to redefine our lives. And then you get to a very interdisciplinary model that says says that there's something called feminist studies. It's not just feminist history and feminist board meeting, looking into our, let's see what it really does. It's winds are different, but trying to bring all of these disciplines together. And seeing how the experience of being a woman in this socio economic world is connected to all the events of our lives. That's a very interdisciplinary approach, which most of the feminist studies programs are based on. There's something that is feminist studies in and of itself, and not just any particular discipline. Refer to John Kelly's paper a few years ago Conference, which pointed out that this whole way of looking at history, not just in terms of what were women doing it Volpone for a challenging all the assumptions of that particular study, how do we look at history? What does it mean, and if you are a feminist, and if you work to the implications of that feminism, it really changes the way you look at the discipline, I'm sure that there's something very fundamental that happens. And this for, for us is connected with the purpose of feminist knowledge, which is to change women's lives. And that's a real key in terms of why starting with COVID institution, because academic knowledge is not related to a desire to change people's lives. And not only that, it's not considered, it's not considered very, very, very rude to talk about actually one of the first that's, that's one of the one of the one of the biggest problems and we my experience with feminist studies is that feminist studies departments really have a very hard time, primarily for that reason that is a political base, whether it's acknowledged or not, there is a political motivation is connected to a desire to change women's lives, and well, it ought to be because the very existence of feminist studies is in jeopardy constantly. And if there isn't a movement, if there isn't a political route outside the walls of that institution to sustain it, it can disappear like that. In other words, the point that I would make is that feminist studies in and of itself is nothing but privileged at this point, privilege, because we have no power in the institutions of which we are apart none. And that our only means to further existence is to mutually nourish a movement outside feminist studies inside and this means that every institution in our lives, the health institution, so on and so forth, education is only one but that without some relationship too, and respect for purely political purity, whatever that means everything is political, the political movements outside the walls of academia. We we are we are, we are an illusion. I mean, we don't really, we don't really ensure our existence, which is, of course, very, very dangerous. So some of the motivation for starting a school outside was was, in a sense, kind of not put all your eggs in one basket, you know, if you do only institutional feminist studies, they can take it away. And they obviously, were happened to be an institution that has been mostly women run, I think I'm correct that

Unknown Speaker  35:38
I would assume that that's very peculiar. Most colleges and universities are not. So I prefer to not put all your eggs in one basket, all of us who have whatever the motivation, the talent, the money, whatever to do, feminist studies, need to think in terms of how we are going to preserve ourselves in institutions by going outside of there's a direct relationship. And the doctor comes in a way our power base, if you have institutions outside, whether it's in terms of science, for example, which says, You journals over there are not adequate, we're going to go over here and prove that there is a need a market that it makes you know, all these things, then you have something of a power base, you're not constantly relying on them. And they know, they know it so that it's a way of building strength. And that again, doesn't mean just this institution, it means it means really backing, many institutions of different varieties that do this kind of any approach to feminist studies that outside the institution. And that seems to be very important. One of the problems is that many feminist studies department don't do chemistry departments don't really acknowledge and deal with their political function. That that they're that they're more research oriented. And, and more traditional, more, you have more traditional orientation. And this is something I think we as an institution outside can teach feminist studies that you have to be aware of the political connections between your own discipline even in feminist studies, and what's happening to women in your society in general. Because the connection, I mean, you don't even have to talk about remote connections. They're so immediate, like Jay Gould was brought up about two months ago, four months ago. Notice from the federal government that they were changing the the part. I didn't even hear about that, but they were changing. Right now they can federal institutions that are receiving $10,000 or more federal contracts, can you can enforce

Unknown Speaker  37:41
those revised,

Unknown Speaker  37:45
that was revised that

Unknown Speaker  37:46
that that's, that's cool, revised for UFC regulation would have done, it's exempt. Most restitutions of higher learning from affirmative action procedures by saying okay, there's so much money that they have to have from the federal government precisely,

Unknown Speaker  38:03
which would have meant most of most of the jobs for feminists, which would have meant the feminist studies departments that he quoted are art, coders are really our only means of evading ourselves in any way or went to the Academy. And I believe that was a million other institutions that have million dollars and more can be enforced, and that that that actually meant something like five institutions in the United States. Jamie has the whole regulation, she found very important that this is this is just one very obvious example of the connection between what you are doing as a scholar in an institution.

Unknown Speaker  38:39
To back up what you're saying, if that hadn't been enforced at this point. It was very obscure, and it almost went through. But fortunately, enough, women's groups got on to it really solidly, by pulling over studies and studies organizations completed. The change of department

Unknown Speaker  39:02
life, there is a really just very subtle, and who would have known except there, so you really, really, your life is being affected at every moment by the status of American society. And so you are forced to have some kind of political analysis of what's going on in the society as a feminist scholar and to understand that the work that we do is in some way related to that. So feminist studies departments need in some way to keep abreast of South Africa to a turn but but to be involved in this. Keep to to recognize that and to recognize and acknowledge the fact that that your very existence is subversive, because because everything that feminist scholarship does is challenge, patriarchal knowledge, and that if you acknowledge your subversive status, maybe feminist studies departments will spend a little less time trying to fit in trying to pass for normal and They'll power bases, which is of course the only direction that makes sense.

Unknown Speaker  40:05
That's a couple of things I'm interested in. I don't know what your plan was for this. So but the things I understood are these. Okay. I would be very interested to know how this consciousness has affected your teaching in your field. Yes. Just the Renaissance, right?

Unknown Speaker  40:22
Well, I wrong change somewhat,

Unknown Speaker  40:24
but okay, well, that would be the question and how it affects your teaching in a fairly a standard institutional, though, Douglas is unusual. And I'd be interested in hearing more specifically about what kinds of problems projects we've worked on what kind of learning and studying went on at Sagaris. And then also, if you would be interested, I'd be interested in hearing more detailed specifics of the some of the splits and what it meant to you, for example, to accept the money, what your rationale was, and who chose to do otherwise. So you've talked about it in a general theme. Okay. Anybody have anything? Particularly? Okay, I'm in some context with the alternative structures that

Unknown Speaker  41:10
give me Colombia and those other schools

Unknown Speaker  41:12
striking contrast?

Unknown Speaker  41:16
Um, okay, well, I think I was going to cover some of that. So if I could just very briefly, and then I think we'll turn to discussion because, um, okay, let me just put it this way. I'll just number them. Some of the problems. I think that when you go outside, you have freedom in setting up an institution, you can see more clearly some of the problems into limited studies. And one of my major points is to recognize what institutional feminist studies faces. And one of the examples of pressure to compromise that there is to recognize there is a liberalizing process. There is a particular institutionalization of knowledge that tends toward research tends toward the hiring confirmation of women who are doing a particular kind of study as opposed to more politically oriented study. And to recognize this, at least worth too many courses. For example, somebody brought up something like that, when you when you realize that you can set up your own structure, and it turns out to be quite different in terms of who you will hire, how it's set up, then you can see that you can see some of the things you want to bring back into will expose. Most of us as I say, work in feminist studies spend a great deal of time fighting administration, and you don't have to do that you can concentrate a lot more on on the building. Of this body of knowledge of this discipline, if you want to call it this definitely is wrong, I think with feminist studies, and I don't know how quickly it's changed, and I know it's changing is that most courses, the study itself is kind of confined to an elementary level, which means that the departments themselves are not given any serious status. What do you mean, have a graduate school? Some of you say who the hell is an expert in feminist studies? That's a real problem. And what is the degree in feminist studies mean all these challenges? Also, that that most of your most of your students come from? Freshman, sophomore, maybe, maybe some junior to but they're mostly introductory courses? So how do you develop a discipline that is more and more sophisticated. And this is a real problem when you're talking about a discipline, which is, in part, a political discipline, in part related to politics. And that's, that's another reason for, again, going outside the institution, but also for having, as I heard, it's been symmetric dealing with more about this than I do, for example, in graduate school with feminist psychology. But some other people are doing we need more of those kinds of things, which is something we need, something we saw as a need of women came to savaris. Qantas AdWords, in part because they wanted a more of a higher level study, where do we go once we have, et cetera. And a third problem is to recognize that, that teaching feminist studies departments, we are really very isolated from one another, even as feminist scholars and that much work comes out of a kind of communal kind of back and forth experience that's, that's very difficult, which is why something like this is so popular people need that. Give or take, they need that kind of find out what other people do. And of course, you know, when when you're isolating on the farm, and you're also the motion of the school and it becomes very difficult to intellectually learn from people who are very hostile. Nervous someone. Another problem is that the departments themselves kind of solidify. I mean, it's very difficult to change a Family Studies Department, you get one person who is tenured, and then that stays for the rest of its history and so on and so forth. And one thing that from this study is that it's new and it's growing and so on. Much like, for example, psychology, maybe you A few six years ago or so. So if it was connected with clinical practice, the same thing that we'll have to be able to change and grow. And this can happen easily, more easily outside the institution and expect them what goes on in the institution, people will see a need for whatever it is. And then the institutional saying, well, there's a market need for this, maybe we'll have another teacher in X or Y. Another really important lesson I think, that's affected me enormously is to recognize that the feminist studies departments in institutions really deeply reflect the race and class precious our educational institutions in general. And that's no accident that most of the people here today are white. And it's no accident that the fancier the school I use something like UC Santa Cruz gets more money per student than, say, State University of California, whatever, San Jose State, over and over the departments that most money are the departments were the wealthiest students. In fact, the ones who had the best preparation

Unknown Speaker  46:13
the biggest problems that we faced with starting our own institution was experience of very, very deep expectation for everybody, everybody expects it to be exactly what she wants it to be. And that's very hard. Like all institutions that have to compromise has to function in the real world. It can only be one thing, not a million things. I think that that for our columns at cyber, that was that was one of the big, one of the big factors that people really wanted and needed, some kind of perception that people women are so hungry for an experience that is feminist, and where there are these constant pressures from every patriarchal source we face. And not to find what your dream with that is, was a very disappointing experience for me. And that was very hard. That's why I'm many more. But it was, it was incredibly

Unknown Speaker  47:14
flexible individuals at the school who had to deal with disputes. And those same people would never attack traditional African African, they be less less likely to want to swim. And I was really amazed, like, it was so easy to so easy to just walk by.

Unknown Speaker  47:45
But a lot of a lot of frustration, all of us feel at regular institutions.

Unknown Speaker  47:55
And then also get a lot of setting up your own institution, there's a lot of things that shouldn't be real. You don't want to adapt anything that seems like a male model, you end up completely going out of your way. Or around your circle, you come back and you realize you need to count things anyway, or whatever. Terribly ridiculous and simple, but you have to do X or Y, we always want to do things different ways. And it's not always possible. And sometimes there's a lot of that, and, and that we don't have things like money facilities, and it becomes harder and harder to get that. And so we need feminist studies in institutions in a practical way, because we know at least say there are paid people who will continue, there are you know, that it's very, very mutual. Because the existence of any independent institution is always in jeopardy because of money. And, of course, because it's a much more heterogeneous group, when you get into university setting, there's more animosity and more fighting more difficult. But the essential for me is that there is free exploration, no matter what kind of problems are created. There at least is I mean, whatever it is, it's all our own problems. They're not caused by men. They're not caused by institutions, if there are problems that come school, they are ours. And therefore, from my point of view, they are important they need to be considered. I mean, if there are women in the movement, who are saying this is very important, whether it turns out in 100 years or not that it's not important. We need to work with that we need to consider that we need to see what we are about. So I think that that's very important. And I think that's insofar as we're trying to build a theory that is a part that we're trying to build some kind of umbrella theory that will be available to feminists that we can work towards as a revolutionary theory that we are committed to changing a system which oppresses people that we recognize that we need. The research that's done and even very conservative, conservative institution, we need feminist studies traditionally done and we very organized organizing oriented, feminist studies. In other words, we need that spectrum. And we really, really should support each other and see the need for each other. Our new focus on we redid our institute. As an activist Institute, our focus is to train basically, train activists using

Unknown Speaker  50:34
the work of economists have artists,

Unknown Speaker  50:37
of all different kinds of people. But for the person who is organizing, whether it's in healthcare or whatever, giving that person some information for the theoretical base for what she's doing, and some very hard nosed practical experience in whatever it is fundraising, group dynamics, all the things necessary to actually going out and doing whatever it is. So we've become something very, very different, not a feminist citizens at all, but a kind of training center in a way where we felt we were most needed, because feminist studies in institutions really are the ones to be doing the kind of sophisticated scholarship that you couldn't do in five weeks, but they were no libraries to do it separate, etc. And what we had to offer and what didn't exist really was bringing together activists and scholars in a way that would relate particularly to women who are involved in organizing in any in any aspect, any aspects of organizing be in a college or government or for birth control movement, whatever that might be. So we've reoriented pretty much

Unknown Speaker  51:50
contradiction.

Unknown Speaker  51:52
You talk about the fact that we do have the facilities, those of us on the faculty, teach my institution

Unknown Speaker  52:17
or having a university floor on yours then it's an overload. And one of the interesting thing,

Unknown Speaker  52:34
we have about 20 some odd person out there. And some of the gotten into gratitude in the last two years

Unknown Speaker  52:53
that they are now and we were sending. We don't want to be critical. It's great they're doing but they're not where it's at.

Unknown Speaker  53:06
What do we do about this? Now, those of us who are working

Unknown Speaker  53:09
on this six person Steering Committee, which will be

Unknown Speaker  53:18
what do we do? Of course, we don't want to exclude

Unknown Speaker  53:24
we certainly don't intend to monitor each other's course. And we're way beyond the point where we agonize about which is experiential, and which is academic.

Unknown Speaker  53:35
But where it becomes covered, and where they're still just hostile about everything, but not going beyond that hostility? It worries those of us who are supportive of their rights you're doing so far. Am I making my

Unknown Speaker  53:53
yard and you know, we're awfully excited about it. It's a discovery today. Many of the students away have especially those who have been taking courses

Unknown Speaker  54:03
with us

Unknown Speaker  54:08
how do we work with the teaching itself? But for the teacher,

Unknown Speaker  54:13
you know, it seems to me that

Unknown Speaker  54:16
it's all very new, and they're so excited. You know, why are we angry? And they want kids to answer why.

Unknown Speaker  54:25
But I guess thought, a number of others

Unknown Speaker  54:32
and my faith talk. Alright. But they have seven years, five, six years.

Unknown Speaker  54:47
Yeah, we've just started you know, this is why we finally decided we had to get this last group

Unknown Speaker  55:00
So we are in the process of training,

Unknown Speaker  55:19
I was going I was gonna make this exact point that that a woman's studies department should have. I think that that's in general, something that certainly changed my attitude toward him. And somebody that I think should be universally, that we've started to carve. And because we don't have this history of what our discipline is, where it's going, what what, what constitutes levels, 1234, whatever it is, that we really add, because we don't necessarily have a relationship to what's going on in the women's movement as a whole, that there really ought to be kind of feminist studies, discussion groups, political discussion groups, where we talk about these issues. And it seems to me that anyone who's involved in feminist studies, might be willing to participate in that process, because they're agonizing

Unknown Speaker  56:16
now, well, we did.

Unknown Speaker  56:21
Which also, which, which also would work towards developing a political context of what that department is about, which is necessary.

Unknown Speaker  56:30
In regard No, not not so much necessarily regarding the representative, it says a pretty big distinction, but rather to articulate what it is, what process is it we are a part of? Where are we really what, what are these different feminist positions, so if I'm teaching art, or whatever it is, I'm teaching, I have some sense of what feminist political theory is, in terms of, you know, for us, whatever its central revolutionary quest is to different kinds of journals that are are discussing feminist political theory that we can be up on somebody's literature, somebody that we know what's going on to the real context for what we're doing. That's very politically sensitive, that we understand our politics. And this is what brings people some sense of the function, for example of consciousness, and of what how political, you know, where that's leading, not that it's in and of itself. But that was quite a process for somebody else. So we need to train ourselves politically, it's really hard. And that's certainly something that I've seen is having brought back from Sagaris. Just from from from from another experience, that each feminist studies department really should function as a kind of political cadre. It's not enough that I can read that you've seen see your political selves. 100 years, but you're absolutely right, in terms of him. Organization Oh, yeah. Give me in this new one. Well, one of the one of the other problems with Sagres, that people felt very strongly was that there wasn't enough relationship between the decision making body and the people who came as participants to the school. And so what we did, we were committed as a collective to making ourselves multiracial, which men, half first world half, half white women, most, if not mostly first world women. And as a consequence, since the students, especially the students in are participants in our own area, or an organizing or in New York, were white, we couldn't then put them on the collective and then there wouldn't tell me how many collective members do you have then there wouldn't be room for black feminist Spanish members, etc. So what we did is create task forces and the task forces are from the task force members are people who were participants the year before, and their coordinators as well. The coordinators, each had a particular function, one was faculty search, one was facility search, just such things and then we all come together we will meet 234 times a year to make the basic decisions about the school. So they have consulted with the other students who have done faculty search and can tell them what decisions are coming up in the next meeting, and then bring that decision to the collective and they have an equal Decision Making, everybody has one vote. So we've tried to kind of integrate also several people who were students the first time or faculty this time, and several people who were faculty the first time or going to be students. So I mean, we have a much different approach to, you know, I mean, somebody might have expertise in art and politics and not have expertise in something else. So we have a lot of flow back and forth,

Unknown Speaker  1:00:25
you know, what to do? The consultants, the consultants, Tescos coordinators, and collected that all together? Sagaris

Unknown Speaker  1:00:36
Yes, that's it. That's it. The consultants have a much more casual relationship and the task force members, the task force members, or the coordinating coordinators come to all of the meetings, or at least all of the decision making meetings. Yes, yes. Or that's, that's our, our kind of format, if people were members of the collective and then decide not to be for whatever reason, usually, you know, in these cases, there are practical reasons people out other things to do, but they still want to have some relationship to Sabbath, they become consultants, which means that then you come and give what you can, when you can, and you don't have to be responsible for your, you know, your report is the work. But your opinion, assaulting someone, and so forth. So that's really what it is. And we still have, I mean, we still have real problems of outreach, for example, a much larger network, as we've discovered, in order to get faculty from different parts of the country, I mean, we, we have a problem with much more outreach. So we'll have to enlarge in some way, but we're changing all the time. So this time, I'm sad when somebody, hopefully, we'll have a plan for how to do that, just like the task force plan came out of the last experiment this ad was, and we're always moving towards, you know, making it better or making it more efficient for what we're trying to do. And, of course, we have a much more specific game now than we did originally, which is helpful. I'm much more specific political base than he did the first time, which is also helpful. And policies that we can list we are people who do X, Y, and Z. And, you know, so people can see, the first time we didn't know that we didn't know exactly who we were politically.

Unknown Speaker  1:02:24
We're both changed things. And one of the big subjects of the first session was class issues, and the differences within the movement of people from working class backgrounds. Something that came, and I mean, a whole group of working class people responded, processes that try to confront people on the energy consumption experience, come together. And that was that's been completely incorporated. Like one of the valuable things that can be things that become the subtext and one, and what's the main theme of

Unknown Speaker  1:03:15
in terms of what you asked me for houses changing my own relationship to feminist studies, particularly, because I don't, I don't know that I have a relationship to the Renaissance anymore. And that might be one of the results of my feminist work. But for one thing, a couple of things I brought that one is, for example, with Douglas I teach a course in addition to teaching theory of feminist studies, I also teach a course of organizing for women's feminist organizing for women's work department is a feminist theory as a feminist studies department, and I teach all the courses, there are only three it's a very small department

Unknown Speaker  1:03:57
do you teach an English department at all anymore?

Unknown Speaker  1:03:58
No, I don't. Well, my I was hired in feminist studies to teach these courses. They are presently looking for a director of the program who will teach these courses in addition to directing the program on a temporary basis, until something like organizing for change I see now as essential. I mean, that's just one possibility. But I see teaching organizing within feminist studies, as absolutely essential for, for making feminist studies continue and for keeping it in touch with the practical world that women I mean, if we train women to be anything, it doesn't matter what science is the word. Economists, every single woman who goes out of the academy is going to face the problem of how to get a job, how to get housing, I mean, all of these things. I mean, women are simply in a completely powerless position in society and if we don't teach organizing how to Oregon on how to use how to how to use the information that you've been taught as a feminist, for affecting the institutions that you live in, that it's really, really very frustrating for students. And I found the monsters are very, very relieved to have a course that that begins to integrate the theory with how to so in our course, for example, all the students have a project for organizing to women, for example, are organizing the returning students at doubles. And they're really they found, they found excellent issues, important issues to organize around issues that had, for example, the returning there's no special or very specific, but there is no special orientation for returning women returning women, there's no special counseling for returning women. So returning women are treated very much like 18 to 22 age group, and are often often dropped out because they're not getting counseling that's in any way appropriate to their experience. They have, there's no system by which any kind of previous work experience is adapted to their credits or whatever. There's no daycare, and most of the women have children and have a lot of responsibility. I'm trying to think of what else they just send out the questionnaires. I mean, I can't think think offhand. But there are a lot of important issues. And the university itself asked if they could use the study and expand it, because they are losing returning women. And the government says that they have to have a certain amount. And that's just one example. But I told my two students to hire themselves to the University of huge consultancies, because they've really done a great deal of research, but they are organizing the returning women to create a power base at the school. And we talk over and over and over again, not just doing good deeds, as it were, in other words, not just doing nice things for women, but having some political basis from which you move, understanding the politics behind what you're doing. So it's a constant connection. Now, most universities would not accredit such course, it was a very, very big battle, not my own this course, existed before I did to get that course accredited. That's, for me, from my point of view, that is vital. And it's vital, in terms of acknowledging to the school and to ourselves as feminist scholars that we do have a relationship with the real world. And if we don't train ourselves to deal with it, and change it, we, we really are working ourselves right out of a job. So I think that that's important. And all the studies are similar in that sense. They're working on one of my mathematics students, for example, just organized women in math, because they're having a very hard time teachers are sexist. You wouldn't think so much in math, but outrageously sexist. And they at least gotten together to try and see what they can do. And all the studies are studies that take people through a theoretical base to what they're doing to practicalities of how you publicize how you distribute how you get people involved, how you find out what there's a need for the content. In that particular course.

Unknown Speaker  1:08:17
I've already done not, the credits are not necessarily connected just to Deborah's college, I have one woman who is organizing for women.

Unknown Speaker  1:08:29
When she's hungry, she's interviewed many, many, many women, in their homes and private, see whether they share certain feelings about the way that they handled and what they can do and what they need to do. So I'm gonna try not to relate it to the college, because I mean, we will share our experiences too. I mean, that's kind of what we do. And half for half of the class to three and a half hour class for half the class, we were setting up a theoretical battered wife center, and I sit there and take notes on how they are organizing, and they have just attempted to organize it. And then I come back and give a critique of, you know, if their members not speaking or what that means, or they didn't define what it means to be a chair person and stuff like that. So just organizational feedback. And then in addition, they do their own projects and learn how to help each other do them and everything. And to me, that's, that's certainly something that I've learned is important in some of the studies department and gives the field of the feminist studies problem, something that I think it ought to have a direction that I think is very grounded and very good. Strategies for action and change what we were teaching not

Unknown Speaker  1:09:56
an example. But what I mean by political doing?

Unknown Speaker  1:10:01
Well, just for example, well I use, for example, in those courses, the texts that I use are, I usually use some material from a Marxist feminist analysis gratulate Michel, which is not purely modernist approach, but I'll use material from Quest Caverly, Charlotte function, Nancy cardstock, whose articles are very, very clear and very accessible and define what a radical feminist as opposed to a social sentence approaches. And I use some material on that let the feminist approach just to have some sense of what the assumptions behind each other and how people move from a particular point of view.

Unknown Speaker  1:10:48
A lot of the threads are tamper. Proof position on the question of top believes that the existence of alternative publishing outlets would be a could be a technique in organizing, and also in the outreach, the knowledge and experience that we have on experience to bring other people besides contact person.

Unknown Speaker  1:11:35
Yeah, well, we tried, our original plan was we would have each teacher and not only that, but a lot of the women who came to the school taught courses, you know, just arrived. And we made slots for people to teach all different kinds of things. And we were, we had asked everybody to contribute one paper to this book so that other people could read and see, you know, what was going on who, but the school itself was really so torn by conflicts and teachers were very alienated, and so on and so forth, that we didn't have enough material for that book the first time around. And so we're saving it. And we're going to, again, ask people who are teaching in there if they would contribute one of their lectures. And we'll have a book coming out with with both of those lectures from the first and second summer. And also we had a conference on sexism and racism, which was excellent material. But we would like to do that kind of outreach work in terms of publishing material. And that will be published. As you know, we have a we have a contract with Macmillan for publishing that book. And then I thought just necessary mean that no one's opposed to a Feminist Press or

Unknown Speaker  1:12:52
developing as one of your political

Unknown Speaker  1:12:56
let me say, here's where the practicalities really come in. We have all we can do to organize your school. I couldn't I couldn't organize a lunch. Besides, besides doing my dad's work, I mean, that would be a possibility. We have a hard time. I mean, for example, Sunday, let me invite you all to do work. If you're interested in our mailing, I mean, something like that takes us five, six sessions to do a mailing just to get this out, we have, you know, and we only have our own woman power. So it would be really difficult to do any other kind of organizing. I've heard a woman speak once on organizing storage group's key press, which is her own press. She only published her own book, one book. And she talked about it as one of one of the most difficult things here he is. Night and day. I mean, it's a lot of work. We just couldn't do it. But it would be wonderful. If somebody I mean, the concept is terrific.

Unknown Speaker  1:14:02
Great. I mean, it's still sitting in the bank, we can do things. We had planned to spend the event actually I think we spend about maybe $5 million for him to figure out transcribing material that we've had in the first place. And we plan to spend it on on typing services and all kinds of things like that, and to give everybody tributes, whatever we thought, I think it was something like $75 or whatever. So it will be spent on

Unknown Speaker  1:14:40
I think it might have been a little bit more than Well, four or five, but part of what happened is when the teachers split that came up the second time when we lost some of those teachers, Macmillan considered them very important in terms of our promise to publish these people. And so they saw it as incomplete. because it was missing those particular theories. No, they didn't cancel the contract, they agreed to wait until the following summer. If, if, if we, if our teachers could contribute, or we can make full tests, then that would be fine. But the problem was that in the first session for the first session, some of the things in the first session, then, because of our political provision in the second session, which although they were not a part they felt affiliated with or against some of the features in the first session, also decided not to publish papers. So we couldn't, we just didn't have enough material. But we will, I think, even even if we don't get more material, we will be able to transform the book, a third alternative is to transform the book into a kind of organizing test in terms of how we did it, what the steps were to share that experience with people in writing, and that no one would agree to that.

Unknown Speaker  1:15:57
Yeah, it's an interesting point, definitely consider yourself to be talking. But see how your contract with that determine whether or not, there is an easy way to sterilize what we did was simply whatever we put our stuff on. And we just send out our bibliographies and our conference papers, because we ran into a problem on one of our clients, so we just

Unknown Speaker  1:16:33
put ourselves and it turned out, credible circulation. All we did was advertise, spokeswoman, and a couple of places like that. I wanted to say, parenthetically, that spokeswoman, that's where I first heard

Unknown Speaker  1:16:49
they picked up when it wants to buy that way that is disposable. Anyway, all we've charged is what it costs to do that kind of thing. People writing for, ultimately, everything fails to your institute. That is you control it. Yeah. And it does reflect what we're doing fully, and so forth. So I think there's arguments to be made.

Unknown Speaker  1:17:22
The argument I agree with completely that, you know, I mean, it sincerely when I say that we wouldn't have the woman power to send out to person to send out go to the post office and send out that material or to run it off. We have no paid member.

Unknown Speaker  1:17:36
Yeah, let's see, that's what that's what whatever you whatever you charge like $2. For it, it could pay for and even more first. That's how you that's discretionary means your expenses. The second thing I'd like to ask you is what? What did is form in that arrangement? Because I always well, because I've done like that, too, like, is usually a quid pro quo somehow, like regulating this?

Unknown Speaker  1:18:08
Well, let me say that McMillan's original contract was with Regina Ryan, who was really very open and loose, and so on and so forth about what we wanted to do. And what happened is that Regina Ryan was no longer at Milan. And so the problem is slightly more complicated than that. But I mean, that's the good part of having a feminist within an institution and out and working together. But what Ms. When Miss gave us the money, initially, they given us $5,000. This was way before we open. And what happened was that we really ran up against a wall in terms of debt, we had not calculated our money. We I mean, we couldn't we just we didn't, we didn't have enough accounting information. And we didn't figure in a whole bunch of hidden costs, like telephone. I mean, it seems so obvious now. But it wasn't. I mean, we, we were only seven people, we can only think of so much. And we ran into debt, which would have meant that, as administrators, we would have had to forego our salary. And in addition to that, we would have been defaulting to Linden state $3,000. And we felt, we we figured that that would mean bankruptcy, that we would have to declare bankruptcy. And that would be the other Saturday, because we couldn't we just couldn't energy wise go through setting up this whole thing again. So at that point, we were desperate for money. And we had one of our advisors who was on her way up to see the place. I mean, Hernandez who had to go to a ms Foundation meeting, and before that, and we had just put in our bid, and I guess the force of Eileen, kind of being behind us and she was given another $10,000 as a trial and if she liked what she saw, she can then give us money. And if she if she thought that what we were doing was good. So I think a lot of it was just chance in a sense that we got that extra 10,000 dollars being in the right place at the right time, this had just gotten the money released, they hadn't been allowed to give any money before. So they were a new foundation. We were we were their first money, we were the first money. I mean, when we went to get the check, they said, We've never been a foundation before. We said, We've never been to school before. I mean, it was really, nobody kind of knew very much what they were doing. And then when this whole thing happened, when we got our second big funding piece, we became, we became somewhat skeptical because many of the people at the school felt very strongly that this was trying to, quote unquote, get something from us, which was an affirmation of Gloria Steinem to okay, and that Ms wasn't subversive, or to the women's movement to the aims of the women's movement. And this was this was their position, although you really can't rely on me to explain it. I obviously never understood it fully. The having a very different point of view, we felt very strongly that there were no strings attached, that we felt that that they hadn't made. They hadn't given us any indication that they wanted x or y. We felt that to be a fairly open action, they had also given money to banana daycare, and this and that, that as long as they were no strings attached, we had to take that money, we felt that our analysis was that it was a kind of class issue, that we weren't in a position to turn down money because it was dirty money. And if we were going to talk about dirty money, the Carnegie money stand. So that, but we didn't want to make this distinction. Yes, we did. Yeah, we did. As long as and I don't mean that the people involved in the Carnegie money stack. They, I mean, thank God, they got us the money, but rather than Carnegie as an institution, is not something I would I would particularly want to be affiliated with. That, as feminists, I mean, we really feel this very strongly that this feminist, we're not in that position. And that if we take our position very seriously, we have to use any means available to us that does not come that doesn't compromise us to get what we want, that we're not in a position to turn that money, because we don't have any women don't, you know, just don't have that kind of money. And that without that kind of money. We knew we couldn't we couldn't continue our school, because we couldn't start with nothing again. I mean, we were so innervated by the end of that procession, we'd have to have at least $1,000 To begin with, or else we couldn't move on from there. And that when you're talking about survival, those other questions become rather nice questions. I mean, questions that from our point of view, we're drawing real questions, we didn't feel compromised by that money. And therefore we went ahead and took it, we would not have taken

Unknown Speaker  1:22:41
we would not have taken other kinds of money money. That was, for example, from Playboy, we had decided that we wouldn't take that money. Although interestingly enough, if they offered it to us, we would make it available to women who would take it in order to use it to come that we wouldn't take it for the functioning of our institution. But we would make it available to people who felt comfortable with that, that we had no right to judge, for example, a woman who was too poor to come to Sarris, who the hell are we to say she shouldn't have that money to come to that institution? And that's the same philosophy of use any means you can as long as it doesn't compromise you and what you're trying to do, too, to get Britain out to get our power, basically, but obviously, it's easier for me to argue that point of view than any other. answer your question about why we took money?

Unknown Speaker  1:23:33
Yeah, I would also be curious to know who was it who left the institution over that

Unknown Speaker  1:23:37
tee Grace Atkinson left and Alex Kate Schulman left, and Barbara Seaman left. And Marilyn Webb let's leave that's Susan Sherman left as well. Actually, Maryland Webb didn't leave she was she was very much torn by I mean, she felt she she felt lied to both groups for different reasons. State

Unknown Speaker  1:24:35
kind of a terrible question anyway. But I was wondering what comments you might make the severity well, maybe devil could speak to this too because we also have to The first thing I'll say is what I said before, don't do it alone, reinvent the wheel. And you really want to flip this thinking that you're

Unknown Speaker  1:25:09
going to operate in a completely different way and decision making a completely different way. When it doesn't always work that way, it doesn't always happen. It seems to me that what we tried to do was work by consensus, which meant we all put in our opinion, and then we tried to make some decision that we could all live with. And that's a very, I mean, you know, you, you have to compromise, you know, the extremes of any of any group really kind of get locked off.

Unknown Speaker  1:25:37
And we've worked towards that. I don't, I don't really know what the particular criticisms, you're probably

Unknown Speaker  1:25:43
more specific because of what they already know. Okay, okay. I think in terms of

Unknown Speaker  1:26:00
the the MS money, we had accepted $5,000, from MS when the teachers were hired. And then we went ahead and accepted another $10,000. The teachers themselves, or the particular teachers who were against this decision, felt that to accept more money meant that more of their salaries were coming from a source that they didn't, they didn't agree with, they didn't feel comfortable with it. We also felt that this was, you know, this was an issue. I mean, if one of the teachers publishes with Macmillan, and another, I mean, that, you know, they had other affiliations that were equally as heinous, if you will. But there was this is this is getting back into the debate, which is not, not the point in question. What I think has been spoken about, which is very important is that the first time we organized Sagaris, we did not make clear our own politics, because we really believed and I say this with all due naivete, we really believe that we could be politically neutral, and that we would be simply a forum for all different political positions, socialist, feminist, radical, lesbian, everything, anything that existed out there, short of conservative feminism, I mean, as long as people were committed to changing the system of hierarchy, domination, we felt that that that needs to go into

Unknown Speaker  1:27:19
the pot, this big stewpot,

Unknown Speaker  1:27:21
where you know, the new feminist theory of life and revolution. So we we thought of ourselves as being very neutral, when as it turns out as our experience of sadness, I'm working with the teachers who were critical in session one to Catherine's as much as much as session two, although there was no particular issue in session one, there was essentially to what we found out, what we realize is that yes, indeed, we do have a critical condition. And that we have to be aware of it, which is part of what I say I bring back with me, your feminist studies department to recognize that political position because it makes it so much easier. And what we did in this brochure was, as you can see, as I see you're reading right now is a statement about politics that we couldn't have offered the first time because we didn't know it, we thought of ourselves as somehow being neutral. And we really were made up of people with very different political views. But of course, what happened is in the course of that organizing, one or two of the views ended up predominated. And, and we didn't see that as a as integral to our organizing process. So this time, what we've learned from that is to be much more aware of what our own biases, if you will, around political theory. And that doesn't mean that still doesn't mean we only have our political views. And we work very hard to get people from steel from different political vantage points coming to the school. Because, obviously, you're very committed to that there's a reason that nobody has the answer yet. However, it helps to know where you're coming from, and then you'll be on your say, I, this person is coming from institutions this car, you know, it What if we hire a teacher, let's say who is a lesbian separatists, she knows and coming to our school, that our philosophy is

Unknown Speaker  1:29:07
not not necessary is not separate,

Unknown Speaker  1:29:10
that we don't know. We accept we want, we want her to come and teach but we are not separate ourselves. So there's a much clearer relationship between the school and the school. And that didn't exist before and a lot of it had to do with teachers feeling as if they were Do you know, you didn't tell us you felt you were you were the kinds of people who would take money from this magazine, or a magazine this foundation. And of course, now we know we are the kinds of people we can also tell people with kinds of people who will take money from foundations at the moment there are no strings attached. I mean, we can say that and we can give people political reasons why we are doing that, but we couldn't before because, I mean, that was something we got to learn and develop So it's all about this collective area of disagreement about

Unknown Speaker  1:30:16
the exercise of power,

Unknown Speaker  1:30:19
which sounds exactly from this point, from the point of of a lack of clarification initially, and we got very kind of torn apart because we got involved in feeling that, yes, that was right, the whole community wants to make a decision about whatever came up. And now what we realize is that we have very different policy on the first time, well, first of all, what happened in terms of this particular split is that this decision came up, to take or not to take this money. And we did end up turning it over to the community and the community got together in 15 hour days, which which were very, very difficult, voted finally, in favor of taking that money. 50 wanted to 17 and it was a 17, people would then walk out and form their own school, and put us at home. And what we realize now is that we got involved in the process of letting the community at large determined policies for sacrifice is an ongoing, and what what we now are committed to, which is very different, is letting the community as it exists at any present time. make any decisions about the community at that present time. In other words, if everybody gets together, and I'm teaching a course, and everybody decides this course, is no good. There's nobody to say, you know, everybody has to go to this course. In other words, you're free to change the nature of the experience as it exists. They're a community as a whole, we get together, meaning we don't want any more classes we wanted. Well, I haven't been wondering for the rest of you know, some kind of witches or you know, we want to do something different. And that's crawling. But in terms of the ongoing existence of the school, we do have particular policies, and we do have particular points of view. And that that the responsibility for making those decisions that concern the ongoing nature of the school would then revert back to the collective. So again, now we can articulate something that we didn't before because we didn't come up. And that's really a major change. So if we could have done this over again,