Interview with Mary Thom

Thom, Mary ; McKiernan, Stephen

Mary Thom (1944-2013) was a chronicler of the feminist movement, writer, and former executive editor of Ms. Magazine. She wrote her first book about the history of Ms. Magazine, entitled Inside Ms.: 25 Years of the Magazine and the Feminist Movement. Thom graduated from Bryn Mawr College.

2011-06-27

In copyright

2018-03-29

McKiernan Interviews

120:26

McKiernan Interviews
Interview with: Mary Thom
Interviewed by: Stephen McKiernan
Transcriber: REV
Date of interview: 27 June 2011
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(Start of Interview)

SM (00:00:04):
Testing one, two. All right, we are going to get going here.

MT (00:00:10):
Okay.

SM (00:00:13):
And I will be checking these. It is probably be better to have these here.

MT (00:00:18):
[inaudible] whatever you want.

SM (00:00:22):
Yeah, because your voice just [inaudible] just speak up and I will continue to borrow your pen here. Yeah, first question I like to ask everyone is what were your personal growing up years like huh? Who were the people that inspired you? Who were your role models? How did you become who you are of the people? Because especially on women's issues and so forth, and a writer. Where did Mary Tom come from?

MT (00:00:50):
Literally, I was born in Cleveland and grew up in Akron, Ohio. And my family was basically Ohio conservative, which at that point in the (19)50s was not social conservatism as much as tapped economic, that kind of thing. So it is interesting that both my sister and I turned out to have completely different politics than our parents, but I cannot think politics were a big thing in the family. It was around, and certain social welfare was an issue. And my father, especially, I think, was a very kind of open guy and had friends from all kinds of different parts of society. And that was influential. After grade school, we went to a private day school, and I had teachers there that were very influential, and especially a history teacher, Mrs. Shepherd, who was extraordinary. I think she influenced me to become... I studied history as an undergraduate and also a Columbia and graduate school, so that was her influence. But I did not really realize that I talked differently from many of my classmates until the years that I was studying with her, which was sort of my junior and senior year of high school. And one of the things she did is she brought the film on HUAC, what was it?

SM (00:02:57):
Oh, house on air.

MT (00:02:57):
Yeah, but what was the film called? I cannot remember. It was a very famous film where they sort of exposed what HUAC was doing in terms of... And half the class sort of was horrified because it made them think that we were being invaded by Russians, and the other half the class was horrified at HUAC. So it was this sort of balancing thing. So I do not even think I had realized until then that there was this sort of bedrock conservative and a communist.

SM (00:03:37):
Was that (19)50s or late (19)50s?

MT (00:03:39):
Yeah, I mean, I graduated high school in (19)62, so that must have been (19)60, (19)61, (19)62. And then another in incident that happened is, because this is very sort of Lily White Ohio community is a black girl, came to one of the picnics where we recruit new students. And some of my people who I thought of as my best friends were horrified that there would be a black girl, which I just could not understand. I mean, I had never been brought up that way at all. So it was sort of an interesting... And then the other thing that was happening is that we were following the anti-war movement, there were marches against, I guess it was not war so much as anti-nuke because it was Skunk in (19)90 and that sort of thing. And there were marches in Cleveland, and I knew people that had been doing that. And also one of the biggest influences, I think, was that there was a Shakespeare festival every summer in and around Cleveland and Akron. And the guy who was head of the McMillan Theater in Princeton brought this festival. And other friends of mine hung out there. And we did tasks, we sold tickets. Some worked on the lighting for maybe three years in succession. And at the same time, I went to summer school with some of the kids that were... At that time, going to summer school the first time that I knowingly had friends who were brought up in Democratic family and families that were part of the Democratic Party. So that was sort of very opening my mind to things. And then I was also involved in folk music, so I read, Sing Out. Oh, yeah. And my mother was horrified because she said, "we are going to get on a list" which I thought was stupid, but probably was not. So there are all these sort of conflicting things.

SM (00:06:22):
You went off to Columbia?

MT (00:06:23):
No, I went to Bryn Mawr undergraduate.

SM (00:06:25):
You went Bryn Mawr, and then what did you do in graduate school?

MT (00:06:29):
I went to Columbia in European history.

SM (00:06:31):
What was it like? What were the college environments? I mean, both schools at the time that you were there?

MT (00:06:38):
Okay, Bryn Mawr was sort of-

SM (00:06:41):
You can keep going. I shall keep checking.

MT (00:06:48):
No, that is okay. Bryn Mawr was on the verge of becoming radicalized when I was there. I graduated in (19)66. Kathy Dedan was a friend of mine, I mean she was a year ahead of me. She was more of a mentor, I suppose, than a friend. And she had brought a very influential event to campus, which I think it is called the Second American Revolution, where a bunch of kids from the south, from Tulu and different schools and people in the Civil Rights movement came to campus. And I cannot remember if it was my freshman or sophomore year.

SM (00:07:27):
That is pretty big, because-

MT (00:07:31):
It was enormous, exactly. So I got involved in the Civil Rights Movement. And in fact, with my friend Jenny Kerr, who's who was from Indiana, we started something called the Social Action Committee at Bryn Mawr. And I think it was sort of more or less under the auspices of Kathy and some of her friends who I believe sort of loved the idea of these Middle Western kids as opposed to people from radical families organizing. So that was an organ for... We raised money for Snick to send down. We did something called Fast for Freedom, where we convinced the administration to take the money from a fast and let us get it to give it to activist, which did not raise much money, but it was a vehicle to... And we worked on students’ rights issues, which were really feminist issues because of Bryn Mawr. I mean things like that we were not allowed to stay out late and things like that. I mean, we altered some of those rules, those paternalistic rules. And then the other thing we did, which I found a little problematic, but was probably harmless, is that we organized the Maids and Porters, Bryn Mawr was like a plantation at that point, although very-

SM (00:09:17):
(19)62, (196)3, (196)4 and (196)6?

MT (00:09:28):
Young, mostly black people took care of being maid some porters. And they lived in these small rooms, and basically, their grievances were that they could not have any kind of normal life because they could not have men in your rooms and things like that. So that was interesting. I mean, what we did is talk to a lot of my new young women in this situation and got them excited about making demands. The reason it was problematic for me is that this was sort of the junior and senior year. And then I realized I was going off, and then here, I had sort of stirred up this-

SM (00:10:19):
Can of worms and...

MT (00:10:22):
So what we did, I mean, I think we acted responsibly. We got involved some labor people from Philadelphia who came in and were counseling to these people. So I think it was fine, but I realized at that point that I was mobilizing and doing-

SM (00:10:46):
See those kinds of things were not really happening in the (19)50s on just about any campus. I think there was sensitivity on campuses toward what was going on in the South New York, students were cognizant, but even the African American students in the South, the lunch counters was like (19)60, (19)61 in that particular time frame. So you are in the kind of what I call the forerunners of this feeling, correct me if I am wrong, that you view that your voice really did count and that you wanted to be change agents for the betterment of society.

MT (00:11:21):
Absolutely and-

SM (00:11:22):
I mean of a development of self-esteem, that you were somebody, even when you were a college student, that your voice needed to be heard.

MT (00:11:31):
Oh, yeah. I mean, think that is absolutely true, and I think Bryn Mawr was a place to encourage that, even when we were being nettling up to-

SM (00:11:42):
Off to Columbia next, and of course, we all know what happened 60 years-

MT (00:11:45):
First, let me just say, the other thing I did is I went down to... Bryn Mawr would not allow exchanges because they were so snotty, they did not want the students to go off any place else. But we did arrange three week exchange over spring break. So I went down to Tulu, and this was in (19)64 maybe. I am trying to remember, maybe 65. And that was very influential as a group of us from Haverford and from Bryn Mawr. We were also involved in antiwar movement and things like that. And I had also been involved in Philadelphia. And for the summer when the Shona and Channey and Goodman were killed, I was in New York working with Core. So I had become quite involved at that point. But the trip to Tougaloo was particularly amazing because we did not do much. I mean, we just sort of hung out with the kids. But you drove around Jackson in an integrated car, especially with license plates from a northern state. And there was a tank in the town, basically. I mean, it was a police vehicle that was armored. And nothing happened, but you had had the sense of what had happened and could happen.

SM (00:13:19):
How many were in your group that went south and you were there for six weeks?

MT (00:13:22):
Weeks? No, no, not six weeks, less than that. Okay, two or three. Yes, I said they were not willing to let us off for that long. I guess there might have been 12.

SM (00:13:36):
How did you get there? Just by car?

MT (00:13:39):
Yeah, it was just organized it fairly informally. And we had made contact with these two little kids from the thing that Kathy had organized years before. And it kept up some of the contacts.

SM (00:13:54):
Did the kids and the people there tell you what it was like to live in this?

MT (00:14:00):
Oh, yeah, they did. I know from my friend John Edgar, who was at Miz later with me, she was at Millsaps at the time, which is a white college in Jackson. And she did things like organized to get the Tulu kids into the Millsaps Library. And the tool they used was that Millsaps had the federal deposit branch of whatever, the library, the books. And so that they argued that they had to let the Tougaloo kids come into the library and use it. So there was a lot of that kind of stuff going on and Tougaloo was at the heart of it, various radical... I cannot remember their names now, but professors, yeah, were there. So it was a great place to learn about what-

SM (00:14:58):
Did you fear for your life when you were there?

MT (00:15:00):
No, but I just realized, I mean, you had a heightened sensibility. I mean, you sort of feared for your life. I mean, you sort of knew what had happened to people. I mean, we were in the middle of Jackson. We were not out on some country roads, but certainly the kids told us, if you were driving around, be careful. No, it is amazing.

SM (00:15:28):
Especially when the Shona, Cheney and Goodman was killed. And I talked to a couple people that were actually being trained and they were heading down after and there was a fear, but they still wanted to do it because-

MT (00:15:44):
But mostly what I... I mean, absolutely. But mostly what I remember about that was hanging out with the two little kids and drinking deer and discussing music. I mean...

SM (00:15:56):
But you were expanding your horizons. You have seen the world as it really was not the way mom and dad may have.

MT (00:16:05):
That is right, much to my parents feared dismay, although they always were supportive of both my sister and me.

SM (00:16:17):
The second question I have is, in your own words, what was it like being a woman in the (19)50s?

MT (00:16:29):
In the (19)50s?

SM (00:16:30):
Well, I would, saying a high school, a female going to high school from (19)58 to (19)62, to be in college from (19)62 to (19)66. Things started changing in the late (19)60s. But what was it like being women in the (19)50s and (19)60s? Any gains? I have a lot of notes here. I have read-

MT (00:16:54):
No-no, that is right.

SM (00:16:57):
[inaudible] The era of was this was a stay at home. This was a number when most women were staying.

MT (00:17:02):
Certainly my mother was of that, and she stayed at home. She was very happy to be staying at home. She did a lot of volunteer work because that would advance her family. I mean well, both because she was a good volunteer but I mean, that was part of what her job was, was to represent us to the community. So that was sort of a given but on the other hand, there I was at an all-girl school. Well, we had a couple boys in our class through middle school, but through high school. And that made a big difference in terms of what we thought of ourselves intellectually. I mean, we never had that kind of intimidation that other kids had.

SM (00:17:51):
Did you go to an all-girls high school too? Okay.

MT (00:17:54):
Yeah.

SM (00:17:54):
So you come from a little different [inaudible]

MT (00:17:56):
Yeah. I went to all girls high school. We certainly had contact with the local boys schools and went to proms. And that was always sort of not something that I felt comfortable. I mean, I felt comfortable enough, but it was not something that... But then it did not matter that much because my life was in this other kind of situation. So I had boyfriends, but they were not like be all of my existence. And then I went Bryn Mawr. And that was kind of a great atmosphere because we had our own institution. But I took classes at Haverford, and certainly the organizing had to do with kids from Haverford. One of my boyfriends was actually... I do not know if I want you to use this, but I will tell you anyway, was Ben Davis and his father was part of the Center for Constitutional Rights, one of the founders.

SM (00:19:12):
Oh?

MT (00:19:17):
And that is how I got to know Kathy Bine. They were Steve Smith, which was her boyfriend, and Ben were roommates.

SM (00:19:25):
Now, Kathy is, correct me, I am wrong. Did she die in the-

MT (00:19:30):
No, she went to prison.

SM (00:19:32):
Yeah, she was in prison.

MT (00:19:32):
And she is out. Now, she is out. She has been out for about 10 years, I think. But she had a kid that then the Jennifer... It was a [inaudible] what is her name? Brought up her son.

SM (00:19:50):
I think she used to have her boyfriend was the one that married Bernadine Dorn.

MT (00:19:55):
Not her boyfriend, but they were friends. But Bernadine Dorn and-and that guy whose name escaped me was brought up her kid.

SM (00:20:03):
Oh, wow.

MT (00:20:04):
Kathy's child.

SM (00:20:05):
Huh.

MT (00:20:07):
But I did not have anything much to do with her except I heard about them when I was at Columbia. I had friends who were in living in.... They had just been living in Chicago and had been in Chicago during the Democratic doing. And Kathy and some other people had been sort of camping out of their...

SM (00:20:34):
I think there is a book out on them, on that family that-

MT (00:20:38):
Yeah, Susan Brody wrote a book on them, and Susan was at Bryn Mawr a few years before me. But anyway, I mean that Kathy had obviously gone through these sort of transforming things, partly in Cleveland and then partly later. And I knew kind of what it was, because I left Columbia in (19)68 during the uprising. And at that point, I had a boyfriend and I came home every evening. So I was not there doing some of the demonstrations, but I was there enough to be voting. We were also involved in getting more rights for graduate students and things like that. And I saw what would happen to doing the demonstrations but what people did once you threw stone through the window of the Dean's office. I mean, that was sort of the middle class kids throwing that off and becoming agents and radicalized. And it was not something that I felt that... Maybe I made those decisions afterwards. That is what was happening.

SM (00:22:03):
Your background is one again, where high school and college, women had a voice. Women were important, in a lot of society. A lot of women did not have that feeling. And one of the criticisms of the anti-war movement and the civil rights movement has been that women were placed in secondary roles, not all but most. And they got tired of the way men treated them. And that was one of the thrusts of the women's movement. They split away from the anti-war civil rights. And even people I have talked to admit that those two movements were just, were that way.

MT (00:22:49):
Oh, they were. Absolutely.

SM (00:22:50):
Did you think that is one of the main reasons why the second wave of the women's-

MT (00:22:54):
Oh, yeah. I think absolutely. I mean, I experienced in slightly different way, because I was not in groups that resisted my voice as a woman since in the New review that I was organizing, that did not happen. But I did when feminism began, when it dawned on me, although as I said, I have been doing proto feminist organizing in terms of students’ rights and maids’ rights and things like that, I realized that this was a way that I could experience and influence change through my own situation as opposed to working with other oppression. So that is what was important to me. It sort of transferred all those things that I felt in terms of the Civil rights movement and the anti-war movement in a way, because in a way, I was not going to get directed.

SM (00:24:04):
I know there has been some books recently written saying that women were very powerful in the Civil rights movement. And that even list of the names, there is books and written about women of the South that were important and so forth. But overall, I think even within the Civil Rights movement, it was a male dominated movement. And that is why I would have loved to talk to Bratt Scott King to-

MT (00:24:35):
Or Fannie Lou Hamer. I mean, yeah. And Fannie Lou was shifting ahead somewhat.

SM (00:24:48):
Dorky Hyde was another one.

MT (00:24:49):
Yeah, Dorky Hyde was their driver. But Fannie Lou was one of the founders of the National Women's Political Caucus. I mean this was... If we go forward here now, we are going forward. I was at Columbia. I left graduate school. I left during the strike because I realized we all went on strike. And I also realized at that point, I did not want to teach. It was very hard at Columbia because the classes were... I do not know when you went through graduate school, but the classes were...

SM (00:25:23):
I started at (19)72.

MT (00:25:25):
Well, that is a little beyond, but in (19)68, our class was like 200 or 104 or something. And everybody knew all those people were not going to get jobs, but it was bloated, partly because you could still get out of the draft in graduate school. So graduate school was sort of shocked me because you had to jockey for position and politic to get the attention of professors. And so in any case, I just left. I left in (19)68, I went on strike and did not come back, is what basically happened. Now, did you get your PhD or? No, okay. And I had a 20-page paper that I did not turn in, so I did not get a master's either. But I mean, it is that sort of thing. Who cares? Although later, I think the Masters would have helped. So I left, and then I worked for something called Fax on file for three years, which is a news reference service. I sort of got into journalism that way. Excuse me. And then the magazine started, I had gone off, my boyfriend at the time was teaching in Renovo, and we had gone to stay in France for half a year or something. So I was living there, and that is the time when Miz started. And when I came back, my friend Joanne, who might mention who was the one in Tulu in the [inaudible] had been Gloria. She had gone down to work for Evers campaign, not Neicker but his brother, Charles. And so had met Gloria that way through friends of hers. Pat Darian was her friend. So Gloria had come back. She had had leave Mississippi, basically because her family put too much pressure on her. She just could not deal with it. So she came back and was Gloria's assistant at the time the magazine started. So when I came back from having left Facts on File and been in France, the magazine was starting and Joanne said, come in, because I do not want to do research, and that is what they are going to make me do. So you come in and do that so.

SM (00:28:06):
What year was this? 19...?

MT (00:28:08):
I am sorry, excuse me. The magazine's preview, who came out at the end of (19)71 and Volume one, number one came out in July of (19)72. So it was that spring, it was February of (19)72 that I came back and started working for Miz. So I do not know when I was... what Train we were on when I was thinking, oh, the caucus was starting, and the caucus also started that year at (19)71. And so Fannie, that is when I met, and I had gone to Washington briefly after I had worked with Paxon File and worked as a volunteer for the caucus, the National Women's Political Caucus. And that is what I met Fannie Lou. I mean, no, I had seen her before because I had been at the demonstrations in... Where was it? Atlantic City, the Freedom Democratic Party Demonstrations.

SM (00:29:20):
Yes, (19)64 that was. Right? (19)68.

MT (00:29:29):
(19)68.

SM (00:29:29):
No, that was (19)64, because Johnson was not... He did not run the-

MT (00:29:30):
It was (19)64, right and (19)68 was in Chicago. But I have Pan Lou had been speaking, I mean, I had seen her as an organizer, but I had not met her. And she was part of the caucus finally. So yes, there were these wonderfully strong women who were involved in the Civil Rights movement. And some of them merged into the women's movement in a way that I do not think... I mean, people talk about the women's movement as being white and middle class. Well, it certainly was not on that side of it, on the political. I think what has happened is that because the caucus was involved in politics, you immediately had this impetus to be more inclusive in terms of race and things like that so. And Gloria was always very careful too, about when she went out to speak, she always had a black woman with her as a co-speaker. So that was a kind of influential.

SM (00:30:38):
How did Gloria Steinem come to this? She had been a Playboy Bunny or once-

MT (00:30:45):
Well, no, she had done that as a story. She had gone underground as a Playboy Bunny and to write a story for... I do not think it was for New York, although she worked for New York Magazine at that point. She had gotten radicalized by the, which I think many people did, by the abortion movement in New York State. New York State decriminalized abortion, I think before a lot of other places. And she had already been sort of involved in terms of... Well, she had been a supporter, Caesar Chavez and the farm workers, but she covered the debates in law Albany about abortion, which were completely outrageous because there were not any women who were testifying about the need to decriminalize these. So there were speak outs that were organized and things like that. And that was really what she was doing. And then she started writing about women's issues for New York. And then people wanted the magazine of the... There was talk about doing a feminist magazine. And so she had meetings in her house with a lot of different editors and different writers and different activists. And that is how Miz began.

SM (00:32:26):
And that is her brainchild on there.

MT (00:32:29):
Pretty much. There were other people, Susan Brown Miller had been working at one.

SM (00:32:32):
Oh, I interviewed her.

MT (00:32:35):
She had been working at... Well, there had been a sit-in at Ladies Home Journal that Susan had been involved in. So there were different things coming together. But yes, I mean Leddy Pilger, she had written this book called How to Make It In A Man's World, but she was involved in the start of the caucus and had been sort of becoming more feminist. And Pat Carine was editor of McCall's at this point. She had been an editor at Look, so she had sort of a hard news... Not hard news, but a featuring news background as well as women's... And she was very interested. So she and Gloria sort of got together to be the two...

SM (00:33:25):
When you had just finished your undergraduate years and you were heading off to grad school, (19)66, that was also the year that the Feminine Mystique was written by-

MT (00:33:36):
Was it (19)66 or did she do it? No, I guess it was, yeah.

SM (00:33:44):
I have got down here. (19)66 was an important year because in 66, the Feminist Mystique was written and.

MT (00:33:50):
Feminine Mystique, yeah.

SM (00:33:56):
Yeah, and I also know that some of the women that were involved in the formation of the National Organization for Women were people like Paul Murray and-

SM (00:34:03):
Organization for women.

MT (00:34:03):
Right.

SM (00:34:03):
People like Pauli Murray and Shirley Chisholm. Well, Shirley was not involved in National Organization for Women, I do not think, but Pauli Murray certainly was and so was Aileen Hernandez, who you could still talk to, although you are done with your interviews, but- Aileen who?

MT (00:34:19):
Hernandez, H-E-R-N-E... I do not know. I think she sort of... I interviewed her for the [inaudible] Book. She was the second president of NOW, and she is a Black woman who still is an organizer in San Francisco.

SM (00:34:38):
Oh, wow.

MT (00:34:39):
So-

SM (00:34:39):
I have interviewed 22 people.

MT (00:34:40):
Yeah, I know. I can get you her email if you want.

SM (00:34:46):
Yeah.

MT (00:34:46):
Then you could just ask her some questions-

SM (00:34:49):
I am going to be out in San Francisco. I am done with the interviews, but I continue to have them, some people that I contacted a long time ago, or now contact-

MT (00:35:01):
Yeah, I think she still will. I mean, she is getting up there.

SM (00:35:06):
How important was that book?

MT (00:35:08):
To me, I did not even know about it.

SM (00:35:10):
Okay. You did not know about it?

MT (00:35:12):
No, but it was very important to a group of people who felt trapped in that role. I am a little bit younger and definitely was not trapped in that role. I mean, I certainly went through periods of domesticity, but I knew about it later. I met Betty when the caucus was forming and she was a little bit antagonistic about the magazine, about Bella and Gloria. Bella was also involved in the caucus formation, so there was a little tension there. I think Betty and Bella made peace at the end of their lives, but those are two strong personalities.

SM (00:36:15):
Oh, yeah. Definitely.

MT (00:36:18):
Barbara Jordan was very important too, to the-

SM (00:36:22):
Oh, yeah.

MT (00:36:23):
...to the women's movement. Bella and Shirley, you can see in my book, they collaborated on childcare. It was so interesting. You should read the interviews in that book that I did with Marco Politi, who was Bella's aid. Because they just failed, there was legislation dealing with women's issues that just sailed through Congress at a great rate in the early (19)70s.

SM (00:36:56):
And that is due mainly to the-

MT (00:37:00):
Yeah, to Bella and to Shirley. I am trying to think if there are other people. There were some other congresswomen who were...

SM (00:37:08):
Yeah, Shirley came to our campus. I met her. I have a lot of pictures of her when she was there.

MT (00:37:17):
They had very strong voices. And it was a sort of... But they were stopped on some issues. The main one being that I can... Well, the RA of course, I mean, it sailed through Congress, but then it was stopped in the States, but also childcare, because Nixon vetoed it. That is I think, a very important event, because had he not vetoed that bill, it was set up to not just provide childcare for poor people, but to set a structure that would have involved middle class women as well and I am sure would have become...

SM (00:37:59):
Why did he veto it? Was he-

MT (00:38:01):
Socialist. It was communist plot.

SM (00:38:01):
Okay, so he was actively anti-

MT (00:38:08):
I mean, I do not think he believed that. I think partly, it was political. It was catering to... Maybe he did believe it. I do not know. But that is what the anti-childcare... You do not want the government bringing up your children, which of course, not what was going to happen but-

SM (00:38:28):
Hey, with all the criticisms they have of Richard Nixon as a president, he was much more liberal than people realized.

MT (00:38:34):
Well, that is right.

SM (00:38:34):
...particularly on a lot of the social issues. And of course, his international firm in reaching out to China, no matter what you say, that was excellent. Some people I have interviewed have said that was only the major happenings of-

MT (00:38:50):
Oh, I think so. I went to-

SM (00:38:52):
...and yet he destroyed it all by what he did in the-

MT (00:38:56):
Well, but I mean, he was also not trustworthy. Even the childcare thing proves that.

SM (00:39:04):
Yeah.

MT (00:39:05):
I went to China in 1978 with a group of journalists. It was soon enough after that, it was right after the Gang of Four fell.

SM (00:39:15):
Oh yes. Yeah.

MT (00:39:16):
So it was a really interesting period. Anyway.

SM (00:39:19):
What happened in the early (19)70s that created the second wave in the women's movement?

MT (00:39:25):
Well, there were these-

SM (00:39:25):
[inaudible] as a boomer-

MT (00:39:25):
Go ahead.

SM (00:39:28):
When you look at boomers, I have to preface this by saying that boomers are those more between (19)46 and (19)64. But I also include, after interviewing so many people, people that I consider having the spirit and the role modeling that many of the people between 35 and 45 have of the boomers. So really, when I say boomer, I am talking about in terms of mentality.

MT (00:39:56):
Right.

SM (00:39:57):
And time wise. Have you been pleased with the way these boomers have actually carried on the women's movement? We are today into the third wave of some... It is a two-part question. What happened in 19-

MT (00:40:14):
(19)70.

SM (00:40:14):
What happened in the early (19)70s for the second wave to start? And when and why did the third wave start in the (19)90s? Because a lot of criticism today of the third wave is kind of isolated. You do not see them out there and as visible as you saw the second wave.

MT (00:40:34):
Well, I mean, I would say the second wave, there were two strains, and I am sure Joe will have told you this, Freeman, because she writes about it, I think. There was a group that was organized around women's rights that basically came out of the Kennedy Commission. There was a commission that Kennedy formed on women's rights, which was a basic commission on the status of women that did a study of women's rights. And a lot of the early NOW people and WEAL, Women's Equity Action League is another important one, the people that founded NOW, some of them were commissioners or staff people on that commission. There is a woman named Catherine East who was at the Women's Bureau for years and had been involved in that commission. And she is someone who collected data forever and ever until it came to the Bush administration who had started throwing out that capacity of the labor department to produce data that supported job actions and things like that. So there was all that going on in sort of legislative women's rights angle. And then there was the group of the more radical feminists that came out of the anti-war and Civil Rights movement, who came out more of a protest movement. And Joe would consider herself part of that as Robin Morgan, all sorts of people. And that was another. And so those two groups sometimes on a couple of issues were a little antagonistic. One of the only one I remember is that there was a move to stop for sterilization among especially Latina women in New York. And some NOW people were against that, because they thought part of it was a waiting period before you could sterilize a woman. And that was too close to the limitations they were putting on abortion. So there were certain clashes. But basically there were two very strong segments that gave a sort of legal and street cred to the women's movement, that was quite strong. And that was all going on in the (19)70s. That is when [inaudible] had its heyday. And you can see from the letters that when we started publishing, people from all over the country said, "I thought I was the only person who felt this way."

SM (00:43:44):
It has happened many times.

MT (00:43:47):
Just astonishing. So there was this whole untapped reservoir feeling, which I think was organized during that time. And then what happened? I mean, I will just go on, but you can stop me and ask questions. I do not think there was, or at least I do not see it as a sort of stop and start thing. What I see is a lot of people organizing less in national groups, but in more local things or around particular issues. I mean, for instance, in the women's movement here in the United States, rape was an important issue. In England, it was more organized around domestic violence, but they were both sort of against violence against women and those cross fertilized. But people became... As opposed to in some multi-issue organization, they would start rape crisis centers, or they would start domestic violence centers, or they would work for gay rights. And then there was a whole thing where all those things were brought together in a national way, was at the Houston Conference, which was in 1977, which Bella got government funding for.

SM (00:45:16):
I have a book on at that conference. [inaudible]

MT (00:45:26):
So that is what I think happened. I think there was a lot of just people and Black women would organize, and Latina women would organize. And I mean, I think it was sort of a natural thing when people started directing their energies to more specific issues. And as far as I am concerned, it was all part of the women's movement. I that we always saw it as that. And there was the campus, a lot of women's studies was a big center.

SM (00:46:07):
Yeah. It is interesting. When I interviewed Phyllis Schlafly, who was one of the main people, one of the reasons why the Equal Rights Amendment did not pass, I think it was 35 states passed it, but you need 38.

MT (00:46:24):
Yeah. It was ridiculous. I mean, when we started [inaudible] we said it will be passed within a month or two. It will be ratified.

SM (00:46:33):
It was not passed in Ohio, because I remember my former boss who just passed away, who was one of the leaders of the Ohio movement, she just about cried.

MT (00:46:43):
I think it was ratified and then it was taken back or something, I think that is what-

SM (00:46:48):
I do not know. I remember the vote was... And I worked at OU at the time, and she was listening to it on the radio from Columbus. And I can remember when she came out, she broke down, because she-

MT (00:46:59):
Well, it was just-

SM (00:46:59):
...just spent two years on it.

MT (00:47:01):
It was shocking, because it seemed so basic. And as I said, it had gone through, the only hitch of going through Congress was the labor movement, who did not want to give up protections. I mean the shorter hours for women and things like that. But once that was worked through-

SM (00:47:23):
So the criticisms of the women's movement today is that people try to compare it to the way it was in the (19)70s where-

MT (00:47:32):
It was a national-

SM (00:47:36):
...there were protests. They were unified with many other groups. It could be the anti-war groups, the civil rights groups, the gay and lesbian groups, the environmental groups. There seem to be-

MT (00:47:47):
More culture.

SM (00:47:48):
...in protest, a unity amongst all these groups. Now, today, even when I am talking to lesbian leaders, it is isolated. We do not see the groups together. They are into their own thing. They are not working together. I am not sure they might be working together, as someone said in Congress, but they are certainly not being visible together.

MT (00:48:14):
No, they are not visible in the same way. They are not visible in the same way as a sort of protest movement. Maybe that is because... Partly it is because they are so successful in changing minds, at least in terms of women's movement. But there are certainly... I am trying to think of where... There is a lot, I mean, there are other kinds of campus actions. Well, throughout this whole period, there are things like Take Back the Night marches, which is something that certainly still motivates younger feminists.

SM (00:49:00):
And what is the purpose of that? We have it every year on our campus [inaudible]. But what is it, these people are reading this. A lot of people believe that it is because those people were murdered up in Canada.

MT (00:49:15):
No, it was not really that. Anyway-

SM (00:49:17):
A lot of people at Westchester University thinks that is why it happened. So they are misinformed.

MT (00:49:21):
Well, I mean, I do not connect it. Certainly that was a big issue, but mostly it was because of predatory people on campuses that were... Take Back the Night was, women should feel safe walking through their own campus. I mean, there was a whole issues about acquaintance rape that were developed during the (19)70s and (19)80s. And so I mean, there was more of that impetus than the Canada one, I think.

SM (00:50:15):
Yeah. And another big issue was that pill that college students were-

MT (00:50:20):
Yeah, the date rape.

SM (00:50:21):
Yeah, date rape.

MT (00:50:23):
Pill.

SM (00:50:23):
And they would knock a female out. And that was big in Westchester, because two guys did it and they were caught. I mean, they were nice guys. Did not think they were not very ice.

MT (00:50:37):
Yeah, I know.

SM (00:50:41):
Their parents found out about their two sons and boy they were gone.

MT (00:50:46):
So there are those issues that I think motivate younger women. And I think the abortion issue is one that is now things that younger women took for granted are now coming into play again.

SM (00:51:04):
One female leader told me in an interview, and I will not mention the name, she said, she will visit the National Organization for Women Office now. And all she will see, as far as the literature is concerned, is literature on abortion, literature on aids, literature on was the third one, reproductive rights or something like that. And a lot of the issues centering on equal pay, being hired like a man is high. The issues that were many times front and center in the women's movement, do not seem to be like-

MT (00:51:48):
Well, I do not think that that is exactly true. Not with that particular issue. Because of the woman who brought suit, Congress had to overturn the Supreme Court ruling on, why am I forgetting her name? The equal pay thing. And then now there is currently a push to, there is an equal pay law that is in Congress now. That is a big thing. So I think that issue, but I think probably that is always been true of now that they have been more on sort of legalistic and abortion front than they have been active and effective on...

SM (00:52:32):
And this same person was very critical of an organization, because they did not even deal with the issue of pornography.

MT (00:52:42):
No.

SM (00:52:43):
They let it ride. I mean, there is nothing, that you would only ever see them...

MT (00:52:47):
But yeah, that was not there. Again, there were anti porn feminist groups. There was a clash between free speech feminists and anti porn feminists that we certainly documented in [inaudible]. There was a cover that said one woman's pornography is another woman's erotica. I mean, yeah, I mean that there was active kinds of...

SM (00:53:18):
See, another thing that came out too, you are dealing with different ethnic groups. Because I think [inaudible] has done a great job in that area, because I had looked at the literature and I see people of color from the get go.

MT (00:53:30):
Absolutely. But that is not seen as-

SM (00:53:32):
Yeah. But genetic colon, I think in one of the early folks, sister president, she talked about the pressures within her own African American community. When someone would ask her, this is when she is president of Stone, would ask her, well, what cause are you really identified with, are you really one of us, which is being the African American issues of racism? Or are you a feminist? Are you a African American first or a feminist first? And then there was a whole issue of the gay and lesbian. Where do you fall on that? Because she had dealt with some issues with the school on that. So she felt conflicted over the first two. And from her peers. Is that a pretty common pressure?

MT (00:54:19):
I think it is. Although how ridiculous is that? I mean, the core issue are I mean, they should be the tightest coalition. So that exists. And they have been in various times. But I certainly think that Genetical and many other Black women have felt that pressure. And it is one of the reasons that Gloria was so tried to be so careful about having two people out there. But certainly the women's movement has been criticized often as being a Lilly white movement. And as I said, it just was not.

SM (00:55:01):
When I first started this project, and I mentioned doing a dual book on the Boomer generation, that is about white men, is not it? I have perceptions of boomers as being white men and white women, but not, and no, it is everybody. And so I try, Native American, you name it.

MT (00:55:21):
You talked to LaDonna too, did not you?

SM (00:55:21):
I have talked to LaDonna.

MT (00:55:21):
So that is good.

SM (00:55:21):
Unbelievable. What a great-

MT (00:55:21):
And she was one of the founders of the caucus too.

SM (00:55:31):
Yeah. In fact, she is coming to, she is fighting cancer, and I probably should not review that, but I interviewed her and depends on her health will depend upon her coming back east this summer, because they have started the [inaudible] Center and I think at Indiana, no, not Indiana, California, University of Pennsylvania. And I said, if she comes back, I want to take her to lunch. But I have not heard. But what a great person.

MT (00:56:05):
Well, and also the Cherokee woman, why cannot I remember her?

SM (00:56:10):
You mean [inaudible]?

MT (00:56:12):
No. I will think of her name.

SM (00:56:15):
Wilma Manquel?

MT (00:56:16):
Wilma. Yeah, Wilma. I mean, she was a very good friend of Gloria's and lovely woman. And Ladonna's daughter is an organizer.

SM (00:56:28):
Yes. And I talked to her husband, Fred Harris too. I mean, even though they are divorced, they are still close as anything. What began, this might be a little repetitive, but what began as a battle for equal pay, an equal status of all women in American life, in the area of jobs going to college, sports, leadership roles, politics? Why did the following issues become so forceful when now is organized? And [inaudible] Magazine came out and I talk about the abortion rights and the Roby Wade of (19)73 and the ERA of (19)74, which I mentioned earlier, then reproductive rights and certainly all the isms, were very important to now. And certainly lesbian rights became important as well, gay rights. Why did those take center stage?

MT (00:57:31):
Well, I think they took center stage, because they were easy to grasp. I think when the caucus was founded, one of the arguments that Bella and Gloria had with Betty is whether to include an anti-violence plank, an anti-war plank? And Gloria and Bella won that argument. So part of the organizing foundation of the caucus was, which had always been a strong part of women's movement since Women's Strike for Peace, was that kind of group. But I think the sort of more simple, or even symbolic, if you think of it that way, of the ERA, were easy to organize. And abortion touched everyone's life. I mean, people remembered, if you are my age, many people went for back alley abortions. So that was really a strong issue. But then I think the issues of domestic violence and violence against women in pornography and those issues emerged as something that the women's movement was deeply concerned about. And then international feminism was at the end of the, basically, I mean it had been around all the time, but basically at the end of the (19)80s became very important. And then-

SM (00:59:11):
Robin Warren wrote a book on that.

MT (00:59:13):
Robin did, and Bella was very involved in international families. And Robin worked, I mean, she did, sisterhood was global, which was the anthology. And then that brought in development issues and environmental issues worldwide for women. And that is a very strong strain of women's movement today.

SM (00:59:43):
When you look at all these, the progression movement women have gone through in the, I would say (19)60s, (19)70s, (19)80s, (19)90s, and right through today, and think of the women who were the mothers of the generation, the boomer generation, 17 million from 1946 after the war ended, to 1960, early (19)60s.

MT (01:00:07):
Excuse me.

SM (01:00:08):
These issues, many of them probably were not even being discussed by them, meant like Phyllis Schlafly says, "What is wrong with raising children and being fulfilled as a mother?" I mean, that was the way it was back then. And she says, feels her greatest accomplishment was her kids and being there for her husband, despite all of her accomplishments as a writer, as a lawyer, as she will go back to those two things.

MT (01:00:33):
Yeah, that is ridiculous.

SM (01:00:35):
Yeah. But you see, she said she speaks for a lot of women. But so you have the conflict where you read a book and say that most women were not fulfilled in the (19)50s, but they just could not express it. And they raised the kids, but they were very unhappy and probably would have divorced, but they kept together.

MT (01:00:57):
No, I do not think most women would say that. I do not think that is true. I think a lot of women were, my mother certainly never felt unfulfilled. And Gloria has always said that raising a human being is probably the most challenging job in the world. I mean, I think the thing is that it helps if fathers get involved too. And that is the real push. And I think it is happening. I mean, my nephew is a much different person by far than his father's generation, in terms of what he expects out of his life and the kinds of things he does in his marriage.

SM (01:01:50):
One of the things kids would say is the father was always away and the mom was always at home. So they were closer to the mom, obviously.

MT (01:01:54):
Yeah.

SM (01:01:58):
Because the father was away making a living. Now you see a reverse where the husband might be at home. A lot of things, a lot of changes are going on.

MT (01:02:11):
Yeah.

SM (01:02:11):
Definitely.

MT (01:02:12):
And that generation has completely different expectations. So I think that is very interesting.

SM (01:02:18):
Some say that, I always use that term some, because I have interviewed so many people, that Betty [inaudible], Gloria Steinem are mainstream feminists and they are really not radical [inaudible]. Few things here. What is the difference between a radical feminist and a mainstream feminist? Because people that are...

SM (01:02:38):
There you go.

MT (01:02:38):
Well-

SM (01:02:38):
Hold on.

MT (01:02:38):
Okay.

SM (01:02:39):
Let me turn this over here. And so you are doing both. I have been doing two takes halfway through first 100 and I only did one take.

MT (01:03:05):
Well, I do not think that is a correct analysis. I mean, I know people that have that analysis. Mostly they are academic feminists, I think. I would say that, I mean, Gloria's certainly a radical. I mean, I am less sure about Fredan. I was never that close to her. And I think it is probably not true. I mean, as I have indicated, she had to be talked into the anti-war plank. She had a problem at the beginning with having the women's movement involved with lesbian rights. So I think that was a sort of different frame of mind. But I think Gloria has always been fairly radical. Across the board, I do not think she would define herself as one thing or another, but she is open to any number of issues. So I do not see this clear divide between, I see it at the beginning as I described how they arose from any more movement and the more women's rights movement. But I do not see it going forward. I mean, I think once you get involved in the particular issues of feminism, maybe there are radical approaches and there are legal approaches. But a lot of those work together. I mean, I think it is more in sort of academic theoretical circles that you get this kind of insistence on the division and what is mainstream and what is known. There is always who is known and who is called upon and who is lesser now?

SM (01:04:56):
Where would you place from different era here now, because I have been from an academic environment, and I know that people have talked about it in some of our programs, not in any of my interviews, but there is a difference between mainstream and radical. And where would you place the following people, people that we grew up with and know historically, Bella, Shirley Chisholm, Molly Yard, Tricia Ireland, Eleanor Smeal, Robin Morgan, Mary Daley, who just passed away recently. Jermaine Greer, who I met six months ago.

MT (01:05:41):
Jermaine is a trick. I mean, she is gone.

SM (01:05:46):
And so then of course, Geraldine Ferraro and Hillary Clinton and...

MT (01:05:48):
I do not know-

SM (01:05:48):
And Helen Gurley Brown and Susan Brown Miller. And you have got Rebecca Walker and LaDonna Harris, Carol Gilligan and Winona Rider.

MT (01:06:02):
And Alice Walker.

SM (01:06:05):
Yeah. So there is a lot of different ones there.

MT (01:06:07):
But I do not know, I could try to figure out how they think of themselves or how they rose, what strain they came out of. But I mean, certainly Robin came out of a radical strain. But I cannot really define people that way. I mean, Dorothy Hyde came out of a very sort of traditional women's organization kind of place. But I think tactically things work at different times, different tactics work at different times, which is how I would approach whatever issue I was interested in. I mean, when Gloria speaks, she tries to tell her audience, do one outreaches act today. I mean, that is your form of organizing, which makes you think. But I mean, I think basically what is appropriate in terms of, and I think that although it is a sort of mainstream outcome, the idea that Bella was able to get money from Congress to put on the largest, actually the largest democratically elected conclave that there ever has been in this country, which is what the Houston Conference was, is pretty radical. I mean, it is not radical if you define radical as something other than electoral politics. And then if you look at the agenda- And then if you look at the agenda that came out at the Houston conference, it is completely inclusive.

SM (01:08:14):
You might even say the same thing though, the way you are describing it here is what people felt in 1848 with Elizabeth...

MT (01:08:14):
That is right.

SM (01:08:20):
Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, who believed that they were connected to the hip, when in reality they had tremendous disagreements later in life. I think they split at some juncture.

MT (01:08:32):
I am not sure. I do not know that they split.

SM (01:08:36):
I forget what the issue was, but there was a big one later on.

MT (01:08:40):
Well, there was a big issue with black women, with the race issue. Because at one point, I do not know who it was...

SM (01:08:42):
Frederick Douglass was very close to Elizabeth Cady Stanton.

MT (01:08:42):
Yeah.

SM (01:08:56):
And of course then Susan B. Anthony was coming from Rochester and that is where [inaudible] had the North star, the newspaper.

MT (01:09:05):
Yeah.

SM (01:09:07):
Maybe what you are saying is that we are seeing it is a different era, a different time. So how you define people is very difficult because one person's radical is another person's mainstream.

MT (01:09:26):
Or people can be mainstream and radical in their life.

SM (01:09:31):
Yeah.

MT (01:09:31):
Whatever. At whatever point one tactic works and another does not.

SM (01:09:43):
Yeah.

MT (01:09:43):
That is how I think of myself. I do not give myself those labels.

SM (01:09:45):
When you look at the women's movement, of course conservative women are, we all know Phyllis Schlafly, but a lot of people do not know others.

MT (01:09:56):
Well, there is Sarah Palin and...

SM (01:10:01):
Yeah. Well, there is Sarah Palin. The ones that I have listed here are more recent. Of course, Phyllis Schlafly, Gertrude Himmelfarb is older. Sarah Palin, Margaret Thatcher from England, Michelle Easton.

MT (01:10:17):
I do not know.

SM (01:10:17):
She does the Clare Boothe Luce Institute at Clare Boothe Luce And then of course, there is Ann...

MT (01:10:23):
Brockman.

SM (01:10:25):
Yes. Brockman. And then you got Ann Coulter, Michelle Malkin, Laura Ingram, [inaudible] Buchanan and I cannot even read the last person. But yeah, Ms. Brockman.

MT (01:10:42):
It is nuts. These women are nuts.

SM (01:10:44):
When the women's movement looks at them. Is it like the Black caucus from Washington looking at the JC Watts and the other John who was a conservative? Is it right to eliminate a group because of their politics or a women's...

MT (01:11:03):
Yeah. Yeah. The reason it is right is that they are not champions of other women. And in that sense, they are not feminists. If you do not support services for women or equal pay, equal rights for women or childcare, I do not know how you can call yourself a feminist. I think Sarah Palin probably does, but as far as I am concerned, it is mislabeling. And I have to quote, going again, said, "We are never in favor of Eva Braun becoming head of state."

SM (01:11:46):
Yeah.

MT (01:11:46):
It is not a matter of gender at that point. It is a matter of outlook and interest.

SM (01:12:01):
And a lot of people used the black caucus in Washington as the best, especially when JC Watts was there, was very popular.

MT (01:12:10):
Right.

SM (01:12:13):
Former [inaudible] star. They would not get him the time of day because he was a conservative. And the other guy was Franks, was his name, the guy that proceeded him, he was conservative too. But that stirs some of the college... I work with college students and why not be inclusive even though they are...

MT (01:12:32):
Well, because their aims are different than yours.

SM (01:12:34):
Yeah.

MT (01:12:36):
That is the answer, there are people that have called themselves feminists and have been promoters of Sarah Palin but...

SM (01:12:50):
I got quite a few more questions and I only got 30 minutes to go here. What are the main accomplishments of the women's movement up to the third wave? And what has the third wave really done to add to the movement? And when I am dealing with college students and high school students who do not read their history, in your own words define first wave, second wave, third wave and their accomplishments.

MT (01:13:22):
I am not quite sure I can, but I can take a stab at some of this. I think a main accomplishment was simply put, when I graduated from college, I could not get a loan in my own name. I had to have my father sign for a Bloomingdale's card. So different pieces of legislation like equal credit legislation and things like that have been very empowering and part of that has to do with economic changes because women were more and more in the workforce. But I think that was certainly part of the women's movement. And the other thing is I think how feminists and others influenced by feminism have brought up their children. I think they are completely different expectations. As we talked about before, probably not all over the country, but between my nephew's generation and he is 30 now, is he 30? He may be older than 30. Well, in any case, he is in his 30s and generations that came before in terms of what gender roles would be. And another enormous contribution I think is the linking of international feminism. So that now...

SM (01:15:04):
A third wave, is not it?

MT (01:15:04):
Yeah. I think it came to fruition in the third wave, although I think, as I said, Bella was a big mover of that, and Robin and different people. But at the moment, I edit for the Women's Media Center. Well, you know that...

SM (01:15:19):
I love your website.

MT (01:15:21):
Oh, good.

SM (01:15:22):
I like your logo too.

MT (01:15:23):
Yeah.

SM (01:15:23):
Yeah.

MT (01:15:25):
But I just have a piece that I am going to put up based on an interview with Yanar Mohammed, who is head of a women's rights organization in Iraq.

SM (01:15:36):
Wow.

MT (01:15:36):
And we know these people. A friend of mine who also writes for me, Shazia Raki, I think her name is, is Secretary General. That is how they title them, of an international organization of parliamentarians, parliamentarians for human rights or something like that. And she is in contact with different women in parliament all over the world. And so we do the organization, Bella organized with men [inaudible], it is not as powerful as it used to be, but it is conceptually organized to promote women's development and the environment. There is this bringing together of those issues because environmental issues impact women so much more directly than men in the developing world.

SM (01:17:00):
There was the big conference and was it in China couple years ago?

MT (01:17:04):
It was a couple, being in 1995.

SM (01:17:08):
Yeah, that was a major...

MT (01:17:10):
Yeah. And that was the fourth of international conference. So that had been going on since... Mexico City was the first one. And then, oh, in Mexico City and in Europe, one in Europe and one in Africa, and then this one in Beijing, which was the culmination.

SM (01:17:30):
I think Hillary Clinton went to that, I think.

MT (01:17:39):
Hillary was there and she still has that message about women's rights, I think.

SM (01:17:52):
It is interesting about when people try to look at the history. If you look at 1848 Seneca Falls, and I go there every year. I took my dad there before he died, we had a great day there and...

MT (01:17:53):
It is beautiful for one thing.

SM (01:17:57):
Yeah, it is a beautiful place. And I go there just to take it all in. I go to Elizabeth Cady Stanton's home to get a feel for the history that took place in that house, which was basically the same and the furniture has gone, the sofa is still there, and the sofa that Frederick Douglass found.

MT (01:18:14):
Oh, wow.

SM (01:18:27):
You could feel, I can just feel when I was with my dad, their presence. When you look at the history from 1848 through today, we talk about first wave feminism that began at Seneca Falls. And we talk about the (19)70s, late (19)60s and (19)70s, and then the late (19)90s. But another period was around the prohibition period.

MT (01:18:44):
Right. The reform period.

SM (01:18:46):
And I do not know why they do not consider that second wave and then the (19)60s third wave.

MT (01:18:52):
Well, I think you could, there is a continuum. You are right. Except that there was, after the vote, I think people expected a lot more to happen. So I think the expectations were greater than what happened. And maybe that is why people cut it off. But then Eleanor Roosevelt, she was very instrumental in the commissions on the status of women in the Kennedy Commission. So I would put her as one of the...

SM (01:19:30):
You wrote several books, you wrote a book on Ms. Magazine, Letters to Ms.

MT (01:19:31):
Right.

SM (01:19:41):
I think it is a great book. And what did you learn from writing these books that you did not know before you started? And maybe I will add the book that you just wrote too.

MT (01:19:50):
Bella.

SM (01:19:51):
Bella. What surprised you the most when you wrote these books? Because you have a tremendous knowledge already.

MT (01:19:59):
Yes. I did. I think of the different... Because I did approach them, all of them actually as oral history volumes, that was not so much oral history that it was stories through letters so it was the same kind of thing. And I think what surprised me was the incredibly different ways that people come into consciousness. That is an old women's movement word, but into realizing, into the place where they start interacting with the world as feminists mostly, I have been dealing with feminists. So I think oral history is a powerful tool for that because you find out what is in peoples' background so that was surprising. When I did the Bella book, a lot of the surprising things... Well, I just found out about wonderful collaborations between Bella and Ron Dellums for instance. I had no idea and I just had a wonderful interview with Ron Dellums, who...

SM (01:21:10):
He is the mayor of Oakland.

MT (01:21:13):
This is right before he became mayor of Oakland when I interviewed him for that book. But he came into Congress the same year that Bella did. And they had this wonderful, incredibly warm relationship. But he was able to describe in this, it was just a terrific interview.

SM (01:21:38):
You already wrote a book, you know the experience with Bella and Mr. Dellums and of course we know about Elizabeth Cady...

MT (01:21:47):
Well, that is interesting.

SM (01:21:50):
With Douglass. The relationship between a powerful woman feminist with a feminist mind and an African American male...

MT (01:21:58):
Yeah. That is interesting.

SM (01:21:58):
Who has a sensitivity to women's issues as well, as issues of racism within his or her own community, I would think that would make a great book.

MT (01:22:07):
That is interesting. Well, I would like to write another book. So those things are wonderful. The other wonderful interviews I had with the Bella book, for instance, there was one with...

SM (01:22:24):
Chicken. Yeah.

MT (01:22:24):
There was one with a man who was a young lawyer with Bella. They were both entering lawyers in this law firm. And I just loved his mind because for us, he just set up the whole feeling of what law was after the second World War and labor law in particular, and the clashes that were going on and the fact that labor people had put off demands during the second World War. And then after the war was over, all this was bubbling forth. And there is another interview I had with Ireland, I cannot remember his first name. He was a journalist basically but he set up the whole sense of how things happened in the (19)50s.

SM (01:23:20):
Oh, wow.

MT (01:23:22):
And led into... So just these people with minds that could understand what was happening in social, the same thing you are trying to do, is understand what was happening in social movements. And with that book, those interviews were just astonishing to me because they would just bring in all the trains and make sense of things.

SM (01:23:47):
See, what comes out of this and the word 'context' comes out of everything. And I have always believed that we do not, I remember African Americans in the (19)70s saying that, "You do not know what it is like, you live in white skin. And whoever hears someone say they understand us, I doubt it. They have not lived like we do." So that is always been the subject that I am very sensitive to. And I do not believe we should be judging people, that is why context is important to understand from their, because they are the ones who live their lives. We did not live their lives. Let me check my time here.

MT (01:24:17):
It is just quarter after one.

SM (01:24:17):
Yeah. We got time, you are fine. One other thing, you have probably heard this before...

MT (01:24:35):
Oh. Of course, Liz. I should say, of course Liz was involved in all of this early (19)70s legislation too, which I...

SM (01:24:39):
Right.

MT (01:24:40):
But go ahead.

SM (01:24:41):
Yeah. And I am going to be talking to her a lot about Watergate and...

MT (01:24:44):
Oh, that is right. She and Barbara Jordan.

SM (01:24:47):
Yeah. Talked to her a lot about that. One of the things that I have heard from critics, with some of those conservatives that I mentioned is that some people say that feminists hate men.

MT (01:25:03):
Yeah, no.

SM (01:25:07):
And Ann Coulter is actually, we had her on the campus. She is actually a pretty nice person. I think she plays the game when she is on in front of a camera, but when she is behind, when you see her one-on-one, she did not even talk about that stuff. She talks about going to Cornell and it is amazing, her best friends are liberals.

MT (01:25:33):
Well...

SM (01:25:34):
Conservatives do not like her that well. They like her when she goes to the conferences and students and everything. But she has a, I know this for a fact because I have had friends in Washington and that her best friends are all liberals. And they chide her, based on the books she is writing. So anyway, let us not talk too much about her, but when you hear that, what do you...

MT (01:25:57):
Man hating?

SM (01:25:58):
Yeah.

MT (01:26:00):
That is always been a charge and that actually was one of the early charges that Betty had against, accused Bella and Gloria being man hating, which was ridiculous. Especially Bella, who had the sweetest, most lovely relationship with Martin that I have ever seen in terms of a married couple. Well, men were in positions of power, in terms of women's goals or in the position of being predators when it comes to issues of violence against women. But that did not mean that feminists had something against individual men or did not welcome men as partners in fighting these issues, as valuable partners in terms of some of these issues, speaking out.

SM (01:27:12):
It is interesting because Hugh Hefner comes up a lot in some of the conversations, and I believe he supports women's rights.

MT (01:27:28):
No, he supported his daughter.

SM (01:27:28):
Yeah. And the thing is, and he has always said that he did Playboy Magazine because it is art. It is artistic and he does not believe it is pornography and the beauty of the body and he is like an artist. And that is a conflict also within some of the people who try to understand though. And then the women, they grew up in the late (19)60s and early (19)70s, they want to be looked at not just as an object, but...

MT (01:27:59):
Right. That is the point. And I do not think it is necessarily pornography either, but it certainly does not respect, the issue is respect. And I think Hefner, the Playboy Foundation tried to give money to all sorts of, to the ERA and to other causes. And did at some point, but to other points, women's groups sometimes rejected those. But I do not think it was a matter... I think it is a matter of respect and you take this man who treats women interchangeably, obviously. Even now, what does he have, three...

SM (01:28:34):
He was married.

MT (01:28:38):
Marry someone but there was three, you could not really...

SM (01:28:42):
Yeah, he got that TV show.

MT (01:28:42):
Right.

SM (01:28:46):
Yeah, they are all gone now.

MT (01:28:46):
Yeah.

SM (01:28:49):
He said he was going to marry that 25-year-old that broke off the last minute.

MT (01:28:53):
Whatever. You just cannot, I am sure he loves his daughter and I think he probably did have sympathy for some of these issues. But the basic thing is, I am not a big anti-porn feminist because I think sometimes they take it, the anti-porn people take it too far. But I do agree that people that are involved in pornography and involved in trafficking, mostly women are there against their will, against their economic will. Even if they...

SM (01:29:42):
The thing that surprises me is how many women today, young women who do pose for...

MT (01:29:48):
I think that...

SM (01:29:49):
They have no sensitivity; no knowledge of past history and they do not give a damn.

MT (01:29:54):
I know. But they are also, and more power to them, much more comfortable with their bodies and with their degrees of sexuality than my generation. So in a way that is all great.

SM (01:30:09):
Boomer women were born between (19)46 and (19)64, and I mentioned that spiritually their people were older. How do Boomer women differ from Generation X and Millennial women who are connected more to the third wave than the second wave? And how important have young Boomers been activism wise since their youth in the late (19)60s and early (19)70s? Now, the young people in the late (19)60s and (19)70s were coming into their own in their early 20s at the time of the women's movement beginning. And I have always tried to understand it from the well-established writers and thinkers within the women's movement, are they disappointed? In terms of the people that have followed them? And can you compare the generations that have followed, there has been two. Generation X, which at times really could not stand the older generation.

MT (01:31:19):
Well, 'feminism' became a bad word. But the causes, they certainly clung to the same causes, that same causes define their lives in many ways. So although 'feminism' became a dirty word at beginning in about, well, the (19)80s...

SM (01:31:46):
When Reagan came in.

MT (01:31:46):
When Reagan came in and there was a lot of conflict. I think there is a lot of, there was discomfort and certainly young people were uncomfortable being branded as feminists in part because of the charge that feminists hated men and all this stuff.

SM (01:32:04):
Generation [inaudible].

MT (01:32:05):
Yeah, exactly. And occasionally I would go to conferences and there is the wonderful history conference that, I do not know if it is still happening, but the Berkshires conference, which happened every four years and brought together all sorts of wonderful... And I remember a panel there in, it must have been the (19)80s, where there were older academics, feminists saying, "You younger women do not know, you just take everything for granted", blah, blah, blah. And one young woman got up and said, "Is not that what you want?" Which is just a wonderful comment. And of course it is.

SM (01:32:58):
Yeah.

MT (01:32:59):
And you cannot help but think, oh, they should know what struggles we went through. But in fact, the idea that the subsequent generations take for granted what you worked for is about the best validation you could think of.

SM (01:33:18):
Yeah, I think that is really true today for the Millennials. Yeah. They take for granted. But this is my perception, I think they truly care.

MT (01:33:28):
Oh, yeah.

SM (01:33:29):
And I believe they are very cognizant of the women's movement. I think women in college today are, I consider them much stronger than the Generation Xers.

MT (01:33:39):
Before.

SM (01:33:39):
And I see a link between Millennials and Boomers and with respect to the fact that they want to leave a legacy and make the world better, Boomers wanted to do it sooner and oftentimes without thinking that they want to do it sooner. But Millennials want to do it later, after 40. They want to raise a family. I have done that reading of Hunter Strauss's book on the generations.

MT (01:34:07):
Mm-hmm.

SM (01:34:08):
So I look at today's generations in a very positive way. I have had negatives a long time for Generation X.

MT (01:34:15):
Well, I think maybe the current generation is less affected by the negative feelings about activism, feminism, about things like man hating or things like making... I do not know. I think that could well be that there is this reaction to how aggressive the earlier activists were.

SM (01:34:51):
We did panels on the Boomer generation and Generation X at our college for two years. And there was a tension in the room between Boomers and they were Boomer faculty members basically and the Generation X students who were the sons and daughters of Boomers. It is interesting. But today, 85 percent of all the college students are the sons and daughters of Generation X people whereas 15 percent are still Boomer kids. But back in those days, in the (19)90s, they were mostly all from the Boomers. And two things came out of it, they were tired of hearing about the nostalgia about what it was like back then.

MT (01:35:35):
Certainly nostalgia was [inaudible].

SM (01:35:37):
Yeah.

MT (01:35:37):
You cannot...

SM (01:35:39):
And then the second thing was, "I wish I had lived then."

MT (01:35:41):
Right.

SM (01:35:58):
Because you had causes and we had nothing.

MT (01:35:58):
Well, I think...

SM (01:35:58):
That was the (19)90s. That is not now.

MT (01:35:58):
Yeah, it was the (19)90s. But I think it would be hard to replicate the (19)60s. You look at what was happening so quickly, the music and going along with it and the culture. It was...

SM (01:36:07):
See, the only thing they really had was the anti-apartheid movement which was happening.

MT (01:36:08):
That is true.

SM (01:36:12):
That was important. But it was not everything. What does it mean to be a feminist in your own words? And does the women's movement differ from the feminist movement?

MT (01:36:26):
Oh, I use them interchangeably. Although I suppose you could define them differently. You could define the women's movement, I think people have used it differently having the women's movement be more strictly rights oriented and the feminist movement being more culturally oriented. But I use them interchangeably. And as a feminist, I think my definition of feminist is someone who sees the world through the perspective of women and gender, and understands issues in terms of how it affects women. And it is a champion for women, for empowerment of women.

SM (01:37:16):
So men can be called feminists.

MT (01:37:24):
Oh, yeah. Although, probably would have a different perspective than women who were coming at it from their own experience. But yes, I think so.

SM (01:37:33):
So Frederick Douglass was really a feminist and...

MT (01:37:35):
And Ron [inaudible] was certainly a feminist. Yes. Yeah.

SM (01:37:45):
What happened to that era when all activist groups were seen with each other? I think we already talked about this.

MT (01:37:50):
I think coalitions were hard to maintain, once organizations became established and interested in their own successes and longevity, I think coalitions became more difficult.

SM (01:38:12):
Would not you think though, the war in Afghanistan and certainly in Iraq, that you would see in Washington? There has been protests, but I have been to one, and I had not seen the signs. I would go by the signs and I also go with the people that are speaking. But to see more anti-war people from feminist groups, certainly the anti-war groups, the African American groups, Native American, Chicano, you name it, Asian groups all together against war. I would think...

MT (01:38:52):
You would think you would see this in droves.

SM (01:38:53):
I think when you... Yeah, I do not see it.

MT (01:38:56):
Well, I think that there is... Well, there is definitely a conflict within feminism in terms of Afghanistan because there is Code Pink and people like Jodie Evans who see no advantage to bad intervention and the [inaudible] majority, Ellie Sniel, people like that would support US actions that would help women in Afghanistan and there are those too. Jodie would argue that it is not really helping in the long run, these are not issues that can be advanced with an occupation force. And Ellie, I think would argue that intervention and empowerment of women in Afghanistan was enormously important. And I do not know where I would come down. I think they are both... But it is interesting that Jodie is...

SM (01:40:05):
Jodie who?

MT (01:40:06):
Jodie Evans, her name is, and she is a co-founder of a group called, you should look at it up, at least find it on the web, Code Pink. Code Pink goes and disrupts congressional hearings and everything like that. There is an absolute out of the (19)60s in your face demonstrating group. And Jodie happens to be the board president at the moment of the Women's Media Center. So she works very closely with Gloria, Gloria and Robin and Jane Fonda were founders of the Women's Media Center. So they all work closely together, but they have these different perspectives.

SM (01:40:50):
Yeah. Jodie.

MT (01:40:55):
Jodie Evans. Yeah.

SM (01:40:56):
I think she might be a good interview too.

MT (01:40:58):
She would be and she is in California most of the time, although she travels around.

SM (01:41:08):
I contacted Jane Fonda, but I contacted her a long...

MT (01:41:10):
Yeah, I think Jane probably would not have time.

SM (01:41:12):
She was with CNN and she was married to Ted Turner.

MT (01:41:15):
Ted Turner. Well, she is not married to Ted anymore.

SM (01:41:17):
Yeah. But she just said she was too busy.

MT (01:41:22):
Well, I think Gloria is involved in her own oral history work at Smith. So I think she probably would have the same reaction. But she is doing all the...

SM (01:41:36):
Yeah.

MT (01:41:40):
I think she made that commitment to do it with Smith.

SM (01:41:42):
Your thoughts on the job that the media has done in covering the movement in the (19)60s and (19)70s, and I am going to make a few comments here. The media, there is a brand-new book I interviewed a person at Regional College in Philadelphia, just written a book on the media and how covered the (19)60s... filled out and just written a book on the media and how it covered the (19)60s, and the sensationalism was all they cared about as opposed... And it is left lasting images that were really not true because-

MT (01:42:13):
Like bra burning.

SM (01:42:14):
Yeah. The image of the media was supposed to always build things up. The-

MT (01:42:21):
I do not know. I do not know. I mean, I do know that it was always a joke, and Bill said someone would come out with a headline, The Women's Movement Is Dead, almost every year since 1973.

SM (01:42:39):
Well, just my question here is your thoughts on the job that the media's done in covering the movement in the (19)60s, (19)70s, and (19)80s in particular, and maybe even beyond. Did they concentrate on the sensational or the unusual, or what was really happening every day? I use the examples here, the bra burning in Atlantic City, what we saw about people being nude at Woodstock, which was really a minority, if you really know-

MT (01:43:03):
Well, and you know that the bra burning never took place.

SM (01:43:05):
Yes. I know that did not take place. There were maybe about 20 people that were new that [inaudible]. It was not very many.

MT (01:43:10):
Yeah. And they were covered in mud. So, what the hell?

SM (01:43:16):
Yeah. The drugs. The drugs at the Summer of Love in San Francisco. Of course, I put in here the song that was very popular at the time in the (19)60s, Love the One You're With, which was an image that free sex no matter what is happening. The communal movement where there were lots of sex. That is kind of the perception that people had. Just your thoughts on what the media has done for the women's movement and for the movers and on the events of that period, were they well upfront? Were they honest, or were they...

MT (01:43:55):
I think there were certainly journalists who were absolutely wonderful. I mean, Eileen Shanahan comes to mind, who was an early... She was a Times reporter who did mostly economic stuff. But then she started covering the women's movement. She for the Times, and then Shabel Shelton for the Washington Times at that point, which was completely different than the Washington Times now, or Washington... the other paper besides those. These women were absolutely wonderful in terms of covering the women's movement. I think that the press, the media was completely essential to the spreading of feminism. The fact that they were there and they were covering these issues was very important. On the other hand, as I said, there is a tendency in the media that said all this or all that. That is why you always had these feminism is dead sign. There was a news forecaster who when Ms. came out, said, "I would give it six months."

SM (01:45:05):
Oh, my God.

MT (01:45:06):
And we got him to come back five years later and do an ad for us. It was Reasoner... Was it, Reasoner?

SM (01:45:09):
Harry Reasoner?

MT (01:45:17):
I think so. Who did an ad for us. It said, "I gave it six months. I was wrong." I mean, he said it so...

SM (01:45:19):
That is an interesting anecdote.

MT (01:45:27):
Yeah. I think I must have it in the...

SM (01:45:28):
Even on ABC, Harry Reasoner.

MT (01:45:28):
I think it was Reasoner. You know-

SM (01:45:33):
He was also 60 Minutes.

MT (01:45:35):
Yeah. But... Oh.

SM (01:45:35):
He did both.

MT (01:45:37):
Maybe. I wonder if it was someone else. Anyway, it is in the Ms. book. You can find it. So, I am up to Mines. Now at the Women's Media Center, a lot of what we are doing is identifying sexism in the media, which is surely easy to find. But mostly that is not the main... I mean, part of it is mainstream media, but part of it is talk radio and the cable stations. There is all these horrendous stories that people will watch out for and send in to the Women's Media Center and then it is spotlighted on the thing.

SM (01:46:22):
You know, it was Eddie Hoffman was very outspoken when he did all these crazy things with the hippies. He says, " You got to do crazy stuff to be able to get the media to cover you." That is the way you do it.

MT (01:46:36):
Yes. I suppose that is true. But the women, there was absolutely coverage. I remember when I was volunteering for the caucus in (19)71, and Liz Carpenter was Press Secretary of Ladybird Johnson and very involved in... She was one of the founders of the caucus. She was so media savvy. This is during the Nixon administration. There was an appointment in the Supreme Court to fill, and I think it was Liz's idea. She said, "We will put out a list of women who are qualified." That was picked up all over the place. It became an issue. It became something that Nixon had to consider. He did not do it then. But then Sandra Day O'Connor came on, not that far, I mean, during the Reagan administration. So, there was a way of... That is before. The media has been now much more dispersed. But there was a way of capturing, if you knew how things worked, and certainly Yappy did.

SM (01:47:46):
Oh, my God.

MT (01:47:48):
And Liz Carpenter did, in a much more mainstream way. I mean, there were-

SM (01:47:52):
[inaudible] dollar bills [inaudible]

MT (01:47:55):
There were ways of using that.

SM (01:47:59):
You keep making reference to the media caucus. What was that, the women's caucus? What was that?

MT (01:48:06):
What? The women's media...

SM (01:48:06):
Yeah. Caucus.

MT (01:48:09):
Oh, no. There is the Women's Media Center, which is what I work for now, which is something that is been founded in the last six years by Robin, Gloria and Jane Fonda. There were the... Oh, the National Women's Political Caucus was what I was referring to before, which Bella, Shirley, Betty Friedan... I am forgetting someone.

SM (01:48:38):
And that started what year?

MT (01:48:39):
(19)71.

SM (01:48:41):
And the basic purpose was?

MT (01:48:43):
Get women appointed and elected to office.

SM (01:48:46):
Very good.

MT (01:48:47):
And it still exists, although it had chapters in every state at one point.

SM (01:48:55):
Mm-hmm. How we doing time-wise there? Is it going to quarter of there?

MT (01:49:00):
It is 20 up.

SM (01:49:01):
20 up? I have to leave in 10 minutes because she is only five miles away. But she is at Park Place. It is not that far.

MT (01:49:09):
It is hard, but... Well, you probably will not run into traffic at this point.

SM (01:49:15):
Well, I back to 9A and just go back that way.

MT (01:49:17):
You can just turn on 96th Street. Is that-

SM (01:49:24):
Yeah, I got my instructions. It is pretty easy once you get back on 9A.

MT (01:49:28):
So, you are going downtown, right?

SM (01:49:28):
Yeah.

MT (01:49:31):
On the West Side Highway, basically.

SM (01:49:33):
Yeah. She is on 34th, and I do not know... She is at Two Park Place.

MT (01:49:38):
Well, Park Place is all the way downtown. But what you will do is just, you can get on the highway right here at 96th Street.

SM (01:49:47):
Yeah. She said there is a place to park right across the street.

MT (01:49:49):
Oh, good.

SM (01:49:57):
I guess... I have got three more pages here. But in your own words, can you define female leadership? How does it differ from male leadership, in your opinion? The third part of this is, do women want to be treated as equals to men by securing the qualities that men have in order to succeed? A lot of people, doctors have said, "Well, if they take on the characteristics of men, they will die as early as men do."

MT (01:50:25):
Or have nothing to offer the world in terms of a different style of being. I would say that, in my experience, women's organizations have are very different. I spent from (19)72 to (19)91... So, what is that? Almost two decades at Ms. It was non-hierarchical in many, many ways, in many frustrating ways for some people, for some things. But it was also empowering because if you wanted to take something on, you took it on. There is a different model of leadership. And it still exists. I can see it in terms of... I just finished doing a lot of interviews for the National Council for Research on Women, which did a conference and now is doing a follow-up report on the concrete ceiling, they call it, that Black women reach at the top of corporations. The women in these corporations talk about a very different style of leadership that women have in the corporations, which it is like the toughest thing you can think of because that is the most structured kind of thing, but a kind of difference, inclusiveness. There are so many different... It is so interesting, the kinds of differences they have identified. Some of them work to women's disadvantage; some to their advantage. That leadership thing, I think, works to advantage. Women are becoming very valuable to corporations that are trying for a global market because they are used to negotiating and in different ways. But also, women do not hook on to mentors in the way that men do. Men are very comfortable using their relationships to advance, and women want relationships with much more trust and sort of much deeper things. It is fascinating. I mean, I think there are lots of gender differences, and I do not think we would want to just emulate men. But I think it is a question. I think when women got into positions of leadership in a situation where men were the norm, that is when things like Queen Bees would emerge because that is how you could function. But I also think if women are at a critical mass, then there is a chance of changing the culture.

SM (01:53:34):
In your opinion, when did the (19)60s begin? When did it end? What was the watershed moment?

MT (01:53:41):
Well, for me, it was like the mid (19)60s. As I said, it was the Civil Rights Movement before even the anti-war movement was the big important...

SM (01:53:55):
I am running at a time here even on this.

MT (01:53:59):
You can always follow- up with stuff on an email, if you want, too, if there is something you need to fill in.

SM (01:54:02):
I got time for one more question.

MT (01:54:02):
Yeah. [inaudible].

SM (01:54:02):
[inaudible] here. (19)60s, when did it end, in your opinion?

MT (01:54:20):
I do not know. I never sort of had that sense of things ending and beginning, I think, because I was involved with Ms. and I just saw things. But I guess the (19)60s for me and for the women's movement carried on through (19)70s because there were things like the Houston Conference, and I guess you would have to say Reagan. I mean, you would have to say that and the fact that Ted Kennedy's appeal did not make it in terms of... All sorts of things.

SM (01:54:56):
How important role did women play in ending the war in Vietnam, in your opinion?

MT (01:54:56):
I think more important than setting up the... Simone Bella, for instance, organized the whole West Side in terms of peace movement. I think more in setting up the atmosphere where being anti-war was a respectable position. With Women's Strike for Peace, and those were... The whole Mother's Movement Against Strontium-90 and stuff like that that that represented. I think they were very important. But I think that the impetus that ended the war was the draft, and that certainly affected men more than women.

SM (01:55:49):
Let us see here. I guess I will end my last question. Hope we get enough time to do this. Question about due the divisions a tremendous division that took place in the (19)60s and (19)70s between Black and white, sometimes male and female, gay and straight, certainly the tremendous divisions over the war in Vietnam, those who served those who did not, those who were against the war and for the war, do you think this boomer generation is going to go to its grave like the Civil War generation, not truly healed?

MT (01:56:26):
I do not think-

SM (01:56:29):
Due to the tremendous divisiveness that took place at the time, and do you think this is an issue and it is playing a part in the divisiveness that we are seeing in our society today, the tremendous divisions and the-the culture wars that we are seeing over and over again where we cannot seem to get over the (19)60s?

MT (01:56:54):
Well, I think that the culture wars were manipulated by the right. I think the issues that the right pulled, certainly the women's issues that they pulled to organize around, a lot of that was a gift to the right of issues that it could organize around. I am not sure that those were organically grew on their own. I think they were manipulated. But in terms of larger issues, I think there is a whole different feeling about soldiers that are in Iraq and in Afghanistan than there ever was about soldiers that were in Vietnam to the discredit, I suppose, of the anti-war movement back in the (19)60s, that you did not have a lot of sympathy for the people fighting it, which I think is completely different now. I mean, you clearly have an understanding that whether you are anti-war, whether you are a pacifist or not, that it is not the soldiers that are the problem; it is the policy. I think there is that kind of shift in mentality. I do not think the (19)60s anti-war, kind of anti-government... I mean, there is still mistrust of government, God knows. But I mean, I think that has changed with time.

SM (01:58:19):
So, you do not see healing as a problem within this generation of 70 million due to these tremendous divisions when they were evolving as adults?

MT (01:58:19):
Who? The boomer-

SM (01:58:19):
The boomer generation.

MT (01:58:19):
...kind of generation?

SM (01:58:19):
Yeah, the boomers.

MT (01:58:49):
I do not know. I have lived so much of my life in New York and in one kind of protected, in a way, from a culture that might get mad at me. I go back to the Houston Conference and state meetings that we went to. It was the first time I had ever seen these hordes of right-wing people who did not like me.

SM (01:59:14):
Yeah. I know Dan Scrubs, when he wrote the book To Heal a Nation, the book on the building of the wall, the goal was mostly to heal the veterans and the lost loved ones and all the Vietnam veterans, but hopefully to begin healing the nation from the divisions of that war. I do not know what role the wall has played in the whole nation, whether it has helped the Vietnam community because none of [inaudible] going to totally heal. But is it possible to yield from such divisions that...

MT (01:59:54):
Yeah, I think they become less important. I mean, except as things that have modeled your thinking. But I think it is. Yeah. I think it is. Especially through the... I mean, is it possible for one generation to heal? Maybe not entirely, but certainly through the generations, there is evolution.

SM (02:00:17):
I am about...

MT (02:00:19):
You are past it. I mean now, it is like past tense. But as I said, if you feel like...

[End of Interview]

2011-06-27

Stephen McKiernan

Mary Thom

120:26

English

Binghamton University Libraries

audio/mp4

Sound

Audio

Feminists; Editors; Ms. magazine/Sarah Lazin books; Thom, Mary--Interviews

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