sent the number of African American women 16% the number of Hispanic women 73% the number of white women 15% and if there's anything I would we were talking about this before we mark up in this panel if there is anything I would like the Clinton Administration to do is to make sure that access is still available the information and education for people of all classes and races and that means financial aid and it means policies and plans such as child care centers that will keep people in school once they get thereand another Triumph is of course the change in our curriculum to include new subjects about race about gender about sexual preference and the Department of Education and other Federal funding agencies can support the transformation of the curriculum a couple of other suggestions is I regard the future of women in the Information Society I have my market share of dread and I do feel that we will not grant women full citizenship in the Information Society and we will not Grant her access to basic literacy it's some night you can't sleep C-SPAN isn't doing it for you and herbal teas called sleepy time or not working read table 1.3 of the 1989 UNESCO statistical yearbook and it will give you the percentage of men and women over the age of 15 who were illiterate and 129 countries and territories and the percentage of illiterate man is alarming but the percentage of illiterate women is even more so of these 129 countries the Sexes are equal illiterate in fewer than 20 countries women are more literate in Men in only 11 places all of them small most of them in the Caribbean and men are more literate than women in every other one of these countries so I would urge the Clinton Administration to support not only Reproductive Rights internationally but sheer basic literacy and when I have my moments of dread I think two of equal access to the science and technology that are the foundation of the Information Society a recent study the AAUW study found that 49% of the boys in the 11th grade in American high schools that use them electricity Meter whatever that is but only 17% of the girls I don't know what electricity meter is but I want the other 83% of the girls to get it in 1989 men took 91.8% of the doctor it's an engineering in American graduate schools women 8.2% men took 81.2% of the doctorates in the physical sciences women took 18.8% so Clinton administration shape up the primary schools in terms of Science Education for young women nor I sear will we give women the information they need about themselves about their history and about their capacities for love and work in the Information Society I fear an absence of information about body health and sexuality and the story of the silicone gel implants seems in part a story about women being both misinformed and uninformed about their health and the story also seems in parked a story about some women who still obey powerful cultural norms that reduce their identity to their flesh into their sexual Allure and ironically The Information Society tells us that our minds. Our bodies are our power generators so I have mine little anxieties but some of you have heard me say before that I have a stubborn muscle in my optimism Marie preachers courage I appreciate your optimism given my choice of being a Pollyanna or not I will take Pollyanna whenever I can until the muscle of my optimism flexes and insists that history can be its Nautilus machine as well as wrapped and Catherine wheel so let me leave you with an optimistic story about women in the Information Society and it comes from my hometown newspaper the New York Times a journal that Marie flashed before you and you should know it's a journal that off and throws acid on optimism but in 1991 there was a headline Brooklyn College firsts Marshalls and Roads and for the first time and it's a 61 year old history Brooklyn College had won both a Marshall Scholarship and a Rhodes scholarship both prestigious both for study in England we all know that President Clinton was a Rhodes scholar we may also remember that in great part thanks to the women's movement women could become Road Scholars 8 years after President Clinton was will the winners were women Lisette Nieves who would won the roads and Tober Friedman who had won the Marshall and Tober Friedman said that should never plan to go to college but she was working as a secretary and she found her mind quote going to Mush and a friend said try college and in my cynical moments I say college does not turn your mind to Mush but it turns it to all bran and so totally free we went to Brooklyn College and took a course in English History taught by a woman named Bonnie Anderson one of the founders of women's history and Freedman said she blew me away and so Clinton administration work for Leah's yet the Avis and Tober Friedman thank you I think they both blew us away their wonderful I went through a political nervous breakdown in 1992 so it's wonderful to come and be revitalized and share in the excitement of another 20 50 hundred years of the Barnard Center for Women like many of those of those on this panel I began working in the women's movement in 1971 very early on it was clear to some of us just there has to be meaningful change if women's lives are going to improve we needed a hell of a lot of political power it was not going to be enough to have women studies programs consciousness-raising sessions are on theaters are on magazines newspapers and research institutes like this first-rate one here at Barnard we knew we had to learn how to understand each other how to talk to each other how to set our issue agendas and how to work together but we also knew we had to lay the groundwork for assaulting the male power structure piece by piece we built the political movement much of our success in 92 that sell called year of the women that's a joke I agree came because we had built the feminist political tools we had the training we had the recruitment we had the funding we had the Grassroots we had the policy ideas and finally we had women candidates and we had reapportionment the 22-year painstakingly build painstaking building was finally paying off but it was too too slowly and it still is from the beginning I have been Guided by a two-party view for gaining political power that is our feminist Revolution would only succeed when we willed it substantial influence in both political parties My Hope College dream was that the basic premises of feminism would be accepted by majorities in both parties and that we Republican and Democratic feminist women would struggle and debate over the details of public policy I have never believed and I do not believe now that a third-party was a valid option I think Alice Paul with all her great struggles prove that after the brutalization of the last 12 years my dream has been sorely challenged many Republicans and Independent Women voted for Clinton we worked for Dianne Feinstein and for Barbara Boxer and other Progressive candidates and we rejoiced in their victories Republican and Centrist women are often asked why we don't become Democrats since we so often find ourselves aligned with Democratic candidates but that question blurs the complexity of the feminist movement efforts to gain and retain and I emphasize retain political power it is a cliched superficial question that my sisters asked me as to why don't you become a Democrat and I think the question needs to be analyzed more clothes slave first there are the polarisation concerns if Centrist and Republican feminist give up on the Republican party doesn't their action further polarize the nation if there is not diversity and Variety in both parties aren't we inviting the inevitable ethnic social religious and racial hatreds that we see in too much of the world does polarisation help the cause of feminism or are we hurting our potential to grow second set of concerns are inclusion concerns aren't we feminists giving up on a substantial number of political women if we don't participate in Republican primaries and conventions and in similar events in areas dominated by anti-feminist Democrats how do we reach those women politically if we never reach out and help them fight their battles and aren't we taking an enormous risk of being shut out in states where Republicans or anti-feminist Democrats are the majority and I would just suggest you look at the case of Pennsylvania headed by anti-choice Democrat Governor Casey who brought us the Thornburg and then the Casey case 3rd there are the maintaining our games concerns if that one is public policy gains from one-party how much do we stand to lose when our opponents win elections how do we hold on to what we have one if we're only in one political group e let us not forget that the American political system is decentralized to encourage diverse viewpoints and D emphasizes monolithic Solutions how do we protect ourselves against a repeat of those horrendous reagan-bush years all these questions are at the core of any philosophical debate about political power will not solve them today but it's worth considering considering more deeply one question does a revolutionary movement consolidate its gains and become more broad-based in its ideology as it wins power or does it better or does it do better by keeping its base more narrowly focused or put more simply Are We Now secure with our modest power and mature enough to welcome Centris with their pragmatic and less ideological ideas into our movement what about short-term practical considerations the ones that were talked about by Marie and by Catherine they are in one sense easier to respond to in a political context the religious right led by Paul Wyrick and Pat Robertson 6 and is in some places already using the Republican party for its own fascist and a nice a fascist Ross Perot is on an eagle aggrandizing political trip heading toward the 99 excuse me 96 elections with a possible three-way split in the electorate feminist from all political parties and all Persuasions must help the president the breaking off into a feminist third-party will isolate us from the mainstream we will be talking too often to each other with our energy directed at building a third-party money and resources will be siphoned away from local and state feminist candidates and causes we will lose momentum by such an effort need I repeat what we already know if we don't win elections we won't have any political power at least real political power we will have the kind of power we had before the modern women's movement there will be fewer feminists wielding power if we squander what we have on a third party movement I remember many years ago my mother telling me that the highest flattery was imitation how was I to know that the leadership of the Bush campaign would take the ideas of the feminist movement and twist them around and try to use them for their own ends last August I walked out on the Republican convention I couldn't stand to hear one more attack about women and families as though all of us in the feminist movement all of us who would work so hard just liked families just like children were against women did not love our husbands and on and on and on Buchanan Robertson Bush and both quails were too much and I am also sorry to say that I was heartfelt and sick as I sat in my hotel room the night that Barbara Bush spoke I had wanted to go home to New York I couldn't get out of Houston so I sat in my hotel room and watch those speeches on Wednesday night and yes Pat Robertson was outrageous and Pat Buchanan on Monday had been outrageous Marilyn Quayle was what we always knew Marilyn Quayle would be Maryland Corral should have been here with us Marilyn Quayle is a very smart woman who somehow can't quite understand what has been happening to all of us over the last 30 40 50 hundreds of years but the sad part to me was Barbara Bush because Barbara Bush should have known better was used in an unfortunate and I think despicable way and I sat there in my hotel room and I said that dream of mine that dream about that two parties and feminism both parties yes I realize it's a contradiction and I realized it for years but I also am an optimist just like Katherine and I said I can't let this go on any longer so I walked out and I faced what I didn't want to face which was that as far as I was concerned at least for the near future my two party dream was over and many of my colleagues that I have worked with in the Republican feminist movement and the Independent Women feel the same way why Rick and quail and Robertson and all the rest of those Scoundrels will get no help from us under the guise of a so-called big tent but I am haunted by the polarization of America's politics do we really want to feminism that turns its back on mainstream women are we not strong enough now to embrace a more broad-based coalition I remember when we founded the Manhattan women's political caucus in 1972 down at the new school or maybe it wasn't the new school it wasn't PS 41 it's been a long time and I remember getting up and saying that it was important that there be feminists in both political parties and you may remember Richard Nixon was President then and we were all tied up and hating the Vietnam War and many of us were active in the anti-vietnam war movement but we were Republicans and I stood up at the PS 41 and I opened by saying I am a republican woman and most of the women in the room food at me and I remember Carol dreitzer some of you may know Carol dreitzer is a reform Democratic leader from the v i d Club a very liberal Democratic Club stood next to me and tell people to be quiet that I had a right to speak well it's 22 years later and the pro-choice Republican women are taken seriously at what has happened is that most of us are very tired and we don't know whether we want to continue but as I said we cannot turn our back on those mainstream women I don't know the answer but I know we must face the issue we lost twice to Reagan and wants to Bush because we didn't recruit and include those women and when I mean we I mean the feminists ignoring them again will be our Achilles heel at least in the political sense our opposition is cutting and as I suggested that what happened in Houston they cloak themselves in our words they use family they use life has Kathie Spiller will tell you they argue about freedom of speech is they stop women from going into the clinics they talk about their right to choose as they obstruct doctors from entering their their place of business they talk about freedom of religion as they attempt to impose their religion upon us mainstream women don't know much about our words they hear our words through the likes of Helm's and Jordan and hatch and yes KC and O'Connor our challenge is to welcome these women into the fold and at the same time made the maintain the hard edge of our goals yes it is a balancing act but balance is at the heart of any civilized Democratic political system for me it is the only way we can retain some peace and Sanity in this unsafe world and in the bargain we might increase our political power I think we need to try to get those mainstream women thank you now I have three hard act to follow. 5 Leslie and Ellen who were tended to think about these is unique times I think we can listen to the voices of Lucretia Mott the Abolitionist and Quaker when a 19 1850 she wrote that what woman then go on not asking as favor but claiming as right the removal of all hindrances to her elevation in the scale of being let her receive encouragement for the proper cultivation of her powers so that she may enter profitably into the active business of Life employing by her own hands in ministering to her own Necessities end quote I was thinking about the comments that I wanted to make to you today I felt that those were very appropriate words because when we look back and think of these times as advancing the power of women will we see them as times that we have employed our own hands to minister to our Necessities are will these be * blighted by the continuing indusind indifference in the indecency of that indifference to our aspirations are progress blocked by anger by hatred by violence and the games that we have achieved in our struggles for social equality being games that are Raticate it by the political process because in 1992 the year of the so-called year of the woman notwithstanding our rights are more fragile today than they were in 1980 the America of the 1980s was an American which class and privilege were exalted sexism and bigotry surfaced in shocking forms battles that we thought were fought and won on equality and racial Justice where we fought and women were really quite at the center of the struggle I'ma say that if the performance of a Clinton administration is any indication there will still be some battling to do even though mr. Clinton has done some very important has taken some very important steps to eradicate a number of the destructive policies of the Bush and Reagan years those battles I hope that we will not lose a sense of the lessons of history and that we must remember that the supporters of those policies are still very much with us here and now and so it's very tempting to get caught up in the blush of political victories and not understand that there continues to be an entrenched system that perpetuated the policies of repression against women and that continues to be with us the prolonged battles to enter a to end the policies of hostility towards women and our rights and the battles to end political exploitation of race and class switch rows to outrageous proportions in the 80s are inextricably tied it's only think about the ideology of our Movement we must understand that we really are a part of a much bigger larger social struggle for equality of many Americans 140 years ago Lucy Stone Road but the right to vote will be swallowed up in the real question of whether a woman has a right to herself and that question applies to Americans of all Races and socio-economic positions she went on to say that it means very little to me to have the right to vote to own property excetera if I may not keep my body and its uses to my absolute right but after 12 years of the systemic reconstruction of the federal courts the rights of women to keep our bodies and their uses has been seriously damaged damaged by The Weeknd concept of 12 Years of persistent battering of the promise of our constitution guarantee of equality of justice of privacy of Liberty the courts have gone a very long way and we must deal with the reality but now the Supreme Court of the United States has invested in the presidency enormous powers that in 1980 it did not have and those Powers unfortunately have been at the expense of women we sometimes talk about the losses that we have sustained and the political reality of the last 12 years as though it was done by someone else but the American people elected for three terms of office not one but two anti-woman presidents how many of you in this room voted for Ronald Reagan and George Bush how many of us did not work actively for their defeat so we must take responsibility for where we stand and further to take responsibility and things will not automatically change for the better because there is the president in the White House supportive of the issues that concern women and I say that very consciously the issues that concern women not the women's issues but let us not forget that we can't take for granted the person who lives in the White House will do the right thing or that he indeed will not and someday that she will not also make the wrong decisions and choices Byron white is leaving the court as an appointee of John Kennedy Harry blackmun one of the most liberal justices in the Supreme Court's history was mr. Nixon selection so it's like Will Rogers said that even if you're on the right track you'll get run over if you just sit there this is a time for important change change will need to be made and laws many steps will need to compete to be taken to correct the egregious errors of Errors of the past 12 years but there can be no real change until this Society truly comes to grips with the fundamentals the fundamentals that women must be equal there will not be real change until women take responsibility for that happening and take the leadership for our rights we cannot assume that a male-dominated power structure will do it for us and if we needed any evidence of that we can look to the Supreme Court nomination and confirmation of Clarence Thomas a man who told us that he had not heard about read about or discussed Roe v Wade and 19 years and we still got him confirmed the name of the game will be politics and there is no doubt that a profound change took place in the political landscape in 1992 we can take it for granted that because we elected minorities and women that we will regain lost ground without the agenda of our concerns being pressed getting some women elected is only the beginning vigilance and a commitment to making sure that they do not get sucked up and caught up in the power of politics is our responsibility we must never again underestimate the lengths to which the power structure the political process can be used against us to deny us our Birthright not as women but as Americans to control the most private aspect of our lives and thereby our destiny we must not forget that the Supreme Court of the United States permitted the president of the United States to impose a gag order on women denying us the full right and access to our first amendment we must not forget that Webster stands as a living Memorial of this Supreme Court's permission to establish religion in the law the violation of our first Liberty the right to practice the religion of our beliefs and not to have it imposed Upon Us by law or by preambles of the law we must not forget that the Supreme Court of 1993 ruled that woman's free right to travel could be impeded by Outlaw Bandit Outlaw Vandals and that Casey was permitted by the Supreme Court to impose the process of thought and mind control on women discrimination of women by class that is the discrimination against mine or women was allowed by that great Bastion the protection of our constitutional privileges Supreme Court and most of all we must not forget if there are some in this country who do not believe that Americans have the right not to be murdered if we disagree with their ideology the same time that we engage the political mechanism to change the social infrastructure that is still aligned against women each of us has a special obligation individually to work to create fundamental change and that can be an enormous Lee empowering process it does not take cast our armies of thousands she leave here today think about what will I do by virtue of my choices and the way I conduct my life to empower another woman Carol Gilligan's excellent book to which you have already heard reference and making connections she describes how girls Retreat from early from an early sense of power subduing themselves in order to achieve social approval she found it an adolescence girls experienced a crisis and response to society's demand that girls keep quiet they notice the absence of leadership among other women and so they keep quiet what dr. Gilligan describes as creative aggression is then nipped in the bud and their ability to Take On The World in the way that they see it become stifled for the sake of acceptance and approval how many of us have not fought hard enough and long enough and vigorously enough for our rights because we were afraid of the social disapproval all of those stunts our ability to dream our ability to grow Beyond ourselves and when locking this self-esteem we are particularly susceptible to discrimination abuse and violence we are socialized as women to be nice and to say that there are no problems we must understand that when we move against the establishment the traditional power establishment we are working against our conditioned instincts we have to say that there is a problem and that that problem is deeply embedded in the attitudes of our culture and we as women must not rest until it is eradicated advancements mean that we will break the limitations on the traditional convention that self-sacrifice is a virtue primarily for women Elizabeth Stanton once told a reporter put it down in capital letters self-development is a higher Duty than self-sacrifice the thing that retards and militates against women self development is that we have been conditioned to engage in self-sacrifice leadership must be found not outside us but within each of us and so you'll leave here today having identified one leadership characteristic that you can employ toward the advancement of women's equality advancement will require that we resolved not to compromise our commitment for social approval advancement will mean that we will not tacitly participate in maintaining the institutional structures that can continue to compel women to be secondary after all we are 51% of the population and we ought to start acting like it yes there have been gains and much has been made and it is important that we make these great strides but we don't yet have a steamrolling momentous Trend going here the history is very much against us between 1776 and 1976 listen to these numbers if you see how much catching up we had to do men outnumbered women in the Senate of the United States by 1715 to 11 men outnumbered women in the House of Representatives 19591 287 men outnumbered women 571 in presidential cabinets until Sandra Day O'Connor was appointed to the Supreme Court in 1981 there had been no woman on the Supreme Court in the 200-year history of this nation well I suppose we can say that it is something like 600 men to maybe half a dozen women now in the cabinet of the presidency we must not rest until American politics reflects 51% women as a reflection of the makeup in the concerns of this nation if we fail to become directly involved in the political process we give in to those forces that have worked against us and that mean that we have to fight those same battles again that should never have been brought up let alone I held up for contention and held up for debate do we do with this final thought political power is never bestowed it must be taken Abigail Adams once wrote to John Adams and 1776 and I quote if particular care and attention is not paid to the ladies we are determined to foment Rebellion and we will not hold ourselves Bound By any laws in which we have no voice I sort of like the way Sojourner Truth commented on all of the struggle because I think she wrapped it up very nicely when she said if women want any rights more than they got why don't they just take them and not be talking about it let's stop talking about it and take what is rightfully ours wither feminism I'm very optimistic actually about the future course for feminism in the chances for gaining in our lifetimes equality for women I think I'm so optimistic because I think that feminism is well positioned in our society first and foremost were very popular movement despite what we frequently see printed in the mainstream media and here repeated day in and day out in fact as The Miz survey has shown in other surveys before it the women's rights movement is a very popular movement with widespread support among women in particular but is well increasingly among men and that in fact the majority of women in this country identify themselves as feminists a shocking fact for many of us it's why the feminist majority took its name when we formed in 1987 is that we wanted to remind people that feminists are the majority and that we are a popular movement and that were movement whose strength is drawn in many ways from our diversity we are everywhere we are in multi-issue and multi tactical movement there is an organized feminist movement and in every aspect of our culture in journalism and government and politics education medicine and science law business Sports the Arts religion I don't think there is a single aspect of our society and culture that you could name that I could not find the organized feminist movement Within the real crisis is that in every area of our culture women and particularly feminists have virtually no power we are under-represented in every decision making body in the society the most obvious and perhaps the one that's been most frequently recent Focus Sean is in the area of government in Nigeria politics despite the significant magnificent gains of last year we are still underrepresented in Congress and in the state legislatures in fact at the current rate that women are gaining political power it is another to generation before women have equal power in the state legislatures and it is more than two centuries before women will have equal power in the United States Congress and as I think we have long passed left the argument over whether or not the representation of women where decisions are made makes a difference I think I need a hell dramatized it because it was so clear for everyone to see on prime-time television but in fact much of the research that's been done by center for the study of women and women's studies has been to show that women in fact make a significant difference when they're represented where decisions are made the agenda changes the focus of debate changes the issues that are considered important change largely of course because we grow up in a very sex-segregated Society we grow up with very different experiences and in fact have very different lives than men I think that we're feminism must focus is how to gain power and how to gain equal power and there is only one way to measure equal power and that is when we count the number of congressional members and when we count the number of Governors and when we count the number on corporate boards and on college and university Boards of trustees and among tenured professors and among law partners and on and on is that we can count equal numbers we should never be satisfied with only influencing power the goal of feminism must be to gain equal power we need new strategies in the in the political Arena and in the business and and in many aspects of organized decision-making one such strategy that we've been pushing is the whole strategy of gender balance rules we want rulesplease do so later in the lobby you'll need your lunch ticket I'm Leslie Kalman the director of the Barnard Center for research on women and it's my pleasure to introduce 19th the scholar and the feminist conference many a sleepless night in recent weeks I have pondered this moment and I'm delighted that the state is conference and all of you are finally here welcome this year our conference probe the issue of women as changemakers building and using political power the planning has been in the making for about a year and so it began when I like many others we're beginning to have fond hopes that 1992 would be the year of the woman then is now it was spring the time of Hope and renewal a good omen it's also the season of the year that includes a holiday that I celebrate Passover now at first glance The Liberation of the Jews from the tyranny of slavery and hoping for more women in Congress may seem but Loosely connected but for me they have something very important in common every year during the storytelling that accompanies Passover this a particularly rousing catchy song the verses of the song describe things that God did for the Jewish people in the process of liberating them and after every verse the chorus is a single Hebrew word which is dying a new translated it means roughly it would have been enough so the song goes like this if God had only parted the Red Sea they know it would have been enough if God had only given us the Ten Commandments saying it would have been enough if God had only dropped Manna From Heaven it would have been enough now ever since I was a child a skeptical child not the favorite of my Hebrew school teachers this song has bothered me every year I think it would have been enough SS of Liberation seem to me to be a pretty complicated business and then as now I suspected the chest one of these acts of God no matter how Nifty wouldn't have done the trick now don't get me wrong even just one of these Miracles would be welcomed it would be nice but for the difficult task of Liberation one Advance alone would not have been enough I think of the political year of 1992 as the year that some would have us think of as the dining New Year for women the year women got what should have been enough we had a whole year the number of women Senators tripled okay so now we have six the number of women Congressional Representatives increased from 7% to 11% we have women cabinet appointments okay so they don't have kids all this is good but I ain't know it would have been enough I don't think so we are at the beginnings not the end of Victory the good news is that this election year was almost certainly not a fluke but rather a combination of 20 years of the women's movement in politics over that time since the early seventies we've been seeing steady increases in the number of women in state and local government women are now 17% of the women's Mayors and their 20% of state legislators across the country I figure that's triple the number 20 years ago women have grown savvier about fundraising and for this reason to our better position to run and to run effectively we can look to the future with some confidence but we need to plan carefully for the struggles ahead women have always been targets of State policy but to rarely the creators of it this conference asks about the relationship of women to the power of government how do they get it what do they do with it once they do get it what should they do with it we need to think today about how the states policies and structures affect women and the women's movement we need to explore the ideas the laws the patterns of action that shape politics and we must look specifically to how women as lawmakers judges bureaucrats women organized in interest groups women acting within political parties working in the media engaging in direct action how women can do and should transform policy we need to ask to what are women's interests and to recognize that they may not all be the same and that the impact of State actions differ substantially depending on our race and class with that in mind we need to consider how involved we want the state to be in women's lives and in what ways when do we want the state to stay out of our lives this conference marks the certainty that women in politics and those of us who are seeking more political power for women must not be reticent when we insist that we don't yet have enough and when we plan and strategize to get more let's take a lesson from Dorothy Parker who when reprimanded for being outspoken demanded indignantly to know outspoken by whom let's make sure it's not Pat Buchanan or Dan Quayle or Pat Robertson before we begin our panel this morning it's my pleasure to introduce a decidedly outspoken woman Ellen futter president of Barnard College thank you very much Leslie after listening to Leslie me all decided it would have been enough and you don't need this and welcome to the 19th scholar and the famine is conference a conference that has the distinction of not only addressing a critical subject but of welcoming the third decade of the Barnard Center for research on women this morning's task is great but our participants are every bit up to the challenge or this is truly a most exceptional assembly of talent for which we should all think Leslie, the director of the center in the one who put this terrific conference together thank you Leslie Center for research on women was founded in 1971 as a meeting ground for addressing critical issues concerning the status and condition of women beyond the traditional confines of the classroom since then supported strongly by the college and by friends and Foundations the center has offered program after program raising hard questions taking on provocative issues and providing a Haven for women to conduct research in short it has been both a stimulus for and a source of feminist scholarship I am reminded hear of Rebecca West comment in 1913 that I myself have never been able to find out precisely what feminism is I only know that what people when people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat or a prostitute today's conference continues in the tradition of Pascal's are in the feminist conferences confronting directly the question where their feminism and endeavoring to charge the way for women is change makers for women to build and use political power as Leslie suggested some may question why this is necessary following the so-called year of the woman but the fact is that anytime the label the year of is utilized there's a strong presumption that the single year of has been preceded by a series of years of neglect and this is precisely the case for women the mystery writer Dorothy Sayers once observed the facts or like cows if you look them in the face hard enough they generally run away well the facts about women are more like bowls or maybe Newell's well there is reason to be enthusiastically bullish about the achievements of women in recent years the facts themselves are stubborn reminders that there is much to be done as you begin your deliberations about women as changemakers urge you to do so with as broad gauge Dove you as possible too often in years past women's issues have been defined as encompassing only matters of equal pay for equal work Reproductive Rights or childcare all critical issues of central importance to women but so too are issues of crime poverty drugs Healthcare homelessness discrimination and the condition of our schools and families the often-overlooked fact is that his tragic as are the consequences of these issues for society as a whole and as much as they are also men's issues the victims of these tragedies are disproportionately women and the feminization of poverty is well documented SO2 as has been demonstrated lately with horrific Clarity by the atrocities in Bosnia and the disposition of girl babies in China are issues of international Affairs as you consider the role of women as change makers it is vital to remember that if women are to achieve not only equal pay for equal work but equity in the fullest sense they must be actively engaged in the most pressing matters of our time in our cities throughout our country and on the world stage we must no longer allow women's issues to be placed in a separate category at the bottom the agenda this is so for several reasons not least because as goes equity for women will go equities for others not in the sense of one following the other in temporal terms but rather as a reflection of the spirit and commitment of the leadership and citizenry of this country to do right not only by the community of women but by all of its people and advancement of women should come not just because it is the law of the land but because it is the will of the people reflective of the authenticity of their commitment and the goodness of their spirit riding at the time of the founding of the Women's Center Mira komarovsky Barnard's distinguished alumni and professor of Sociology observed in describing the importance of women's studies such Studies address themselves to intellectual problems of broad theoretical significance moreover they illuminate the social roots of personal conflict and may sauce serve to increase rationality in human Affairs this conference is a truth about precisely that women as changemakers utilizing Newfound political power to increase rationality in human Affairs in terms of equity for women of course but beyond to the achievement of equity for all I welcome all of you to Barnard college and wish you a most enjoy Rebel and highly productive day thank you I have to introduce her before she knows who this morning's plenary panel addresses the future of the feminist movement and the nature of the opposition to feminism my role here is to post some questions that's the easy part I've saved the hard Parts before they are distinguished panelist the answers I've asked the panel is to think about questions like these where do women and where do feminists go from here what are our goals what are women's interest what should our strategies be for influencing or gaining power and how promising is the Clinton Administration in terms of women's issues at about the women's movement itself political and social movements by their nature are not static if they are to succeed they must move people movements must persuade they must mobilize they must have build movements must convert people not only to new Consciousness but also to action my question then is this is the women's movement still moving will the movement become co-opted or more fragmented because we have a friend or two in the White House how are we going to continue to build and how shall we meet the challenge of the fervent opposition against us let me introduce our panelists to Wellfleet Lee concisely and fully answer each and every one of these questions maybe not but they do have a collective experience of being in the trenches that is exhausting to consider Marie Wilson has for the past seven years been president of the MS foundation for women the Miss Foundation is the only National multi-issue Women's Fund in the United States is Wilson is an expert on women's Economic Development on Reproductive Rights and on safety for women and girls she is co-author of a soon-to-be-published book on new models for relationships between mothers and their adolescent daughters under her Direction The Miz Foundation has launched a widely-held national campaign called take our daughters to work designed to improve the self-esteem of adolescent girls take our daughters to work day is this Wednesday April 28th and this is a plug our next Timeless cast and our stimpson is one of our nation's most renowned scholars in the field of women's studies she is presently University professor at Rutgers University and also served there as dean of The Graduate School in Vice Provost for graduate education in 1975 she founded what Remains the premier journal in women's studies signs Journal of women in culture and Society a few years before that as a member of The English Department at Barnard college professor stimpson was the founding director of its Women's Center now known as the Barnard Center for research on women she is the author of / 150 monographs essay stories and reviews on a wide range of cultural and political topics also among her legacies is that she was my very first women's studies Professor for which I once again thank her Tanya milich's at political management and public policy consultant with particular expertise in women's issues and elections in 1971 she helped organize the Manhattan women's political caucus and in 1972 the New York State women's political caucus since 1973 she has been an active and vocal proponent for women's reproductive freedom and her targets of actions include most prominently the Republican Party tough job Tanya music originated the Republican pro-choice movement in 1976 and 1984 she helped found and now directs the New York State family committee this committee 6 to educate Republicans on reproductive health issues and urges the Republican party's adopt adoption of pro-choice policies following the Supreme Court's Webster decision in 1989 and threatening legal abortion Italian Village became a founder of two Republican pro-choice political action committees one in New York state and won a national pack both of which provide funds to pro-choice Republican candidates thanks for joining us Faye wattleton served for 14 years as the president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America under her leadership Planned Parenthood moved into the Forefront of the battle to protect women's Reproductive Rights and Women's Health goes in this country and around the world is wattleton is the recipient of a stream of awards including the American Public Health Association Award of Excellence and the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation humanitarian award in Spring 1992 Faye wattleton was also the recipient of Barnard's read lectureship given annually to a distinguished woman who is shown A continuing commitment to serving other women of course none of these honors can compete with the fact that one of the most critical Shapers of our daughters political Consciousness mainly sassy magazine has proclaimed Faye wattleton one of the 20 coolest women ever Kathy Spiller is appearing today in the place of Eleanor smeal who's recovering from a case of pneumonia and regrets very much not being able to be with us today Kathy Spiller is National coordinator of the organizations of which Ellie's meal is President namely the fun for the feminist majority and the feminist majority Foundation she is one of the original principles in their founding in 1987 prior to that she was for 4 years the president of Los Angeles now the fund is presently sponsoring the feminization of power campaign a nationwide effort to inspire women to seek leadership positions and to promote a feminist agenda Additionally the fun runs the largest Clinic defense project in the country to protect against the intimidation violence and harassment of abortion clinics and their clients another project of the fund involves working to achieve gender balance in law enforcement as a way of addressing violence against women I'm delighted to have Kathy with us today and thank her for so graciously coming at the last finally I'm sorry to tell you that you will Jackson McCabe who was originally scheduled to be with us this morning at has instead had to attend an important meeting in Tuskegee of one of the Tuskegee branch of a hundred like women and is unable to join us she sends her apologies are programmed this morning will begin with statements by each of our panelists to be followed by a coffee break and then to be followed by discussion and questions from the audience first let me introduce Marie Wilson I'm delighted to be here because actually my coming to New York in the first place began with Barnard I don't think Eleanor anybody here knows this but I really came to interview for the job at Ms as a way to see my daughter who was entering Bart I had just got into Barnard and I missed her enormously and I said well I'll interview for this job I was being a politician and I was really happy but I I miss her so I came and I interviewed for the job and his life goes they talked me into the fact that you can make more political change at the Mist Foundation than being a politician in Iowa and it worked so I really credit barter that as well as giving my daughter and absolutely smashing education she's a performance artist in Santa Fe who does work on domestic violence through performance and other issues and with the greatest education in the world and I've also glad to announce that this morning based on conversations that I had my career has changed again I just been appointed the head of the FBI and we had this meeting I thought you should know about it they figure I've got as much chance of being confirmed is anybody so so if it takes a really momentous feels good yeah that the other thing I cannot resist tell you because of this wonderful thing about the year of the woman is I loved it I don't think people picked it up much last year when Gloria said would they ever think of calling it The Year of the Jew it also it was really it was quite something well it's so interesting cuz when somebody tells you to get to address with her feminism you get all excited like all this is wonderful and then you say where where do you start well I I can't look at the women who are in this room many of whom I know and trust and love and women who were up here who have kept education together and who have kept the Republican party at least from going off the side of the earth feijoo well almost say who is the strongest in steadiest voice for women in reproductive freedom in this country and reproductive health and Kathy speller who is probably the one of the brightest organizers who has ever come out of our movement I mean weather feminism it's in pretty good shape if if the leadership that you see here is anything or any indication but I do because we got challenge to say what we think is going I do want to talk to you about what I think the challenges are and I think they were challenges of courage and I say that with some fear and trembling because I think the lives of everyday women in this country are usually just plain studies and courage but I think there's more courage to be had and I want to tell you a couple of things I feel like we've learned this year from some things we done that I think give us a great deal more claim to courage and the first thing is I want to dress what Leslie mentioned in that is what do we do with this Administration I think it's about having the courage to claim what we paid for and pay for what we now claim I never trust an Administration no matter how good they are and it occurs to me that what what again I think Gloria Steinem said about Franklin Roosevelt you know Franklin Roosevelt was elected and then he turned around and said you elected me you make me do it that's what the courage is about in regard to the Clinton Administration they are our Administration we didn't elect them there was a very little publicize gender gap and now our role is to have the courage to make them do what we know they want to do and that means by the way something that really does have to happen I think in this country and that is a much stronger relationship between the national and the local women's Community because that's how constituency gets built and that's how change gets pushed and what we and I think Kathy is working on this a great deal what happens is that the local women are the ones closest to the people who can make that change happen only are not always feeling represented well and fully by the national so one of the things that I've learned certainly to the work at Miz is the courage of local women and the fact that they I have to be connected nationally the second thing that it seems to me is the courage to really push harder what Miss did the largest survey a bipartisan survey that's ever been done called women's voices this fall or this past summer and what we look that we did we oversampled across race and class that's never been done to hear what the voices of women were saying and one thing that I think really surprised us was what they said about leadership three quarters of the women in this country actually feel that their lives are different because of the women's movement lead by African American women and Latinas the women in this country credit the women's movement with changes lead by African American women in Latinas 3/4 of the women in this country believe and I think for the first time that the leadership of this country this country would be better off if he ask the leadership were women and that goes for men as well more man that ever before believe that the leadership would be better the country would be better if over half the women were in leadership positions that is an amazing statistic and again lad by African-American women and Latinas I say that because we have a woman date for change we have this power that is out there because women really believe in women and I'm afraid that we won't have the courage to take it far enough and getting to a particular political example I want to talk about just a minute the freedom of choice act the reversal of the Hyde Amendment and what goes on around Healthcare I think we have a woman date that says we can push harder than we think we can push and not give any women behind not our daughter's not poor women not women of color and I'm concerned that what we'll do is not know that we have a woman date that allows us to push as hard as we want to push that may be a good time for a thing for us to debate this morning but we have the voices of women in this country supporting us the third thing in terms of Courage I want to talk to you about is the courage that we have found from working with Adolescent and pre-adolescent girls and this whole business of take our daughters I have never seen anything by the way take off like take our daughters this was the little project that ate Cleveland we had thought that this would be a nice project to do in New York City and not nice it was our way of trying to get the country's attention on the strong and courageous voices of our daughters and once it got out there people everywhere have called us in 50 States and Japan and Korea to join this project I want to talk about that a minute because when I talked to Carol Gilligan a couple of years ago about her research on girls the thing that she and I said is how do you keep the Public's attention focused on girls and what could we do and what we thought about was it first we said you know what if we could design an ad that just had the faces of all different kinds of girls and after every television program and on every billboard and everywhere in this country it had the following words a girl is watching this what is she learning about being a woman now I say that because I woke up this morning and I changed a little of what I wanted to say to you I saw the paper and I saw what happened with this whole tailhook thing on the front of this paper this shirt about women as property and what came out of the whole investigation the number people are who are involved and I said to myself in terms of power a girl is reading the paper this morning what is she learning about being a woman and then I looked down and saw that the young man in New Jersey are going to be out on bail and until all claims area under till all of their you know retrials things are exhausted and I thought a girl is watching that what is she learning about being a woman so one thing I want to bring to you is the voices of girls who really are watching us and what are they learning about courage and about being a woman what are they learning about standing up and telling the truth I say this because for one thing we have an advisory committee of young women and they are so smart about what we're doing in this community they look at us and they see how we struggle with power and they completely get it and they are concerned about our voices being heard finally won a little girls when we were having this power discussion said you know she was talking about what happens when men take women's ideas and will widen the women fight but if she fights they're mad at her but if she doesn't fight that she's mad at herself and finally they said you know I don't think women fight hard enough I said you really think that and a little girl across the circle said nah I don't think that it's not that women don't fight hard enough it's that not enough women fight now that's what are daughters are watching and learning not enough women fight and I say this because I think what we what they're also learning is that this fight is about a radical solidarity of women a radical solidarity in Rich by what audre Lorde do with always and riches a real genuine appreciation and articulation of difference of difference by race and class and sexual orientation and something that brought women together our daughters have to have a joined radical solidarity of good community of women in order to deal with this and that means courage beyond what we have done in this country before an adjoining and take our daughters is just a part and I have to add I've never seen anything like what men have learned through this project we have men who come and talk to us and then they go out and they talk to little girls one man came back he said I heard girls talk about men and fathers is the enemy that is never happening to my daughter and so I'm very encouraged about men as well and finally just in terms of sparkling discussion this morning about whether feminism and where is power going I think we have to look at the whole notion of what does it mean to put women at the center of your life that's starting to happen it's starting to happen it is the most radical thing I heard Ellen and Faye talk about the fact that they've cancel anything to get together to see people in the women's Community for lunch what is really hard and what I daughter see when they come to adolescence is that men and not women are still the center of life and that's the message that it's not safe to be at the center of your own life and in order to deal with that I want to talk finally about what's kept out of part race and class that we have to have discussions about disability age but sexual orientation I want to leave you with a parting words that it is not about who you sleep with that is a transgression and patriarchy it is about whether you choose to give your life's energy to women if you put women at the center of your life if you choose to give your life's energy to women then you will have transgressed Beyond any charge of being a lesbian one of the things that I most loved and admired. Gloria Steinem is that years ago she stood up in front of women and said why doesn't everybody just come out and that maybe the thing to do that everybody comes out but to come out as loving women is the real piece of courage and to put women at the center of our Lives is the core of political power thank you Murray quite correctly has called on us for courage and in that Spirit after thank you Leslie and Ellen for bringing us together in that spirit I would have told you begin with a tale of courage in this very Auditorium I was a young Professor here and I was invited to join a team for a pickup basketball game between the women's Liberation team on the one side and the male faculty on the other I don't know what it means but I was the only faculty member on the women's Liberation team and I was given a little t-shirt that I still have with the women's Liberation symbol on the back and the word Ace it turned out to be totally complimentary since I falled out of the first quarter and I turned to the referee and I said ref I haven't done anything wrong she said lady if I'd called everything you done wrong you would have been out of here in 30 seconds it was really a contrasting study of power the man had practiced week after week after week and a guys came in muscles flexing other women hadn't practiced they were counting on their cheerleaders their cheerleaders came in in which entering broomsticks and their idea of a chair was to go hacks hacks hacks hacks will the score came bounding up man 20 women to men 40 women's for after I filed out my truck is my responsibility going behind the Blackboard on which the store was being registered any racing the men's score just to make it a little better but the women camping hacks hacks and then one of the most aggressive muscular machismo of the men fell to the floor with a broken ankle and the women cheerleaders instead of saying women power had this spasm of guilty when did we really do that did we break bomb begins April true story say it was courage in the mind but insufficiently acted out my general subject in my few minutes is going to be women information and feminism as we all know in the 1960s the struggle for women feminism the sense of equity and autonomy and change that consumes us all the struggle for women emerged as exactly the same time as the Information Society some date in 1962 what is considered the phone didn't text you the information Society by The Economist Fritz backflip was published in 1963 Betty Ford and published The Feminine Mystique in 1972 the Japanese issued a very important plans for their society called the plan for Information Society in that same year 72 Ms magazine went into action 1977 the American Library Association said how do we divide libraries for the information age and in that same year 77 Elaine Showalter published a literature their own and barber case Smith published toward a black feminist criticism in 1982 John Nesbitt in megatrends told Americans that the most important change in their life was towards an Information Society in that year Kellogg of Carol Jo goes and who may be the footnote of choice at least of us Marie to author in a different voice what does it mean are they simply publication coincidence I don't think so in the Information Society education matters not just for self-enlightenment but education matters for survival and for success and so is one commentator is written quote although not very felicitously upward access through the social economic strata this Society is a Tsum to depend upon advance to education even more than it present and so we supporters of the struggle for women know that women must be full citizens of the Information Society and opponents of the struggle for women do not want women to be full citizens of the Information Society and it has been feminism good for centuries has cared passionately about education and information and for Ross education in information has been the necessary means to the ends of autonomy dignity equality Mobility self-sufficiency power and even with lock a little pleasure so misogynist and the blind of gender traditionalists have been right to fear the consequences of information for women I'm sure you all know a feminist button which means I think therefore I am dangerous no self-consciously and imaginatively contemporary feminism has structured itself as an educational reform movement with five goals and I would suggest that these five goals mattered in the 1960s and still matter in the 1990s and that the Clinton Administration can support them all and what are they first feminism would improve child-rearing and socialization practices and other people here can speak to that better than I but I would say support any measure against spouse abuse support any measure Against Child Abuse support Head Start support nutrition the second educational goal was this feminism would organize small consciousness-raising groups in which women would learn from each other about their lives in order to change those lives and I guess maybe no state power can do much about consciousness-raising groups nor should they in fact I think if there was a bill to give Government funding for consciousness-raising groups something would have gone a little wrong the third goal isn't feminism would attack the media the Studio's that market lessons and images often trumped-up for a mass culture and here I think the Clinton Administration can support access for all constituencies in all people to cable TV to really make cable TV and radio a Grassroots activity and the force educational goal was that semitism would create cultural Alternatives a splendidly new art literature film music journalism and religion and hear the Clinton Administration can change three agencies the National Endowment for the Humanities the National Endowment for the Arts and The Institute of Museum services so that those three agencies become genuine supporters of intellectual and cultural freedom and so that those three agencies take genuine risks and support Innovative artistic and intellectual and cultural work and finally finally assist gold would be that we would transform that utopian verb or at least told her the sights of formal education from childcare to research centers and here there are a number of policies that can work no explicit Alliance in the end of these goals between feminism and education has had its triumphs especially in higher education and deed the triumphs have been such that a friend of mine has written about higher education that salmon is Sir beset by the fear that academe will declare premature victory for women and higher education that the students will believe that the crisis is past and it to contemporary students feminists will see feminine deadheads congregating periodically around a few aging leaders so stay he retired repetition of a few standard Tunes left over from the 1960s and the triumphs have been genuine and the triumphs I believe need to be extended in the United States least most over discrimination has disappeared we are aware of sex discrimination is an issue of on-campus rape of Date Rape and sexual harassment and I would hope that the Clinton Administration would support efforts such as those now going on in the Noel d e f to support efforts to take work against sexual harassment from the workplace and higher education into the high schools and Junior High's Meryl Streep want said in a Vassar commencement address she asked what is real life like and she said it's not like college it's worse real life is like High School and I didn't like high school when I was there and I really think in part because of the greater sexual harassment High School is worse know not to mention the violence we are two we are much more aware of the differences among women especially the racial differences and we are much more aware of the need of giving access to women of all Races all classes people know the statistic for letting me remind you of it between 1980 and 1990 the number of Native American women attending college increased 30% the number of Asian American women night