- The next schedule KANU news will be at 10 o'clock tonight. It's seven o'clock and you're tuned to public radio, KANU, Lawrence. Public radio, KANU, now presents A Feminist Perspective. This series provides a forum for women to speak publicly on issues of concern to them. Here is the moderator of A Feminist Perspective, Emily Taylor, Dean of Women at the University of Kansas.

- Good evening. Welcome to Feminist Perspective. The purpose of these Monday evening programs as the announcer has told you is to offer a forum for women to speak publicly on issues of concern to them. We also wish to inform other women and men of the movement which is remaking the shape and substance of women's and men's lives throughout the world. Our format consists first of discussion by our guest panelists, on a topic of interest and concern to women. And second, an opportunity during the last 15 minutes, our listeners to participate by calling with comments or questions. Our number is 8644530. Due to technical difficulties tonight, and for tonight only, we cannot broadcast your questions or comments. However, someone will take your questions and comments and relay them to us and we will try to answer them for you. This series is sponsored by the Dean of Women's Office, which functions as a Women's Resource and Planning Center. We invite you to call our office at any time if you wish to discuss a matter of concern to you or if you wish further information. better yet, come in person to talk or to use our constantly expanding women's library in 220 Strong Hall. Our topic tonight is Women in History. And our two panelists are Greta Minsky, a student of English and Beth Linquist, a graduate students in the History Department. I understand Greta and Beth that together you taught an LAS course last semester on this subject. Did you find much interest in the subject?

- Yes, there was quite a bit. Enrollment was closed, so among men as well as women, that we only had one male student in our class. But there seemed to be a growing interest among women in discovering more about their history, which they feel has often been denied or denied them. So it was a valuable experience for us, I think.

- Beth when did you first get interested in this subject?

- Well, I came to women's movement out of one of the typical searches coming out of concern for greater reform issues. And I found my place being forwarded and stopped at many levels through male leadership and power. And secondly, I came to it through my academic studies in history, I had an interest in the long neglected history of women and thesis work and research seminars and those type of things led me to a more academic approach to the study of women's history.

- Do you recall Greta at what time, if at any time, you noticed in history books themselves or other historical writings that women were treated any differently from other definable groups?

- I don't know exactly when I first noticed it, but it was brought home to me again in one of the reading we did for our class. Virginia Woolf's "A Room of One's Own." She talks about going to the British museum, looking through historical studies and finding history of civilization, where there would be four entries for women. Their place, there role, whereas she could never find that type of listing for men or for mankind. And her objection to the generic use of the word man or generic use of mankind is really, it seemed important to me. And I started thinking after that of the very few instances when women were mentioned in history, always their contributions were cataloged in specific areas, such as the home or certain women who were presented as models if they were acceptable as up lifters or as homemakers or as wives of famous men. But generally in contributions, as innovators were neglected.

- We'd heard quite a bit about Queens, don't we? If they're famous in that way.

- I would say this comes a lot out of the nature of historical studies up until say the early 20th century, is dominated by a lot of political and economic discussions. And then you would come to the great leaders like Elizabeth or Catherine. Since the turn of the century there's been an increased interest in social history. And in this area, you come into studies of the family of childhood of women in social situations, in working situations, this type of thing.

- We also have the question of the history of the other women's movement. Would you like to comment on that? I'm especially interested because I keep running into people who think the whole movement toward equality for women was started in 1968 or January of 1970, after I've heard that time mentioned too. When did it really start?

- I would say for the American experience, people usually go to the year 1848 in the Seneca Falls Convention. There were earlier movements in the thirties and the forties and the 19th century. These centered around women coming out of abolitionist crusades. The real spur to the women's movement after 1848, was of course the civil war period, when women did have an opportunity to work outside the homes to volunteer their services. There were also splits at this time, developing more the 1870s, between the women of New York faction. This is Susan B. Anthony. Her associates who wanted reform and suffrage along with other social questions resolved, such as better working conditions for women, this type of thing. And then there were the suffragists who were concerned only with the vote at this time. Of course, this split really became final during World War One period, when Alice Paul and her group formed the Congressional Union.

- You want to comment on that Greta?

- I was just thinking of the earlier instances I can think of that many people are familiar with. Mary Wollstonecraft's book "A Vindication of the Rights of Women," published in 1790, was generally considered to be one of the founding impetus, a founding impetus of the women's movement. Though it wasn't really much understood or discussed until the mid 19th century women's campaign in England and America. But she's always fascinated me. Because growing up her concern with human rights and the kinds of enlightenment ideas about freedom and religion, freedom that she had, that she wasn't taken more seriously at the time that she was writing.

- What kind of reception did she get? Did very many people read what she wrote? And do you have any idea about that?

- She wasn't that widely distributed, though her ideas did filter down to the mass population I'd say at a wide level. But she was generally regarded as a crackpot and much later historical writing has dismissed her this way also, saying that she gave no a good analysis of the women's movement or of any prescriptions for change. And yet she was the first woman to really bring the situation to the concern of intellectual public. And for that reason, I think she's, she deserves to be remembered.

- Would you classify her as a crackpot?

- No, I wouldn't.

- Why did they say that?

- I would say basically she came up on the heels of Thomas Paine and declaration of "Rights of Man." Many conservative middle-class groups considered her statements as being in the revolutionary tradition of say declaration of rights of men out of the French Revolution. So she was not legitimatized in this way. However, later in the 19th century, when people like John Stuart Mill came out in favor of women's suffrage and right to work, her credibility rose.

- One interesting thing about Mary Wollstonecraft, is she's always dismissed as being the product of a bad home environment. And she rebelled against her ordained role of social passivity because she had a bad relationship with her father or an idolatrous relationship to him. And it's interesting that this should be used to dismiss her because I find very little evidence for that.

- Do you feel that we still have some of this? We've already had a question called in. A listener wants to know why are white women so crazy? Not me. He's trying to define crazy or to discuss his intent emphasizing white, I presume he thinks that we're all white and also crazy. Do you find this very common anymore? Are people taking this attitude? Go ahead.

- I would say white women are no crazier than white men. Maybe a little less crazy than certain white men we know.

- Are black women more crazy than black men or white women are more crazy than black women and so forth. This is a form of stereotyping too, isn't it?

- Absolutely, you don't have to say that. I know many crazy white men, black men, white women and black women, that's about as far as I can go on this subject of craziness going to any particular ethnic or social group.

- Let's not confine it to any particular group of people. Well, let's, I probably shouldn't face you with this question, but since someone's offered to ask it, I guess we can give him some kind of an answer to it. Let's talk a little bit more though about what was happening in the history of the United States at least, that would give some notion to why there was an interest that developed even in the middle of the 19th century. What was happening in the country at that time that was making it any different from any other period of history?

- Well, I think one point that has come through as an important reason is, as the frontier moved westward, women were still confined to agricultural and home roles, and they have been doing this for about, for a longer period of time. So that popular sentiment seemed to say that this was an eternal role of women. The child raiser, the nurturant roles. And any departure from this was then viewed as something, as crazy, as a radical split. Whereas in actuality, women had had many different roles before this period of time, and perhaps wanted to regain some of those earlier roles.

- Do you know anything about the history of voting in our country? Was there ever a period in parts of the country at least where women at one time did vote?

- Yes, in the United States, it wasn't until 1699, that the first restrictions against voting and holding office were applied to women and this process wasn't completed by all of the States, until New Jersey finally revoked women's rights to vote in 1807. So we had an early period where women were given a great deal of freedom. And similarly, there weren't as many laws against married women owning property or engaging in occupations.

- So the voting was actually then question of the property owning rather than the fact to be a man or a woman?

- Right, this is a similar pattern in Great Britain. Although we do wanna stick to American experience. It was not until the reform bill of 1832, that women were taken off allowance for voting. And when it did pass later, after the turn of the century, still maintain some property restrictions. I suppose the second period of the voting struggle came with the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments. When people like Garrison said to the women, Wait, you have helped us with emancipation. We will help you later. This is The Negro Question now, hold off. Of course, this lost some women in abolitionists struggle.

- Weren't all willing to wait?

- Right.

- Then it really isn't true that women entered the economic life of the country at some given period of time. They were always a part of economic life of the country. Is that what you're saying?

- Yes, I would say that the women, the working women on the frontier had as an important role as the man, as far as being a producer, they would care for the gardening and the clothing. Periods of the Industrial Revolution, people always saw this being one of the watershed years for women's progress, factory work, productive labor. This sort of forced women out of their home. And then the inequalities of wages and working conditions came in of course.

- And then there were also women who chose to work who, many early American novelists were women. Tumblin has estimated approximately a third of all novels published in America before 1820 were written by women. This was one of the few areas which was opened to them as something they could do at home and something that perhaps didn't require an extensive technical education, but use the types of training that women had, such as training in recognizing and evaluating emotional states and trying to interpret them. So women have been prominent in other areas, even though they haven't always been recognized for them.

- You've Carolyn Bryant tells an interesting story about the early decisions in the garment trade, as to what was to be a man's job and what was to be a woman's job, just very arbitrary arrangements. It could have been the other way around, whatever the various divisions of labor are. But once they were decided that something has to be a women's job then the price of course was put a great deal lower than it was for the ones that, where the decision was that those could be a man's job.

- Speaking of the women's garment group, one of the third big periods of feminist revival, is in the period of the 1890s when the women's trade union leagues developed. And there was consumer leagues. And these were for protection of working women. They were mainly middle-class in leadership and concerned because they of course had the free time to struggle for their sisters in working class.

- What's the time period for Fiorello that you recall? Fiorello the musical comedy it dealt with the efforts of women to form a union. That too is connected with the garment trade as I recall. That wouldn't have been quite that early, would it?

- I don't think so.

- I'd like to remind the members of radio audience that we do welcome your questions and comments, even though tonight they'll have to be relayed to us. But I assure you that we'll make an effort at least to answer or comment on anything that you care to say. Do you have any comments on individual women in American history that you feel have been sort of passed over by historians? Are there any individuals that come to mind that-

- There's so many. In the field of, well, starting off with one woman who made a big impression on me, Ann Lee, was an American woman, well, actually an English woman who migrated to this country and started the Shaker Movement. And women in religion have often been overlooked. And her ideas of communal living, common property and celibacy for both sexes were kind of a historical anomaly. But she also had the idea of a dualistic deity, which would have two manifestations, Jesus having been the male manifestation, and eventually she predicted that a woman would come to present the other half. And I always thought she was an interesting person.

- Where'd you read about her?

- Robert Regal wrote a book called "American Women; A Study in Social Change" and attempted to document many women and their contribution to American life.

- One of our listeners wonders, does there seem to be any correlation between social revolutionary reform movements and reform movements and women's rights? Any comment on that?

- Well, it seems in the past that there've been a couple periods that has followed. As I mentioned before period of the 1890s was a period of social unrest. And from that period of beginning socialist ideas in America. An individual who comes to mind in this context is Charlotte Perkins Gilman, of course. And she was a very fine socialist writer and thinker. Wrote a book "Women and Economics." And she also had an equally strong interest in women's problems and questions. She was one of the first to come out against the podium interpretations of why women assert their power and those type of things. Seems like in social revolutionary movements when women become involved, their interests and their desires come at the end. And this is also a similar pattern when reform comes through that women's changes are made after everything else has been dealt with. After the working hours have been restricted. After working compensation has come through, they think, well, maybe we should tack on some suffrage, and then there's some other things.

- There's a listener thinks he sees a correlation in Chinese history. You know anything about Chinese history?

- Well, I would say that seems to be the case since, I don't know, my vague remembrances of studying "The Long March" and has been, always an emphasis placed on women as producers, women outside of the home. I don't know the accounts I've read, women are encouraged to take jobs, to put off marriage and to be socially productive, as well as men. I don't pretend to speak about Chinese history. That's been true in the European experience, I've seen revolutionary movements such as the Communion, which is my interest, 1871. Women had an active and strong position of leadership and also in rank and and much voice.

- And there might be other kinds of correlations between social reform movements that really didn't have anything to do with women and the progress of the women's movement, are sometimes the same kinds of mistakes made. As someone said recently, every reform movement gets a case of the sillies every now and then, and this is not confined in any way to the women's movement. It happened in the Labor Union Movement. It's happened in all social reform movements. Our number is 8644530. Last week I ran out of time to say this, I do have a couple of announcements to make, and then we could go back to further discussion of this issue. Next Wednesday on the campus, there are two programs that might be of interest to many women, or to men too, perhaps one is the faculty forum in the Westminster Center. The subject is "The February Sisters, Why?" Bev Price from the Women's Coalition will be there to discuss this subject. And secondly, that afternoon from one until four o'clock, the Commission on the Status of Women has another one of it's career browsing sessions, in the Dean of Women's Office in 220 Strong Hall. Those who are interested in exploring various career possibilities and especially in these days, it becomes increasingly important to bring any ideas you have on vocational selections up to date. It would be a good idea that you come in and check out the literature and talk to someone about it. Also on Thursday at 7:00 p.m. on the same station KANU, Marlene Sanders speech, which was given at the Spring Symposium of the Commission on the Status of Women will be broadcast. Now reason I put those in at that time is, sometimes I run out of time before I get a chance to say it. And I understand there's a basketball game tonight so that won't be possible. So if I can redirect your thinking now to the question of Women in History, are there other things in the few minutes that remain, that you think should be mentioned? We haven't talked for instance about why, and I might ask you this question, why do so many people believe that or seem to believe that the women's movement is something that started this last decade?

- Well, most would say that in history that you read being written largely by men, various reform movements have been left out. Research has not been done. Sources are just coming to the floor of the nature of historical studies which is changing now, to include more groups. I hesitate to say, it's a systematic moving out. I don't have any great conspiracy theory or anything like that, but I think it must be said that it is following more interest in reform movements in general and here again, women are categorized sadly, but at least some of the information is being relayed.

- Also, I think that there's been kind of an interval in the women's movement between the vote, gaining the vote in 1920 and the resurgence of interest in the sixties. It was a period in which women were told that their responsibilities were first to become liberated sexually. Then their responsibility was to go to work in the factories for the war effort. Then their responsibility was to go home and raise the children who supposedly were turning increasingly to juvenile delinquency and other problems. So that we have had a period in which women were not generally thought of as feminist though there has been a feminist consciousness I think, throughout those years.

- With few people, of course always continuing to work on it but you are certainly right. Those of us who lived through part of that period at least, recognize how women were pushed and pulled in and out of the labor market kind of at will, particularly when we were at war. Where then it was terribly important that women go to work and anyone was made to feel very guilty if she didn't. And when the war was over, she was supposed to, of course, to go back home and made to feel guilty, if she was doing something very different from what she'd been made to feel guilty for not doing a few years before. I would certainly want to thank our panelists Greta Minsky and Beth Linquist for their contributions tonight. Next Monday our subject is Sex Role Stereotypes. And our guest panelists will be Professor Betty Banks and Ms. Loretta Blonde. Thank you for listening.

- This has been a feminist perspective. We hope you'll join us again next Monday evenings at seven o'clock for this live program.