Judith Buckman joined NOW in the 1970s. She discusses how she had to navigate her politics around a variety of groups in which she was active. Judith has held every NOW leadership office, and has led multiple groups to a variety of conferences. She talks about how activism has changed since 2016.
“But there’s nothing like sitting across from somebody, sharing a gut experience, um, that somebody else has shared, or maybe worse than you had it, and bonding over that. And knowing that, it wasn’t you, it was society.”
“And people ask me, ‘Why do you do this?’ You know, ‘I couldn’t do what you do.’ And I say ‘You absolutely could do what I do!’ Everyone who says that could do what I do! They don’t choose to do it. They might not want to do it! But every single one of them could do it.... It’s given me back 10 times more than I have given to it.”
“We’re hoping that these kids think about a situation in their life where they get called on to do something that doesn’t feel comfortable, but they know is right, and they’ll think back to this time and say ‘you know what? I was a little nervous about reading that essay to a handful of strangers. But I did it, and it worked out well, and I was the hero of the day, and I can tackle this other thing, too.’ I hope, you know, we hope that that experience carries them into their lives.”
“So many people don’t realize the power they have. They don’t vote because they don’t think that they have power. They don’t work for a candidate because they don’t think that they have power. They don’t ask for equal wages because they don’t think they have power. They don’t leave their husbands because they don’t think that they have power. Um… The biggest hurdle I think is getting everyone, but especially women, to know the power they have. It never fails to amaze me.”
MEDIA
Raising Consciousness by Angela Kariotis
ANNOTATIONS
TRANSCRIPT
Interview conducted by Shree Mehrotra
July 31, 2020
Transcription by Hannah M’Lynn
Annotations by Destiny Morales
[Note on COVID-19: Due to strict social distancing guidelines, this interview was hosted as a phone call and recorded using a mobile application.]
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Okay, so, thanks for being here. This is the interviewer. My name is Shree Mehrotra, spelled S-H-R-E-E, and last name is M-E-H-R-O-T-R-A. Address is 215 Queens Lane, Moundside, New Jersey. Due to current circumstances surrounding the coronavirus, this is being conducted digitally because of the public health concerns. Um. And it is July 31st, 2020. And now the narrator can introduce herself?
Hi, my name is Judith Glick Buckman. I live at 52 Farnwood Road in Mount Laurel, New Jersey. I’ll spell my name--J-U-D-I-T-H G-L-I-C-K B-U-C-K-M-A-N. And my birth date is May 19th, 1946.
Okay. Thanks. So um, just to get started, I was wondering if you could tell me a little bit about your background, like where you were born, growing up and going to school, things like that.
Sure. Um. I was born in Gilocothy, Ohio, where my father was stationed, um, during and after the War. I was born after the War but he was stationed there during the war. He was a dentist, and he was in the US Coast Guard, and, um, he took care of prisoners in a federal, uh, prison there. Uh, my mother was a painter, very well known painter. Um. I grew up with, uh, we moved to Philadelphia when I was 6 months old. We moved to Southern New Jersey when I was three years old, and I’ve lived in Southern New Jersey since I was three years old. Um. I had two younger brothers, four years younger and three years younger. And um, so as the oldest I kind of had to forge the way to um, you know. Set up this, the rules. I always tell, like my brothers got off easier because I had to kind of break in my parents. Uh. To parenthood. Um. I kind of, I was always the person trying to keep my brothers from killing each other. Uh. They were 13 months apart, and so I had to sit between them in the backseat of the car. And I had to, in the house, keep them from running to my mom to separate them. Uh, my father had a dental practice in the basement so we were supposed to not run around and make noise. So I was the good girl and they were the bad ones. Um. They got all the attention and I was never sure if that’s ‘cause they were rambunctious or because they were boys. It was kind of always in the back of my mind. Um. I wasn’t, I was very conservative in school, I’m ashamed to admit. Um. We were Jewish, we were the only Jewish family in the town that I knew of at the time. Um.
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I went to a pretty conservative high school. And uh, there were maybe, I don’t know, 22-ish kids out of 350. So we all sat together, kind of huddled in the cafeteria. And um. So I was kind of aware of discrimination, but just vaguely. Not, not in terms of, uh, over racism but just, that I was different and not necessarily as good as. Um. In terms of being a girl, I remember, um, I had all male cousins. And they all had toys that I was interested in that I wasn’t allowed to have for myself. Um. In particular, every member, one cousin had this gas station--it was kind of like a Fischer Price type toy and it had an elevator that rose the cars up on a lift, and I was so in love with it. And I played with it every time I went to their house, and wanted it, but no, that was not an appropriate toy for a girl. But I, again, didn’t really connect the dots? I just thought, you know, this is just how things are. Girls can do certain things that boys can’t--although I have to say I did play baseball with my brothers and cousins. So it wasn’t a completely sexetarian type upbringing. But, um, I really wasn’t aware of, um… Differences in the way boys and girls were raised until I guess the 70s, when uh, when I went through Consciousness Raising. Um. I went to college in the 60s when things were hot in heavy in terms of protesting, and you would think that I would have picked up on that but I did not. Um. My mother, bless her heart, um, protested against the Vietnam War. I have a picture of her in front of a bus (inaudible). I have it on my desk, to um, but you won’t be able to…. (inaudible)
Yeah, I can see it.
Uh, we mourned the dead in Vietnam. You would think that would have been enough for me to connect the dots in terms of activism but it did not. Um. My grandfe--father, her father, all my grandparents were first generation immigrants. Um, three from Russia, one from Hungary. Actually, three from the Ukraine, one from Hungary. And, um, my grandfather called my mother a communist for protesting the Vietnam War. You know, immigrants at that time just wanted to be Americanized and patriotic and. He didn’t like that she protested. He thought that that was very inappropriate. As much as he loved her, he--she was his favorite kid, but still he couldn’t get over the fact that she protested. And you would think that would have caught--been enough to get me into social activism, but. It didn’t. So all of these things that I saw could have prompted me to get into social activism. Um. But it wasn’t until… Let’s see. What… My first job was as a teacher, an elementary school teacher, first and second grade.
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And when I taught in the Cherry Hill Public School, which is a local district, um, and was pregnant with my first child, they wanted me to quit when I started to show. And I didn’t want to quit! Because I liked it, I needed the money, I didn’t know what else I would do if I was home pregnant. So I went to my friend (inaudible) and he said, “well, it’s okay with me if you stay” and the superintendent said “it’s okay with me if you stay, but we have this rule, so you can’t stay.” So I went to civil rights lawyers in Camden and they looked at me very blankly ‘cause they didn’t know why I was there, and I said “because this is sexual discrimination!” And the lightbulb went on in their heads. And they got an injunction so that I could stay in the classroom until a month before my first child was born, which is what I wanted. And a year later, the Supreme Court passed a decision saying it was, uh, between the doc--between the mother and the doctor, the employer had no say in when a woman left her job due to pregnancy. It wasn’t my case, but obviously other people were experiencing this. I later learned recently in the political campaign that Elizabeth Warren had the same exact problem, the same exact year. There was a picture of her and, you know, holding her baby in the paper which was exactly the same age as my baby but. So, I, I know I wasn’t alone. But, um… So when that baby was about a year and a half old, I went to a program that was given by the Philadelphia YWCA for Women. So it was Women in Music, Women in Politics, Women in Government. Uh. Women in History--throughout history. And one speaker was from NOW--National Organization for Women. And I’m sitting there with my pregnancy situation playing in my head thinking “Oh. My. Gosh. It wasn’t just my little situation that was a problem. Society is broken, and I need to fix it. I need to help fix it.” So I joined NOW on the spot. And that was 48 years ago. That, that baby is now 48 years old. And he credits, credits himself with me getting into NOW and I guess he’s absolutely right. Um… I was pregnant with my second child, a daughter, at a Philadelphia NOW conference in 1974. So she literally got feminism with mother’s milk. Um. You know, I nursed her at NOW meetings. And I have to say, it was a little schizophrenic at that time? Because, um, I was also involved in a breastfeeding support group? I was, um, really, really enjoyed breastfeeding my children and nursed them ‘til they were maybe 2 or something.
(00:09:04)
And, so when I was in a breastfeeding support group, I was volunteer counseling breastfeeding mom. I was never allowed to talk about being in NOW and, you know, doing political work. I mean, I was allowed, but, people wouldn’t look well on it. And when I was in NOW, I was not allowed to talk about, you know, breastfeeding my children because that was such a “mom” thing to do. You know, that wasn’t a politically active thing to do. So thankfully the status changed. Um. A couple years later, I remember reading a newspaper article where somebody I had worked with in the Women’s Political Caucus at that time brought her child in and put the child in the bottom filing drawer, (laughs) took her to work. So that kind of, um, opened up people’s eyes, that yes, you could actually be political and be a mom. Um. Too. So. Um… Let’s see, so I started, uh, my NOW career in Philadelphia NOW because I was living in Philadelphia at the time. And the first NOW meeting I went to there was this stereotypical feminist at the time. She literally wore overalls and combat boots. And she was railing, rightly so, about the rape on the campus at the University of Pennsylvania. And she wanted the group to go to the University of Pennsylvania and literally castrate the rapist. An dI thought, “Oh, my God. What have I gotten myself into?” And I thought “NOW is way too radical.” But I stuck around and two years later, I moved to New Jersey, and I joined South Jersey Now--Alice Paul Chapter, where I’ve been for the past 46 years or something. And that President was 180 degrees different from the Philadelphia NOW person. She had teased hair, long fingernails, lipstick, and you’re probably not old enough to remember this, but your mom is--she looked like Dale Evans. And I thought--who was Roy Rogers’ wife and (laughing, inaudible), “what the hell?” I thought, “Oh my God, this is what feminism looks like in South Jersey.” But again, I stuck around. And that was a very good lesson for me, that--don’t judge a book by its cover. She was as radical as the woman in Philadelphia was. She was packaged differently, but she had all the right values and, was just a powerful woman--actually, she was the person who added Alice Paul to our chapel name. She was dying of breast cancer, and that was kind of her dying wish, that we add Alice Paul’s name to South Jersey NOW. And so thanks to Velma Brown, it’s been, ever since then it’s been South Jersey -- Alice Paul Chapter. (sigh)
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So, in the 46 years I’ve been involved in South Jersey NOW, I’ve probably held every office. Um. I was President 3 years early in, in ‘78, ‘81’ and ‘82. And then most recently I’ve been President for the last 7 years. But um, in the interim I was a fundraiser for the chapter. I organize bus, uh, trips to D.C. Uh. I mentor new leaders. Um. Let me see, I wrote a couple--I wrote for the uh, the newsletter calendar of events. I posted newsletter mailings for all that time. Um. Let’s see, what else? Was the media representative, um. On NPR, on, uh, Philadelphia and New Jersey TV and Radio shows. Um. I marched an ERA Walk--NOW New Jersey used to have a Walkathon for the ERA every year--we would march on the Boardwalk and get pledges, and I have a picture of that, too. I don’t know if you can see that--that’s a picture of me and my mom, uh, on the boardwalk. She was one of my biggest supports. Um. She claimed that I turned her into a feminist. Um. She had some incidents with my dad where he would take advantage of her and I would tell her not to let him do that, and so she always said that--whenever she introduced me, she said “This is my daughter. She turned me into a feminist and she’s President of NOW.” It was like her, her, her standard introduction, she was very proud of me, as I was of her. Um. So I was the biggest fundraiser for the state one year. I was very much into that Walkathon, that was, um. It was a way to raise money for the ERA as well as, uh, publicize the fact that we needed to pass it. Um. I mentioned Consciousness Raising? Um. That was probably the biggest positive influence in my life. I lead a couple of consciousness raising groups and that real--I wish we still had that, that was a… We would invite people, uh, maybe 20, 25 people for a weekend to go away and um, sit in organized groups of maybe 10 people and discuss topics related to feminism. So, how were you raised different from your brothers? How was your, uh, work experience different from males? How are women treated differently in your religion? How is it if you wanted to play sports when you were a kid? And it was a very scripted, organized way of kind of delving into the way women were raised differently than men. And any--there were many tears. Um. There were many laughs. Many warm, shared experiences. (clears throat) And I did that two or three times, two or three, uh, weekends over two or three years. And I have to say, uh, besides therapy, which I am also a huge fan of, consciousness raising was the most positive influence in my life.
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Um. I don’t know where I would be without it. I certainly wouldn’t be a NOW member or a NOW leader. Um. And I wish it was still possible. I’ve tried to restart it as have other older feminists who saw it as a positive thing. But, um. Younger feminists don’t seem to warm up to it. Um. They don’t, or at least what we tried to do, what they haven’t been enthusiastic about getting together for a weekend. Um. They prefer online feminism, social, uh, media activism. Protest marches. And I have nothing--! Uh, negative, to say about this, I’m a huge--I marched in more protests than I can tell you. But there’s nothing like sitting across from somebody, sharing a gut experience, um, that somebody else has shared, or maybe worse than you had it, and bonding over that. And knowing that, it wasn’t you, it was society. And you can do something about it. At the end of each consciousness raising session, they’d have something called an “Action”. Um. I can’t remember what it was called, but a planned action to fix that particular problem. So it was very empowering. And at the end of--and you had shared meals and you slept in these, um… You know, cabins, it wasn’t--it was pretty rustic, but that was the only way it could be affordable. And at the end of the weekend, this--ours took place at Apple Farm, um, in Southern--very Southern Jersey. It was very remote, there were no distractions. Um. No phones, although we didn’t have cell phones at the time. But we weren’t allowed to call home. Um. We just had to be completely isolated and concentrating on each other. And it was really a gift that we gave each other and that’s why it was so powerful. It was just. Um. I wish it could be rep--replicated. And um, your mom has talked about bringing them back. We have talked online about bringing back consciousness raising, possibly to talk about social justice issues. And, um… Specifically, you know, combating racism. And that could happen, you know. I would, I would be very much in favor of that. Um, I’d be in favor of the original CR, but would also be in favor of bringing it back in a format that might be more relevant to young women who already see themselves as feminists and want to take an action. We did it so we could figure out, were we feminists and why and how but. Maybe young women now are past that and they want to do a specific issue. But consciousness raising is hugely powerful and… It’s the thing that I credit to my feminist, um. Background, so, super important.
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So anyway, one of the things I did during my NOW activism is lead these groups. Um. I also attended, about 15 national conferences in different cities around the country. Um. In the old days, there would be feminist, uh, NOW, National NOW conferences in cities, in San Francisco and Detroit and Chicago and Dallas and New Orleans and all these cities I would have had no other way of getting to. And I just love those conferences because, um, it was a way of seeing that what I was doing on my dining room table was replicated by thousands of people on their dining room table. And, um, you know, they were also writing letters and they were also having meetings and they were also putting out newsletters. And it was very empowering for me to see all of these strong, feminist leaders. Um. I gave workshops at three of them, one on, uh, leadership development. One on increasing capture activism. And one on Alice Paul. And I always came back energized from those meetings, it was like a shot of adrenaline. You attend these meet--these conferences and see these national speakers. I mean, they were wonderful national speakers. Um. And wonderful workshops. And wonderful entertainment, and wonderful sales items. It was just a wonderful respite for a weekend to one, visit a city I’d never been to, and two, get a bout of feminism. That would carry me through the year. And, um… So, that was something else I did--let me see what I’m forgetting… Um, oh! We were, we did a lot on the ERA. On getting the Equal Rights Amendment added to the Constitution. We would, um, meet at somebody’s house on Sundays and write letters to people, to legislators in unratified states. Um. We would lobby our local legislators to pass it. Um, kids would be--we would bring our little kids--we all had toddlers at the time and we would let them crawl under the desk of the legislator, so that he would see that yes in fact, feminists were family oriented. No, we were not man haters. We were married to men. We had kids. Um. We loved our families, but yes, we wanted the Equal Rights Amendment added to the Constitution, too. It was hard. I worked very hard on it. Uh, I was an ERA missionary. A lot of us went to an unratified state. I went to Florida because my in-laws at the time had a house there and I could stay there for three weeks and basically do what I did in South Jersey, instead do it in Florida as a volunteer to organize protests, visit legislators, talk to the press. And um. A lot of people did that besides me.
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People, you know, went to just about every unratified state. Virginia was one, Illinois was one. And we just worked night and day on the ERA. It was so heartbreaking to see that fail. Um. We all thought that… Legislate--it was just an oversight. Legislators just didn’t realize that the ERA, written by Alice Paul, wasn’t in the Constitution. And all we had to do was bring it up to them and they would say “oh! Gosh! How did that happen! Of course we’ll do that. Thanks for pointing it out to us!” And it wasn’t that at all. Um. They were just oblivious, they didn’t care, they were opposed. You know. Philip Lashly and the anti-ERAers were very successful in distracting them with things that were ridiculous? Like, um, if the ERA passed we’d have homosexual marriages. And unisex bathrooms and women in combat. And guess what? We have all of those three things, but we still don’t have the ERA. It was very frustrating. It was just, beyond, beyond… It was the worst thing. We got an ERA extension, um, for two years to continue the fight, but that went down. We weren’t able to do it. And I remember standing in Lafayette Square which has been in the news recently in, in terms of the tru--the protests and Trump. But we were in that same Lafayette Square across from the White House with Ellie Smeel talking to all of us who had worked so hard on it. And, um, we were all crying. Every single person in Lafayette Square was crying when I look back. When I think back to it, I get a lump in my throat. We had worked so hard. We had been so sure it would pass. Uh. We were just heartbroken, and we didn’t know what to do. And, (sigh) some of us came to the conclusion, actually National NOW came the conclusion that what we had to do is elect more women to public office. We couldn’t keep going back to these old white men, banging our heads against the wall and having them ignore us. The only way we were gonna make any progress whatsoever is to get more women involved in politics. And… We were successful in that to some extent. I have a picture--I don’t know if you’ll be able to see this, but in 199…(trails off, inaudible) (pause) I can’t find it now. Um. 1992. Um. It was called “The Year of the Woman”. On the back, women keeping… “Women sweeping the US Senate.” And listed below are names of about 14 women who were running for Senate that year, and about half of them won! And since then, we’ve increased the number of women in the house and the Senate--not enough, not 50 percent. But that has been to me the silver lining of the ERA going down. It made us so furious and so angry that it motivated us to do something positive.
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And kind of in the same way I think that Trump being elected brought on a whole new wave of feminism. And, you know, the day after he was inaugurated, we had all those women organizing protests worldwide. Attended by men, women, children, families. And it kind of woke everyone up. And, you know, that turned into more social justice groups, um, you know, they went to the airport to protest, um, his mandate against immigrants. And so I, I think that the new wave of social justice activism can be credited to women marching after Trump’s inauguration. And I think it was the same thing that happened after the ERA went down. I think it, it woke us up out of complacence. Um. No, now having feminist, uh, presidents like Bill Clinton wasn’t going to be enough. We had to change the house and the senate, and like I said, to some extent we’ve been… successful. Um… Let’s see… Uh, in 1984, um, a group of us in the area wanted, realized that Alice Paul’s hundredth birthday was coming up. And we had the name “Alice Paul” in our South Jersey NOW Alice Paul Chapter. And we wanted to honor her. And we thought “Wouldn’t it be great if we had a birthday party on her hundredth birthday?” Which would be 18--1985, she was born in 1885. So we thought in 1985 we would have this birthday party. And we were hoping that maybe 25 people would come, ‘cause nobody knew who Alice Paul is! I didn’t even know who Alice Paul was until we tagged her name onto our Chapter. Umm, so we formed a committee called the Alice Paul Centennial Foundation which is now the Alice Paul Institute. And we had a one hundredth birthday party for her. I was the chair of that party. Um. We decided to, uh, honor three women--Sally Ride, the first woman in space. Um. Judge Lisa Rouchette, who was a Philadelphia judge. And Sonia Johnson who was an ERA activist. Instead of 25 people, we had two hundred and twenty five people.
[Annotation 5]
(00:26:56)
We had to turn people away, which broke my heart, as a fundraiser. So we had people jammed into that event so tight that the, the servers were like walking sideways to get between the chairs. And we organized a parade that year, and a symposium, and we thought “Okay, that’s the end of it. It’s her hundredth birthday, that’s it.” But, one thing lead to another, and we found out that Alice Paul’s birthplace in Mount Laurel was going to be sold. It was owned by the woman who was the librarian at Morristown Friend School, which is where my children were students and where Alice Paul was a student. And she said, “when we go to sell the house, we’d like to sell it to,” you know, “a group of women rather than to developers, ‘cause they’re just gonna tear it down and make it into a McMansion.” And we said “we’d love to, let us know when that happens.” Thinking it would be five years. And it wasn’t, it was that year. So… Two years, two years later. And so we said “oh my gosh! We have to move on this!” So we formed a 501C, a nonprofit. Um. Barbara Irvine, who was a member of South Jersey NOW, took the reigns. Um. Was President of the Alice Paul Centennial Foundation, later to be known as the Alice Paul Institute. Uh, long story short, we raised… We le--... We mounted a nationwide drive to raise enough money, buy Alice Paul’s house, and its interest only loan, bankers turned us down, it was, it was a battle almost as tough as the ERA, but it was local, not nationwide. And, long story short, we bought it. And it’s now a leadership center for women and girls as well a historic site. It’s one of the (audio cuts out, inaudible) … So, um, we were super proud about that. And then we thought “okay! We did that. That’s good.” And then, um, Alice Paul’s nephew died. He was her only living relative. Without a will. And her papers and memorabilia were gonna be sold at public auction, and we feared scattered to the four winds. We didn’t want that to happen. So we mounted another nationwide drive, trying to raise enough money. Um. And we had… Bids from, uh… Uh, famous people like Elli Shmeel, who had raised the uh, ERA ba--t, who would run the ERA battle, and local people. And we raised enough money to--or shot, we didn’t know a thing about, uh, public auctions. And we got somebody to kind of teach us to do, how to bid at an auction. We had people, you know, there were people calling in that we didn’t know and we had to know how to bid against them, how to bid strategically. Uh. What to bid on, how much, how often. We got her, we were successful. I think we got it for 20,000 dollars. And to donate--and the batch included not only Alice Paul’s books, papers, memorabilia, but also Susan B. Anthony’s desk which was a huge, you know. Yeah, we couldn’t let that go to just anybody. Because, um. Alice Paul had worked at that desk. So it had kind of a double whammy, um. Of history.
(00:30:35)
So, (sigh) uh, we donated all of her books, papers, and Susan B. Anthony’s desk to the Smithsonian where it still resides, and we donated her papers to the Radcliffe Library instead--I’m sorry, to the Schlesinger Library in Radcliffe College, and that’s where they still remain so that, um, researchers can have access to them. And again, we thought we were done! (laughs) And then, um, we thought “we should have a stamp for Alice”. So we got a postage stamp with Alice’s photo on it. Um… (tsk) Trying to think of… (pause) And then we--Oh! Then we thought, “okay, we need a memorial to Alice in, in the house.” Um. She wouldn’t want a statue. The last--Alice was an action oriented person. The last thing she would want is a statue and a museum. She would want, um, an action oriented place that would raise more little Alice Pauls. So, we started this Women’s and Girl’s leadership Center there. Um. I had focus groups in my house with high school girls. We specifically recruited girls who were not leaders, but girls who would join a club, but not necessarily be president of the club. And we asked those girls--from different towns, different, um, ethnicities, different classes, different ages. And we asked those girls, “What keeps you from being a leader? What would help you to be a leader?” And they told us, um, not in these words, but assertiveness training and um… Communication skills. And, from the first group we held to the second group, we, we asked the girls, “has there been anything that’s been different since the first time you attended your first focus group?” And one little girl, who was the tiniest little thing that you could knock over with a feather, said, “I raise my hand in class more now.” And I got--I just got a chill. I got the same chill I got then at the time. And I thought, “If we can do that with one focus group, imagine what we could do, actually teaching these girls assertiveness training and leadership skills.” And so we came up with a whole program. We tested it out at Rutgers University. With uh, college students, successfully.
(00:33:13)
And… Um. It morphed into… an incredible program. I was only involved for 12 years. But the person who took it forward--actually, I was on the Board for 12 years. I was only on the Girl’s Leadership Committee for two years. The person who took that forward was Lucy Bayard. And, um. Just this month I got this email that she was retiring after 20 years, or maybe it was 30 years--yeah, uh, 25 years. Um. She has taken that program, so that they now have overnight camps for girls leadership programs, they go into the schools to teach Alice Paul. They have, um, every 4th grader in Mount Laurel where Paulsdale is located, has to go through Paulsdale, um. It’s just, uh, there’s a group called the Girls Leadership Council. There’s so many programs that have kept girls from falling off that leadership cliff that is, it’s just mind boggling. And I hope that everybody goes to that website, which is www.alicepaul.org and looks at all of the leadership and historic preservation activities that are now going on at Paulsdale. It’s just the thing that I’m proudest about. One, saving that house, and two, making it into what it is today. So, most people know me as “Ms. South Jersey NOW Alice Paul Chapter” and don’t know about, um, at Paulsdale, but both have them have been equally important to me…. (big sigh) Uh--
(00:34:56)
What is Paulsdale? Is it, uh, separate from NOW--(overlapping) Oh, it’s separate-- or is it mostly NOW--it’s completely separate. It’s a, um, it’s an educational--while NOW is a political group, a 501c4, uh, which is not tax-deductible and you can’t deduct your NOW dues. Donations to the Alice Paul Institute are tax-deductible because it’s only educational. It’s a totally separate group. Um. Separate goals, separate leaders. Um. Separate members. But everyone in this area confuses the two. Because we both have the name “Alice Paul.”
Mhm hmm.
One is “South Jersey NOW Alice Paul Chapter” and the other is “Alice Paul Institute.” People of each group think that they’re members of the others. They all get sent to the wrong group. Donations get sent to the wrong group. Umm… We’ll never end that confusion, so I’m glad you brought that up because a lot of people in NOW New Jersey still refer to my chapter as “Alice Paul NOW”, which used to be our nickname (because South Jersey NOW Alice Paul Chapter is so long), our nickname used to be “Alice Paul NOW” for many years.
(00:36:07)
But when the Alice Paul Institute opened in 1985, we went back, or we tried to go back, to calling our chapter South Jersey NOW Alice Paul Chapter to avoid the confusion. And, in spite of what--I’ll go to my grave, despite my efforts--(laughs)--to keep people from saying “Alice Paul NOW”, I still go to NOW meetings--NOW New Jersey meetings, and I guarantee you the one that’s coming up this Saturday, somebody is going to refer to us as Alice Paul NOW. And I patiently write an email to this person saying “Please don’t feel bad, but--” (laughs) “--this is the, this is our official name and this is why, and, you know, you’re, you’re not alone, but everybody does it, but please don’t do it in the future”, but, people can’t get that, get it through their heads.
Yeah, I know… (overlapping)
So they’re completely different groups. Um. One is political, one is educational. We’re both going towards the same goal, but through different routes. And, um, people who were members of South Jersey NOW Alice Paul Chapter are donors to the Alice Paul Institute and vice versa. And since I was instrumental in both, that also increases the confusion. You know, I was an early member of South Jersey NOW Alice Paul Chapter, and I was a founder of the Alice Paul Institute. So people just kind of assume--(overlapping, inaudible) they’re the same, but they’re completely different groups. And, um. We need both! Some people would not be caught dead calling themselves a NOW member, but are happy to be donors to the Alice Paul Institute. And I think part of that is, when, as I said, at our first dinner we had one of our honorees, Sally Ride, the first woman in space. And a ton of men came to that event just to hear her speak. Either they were dragged by their wives, or they actually wanted to see Sally Ride. And as a result, Alice Paul Institute has always had a substantial number of male supporters, donors. No one, no male has to be afraid to go to an Alice Paul Institute event. There’ll be lots of men there. There’s nothing radical about it. No one will call them names for going to a feminist group. Um… And, uh, there’s even been male board members on the um, the Alice Paul Institute. So, that’s one of their strengths. It’s a non-threatening way to be a feminist. You, you know, when they left their first event--um, Diane Allen, though, I need to mention this--Diane Allen was our MC, um, at that first event. She later went on to become, uh, a state assembly person and a state senator. And ended up, when she retired, being the most powerful Republican woman in the New Jersey Senate. She was not that at the time. Um.. She, I don’t think she even held office at that time. She had just finished a discrimination suit against her employer, uh. A discriminatory radi--ah, TV station. Which she fortunately won that discrimination suit. But she was our MC, and she has been one of our biggest supporters all along.
(00:39:21)
She gave such an impassioned speech at that first event about Alice Paul being in that room. Diane Allen was a Quaker, so she was probably one of the few people who knew about Alice Paul before anyone else did. She was from Morristown, the same town, and so she was probably well aware of Alice Paul. Either way, even if not, she did her research. And she gave such an impassioned, uh, MC speech, a master of ceremonies speech, about Alice Paul, that it sent a chill down my neck. And all of the people--and especially all of the men who were there--left that event with a powerful feminist message that they weren’t aware of, they probably didn’t know they got. But they kept coming back because they knew it was the right thing to do. She kind of inoculated them with feminism. And, um, that has continued to this day. And when were trying to buy the house, Diane Allen was one of our hugest supporters in raising money and getting people to support us, getting agencies to support us, getting proclamations. Um. She and Lucinda Florio, the wife of the governor at the time, were two of our biggest supporters in government. So I would be remiss if I didn’t give them credit. Um…
So--
but yeah, the two groups are very different.
So why do you think that men are more, uh, likely to follow, or support Alice Paul Institute even though they’re both feminist organizations? Is it because one is more educational versus political, or--? (inaudible) People don’t--a lot of people don’t see the Alice Paul Institute as a feminist group. They see it as a stark preservation group, which it absolutely is. They see it as a leadership center, which it absolutely is. And some people don’t draw--connect the dots between leadership and being active in politics. Or exerting your influence in politics. Leadership is kind of a… Unthreatening way to be a feminist. You know. I’ll, “I’ll support women and girls being strong, but that’s not necessarily a feminist thing.” You know, people who were, who were involved, who were from South Jersey NOW Alice Paul Chapter see the connection. But a lot of people in the community… don’t want to be associated with NOW. You know, the Phyllis Schlafly-ites and her, uh, spawn, have been very successful in getting, um, older women and young, middle aged women and younger women to be afraid of NOW. If you’re a member of NOW, you’ll be called a lesbian like it’s a bad thing. You’ll be called a ballbuster like it’s a bad thing, which…. And, you’ll, it’s, it’s just a, um, being, being a strong feminist or a NOW member is the negative.
(00:42:22)
Do you think that continues to this day? Not as much. Maybe in different ways? But obviously the women for Trump are as just as anti-feminist as Phyllis Schlafly. And there’s plenty of they, you know. I thought in 2016 “oh, those women will wake up.” You know the, the, all those women who voted for Trump will see him for what he is. They haven't! And I don’t understand why those women continue to support him and vote against they own selin--self interest. I don’t know if it’s because they think they’re doing their husbands a favor, because they’re doing their careers a favor, because they think they’re doing their priest a favor by being, you know, anti-choice. I don’t know--I don’t know what it is. But those women are…. Just as anti-feminist as Phyllis Schlafly was! Maybe even more-so. And I don’t get it. I’ve given up trying to understand, or trying to convince them, you know? It’s, it’s just, um… It’s very unfortunate. Uh. I think a lot of women who did support Trump now say, “Oh, he’s an--he’s racist. I didn’t quite see that before. He’s anti-women. I didn’t see that before. Yes, he was a little sexist.” They didn’t realize he was as anti-woman as he is. “Oh! He hasn’t helped me in my job and in sexual harassment and discrimination cases.” I think a lot of those women have woken up and… Maybe supported Bernie initially? And now? I hope will come to Trump--psh, to Trump, yeah… Uh. Yeah. Will now will come to Biden. Um. My fear is that some of them won’t vote, and that’s my biggest fear. That a lot of African American women--although African American women, I have to say, are Biden’s best hope. And if, if they come out for him the way they came out for Hillary--and I don’t necessarily assume they will. I hope they will. Um. We’re good. But I just hope that, and I think that John Lewis’s funeral this week might help a lot of African Americans connect the dots. I hope a lot of them who might now have otherwise voted for Biden, will vote for Biden. I mean, you know I hope, I hope that if Biden has, um, an African American vice-president, that will convince a lot of African-American women and other minorities to vote for Biden. Um… What’s your question? I think I lost track of your question.
(00:45:14)
(laughs) Yeah, it’s okay! But I actually have one question about what you just said.
Okay.
I was wondering--so you said some people who voted for Trump, you think might have been supporting Bernie? So why would you think they’d make such a big flip from being very conservative--because--to being very progressive?
Because I think they originally voted for Trump because he was a rule-breaker. Last time in 2015, a lot of Biden--er, a lot of Bernie supporters did vote for Biden! They didn’t all vote for Hillary, or they didn’t vote at all. And I don’t understand why that connected for them, except they thought he was a rule-breaker, just like, you know. Bernie was a rule-breaker and Trump was a rule-breaker. And they didn’t know well enough to know how bad that was. If he wasn’t--he didn’t make good trouble like Bernie, he made bad trouble. But I don’t think they knew him well enough to know that. And, um… So, I don’t know why they did that, but I know that there were a lot of them. Um. And I learned that a lot of Bernie supporters, mostly young males, plan to vote again for Trump. And again, I don’t know why that is. I think the women will come to Biden. But I think the males, um… I don’t know. 21 to 40? H--will either vote for Trump or not Vote. The Bernie Bros.
Yeah.
Really hard to get the Bernie Bros. But we really don’t need them! All we need are the women who voted for Bernie then Trump, or just the women who voted for Trump… It was so close last time, that we need so few of them to come over, that it’s, it’s going to be, um… I don’t think it’s gonna be hard. And, and I think the polls, you know, the people say “don’t put all your faith in the polls,” but. I believe in the polls. (laughs) It’s all that’s keeping me going, let’s put it that way.
That’s fair. Uh, just to return to Alice Paul, I still had a question about--sure--who started it with you? If--you said it’s slightly different people from NOW, so I guess how did that come about? Was it friends you had from other organizations, or?
Is that the South Jersey NOW Alice Paul Chapter or the Alice Paul--
Sorry, Alice Paul Institute.
Okay. Uh. That was all NOW people.
Okay.
It was all South Jersey NOW Alice Paul Chapter people. We formed a committee called the Alice Paul Committee. And that was the committee that put on, you know, that event.
Right.
Um, planned the, uh, March and the ba--we had a banner across Main Street in Morristown. And that committee, uh, became a 501c3. We went to the IRS and registered it, and it became the Alice Paul Centennial Foundation, because Centennial was the hundredth year of her birth and that’s what we thought all we were gonna do was that one year. And then when it became more than just that one year we changed it from the Alice Paul Centennial Foundation to the Alice Paul Institute, which it’s been ever since. But the start was all NOW people. And we actually put in the by-laws that Board Members had to be NOW members.
(00:48:31)
Because we didn’t want anybody coming on that were anti-choice people, who were people who didn’t understand the importance of Alice Paul, and the importance of the Equal Rights Amendment, and the importance of Alice Paul getting people the right to vote. We wanted people who understood the importance of that and would support it. We didn’t want to convince them, anybody of the importance. We wanted to take that baseline people who were kind of “woke”--although we didn’t have that word at that time--and bring them forward to create the leadership center. Since then, I’m happy to say, um. The Board has (inaudible). I was on the Board from um… Let’s see. 1984 to 97. Since I left the Board in 1987--I’m sorry, 1984 to 1997. Since I left the Board in 1997, more people have come on to the Board that I do not know and who are not NOW members. So they clearly changed that in the bylaws. So that a lot of the women who came onto the Board were corporate women, lawyers, um. People in associate--in, in, you know, who had wide social, um, and corporate networks. And they could fundraise to those people when there was an event. Um. A woman who was a lawyer would buy a whole table of 10 for her law firm. Um. Would take out a huge ad in the program book, and when they saw how successful that was, they started, um, recruiting all corporate women. As a result, I now know maybe one or two of the 12 member board? And everybody else is a corporate woman, a lawyer, a strong powerhouse, in the, in the, in, you know, in the corporate world. Which I am happy about! Because not only are they able to provide money, but they are spreading the Alice--the word of Alice Paul to their corporations and their law firms. So that when they bring 10 people to the annual fundraising event, those people get a feminist message, just like happened in the first year, um, when we had Sally Ride. And they leave that event knowing at least who Alice Paul is, knowing at least that she was the woman who got women the right to vote, and knowing at least that she was the one who wrote the Equal Rights Amendment that still needed to be ad--that still needs to be added to the Constitution. So I am thrilled that I don’t know anybody on the board. Because that means the tendrils and the tentacles of feminism via the Alice Paul Institute are getting into local corporate America and spreading to people who would never in a million years, you know, relate to NOW or get the message that way.
Right.
So, um… Yeah. I’m, I’m--and, and! Those women are mentors. A lot of those women are mentors to girls in the Girls Leadership Program. They have a program called APPLY--Alice Paul Professional Leadership Institute. And they have that every summer, although this year obviously it’s gonna be virtual. And part of that, um, part of that Institute is having these corporate women come talk to these girls about being in the corporate world, about how to shake someone’s hand, about how to dress so that people will take you seriously. How to express yourself in meetings so you won’t be talked over.
(00:52:09)
Um. These girls go to these women’s workplaces and kind of like, you know, take your daughters to work day but it’s a whole program. And, so that’s another benefit of going out to these corporate women. They are part of bringing these girls forward. A lot of these are minority girls who would never in a million years have any contacts in the corporate world. And now have someone that they can call and say “um, hey, could I use you as a recommendation on my college application?” They’re just, there’s so many ramifications of bringing new corporate women into the Alice Paul Institute and… Plus, these are powerful women! I mean, that’s, that’s a wonderful force! And they’re spreading it. You know, they’re spreading their, uh, tendrils into these young high school and college age girls, and that’s… super powerful. Did (laughing) I answer your questions?
Yeah.
Okay!
I don’t know if you were going to add more, but I have a lot of questions about things you’ve already said?
Please!
Um….
I have more to add, but let’s--you ask your questions first.
Okay. Um. So I just want to go back to your childhood a little bit and talk about, um--’cause you mentioned that a lot of things, I think, looking back that you recognized that you were treated differently from your brothers. Um. And also, um, so I was wondering how that made you feel then versus looking back later, and also since you’re not sure if it was just your personalities, or, a gender thing. Um. And also you talk a little bit about your Jewish background, so I guess if you could talk about how that influenced you and if you noticed a lot of anti-semitism growing up and how that made you feel.
Well, okay. Um, in terms of sexism, um. Or in terms of, you know, my brothers being mo--feeling that my brothers were more important than me. Um. I guess I didn’t have enough awareness to pull that apart from--I was a very quiet, serious, solemn kid. Um. I have a picture on my desk… Actually, I don’t know if you can see this--this is me and my mom.
Mhm hmm.
And I had this very solemn expression and w--and I once brought that picture to a therapist to ask him what type of kid I was. And he said “were you, like, a sad kid?” I said “I don’t think I was a sad kid, I was just a very solemn, serious individual (recording fades out, inaudible) an example. I think it’s as the oldest child, um. A lot was expected of me. I had to be a very good gi--it was very important that I was a good girl. And I think that was more of a… um, damper. On my exuberance than my gender. Um. As I got older, I think, um, you know, when it became time to maybe, choose people who would be a safety patrol, I remember, um… Probably doesn’t exist anymore, maybe it does, but there would be one or maybe two kids, I think a male and a female from each class that was chosen to be, like a quasi-crossing guard.
(00:55:12)
At corners on the way to school. And that was a very prestigious job. They got a white bag--a white sash with a badge on it. And if you were crossing guard, uh, safety patrol member, you were kind of like the big man on campus--big woman on campus. So I never got chosen for that. Um… I was a good student. I wasn’t a super student, like one of my brothers was. Um. I just had a very, uh… (pause) Quiet, hide in the background, shy, retiring personality. And that was true in elementary school, in junior high, in high school. I had maybe one or two good friends. I was not a social person. Um. I guess I had one boy that I had a crush on maybe in junior high and high school. Um. Didn’t date until late in high school. I was always that person--I was that girl who we, we recruited for our focus groups. That would join a club but not, never be president of a club. Um. In college, as I said, I was, um… Uh… You know, 60s were a time of rebellion on campuses but. I think I went to one campus, uh, rally. Because they wanted to fire a very popular professor, my psychology professor who I liked. And I went to a, I have a picture of myself at a rally there. Um. At the president’s house because we were unhappy about that. But not, not tied to the Vietnam War. You know, not tied to anything political. Just in my own little world. And, um, that was just my personality. I was just, um… Hesitant to put myself forward. And I’m still hesitant to put myself forward! When I have to make a speech (inaudible) side of a NOW group, I am petrified! Um. I had to be on a radio show a month ago. Um. A, uh…. A former president of the NAACP who I worked with via NOW asked me to be on his radio show about the, the um, racism, um, anti-racism backlash. He has now, is a radio show in Alabama. And he asked me if I would be a panelist on his show and I initially wanted to say no! In fact I kind of did say no. Nobody was gonna see me talking, this was a radio show in Alabama! Who the heck was gonna, you know, no one could physically see me and nobody would hear me who knew me! Um. And it was a church--he’s, he’s a pastor so it was a, a church program! So certainly nobody was going to hear me!
(00:58:00)
And I was still petrified, and I said “I’m sorry, Ken. I just can’t do it. I, I can write a speech, I can read a speech, but I can’t give a speech.” And he said “oh, don’t worry about it! I’ll ask you the--I’ll give you the questions and you can just read the answer”, which is what I did. And… Um. (pause) That’s kind of sick, that my… Inability to do public speaking is so… grained in, you know, in my inability to push myself in front of a group to be a, um, rockstar. Or ringleader. Is so, still goes so against my grain that it’s pretty deep-seated. Um. So I’m not surprised. I’m horrified that I wasn’t more outspoken in the 60s. But I’m not surprised. And, um, in terms of anti-semitism? Uh. My parents were very anti-religion. Uh, organized religion. We all, we celebrated all of the Jewish holidays, but, um. I never went to Hebrew school--or, let’s put it this way: my time in Hebrew school was short lived. Um. I would beg my, um, parents friends to take me to the, um, Synagogue on the Jewish New Year because that was a high holiday of the year and they would do that. And so I asked my parents to send me to Sunday school--or maybe, I don’t know how it came about. No, I did go to a Jewish nursery school, that’s true. Um. But that the, that was the, um, nursery school that was available. I used to go in a, in a taxi cab with another, um, dentist’s daughter to, um, a Jew--a Jewish--a Hebrew nursery school in um, Camden. Which is now, you know, seriously impoverished and dangerous but at the time had a huge Jewish population. And I went there and I kind of remember singing, um, “Dreidel, dreidel, dreidel, I made it out of clay, and when it’s dry and ready, then dreidel I will play!” And we had grape juice instead of wine, and matza. We, we did a lot of, um, culturally Jewish things. But I didn’t do anything, um, until it was time to go to, um… To Hebrew School. So I, (clears throat) my parents signed me up and I went to one session. And I quickly, immediately realized that everybody knew the Hebrew alphabet. And it was like first grade of Hebrew School, they would have like a Hebrew letter, like the equivalent of “A is for apple” and “B is for boy”. And, you know, you’re supposed to color it in. And I quickly realized that everybody but me knew the Hebrew alphabet. And everybody but me had had a year or two of Hebrew education. And that I was never gonna be able to catch up and I was completely out of it.
(01:01:01)
And as a result, when I had to go to session two and three, I literally threw up on the porch of the--well it wasn’t a synagogue, it was actually a house, but it was held at, it was, uh, the Hebrew school but was held in a house. And I just did not want to go, refuse, refuse, refuse. So after throwing up two weeks in a row, my parents said I didn’t have to go anymore. And that was the extent of my Jewish education. But, um. So when my brothers, who were three and four years younger, um, came of age to go, and it was kind of acceptable for a girl not to go to Hebrew school. But it was unheard of for a boy not to go to Hebrew school. Every Jewish boy in my generation was bar mitzvahed and had to go to Hebrew school from, you know, for years. And certainly from the time they were like, 9-13, 10-13. And my brothers did not. And, I don’t know any others in my male generation who didn’t go to Hebrew school. So. My father felt… I don’t, I don’t know. He had other problems that may have been tied into this. But he felt that, um, synagogues were mercenary, and they only wanted your money, and they only wanted you to pay your annual, um… Dues to the synagogue. And your annual donation to the Allied Jewish Appeal to Support Israel. And he didn’t wanna be… Shame into giving money to the synagogue and to Israel. So he refused to do either. And he refused to join a synagogue. And, so I was totally out of the Jewish religion except for--we did celebrate Hanukkah every year. My mother, bless her heart, now there are 8 days to Hanukkah, so she would get us each 8 presents, wrap them up, stack them on a window seat in our house, and every night we’d light the candles. We’d shake our presents to see if we could figure out what was in them. Try to avoid the ones that were pajamas. And, and gloves! And try to figure out which were the good ones like books or toys. And, um. We did that, and we had, um. Hanukkah gelt, which is, uh, gold coins that are wrapped in--uh, chocolate coins that are wrapped in gold. Um. We played, at Passovers we had seders. Passover Seders with, um, our extended family. And played “Dreidel, Dreidel, Dreidel,” which is a spinning top game. And, um… At the new, Jewish New Year we would have, um, you know, special meals for Rosh Hashanah which is the kick off of the New Year. Um. I fasted for Yom Kippur which is the end of the Jewish New Year. To atone for my sins. (laughs) Minimal as they must have been at that time.
(01:04:01)
Nonexistent, as they must have been at that time. But I felt I must have sinned, so I must atone and fast, that one day a year. But that was my extent of being Jewish. Um. I grew up in a v--I grew up in Westmont, New Jersey, which um, didn’t have a high school because it was so small. Um. The only Jewish person I knew of in the town was our next door neighbor, um, who was an older couple. Um. Rose Korodus and Ben Korodus. Rose Korodus kind of mentored my mother in gardening. My mother was a young woman who knew nobody in the town, so our, this older woman, Jewish next door neighbor kind of took her under her wing and was a fabulous gardener. And took my mother under her wing and turned my mother into a fabulous gardener. And, um. They did that all day every day. But, um, until I went to… Junior high, I didn’t know any other Jewish kids. Um. And we didn’t have a high school in our town. So. Class had to split up when it came time for high school, and either go to Haddingfield or Collingswood, the two adjoining towns. Collingswood was kind of a blue collar town, and Haddonfield was a very, and still is a very expensive, upscale town. So I of course chose Haddonfield. I was ac--this is, we were physically located closer to Haddingfield, but I chose it for its upscale-ness and um, I thought I would have a better chance of getting into college if I graduated from Haddonfield High School, which I, which was probably the case. When I got to Haddonfield, there were not only kids from Haddonfield, and kids from my town, but… There were only about 20 Jewish kids out of about 350. And we, and they were all from… You know, sending districts. They weren’t from Haddonfield originally. All the kids from Haddonfield were, um, WASPs. White Anglo Protests--
White Anglo-Saxon Protestants. And, um. They did not look--well, let’s put it this way. I wouldn’t say they were discriminatory? They just avoided the Jewish kids like the plague. Um. So we all sat together in the cafeteria. There were maybe, I don’t know, 10 girls and 10 boys and those were 2 tables in the cafeteria. And that was it. We only dated each other if we dated. We only were friends, you know, best friends with each other. We only got together with each other after school. The two groups did not mix. And it was so funny at our… Maybe it was our 40th high school reunion.
(01:06:55)
Um. Which I went to. And, one of the Haddonfield kids, you know, the original Haddonfield kids asked me for a ride because she had some kind of physical disability and couldn’t drive herself. She asked for somebody to pick her up, and I said I’d be glad to do that. And I picked her up and we spent the, you know, reunion together at somebody’s house barbequeing and listening to music and talking and reminiscing. And on the way home she said “Why weren’t we better friends in high school? How did I not know you in high school? I had such a good time with you tonight! I’d really like to continue this friendship. I don’t understand why we weren’t friends!” I didn’t even have the guts to tell her. I said ”Oh, I guess it was because I had to take the bus.” Which I did. To get home. And I wasn’t able to participate in a lot of after school activities. Of course that wasn’t the truth! But I didn’t have the nerve to tell her what the truth was. And I think that’s a lot of lights coming on that a lot of people are having now about white privilege? You know, it never occurred to them that they should reach out to us, the sub-group, the out-group. Um. I wouldn’t say the despised group, but. Lower group. Um… And, and now it’s occurring to a lot of people like, “Why don’t I have black friends? Why--” you know, “Why, why don’t I get together socially with my black work colleagues?” I think a lot of people are now having that, um, lightbulb come on. A lot are probably not. But, um. That was kind of my… I don’t know, lightbulb for me, when she said that to me. That, those people had no idea who I was, and no idea what my experience was in high school. So, in terms of anti-semitism, I wouldn’t say it was anti-semitism, it was just lack of awareness. It was lack of familiarity. It was “those people are different”. Not necessarily worse, although I’m sure there were racists among them and I just wasn’t aware of it. But I don’t think that was the big part. I just think it was lack of familiarity, lack of awareness. Lack of appreciation, what I could possibly contribute to them. So. I, I can say clearly, the worst part of it, I would say about being Jewish now, is that when I was in work--I’ve been, I’ve had several careers, um, as a, as a teacher. I worked in an ad agency. Um. (inaudible) was a writer. Corporate America. People have always assumed I was Christian. And always, my worst time of the year was in October or November. Everybody would say, “are you getting ready for Christmas? Are you ready for Christmas?” And I had to say to each of those--well, I used to say “yes” because I didn’t want to have that conversation. Or “No.” But in the last year or two, I started saying, “I don’t celebrate Christmas.” And the expression on their face was, “What? Are you a heathen? Of, of course you celebrate Christmas!” And then they kind of, oh! She’s Jewish! And then they kind of apologize for assuming that I was Christian.
(01:10:30)
And not knowing how to say “Oh, well then Happy Hanukkah!” And, um, it’s always gotten on my last nerve, that people assume that Hanukkah is a Jewish Christmas, which it is now. It occurs at the same time of the year, but, um… And it makes people feel better that we’re missing out on Christmas. But it’s not the Jewish Christmas. But, um… It’s just too much of a burden to fill people in. So I just leave it at “I don’t celebrate Christmas.” And I think that’s also kind of a, um… Kind, kind of this lightbulb moment that people are having, um, along with realizing that, about white privilege. There’s also religious privilege. You know, everyone who is Christian assumes that everyone who is not Christian is bad. Or! Maybe not bad, but not as good as. And has to be either pitied or, um… (pause) They just don’t get it. And so, I guess that’s just--if they’re, if I had been facing anti-semitism, that’s as bad as it’s gotten. Which, I don’t consider racism. I just consider it lack of awareness, and lack of appreciation. And that it’s their problem, it’s not my problem.
Mhm hmm.
I, I, I’ve never, you know, lost a job because of my religion. I’ve never been called names because of my religion. Um… So. Experiencing anti-semitism, no. I’m a huge Holocaust junkie. I’ve probably read every book that’s ever been written on the Holocaust. Um… Seen every movie on the Holocaust. Um… (pause) Yeah, I, I have a sister-in-law who’s German, born in Germany, you know, just came here when she was in her 20s. And, um. So, you know, she and--my brother actually met her in Germany. Um. And always tell me how much I would enjoy going to Germany. And I always told them that I couldn't possibly do that. The first time I heard a siren while I was in Germany, a fire siren, I would make a beeline for the border. I, I just couldn’t possibly do that. You know I, I feel… I have such a kinship with people who perished in the Holocaust. That, um. And, and the hate that caused that. I think, I think that’s, that’s been a big, um, push to my social activism. And also my grandparents, as I mentioned, were three Russians. And three, three of them were Ukrainians. And I think that’s where I get my social justice activism.
(01:13:18)
A lot of people I’ve met in the social justice realm have had Russian, or Ukranian ancestors. And I think, and I’m happy about that. Um. Maybe that’s not the case, but, um, I see a strong eastern-European background, and specifically Jewish background, in so many social justice activists. I don’t--I think that the majority of people who were Jewish in soc--social justice… Let me back up. I think a majority of people that I’ve known in the social justice movement have been Jewish. And, um. There was a couple that was, uh, a member of our chapter. They came from Michigan, they were raised Roman Catholics. Italian Roman Catholics. They came to this area, they became members of our chapter. They became so enamored. So many of their friends were Jewish, because they got in the social justice realm. That when they went back to Michigan after 13 years, they joined the Jewish Community Center, so that they could go to those book discussion groups and be among like minded people. They felt more kin to people in the Jewish Community Center than they did in, you know, people of their own ethnic group. Which, um… This tickles me, it just tickles me that they kind of absorbed that social justice from their Jewish friends and they sought it out when they left the area. So, um. Yeah. So--
(overlapping) So what--
I think I had it in my blood.
Do you think--is it that, it’s like, social justice activism is a big part of, um, Judaism or is it just that they’ve, um, also because the Holocaust, and because of that, people are more social justice minded? Why do you think that is?
I think it’s because we’ve been persecuted from day one. And, you know, we were slaves in Egypt. You know, when you see the movie “The 10 Commandments”, we’re slaves in Egypt. Yeah. The Holocaust, um. My grandparents left Russia because of the Pogroms. You know, they would hide under their beds because the Kaustacks were coming on horseback to kill them. And so my grandfather literally walked across ice in his bare feet, or his stocking feet, to get to the border. And, um, when he got to the ship, um, threw up, you know, he was in steerage, and had to, uh, suck on lemons to keep rom throwing up. As a result, for the rest of his life, he couldn’t eat lemons.
(01:16:01)
You know, he couldn’t eat lemon meringue pie, he couldn’t drink lemonade… Yes. I think because of being constantly--and Jews are still, there’s a ton of anti-semitism around! You know, it didn’t end with the Holocaust. Um. If anything, that made it worse. You know, because people who thought “Oh, you can kill them! You can get rid of them!” You know, “it’s socially acceptable to be a facist!” Um. You know, not as many as were around during the Holocaust. But we still have skinheads and anti-semitism in Europe and in this country! And I think that’s where the skinheads, I think a lot of the skinheads in this country have come from Obama being president. I think the fact that a black man was president brought a lot of racists out of the woodwork. And they were not happy about him being president, much less the fact that everyone adored him and still adore him. That they feel like it’s their duty to become racists that, you know, fight that battle. So, um. Racism and anti-semitism is alive and well. And, um… So I think I’ve had it in my blood from, you know, all of those years. And I Just needed that spark to awaken it? I think that when I heard that NOW speaker and I had that, you know, experience with discrima--er, pregnancy discrimination, um, that was the click that Gloria Steinem used to talk about? That ignited it. And it’s a fire that’s burned for almost 50 years. And people ask me, “Why do you do this?” You know, “I couldn’t do what you do.” And I say “You absolutely could do what I do!” Everyone who says that could do what I do! They don’t chose to do it. They might not want to do it! But every single one of them could do it. And I think that, um… I, I don’t know why they don’t do it. But, um. It’s given me back 10 times more than I have given to it. Um. It gave me a career. My volunteer work in NOW. Um. It gave me a background--one of my degrees was MBA, Master of Business Administration. And when I was in those classes, I would take those courses in personal and development. What I had been doing in NOW was given a name! I didn’t know that was called “personnel”. You know, to recruit people and bring them along to mentor them. You know, I didn’t know development was fundraising. You know, getting money in for your cause. And… When I was in these MBA courses, it kind of connected the dots for me. And I thought “Oh, I could actually have a corporate career from what I learned in NOW!” So if nothing else, it gave me that.
(01:18:54)
It also gave me pride in myself. It turned this shy, retiring person into somebody who could be a leader. If you had told me in high school that you would, um, be the president of an organization of 4 or 500 women, I would have said “you’re insane! That,” you know, “That in a million years could never happen!” And it happened almost effortlessly. So… (pause) NOW has given me so much. It’s been, been given, giving me pride in being a woman. It has been giving me a sense that I can make a difference no matter how small. I mean, I’m in this little South Jersey area from, you know, Trenton to Cape May. But for whatever it’s worth, everybody in that little area has gotten a newsletter every month for 46 years with feminist information. They’ve gotten invited to a program meeting every month for 46 years. Not that, you know, more than a handful have attended, but so what? Um?
Every person living? In the area? You have--
No, no not every person. Every NOW member.
Okay.
When I--no. Thank you for clarifying that. When I first started, the chapter was about maybe, had maybe 25 members. And we’ve always had a program meeting and we’ve always sent out a newsletter. But it has grown over that time period, to a place where we are not 4 or 500 strong. And those, that’s the only way those 4 or 500 people get feminist news. Is it covered in the mainstream media? Barely. Is it covered, you know. On TV and in newspapers? Barely. Is it covered online? Barely. You know, only when there’s some first person to do this, maybe. But. They get--we, we give them their biggest dose of women’s rights and feminist news and ways to be active. So even though, you know, I’ve kind of bloomed where I was planted. I can’t fix the whole country, but I can bring along the people in my little… sub-group, and do what I can, to, you know, do what I can to be a leader in my little group. So that’s given me…. More pleasure than I’ve given. So people don’t understand that or accept it, but I don’t care. It’s the truth. It’s, it’s been a really, really positive influence in my life and I am so grateful. I think anybody who has something in their life that they would do without pay, without a performance appraisal, until midnight, and have to force themselves to stop doing it so they can, they can get up at a reasonable time the next morning. I think that person has a gift. And I don’t care if it’s raising orchids. Or training dogs, or birdwatching, or whatever it is. If you have a passion that gives strength and beauty and purpose to your life, then you have a gift. And that’s the gift that NOW has given me. It’s given me something that I feel so passionate about. It has given me such a full, rich life. That if I were to die tomorrow, I would have no regrets. Yeah, are there things I wish I would have done differently? Sure. You know. Do I wish I would have done differently about being a parent, or you know, in my relationship? You know, I was married for 30 years. I haven’t been married for 20 years. Um… I had--there are regrets. But not in my--not in how I am as a person--mhm hmm--and how I’ve lived my life.
(01:22:55)
NOW has been the one positive through divorce, through pregnancy discrimination, through breast cancer, through layoffs. Through all of the downsides in my life, NOW has been a constant positive. It’s never let me down. You know. Did the ERA battle let me down? Yes. I’m, you know, I’m not saying there haven’t been defeats. But n--but women’s rights as an overall force has been something I cherish, and I’m grateful for every day. The people I’ve met, the things I’ve done. You know.
Yeah.
it’s just been.
So you also mentioned your family, so I was wondering if you could go back to that and if you’d talk a little bit more about your kids and parenting, um. How that’s impacted you? Um. And also, since I haven’t like--anything you would like to share about your relationships or the divorce and if, um, you had any support networks to get through that, and, um, things like that.
Sure. um. I have 2 kids. Uh, they’re now 40--uh, son 48, and a daughter, 44. Um. I raised them…
What are their names, also?
Oh, thank you. My son is David. Uh. He lives in Austin, Texas. Married to a wonderful woman--he’s been married for more than 10 years to a wonderful woman by the name of Rachel Madorski. Um. Who he met through improv. When he was in college at American University in Washington D.C., which is also where I went to college. Not a planned thing, but how things worked out. Um. He was a theater major and he started an improv group. Um. And as a result of that, when he graduated, he went to Second City to see--wait, nope. Let me back up. When he was, had this improv group in college. It was extremely successful. And people from Second City came to observe him.
(01:24:58)
And. Um. As a result, he got to visit Second City when he graduated. And, he saw all of his childhood heroes on the wall that he had seen in all our VCR tapes of Saturday Night Live. And so he went to Second City and he said “I’ll do anything. I’ll sweep floors. I’ll”, you know, “What, whatever you want, I want to be here.” So they took him on, um, he, he performed on the stage of Second City. His father and I who were separated at the time got to see him there, and he said “I’m crossing off number one on my wish list.” You know. “My parents got to see me perform on the, on the stage of Second City in Chicago.” And he’s still doing that to this day. He still performs, writes, directs. And they’re in the process of buying the theater where, um, their improv group, uh. Works. And his wife performs with him. Uh. Very non-traditional career, but, he’s happy, I’m happy. And I’ve seen him perform at, actually, even performed with him once. To my great horror, he had to, practically drive me kicking and screaming to that stage. But, um. He said “All you have to talk about is,” um, “your relationship with my dad and we’ll take it from there.” So I said “alright, I can talk about that.”
(laughs)
It was painful and I’d never do it again but um. I’m proud of him and he’s proud of me. Um. I don’t get to see him very often. I used to, he used to come here once a year, I used to go there once a year but that’s not happening now. So, we don’t know when we’ll be able to visit again. Um. My daughter, um… Also got raised, as I said, I was pregnant with her, um. My daughter’s name is Lori Bauchman. Lori Glick Bauchman, the same as my middle name, although she doesn’t use the “Glick”. Um. She--I was pregnant with her at my first NOW conference. You know. I breastfed her through all the NOW meetings. I took her to many of those 50 NOW conferences that I mentioned--that we used to travel together when she was in high school. Great bonding, um, one on one bonding. I took her to Chicago for the NOW conference and she met Carol Mosely Braun, one of the women who ran for the Senate that year in 1992 who didn’t make it, but, um, she was I think the first African American woman after Shirley Chisholm to run for the senate, for um… Sorry, for um--yeah, for the Senate. Shirley just ran for the house. But, um. So she, she got feminism with mother’s milk, literally. And I took both of them to, um. A demonstrations, um, you know. She was in a stroller. Uh. We protested the Rusty Scupper which was a restaurant in this area that was owned by Nabisco. We were protesting it because Nabisco was, um, selling baby formula to mothers in third world countries as a status symbol.
(01:28:07)
Um. So that they would, they would stop breastfeeding. Their, their breast milk would dry up. Uh, their babies would die from lack of nutrition because they didn’t have sufficient water, clean water to mix with the formula. They didn’t have enough money to buy formula. Um. So their babies would die. And they would tie the empty milk cans on the babies graves to show what good mothers they would. Like they did their best for their babies. And it was so heartbreaking that we protested the Rusty Scupper which was owned by, um--I’m sorry, did I say Nabisco? I meant Nestle. Nestle Foods was the honor of, of, the, the, that provided this, um. Baby formula. So I have pictures of my kids at that rally. My daughter’s in a stroller with a sign that says “I am a mini-feminist” and I still have that sign. Um. They were in 4th of July parades with me and I have photos of them doing that, marching in the 4th of July parades with their white outfits and their feminist sashes--their purple and gold feminist sashes on. So. They pretty much, you know. Were raised feminist. I got them, um, the “Free to Be You and Me” album which was put out by the Miss Foundation. Um. That had all these non-stereotypical songs on it. That I Just heard is kind of making a comeback. And I just learned this year that my daughter buys that album for every new baby in her friend group. And I said “Really?! Seriously!?” Like, “You remember it?! It meant that much to you?!” And she said “Of course!” And there were so many wonderful songs on that album. Um. Rosie Grier, um, sang “It’s alright to cry / Crying takes the man out of you.” Um. There was this mother’s brother’s, um. Had something on work. I wish I could remember this… “Some kind of helping / is the kind of help / we all can…. That helping’s all about. / And some kind of help / is the kind of help we all can do without.” And I have thought about that on so many occasions with volunteers that didn’t work out and who I wanted to fire but couldn’t. There were so many themes in that “Free to Be You And Me” album. Oh! William has a doll because my son had a doll. Um, I got him a Joey doll, a male doll that he could dress and undress so he could practice being a father. Um. There were so many groundbreaking, um, things in that album. And I kind of felt like it, my kids weren’t that into it and really didn’t… It really didn’t make a dent? But it turns out it did.
(01:30:57)
Maybe more so for my daughter than my son. But I wanted them to have--I knew that they were getting a non-feminist method in society and in school. And I wanted them to have something that told them, “yes, it’s okay to cry. Yes, it’s okay to have a doll. Yes, you don’t have to be perfect at sports.” Um. Just another way to know that… (pause) The, the feminst way was also an acceptable way to live. Um. (pause) I guess I was successful. Um. I found out later that my son--both of my kids went to school in, in um, Washington D.C., in America--my daughter also went to American University. And she majored in Law, Justice, and Public Policy, and a minor in Women’s Studies. So I would say she got the message. Um. When I found out later that they, um, both served as Clinic Escorts, going to support, um, uh, women’s centers in each of their areas. And. Um. My son who’s in Texas has supported Wendy Davis, who was a big supporter in the Texas legislature for the women’s center in Texas that was part of a Supreme Court decision. Um. So I think that message has filtered down? Um. They both send checks to feminist candidates. Um. (pause) They’re not out-and-out feminists the way I am, but. (laughs) Few people are! Is, is that crazy? But they both support the ideals. And, um. My daughter’s career, which involved catering--she also did not go into it, she studied in college. She, um, was a server as a, um, work-study program while she was in college and she fell in love with that. So she became a bartender. When she graduated, she went to one of those places and said, um, “I know you have people ahead of me in line to be a bartender, but I want to be a bartender. Will you hire me?” And they said yes. And she really loved it. And she went on to work in, um. Big deal restaurants in Washington and then came back to Philadelphia and worked in big deal restaurants in Philadelphia. And then went on to have her own, um. Uh. Concierge company. And, um… Her, her, her business has been in, um. She, she was a great server because of her, of her background. She was very good at reading people. Very hard worker. She’s very, uh, ambitious. She’s very creative. And in one of her catering jobs, um, she--they had to put on a, um… An event for a women’s center group. And she made dishes--oh I wish I could remember this. That all had feminist names like “Bell Hook’s Eggplant”. But she, she, uh, “Bella Abzug,” uh, “Spinach Dip.” But she incorporated the feminist names into the name of the dish.
(01:34:10)
And she had little name tags, and they just loved it. And, um. So she’s kind of taken her feminist ideals and knowledge and background into, you know, the career that, that she’s in. And my son, accordingly, has supported a lot of women improv groups that he, you know. All women improv groups. He’s kind of mentored them. So each of their careers are very different from what they studies in college, and very different from traditional feminism, have kind of carried feminism into what they do, certainly who they support politically. Although I think my Bern--my son is more of a Bernie supporter than not, but. That’s because he supports, um, Universal Healthcare and free college and thinks--even though he was a big Biden supporter in the old days, he’s… (audio fades out, inaudible) ... no doubt about that. And certainly my daughter will. So. You know, not sure if I--oh, my, my, my, uh. Background. My, uh, relationships. So, uh. My husband had no, um, clue about feminism. Um. He was completely different from me. Um. I got married because, not because I really wanted to get married, but because I thought I had to be married. And he was good looking and he had a good income, and it’s hard for people now to realize that in those days, it wasn’t a question of “Would you get married?” It was a question of “When will you get married?” The earlier the better. And, so, um, I dated him--I dated several guys seriously, but I dated him… And another guy in college. And I knew that the other guy wasn’t gonna work out. And I knew that this one would. And he was good looking. As I said, he had…. Good income. Um. I thought. It turned out not to be the case, but that’s another story. Um. And I, and h--I thought that he loved us. He loved me enough for the both of us. And… That’s not a good idea. And I thought I wasn’t gonna do better. And as I was pulling my bridal gown over my head, I literally thought, “if this doesn't work out, I can always get a divorce.” And that’s not a good thing to be thinking as you’re pulling your bridal gown over your head. That’s not what you’re supposed to be thinking.
(01:37:01)
But I did what I was supposed to do to the best, with the best candidate. Um.
What year did you get married?
1969. August 8th, 1969. That was the weekend of the Sharon Tate Murders in California. The Charlie Manson crew killed Sharon Tate, an actress, in her home. Um. It was a very grisly, horrible murder. Um. It happened the day of my wedding. On our plane ride to our honeymoon, which was out in California. I thought “Oh my God, we’re flying to a state where there’s a murder rampage on the loose. And, what are we gonna do?” Because at the time, nobody--just like 9/11, no--at this time, nobody knew who these people were, who they were killing, why they were killing. So. (sigh) That was pretty eventful. Oh--oh, um. The week after that was Woodstock. Um. So a lot of people did not come to my wedding because they were on their way to Woodstock, and I was too out of it to know that Woodstock would be so eventful, and I thought, you know, “Why are these people going to a rock show instead of coming to my wedding?” You know. “My wedding’s going to be so much more fun!”
(laughs) Um. And a month before that, in, in Sept--in July of that summer was both the moon landing and the Chappaquiddick. Tenet--Ted Kennedy going off the bridge with Mary--Mary Jo Kopechne into the Chappaquiddick. So it was a very, very eventful summer. The, the moon landing, my wedding, and Woodstock. Um. And… Um… So I was… (pause) Kind--I was still teaching. I was just kind of putting one foot in front of the other. Um. I had my children. And I realized pretty… Early into--oh! My, my husband is very supportive of my feminist career, I have to say that. As he, as you know, I was doing it full time. Or as you don’t know. But I’m telling you, I was doing it full time. I was also going to graduate school full time. I earned 3 graduate degrees while I was married. So here I was, he was supporting me through graduate school. He was supporting me through my feminist activities. And so I thought, “I kind of have it made! Yeah, it’s not the greatest marriage in the world, but I have 2 great kids. I can be home to raise them.” Um. “I can,” you know, “be supported in doing what I love.” I loved graduate school, I would still be in graduate school if it paid better. Um. I only stopped because I had to finally stop and start earning a living when I got divorced, when I got separated.
(01:40:08)
But, um. (pause) It was a, it was a good life. You know? Um. Yes, I was in a marriage that wasn’t great, but he wasn’t abusive. He just didn't understand what I was doing. Um. He was, he was a huge tennis player. And he equated this--you know, this was his hobby, and women’s rights and school were my hobbies. And… That was fine. I mean, it was kind of lonely that he didn’t understand how important feminism was to me? And, um. There was one, uh. Event that we had that probably turned him off to it forever. Um. We held a reverse fashion show, where instead of putting women on stage… You know, like, an Anti Miss America pageant. Um. There was this guy by the name of Warren Pharrel who was a men’s movement guy at the time--who, I don’t know whatever happened to him, I’ll have to Google him and see what happened to him. But he was in charge of having, kind of men’s consciousness raising groups. And trying to--he was a real wonderful, really wonderful feminist. And he tried to teach men that there was something in feminism for them. Yes, they might be giving up some political power. Yes, they might be giving up some power within a relationship. They wouldn’t have to work themselves into an early grave if men were. Um. If women were equal partners in, in bringing in the wages. Um. They could have closer relationships with their kids. If, men had, you know, less time at the office and more time at home. There was something in it for them, to be a feminist. And one of his activities, as a consciousness raiser for men, was to have an Anti Miss America pageant, or an Un Miss America pageant, I forget what he called it. Um. I think it was a more clever name than that. The, the project involved having 4 or 5 men on the stage, and women in the audience. Um. And they would be like in, I don’t know, bathing suits or tank tops. And, um. Women would be like catcalling them and clapping to rate them on their good-lookingness, on their appearance. And asking these really dumb questions. And basically trying to, um… Make it look like a Miss America pageant but with guys. And so guys would--the point was that guys would realize how, uh, humiliating it is to be subjected--to, to be looked at as s--as objects, as sex objects.
(01:42:55)
What year was this?
Oh! I… Will take a guess that it was the mid-70s.
Okay.
That’s, that’s my best guess. And--or maybe the late ‘70s. And. Um. For my husband, it worked in reverse. He was heavy. He was good-looking when I married him, but he had been heavy before I met him and he got heavy after I met him. And… He was very, very handsome, but. You know. Didn’t have the best body. And he was treated pretty roughly. And… Basically hated feminism after that. And I felt terrible for putting him through that. I thought, “What the hell was I thinking?” You know, “it’s terrible for a woman to go through this. Why in the hell would I subject anybody to this, much less somebody I’m married to?” But. I only did it because I, I naively thought that the lightbulb would go on in his head. ‘Cause he was a big Play Boy reader. He was a big, um, you know, Sports Illustrated Cover reader. He was very much into sexist things. And I thought, at least if he didn’t stop doing those things, at least he would understand something about feminism and why I was so caught up in it, how pervasive it was. He’d say, “Oh! I don’t necessarily agree with you, but I understand what you’re talking about.” But that didn’t happen. He just became more, kind of isolated, and, um. Into his own things, into his business, into tennis, into his friends, into TV. And we just grew apart. You know, here I was in graduate school, kind of moving forward. I was moving forward in terms of my social justice activism. I bore no resemblance to the person he married. And I can’t blame him for us growing apart. I blame me, if anything, for us growing apart. He stayed the same person he was when I married him. He still is today, for the most part. 50 years later, the same person that I married. Um. And I’m a totally different person. I would not even recognize the person I was pulling on that bridal dress. As a matter of fact, I just got my bridal dress out of the closet ‘cause my daughter got married during the pandemic and is gonna wait for a year to hold the reception. And she might want to cut up my bridal dress and, you know, incorporate that into her dress or her veil or something. So I just took that, my bridal dress out of this sealed plastic box and I thought--and I looked at the pictures in my wedding album and I thought “Who the heck is that person?” I just--it was another lifetime, it was another--it was just another person.
(01:46:05)
That I don’t recognize, relate to, understa--well, I do understand her. But I don’t relate to her. And I barely recognize her. And um, so… I was married for 30 years. I’ve been divorced for 20, and we went through marriage counseling at the 10 year mark because I basically threatened to, um. I said “If, if we don’t go to marriage counseling, I’m out of here.” So we went reluctantly. Um. It didn’t work for him, he hated it. Um. The marriage counselor basically said “okay, now I know what the problem is in your coupled-dom. Now I need to know what each of your problems are individually. So I’d like to see you each individually.” He went once, he hated it, he quit. We were in different groups. Um. I went once, I loved it, I stayed for three or four or five years. I just couldn’t get enough of it. It really saved my life. I shudder to think what my life would have been like without that therapy. I’ve had three good therapists but that was, that was a big breakthrough. And, (sigh) um, so I kind of stuck it out. Um. For another, let’s say, when--that was at the 10 year mark. I stuck it out to the 30 year mark. Because I had so much positive in my life. Um. And because I didn’t believe I could give my kids the life that my husband could give them financially. I knew I couldn’t. Um. He didn’t give me what I needed. But he was very generous and he gave what he could so he gave us a very comfortable financial life. My kids went to private school. Um. We lived in a really big, expensive house in Morristown. Um. That I could never afford on my own that I adored, that my kids adored. Um. We went on expensive vacations to Club Med and Bermuda, and, um. Key West. Which I still, I still love Key West. Key West is still my favorite place on the face of the earth. And I’ve gone since, but, um, not lately. And I wouldn’t have had that experience. Um. I had a fancy car. Um. I could do graduate school and NOW work all that time without having to earn an income. I had the perfect life. Yeah, I was in a marriage with someone I didn’t love, but so what? Um… In one of my, uh, therapy groups, um. Or actually, it was one of my, one of my one on therapists. Um. He said, and I told him this story that I just told you and he said “So you sold yourself--sold your soul to the Devil.” And I said one of the funniest things I think I’ve ever said. Was, “Yes, but I got a very good price for it.” And that was the truth! I got a very good price for selling my soul.
(01:49:12)
Um… I was happy! Um. I looked at the things that I had instead of the things that I didn’t have. Um. And then, at my daughter’s college graduation, things, you know, were getting worse and worse and worse. And at my daughter’s college graduation, we went there with my father for the weekend. And things just really hit a shitstorm. My husband was ridiculously nasty to me. Um. He accused me of saving seats, you know. We had, like, um, parties before and after the graduation and he accused me of saving seats for my father but not for him. Um. And was very pissy to me. When it was time to leave to leave the hotel, I had 2 suitcases and I think a floral arrangement or something from, from the event? And he just packed his suitcase and went downstairs and left me to struggle with my two suitcases and my flower arrangement and I couldn’t maneuver them and I had to call the front desk to send up somebody to help me to the car. It was the worst weekend of my life. And I sat in the backseat on the way home from Washington to Philadelphia--my, my father was in the front seat, so nobody saw me in the backseat crying for three hours. And the next day, um, my husband said over the kitchen table, “I can’t do this anymore.” And I said “I can’t either.” So we went to a, um… Mediator. A person who was a former lawyer who had got like social work training and would counsel people who would want to separate, which was cheaper than just going to a lawyer. So we did that. ‘Cause neither one of us really wanted to hurt the other. We just wanted out. And, um. The mediator said “I really don’t want you--I really don’t like ending marriages needlessly, especially a marriage of 30 years.” (pause) “So I want you to at least try to go to a therapist.” So we went--”Fine”. We went out to the parking lot. We sat on the concrete barrier in the parking lot and said “You think a therapist is going to do anything for us?” And he said “no”. And I said “You’re right.” We went back into the mediator and we said “we are not doing this. There is no,” you know, “talk about a rec--irreconcilable differences. We have,” you know, “when you look up irreconcilable differences in the dictionary, our picture’s there. There is no way this is ever gonna work out. Impossible.”
(01:52:02)
So he started the process. We, you know, got to the… We had no fault of worse in New Jersey, so we got separate residences and split up our property. Um. I did not ask for alimony, which my lawyer just about killed me over. She said “you have to ask for alimony.” I said “I’m not going to do it.” Um. “I took the good times. He’s going through tough times now. I’m, I’m not gonna kick’m when he’s down.” And she said “you have to!” So I said “fine, I’ll take,” uh, “a year’s worth of rehabilitative alimony.” He went crazy. I withdrew it. So we went through the divorce proceedings with no ali--no alimony asked for. The judge looked at my lawyer and said “Does your client understand that it’s unheard of in a 30 year marriage for the wife not to ask for rehabilitative or any alimony?” And my, my lawyer like, you know. Sighed and said “I told her, your Honor. I know. I just can’t get her to do it. So.” The judge said “okay, this divorce is… on. You’re divorced.” My husband got up. I got up. I’m sobbing. Not because I was sad about the divorce, but because it was the end of 30 years. It was the end of something I couldn’t fix. It was, it was sad! Even though it was the right thing to do, it was so sad. So he got up, I got up. He put his arms around me. I’m crying into his chest. Our lawyers are looking at each other like “What the heck is that?” We went out to breakfast together at a diner. And we had the most amicable divorce in history. Um. We had nothing to split up ‘cause we had already split things up. Our kids were out of the house. Um. I was in good financial footing, he wasn’t. So. That was it! We just went our separate ways. Um… He remarried just about instantly. There was, um, a receptionist at his chiropractor’s office who probably had her eyes on him while we were separated. Um. He’s now been married to her for 15 years. They’ve been together for 20. And, three years ago he suffered a terrible accident where, um, he had went from playing tennis 2 or 3 times a week to becoming a quadrapelegic. So he has, he went from playing tennis to not being able to brush his teeth or feed himself. And she has been his caretaker for all that time. It has been a horrendous life for her. She is somebody who I would have never met in my other life. We’re completely different in as many ways as you can think of.
(01:55:07)
He told people that he first married his father, and then married his mother, which. His father was not a particularly nice person, and his mother was a keep-the-peace at all costs person, so. You can kind of figure out what he meant. But, having said that, I get--I just find it so well who, with his wife, who during his hospitalization and ever since, that when he ended up going home, I would bring dinner to their house every Sunday--usually leftovers from a NOW meeting or a NOW mailing--so that they would have leftovers for the week that his caretakers could give him. And every Friday, she and I would get together for lunch so that she could vent and cry and complain because she didn’t have anybody to cry and vent, complain to. And we genuinely liked, loved, and supported each other. And people, again, thought I was a saint for doing this. And I said “Absolutely not. Number one, that could have been me. But for the grace of God, that could have been me. And if I had to be the person to change his diaper multiple times a day, without loving him, I don’t think I could have done it. I think it would have been a case of these murder suicides that you hear about where the person just can’t take it anymore. Because he’s not even grateful for her, to her, for what he does--for what she does for him. So it could have been. And also, the other reason I do it is because, he gave me everything he could when we were married. I feel like this is payback time.” And, you know, was he the person I needed? No. But he gave me great kids. He gave me a comfortable life. Basically gave me my NOW and Alice Paul Institute background. He gave me everything that I consider positive in my life. And I feel like… If, if I were in that situation, I would want him to do that for me. Would he do it? Probably not. But that doesn’t matter. So, um, the pandemic has put the squash on… Me going there on Sunday nights and me getting together with her on Fridays. We haven’t been able to do that since March. And I feel terrible about that. Um. I try to call her, um. She brought me dinner, takeout dinner on my birthday. I mean, we still care about each other, we still communicate. But I’m not able to support her in,during the pandemic. And I have to say, that’s what I hate most about the pandemic.
(01:58:05)
I am fine--I’ve been in the house by myself since March 15th. For four months. And I’m not lonely. I’ve never had enough solitude and now I do. I have friends who buy me groceries. My daughters… My daughter gave me Netflix and her iPad. And I have watched all of the shows I missed all of my life. I mean, people would talk about, you know, people would talk about, uh… “Grey’s Anatomy”. And I didn’t know “Grey’s Anatomy” from a hole in the ground. And when I first saw “Grey’s Anatomy”, the first day I watched it on Netflix, I sat in my chair from noon until 3 a.m.!
(laughs)
I was so in love with Grey’s Anatomy! That I watched the entire 16 seasons to the end before I stopped watching it. And I watched “Schitt’s Creek”. And I watched, um, “Fleabag”. And I watched all of these things that people told me about--I mean, I could have gone for three weeks without having the TV on. I didn’t know any of this! And now it’s all I do. And the Food Channel! You know I used to not be able to watch the Food Channel unless I was staying at a hotel, and now I watch it every day. So the pandemic has been really good for me, except for the fact that I can no longer support my ex-husband’s wife, Carol. And I really feel terrible about that. Probably that’s the first thing I’d do when I’m sprung from here, is try to resume--you know, go, get bringing her dinner--bringing them dinner--yeah--on Sunday night. And going out to lunch with her on Fridays. Um… So, you know, people, people don’t understand when they, when they hear that I do that. But it’s not about being a saint. It’s just about being grateful that I’m not in that situation and this is the way that I show it. So.
Mhm.
People also ask if I’ve been lonely these 20 years that I’ve been single and I have not. Not once. I was much lonelier when I was married. It is the worst thing to be in a 30 year relationship with someone who doesn’t understand the most important thing in the world to you. Um. Who doesn’t share the same values you share. Um. Who you cannot have a political discussion with. Um… It’s just, that’s lonely. (pause) In the 20 years that I’ve been seper--20 years that I’ve been divorced, I have had so much support as, as I mentioned. I had breast cancer, uh, maybe I didn’t--but five years ago I had breast cancer. And, um, surgery, and chemo and radiation. And all of my NOW friends supported me through that. Um.
(02:01:17)
I was never a good person about asking for help. But when I came home from the hospital, and through chemo and radiation--no, when I came home from the hospital and couldn’t, couldn’t do anything at all. I had this list of things that needed to be done, like getting groceries and cutting the grass and vacuuming. And it was a list of, I don’t know, maybe 10 things. And I put out an email that weekend, that Sunday, to say “can anybody help with any of these?”
Mhm hmm.
Wait, no. That was a Friday. By Sunday, three quarters of them were called for, and by Monday all of them were covered. And that’s the support group I had. And they couldn’t do enough for me. You know, it’s like, “What else can I do? What else can I do? What else can I do?” And I probably wouldn’t have gotten through it without that wonderful support group and, you know, they were just… People that I didn’t expect to come, that was very interesting--the people who I thought would come out for me did not. Many of them. And the people that I never expected to, did, which was kind of a very interesting litmus test.
Mhm hmm.
But, um, once I got back to work after that. Um. I had, I said chemo and radiation. And I got through that really well. Um. I had chemo in the morning, once every, I think it was 6 weeks. And then I went to work in the afternoon.
So this was in 2015?
This was in… (pause) Yes. 2014. This was in 2014.
Okay, got it.
And… That really brought my daughter and I closer together. I had set up friends to go to chemo with me. And she said “no.” she and I had had kind of a conflicted relationship up until this point. And she said “no, this is something a daughter does.” So I cancelled all those people that I had to sit with me at chemo for 6 sessions and she sat with me. And she brought, um, a cooler of cut up watermelon. And we ordered pizza and hoagies. Because I knew that for the next 6 weeks, all the food that I eat--ate would taste metallic or have no taste. The day of chemo was the last time I would have an appetite. And it was funny to watch all of these people in the chemo lab each having their own little party. While they were having their chemo, their family would be sitting around with the coolers and all the good food.
(02:04:09)
(laughs)
My son, my son came to one of these sessions and he said “oh my God! It’s like a tailgate party!”
(laughs)
“Everybody’s like,” you know, “patient is plugged into the chemo and everybody else is having a party with them!” But she and I would watch videos of “Orange is the New Black”, which was out at the time.
Mhm hmm.
And she would tell me who all the characters were and all the backgrounds. And that experience really brought us closer together. And started our relationship improving. Um. From that time forward. And I kind of, um, compare that to the pan--current pandemic. There, there are so many unknown, unanticipated, positive consequences of the pandemic, like people caring for each other, that nobody could have anticipated. Um. Chemo was like that for me.
Mhm hmm.
You know, my better relationship with my daughter, um. Uhh, people coming out of the woodwork to help me. Um. Me being able to work in the afternoon--nobody would believe that I went to chem--to chemo in the morning and work in the afternoon. Um. When I had radiation I did the same thing. I went to chemo--I mean, I had radiation on my lunch hour.
Mhm hmm.
I would go to work in the morning and I was close enough physically to do this--go to radiation on my work hour and come back after the radiation and go back to work. And at the end of the experience, I said to my oncologist, “why do people say the ch--the chemo and radiation are so bad? Did I have a really easy chemo and radiation?” And I have to say, radiation for me was worse than chemo, but both of them were doable. They had something to fix everything that went wrong. I got a burn from radiation, they had cream for that. If I had a mouth sore from chemo, they had a, a rinse for that. And I said “Why did I have such an easy experience with chemo and radiation?” And she said--”did I have an easy one?” She said “no, you had a really hard chemo. That’s why you had to have a shot the next day to kind of protect you from that harsh chemo.” She said “your body just tolerated it really well.” So that’s another thing that I’m grateful for. Um. I had a lumpectomy instead of mastectomy, and so I know that my recuperation was 10 times easier than other women who had breast cancer. Um. My chemo and radiation was much easier. I didn’t throw up all the time. Um… Yeah, it wasn’t the most fun time in the world. But I had surgery in the summer and I ended my radiation, I think, uh… Valentine’s Day? That was kind of the time frame. And after that I just went on with my life! Um.
(02:06:57)
I’m darn lucky. You know. I’m just darn lucky.
Mhm hmm.
I guess I’m a good healer. And I’m darn lucky. Um. I had had a perfect mammogram the year before. It wasn’t that I let my mammograms go. So I became a huge believer in annual mammograms and a huge, uh, missionary for 3D mammograms which were just getting started at the time. Those places did 2D mammograms. And, um. A 3D mammogram basically saved my life. Because my lump was so hid that not only could I not feel it, but my breast surgeon could not feel it.
Mhm hmm.
So if I had not had a 3D mammogram, I wouldn’t be here right now. Um. So I became a big proponent of that. And now, 3D mammograms are common when you have one, but in the old days you had to pay $50 dollars extra. You had to ask for it, demand it, and pay $50 dollars extra for it. So. And I had good health insurance! If I hadn’t had good health insurance, I wouldn’t have had the time that I did. I just had all my ducks in a row. I was very fortunate, I had great doctors, I had great friends.
Yeah!
I had great healthcare. Um… Had a great income. I was just very fortunate. And I thank my lucky stars for that.
And you mentioned your support networks? Um. Of people helping you during, when you had breast cancer? But also I was wondering about, during your childhood? Did you have any female role models that also worked, or did, did you see them all in the house, or um, like, I know you talked about your mom, but any other family or family friends, grandparents?
Um. My grandmother--my mother’s mother was an extremely strong woman. Um… She, it was her way or the highway. You know, she did not take no for an answer. Um. And I was probably one of her favorite. I was out of all the grandchildren, um, the youngest male, and I the youngest female were her two favorites. She bought me my first car when I was in college and she didn’t do that for anyone else. Um. She was a powerhouse. But, um… She was also very unkind, maybe, without realizing it, to my mother. Um. She kind of favored my aunt. Um. So. I saw her as a strong role model and someone who dearly loved me, but also made my mom a little sad about who she was. Um… She was probably my strongest and only role model of my youth. Um… I un--I wish had seen my mother more of a strong role model when I was younger. I saw her as that when I got older. When I got to high school and college, and I saw how my dad was a terrible husband and father.
(02:10:05)
And how she basically had to raise us on her own. Um. Just like my husband, I guess (inaudible), he provided for us financially, but he was not the least bit supportive of us. Um. He would not be my front seat licensed driver when I was getting my driver’s license. Um. He was closer to my brothers than he was to me. He would do father and son things but not father and daughter things. Um. He was, he was not a good husband or father. But, um, so I saw the things that she had to do on her own and the things that she had to deal with and as I said, she kind of became stronger when I became a feminist and. You know, she says I taught her how to be a feminist. I really can’t remember any strong women role models until I got involved in feminism. And learned about, first of all, the woman who taught that course that exposed me to the NOW person? Irene Osbourne was a gay woman who was head of programming at the Philadelphia Y. Probably the first gay person I had, I knew was a gay person. And she was also the f--one of the first strong people I ever met. Strong women I ever met.
Was she in NOW or a different organization?
Sheee….. Was probably a NOW person. She was very much an out feminist. I don’t know if she was a card carrying NOW member. My guess is that she was, but I never connected the dots. I knew that she was a supporter of Women’s Way, which is the Philadelphia version of United Way. It was a strong fundraising organization for women in the cit--in the city of Philadelphia and for women’s groups in the city of Philadelphia. So I know that she was very involved in Women’s Way. Um. My guess is she was a NOW member but. You know, we never had that discussion.
Mhm hmm.
But she was involved in NOW enough to know to get a NOW speaker as part of her program. So. Um. My guess is that she was probably a NOW member> But I didn’t really… Know personally, strong women until I got involved in NOW. And now all of my strong friends, strong women friends, are in NOW. And um, I have many friends who are not in NOW? Which is a little weird. Um. They’ve dropped out of NOW because they weren’t as politically motivated as me or couldn’t be bothered? You know, we share other things? But, um. Most of my women friends are… NOW members.
(02:12:53)
So you said, uh, her name was Irene? So how did you--(overlapping) I learned--(overlapping) meet her? Was it through the conscious--consciousness raising, or—
No, it was, it was, she was president of, er, and head of programming at the Philadelphia YWCA. She’s the one who put on that series of programs that had, um, women in music. Women in sports. Women in--okay--politics. Women in history. And one of the speakers was a NOW member. And, um. So. She’s resp--and I always told her after that, when I bumped into her at events, “you’re the one who turned me on to this.” I always gave her credit. I was kind of embarrassed, but kind of proud that--’cause she knew that I had become real involved in South Jersey NOW and was happy to know that she was the one responsible for that. And she was a great woman. (pause)
Also, I was wond--can we take a break for a minute? I just have to--(overlapping) Absolutely!--use the restroom.
Absolutely, sure.
I’m just gonna pause the recording. (silence) Um, so I also--I just wanted to go back and um, find out a little bit more about your education? Um. Since you mentioned a bit that you did undergrad at um, American University? So I was wondering what you studied there and also if you talk more about your graduate degrees as well?
Sure! Um. My bachelors was in Elementary Education. Uh. Back in the day, women had, maybe 3 or 4 career options. Teacher. Nurse. Secretary. Mom.
Mhm hmm.
That was it. And teaching appealed to me. So, that’s what I studied in um. For my bachelor’s. Um. When my kids were--and I, and I taught for three years. Uh. A year in D.C.,--no, three and a half years. A year in Washington D.C. at the school where I had done my student teaching. Um, actually I delayed marriage, um, a year. By doing that. I was supposed to get married right out of college, but I didn’t want to get married right out of college because I loved D.C. and I didn’t want to leave it.
(02:15:07)
And I knew I was going into a marriage that I was less than enthusiastic about. So for a year, I went back to the principal that I had student taught under who was a woman. And I said “would you hire me?” And this is like, on, on a spur of the moment. You know, I had graduated in June, school was gonna start in September. As far as she knew, I was going back home. And I went to her and I said “Would you hire me?” and she said “absolutely!” So I taught for a year at uh, Bethesda, Chevy Chase Elementary with kids that were, you know, uh, involved in gov--their parents were involved in the government and the White House. We would get notes saying “so and so can’t come to school today because she’s participating in the White House Easter egg hunt.” (laughs)
(laughs)
And, just, you know, blew my mind.
Yeah.
And yet, and yet the kids were not stuck up. They were very down to earth. When I came to New Jersey and got married, and started teaching in Cherry Hill, those parents were the total opposite. They would be the ones screaming that their kids didn’t get an A because they wouldn’t get in to Harvard. Um.
Yeah.
When they, when they didn’t get a good grade in first grade. It was, was very (coughs) unusual how that worked.
(laughing)
Anyway, but I digress. Um. When my kids were growing up, I really wanted to go back to graduate school. Um. For some reason, I don’t know how I got interested in coding. I think somebody… Gave me something and I enjoyed the process of computer coding. So I went back to graduate school for that, and I was terrible at it. Um… I really went back because I want--I loved school and I wanted a distraction from motherhood. Um. But I was terrible at coding. I, I, I think it was 4Tran that broke me--(laughs)--it was just like, I am never, never ever gonna get this ever! You know, it was like speaking Greek, it just wasn’t gonna happen. But half of my classes in computer programming were business courses. And, um, I could do those really well. Oh wait! I’m, I’m out of sequence here. Let me back up. My first graduate degree was in student personnel services. Um. That’s, when you get that degree you’re a guidance counselor. So I went back to the school where I had, um, last taught, which was Cherry Hill. And asked the student--the guidance counselor in the, um, school where I had taught “can I do a practicum with you?” This was at the end of my student personnel services masters and she said yes. So I got that degree. But what I really wanted to do was to be a school psychologist, because I was always interested in--most interested in my psychology and sociology courses in college. Not so much my education courses. I really loved psychology and sociology.
(02:17:55)
So, um. I applied for a Masters in, um, psychology. And I really loved that. I, um, learned how to give IQ tests, and I had to, um, practice. So I’d get all the neighborhood kids in to practice doing IQ tests. And they’d all knock on the door and say “can we do those tests again!” I had no problem finding candidates for that. And I, I enjoyed giving them and they enjoyed getting them, so that was kind of fun and I did my practicum in a, in a local, uh, school district. But, um--
What years, uh, were you getting your degrees and also what school did you go to?
Um… (pause) Where I got my… Oh! So my bachelors was American University and that was elementary education, which I taught. My first masters in Student Personnel Services was at Glas--well, Rowan University, which, um, in the early days used to be Glassboro State College for Teachers. But when I was there, it was, it was called Rowan. And my, um, school psychology degree was also at Rowan. Um. In Glassboro, New Jersey. And for some reason, I never followed either of those careers. I think because the salary caps were so low. That’s why I didn’t go back to teaching, that’s why I didn’t become a guidance counselor, that’s why I didn’t become a school psychologist. Because the top of the salary scale, even with my graduate credits and my graduate degree would be so low that I wouldn’t be able to sufficiently support my kids. And I could see that, you know. The marriage might not work out so well, you know, this is when I was going to marriage counseling and I thought “I might be supporting these kids on my own some day. Um. I certainly can’t give them,” you know, “the life they deserve on a teacher’s salary, or even a guidance counselor’s salary or even a school psychologist’s salary. I think I should go to, um, Business school. Er. You know, computer, get a computer degree. Because that’s, um--so the dates were, the bachelors was ‘68. The first masters was probably… (pause) Was probably ‘76. The second masters was probably ‘78. And probably the third masters, the MBA was 1980s, say. And the reason I got into the MBA, because as I said, I was going for computer, um, programming, but not, was not good at it. But half of my courses in that degree were business courses. So you would take half computer courses, half business courses. I was terrible at the computer courses, but I loved the business courses.
(02:21:01)
And this is where it kicked in, that I had to take certain prerequisites before I could get in the MBA program. Because I didn’t have any business courses in my background. So I had to take Personnel. And I, that’s where it kicked in that “oh! I’ve been doing Personnel in the NOW chapter all these years, this actually has a name and a function in a corporate environment. And, um, the professors loved me because here I was, um, you know, a young mother with children, and everybody else in my class was a 19 year old. You know, in my marketing class, um, they were talking about “how could you, how could you market to women?” And these doofuses would say, ah, “Make the cars pink!” And I’d go, “really?” And, you know, I would say to the professor, “No! You market to women by doing x y z.” You know. “By, by talking to the women instead of having their husbands come in to the dealership. ‘Cause that’s how you market to women.” So the professors loved me. Because I had real world experience and I could bring to the table. And I did really well, and I really loved it. So I, I got my, um, MBA in uh, about 1990 roughly. And I got a job and that’s, my oldest was in high school, and I thought “I really have to start preparing for… Her to be out of school and for my marriage to be ending.” I mean, I just like--the end was in sight, And I thought “the only way I’m going to be able to earn money is in the corporate world.” So I got a job at as an ad agency. Actually--this is really interesting. A NOW person, also named Judy, her name was Judy Swory Madataro, who was a former president of North Jersey NOW, said “are you doing anything this summer? We need help with x y z, would you be willing to come in and help us dig out from the pile” and I said “Sure” not even knowing what it was.
Mhm hmm.
And that part time job turned into--I basically ended up replacing her. And was at that company as a market research, uh, project director for 10 years. So I did focus gro--I didn’t lead focus groups, I recruited for focus groups nationwide studies. Um. This was in Philadelphia. One of our major--we were in the building of, uh, Roman House Chemical Company, in Philadelphia in Independence Square. And they were our major client. Um. And so, it was, it was fascinating. I always saw market research as a combination of business and psychology. And I just loved it. I fell into it, I was a good organizer, I was good at organizing focus groups ‘cause they’re, you know, you organiz--you have like 6 projects going at once and my vertical file, I would have like 6 folders on 6 different projects in 6 different stages of development. And when the director of research would call me in, I could pull my folder and, you know, tell him where we were up to date on that project and keep all the balls in the air. I was really good at that.
(02:24:08)
I got laid off from that job when, when the company, um. Got acquired by another company. Was, uh, really ugly. Was actually acquired by Doubt Company--Dowell Chemical. And, um, eventually this ad agency went out of a business. Very s--very sad story. Um… (sigh) My second--so I was unemployed for a long time. And, um, I did a lot of, I’ll call freelance jobs. Um. I did catering, because I liked to cook. Um. I was the welcome wagon for my town, which was hysterically funny because I was the least sociable person you knew. But I had to cold call on neighborhood--neighbors who had just moved in to try and welcome them to the neighborhood and sell them on community, company, uh, products. Um. What else did I do? Um. I did market research as a freelancer for, uh, former companies that I had recruited for. I, I, at one time I had 4 employers going at the same time and I would have a box of materials on the front s--front seat next to me and on each side of the backseat. And I was hoping that I would, you know--doing, wearing the right name tag at the right time. You know. It was working--oh, I was also a, uh, a social just--social science research for a hospital. Um. At a, uh. Corporate department of aging. Where we would do nationwide studies for people on aging. It was absolutely fascinating. So I kept doing that. And finally another NOW person called me and said, “We have a project that we have to dig out of. Would you be willing to come in as a freelancer just for the summer to dig us out?” It was weird how it worked. And I said “Sure.” They said “we need you to write bios”. I said “Absolutely.” And I had no idea what bios were. But I knew I liked to write. I had written the NOW calendar of events for 40 years. People complimented me on my writing. And I thought, why not! So I went in, and that turned into a 10 year job!
(laughs)
So all of my really good jobs, I have gotten through NOW members, which, you know.
What company was that?
Um. That was Hill International. It was a construction management company. Um. They managed projects, huge projects, as big as the Panama Canal. And rebuilding 9/11. Um. And the, the tunnel under the English Channel, the tunnel.
Mhm hmm.
It went from that company, in 30 years went from somebody’s spare bedroom, um, to being on the New York Stock Exchange. It was a great success story. Started by a father my age who was very much an entrepreneur.
(02:27:05)
Got in a lot of trouble. I think, the dirt was he ended up in jail for white collar crime at one point. But he brought the company to such a phenomenal place that it got acquired by another company. Um. At which time I got laid off again! My whole department got laid off, including my boss. Um. The company starts doing construction management. The company did construction claims. So if a project was being built and ran into trouble, the architect was arguing with the engineer, was arguing with the owner--my company would come in with lawyers and, um. Engineers to solve the problem, and then to finish the project. A whole project turnaround. So while I was there, Claims section got sold to another company. And that kind of put the writing on the wall, that my company was very much in debt and was kind of a bargain basement, good deal for another company who did the same thing. So there was a hostile takeover. Um. My 12 person marketing department got laid off. And I freelanced for them for 6 months after I was laid off. But then, um, everybody got fired. And, and that was the end of it. So my most recent career was working as a field interviewer for a company called RTI, Research Triangle Institute. And we adminin--I was a field interviewer. Um. In the Department of Health and Human Services was the main client. And the study had been done since 1971 on the use of alcohol and tobacco. Um. And pre--and medi--medications used illegally. And so I would handle every month, we worked with quarters. Every quarter I would get a month of 50 addresses and, after extensive training, they flew us to Rowling, North Carolina for 3 weeks, er, 3 days and very, very, very intensive training. Um. I had a laptop and a tablet and I went to each of my 50 houses, told the people that they were selected for the study--most of them didn’t want to do it because they didn’t believe it was gonna be confidential or they thought I was trying to sell them something. So my first job was to convince them to do it, and my second job was to administer the, the hour long survey on the laptop.And my third job was to, uh, transfer the data to the North Carolina. And I was really good at it because I could do it in my spare time. I could continue my NOW work during the day. I could do this nights and weekends. It was, um, a well paying part time job. Um. But then when the pandemic hit, that was the end of that. You can’t go to people’s houses and knock on their door and expect them to let you in. I mean, they were kind of reluctant to begin with?
(02:30:01)
Uh, there were a lot of refusals just because they didn’t believe me? But now nobody was gonna even open the door, much less--Right.--let me get my foot in. So since March, um. The project has been stopped. Which is a sin, since it’s been going on every year since 1971. Um. You know, they’re kind of heartbroken, but. There’s no way it can, it can happen this year. So, ah, since March I’ve been on unemployment and collecting unemployment. Not that it’s as good as that was, but it’s better than nothing. And, um, so that’s what I’m gonna be doing until the end of the year. So I’m one of those people that you hear about that was getting 600 dollars a week and as of today is no longer going to be getting 600 dollars a week. So. Um. I’m a little worried. But. You know, I’ve mad due and I’ll, I’ll continue to make do. So I’ve had many careers. My careers have been teaching, um. Market research. Uh. Writing. Field interviewing and social science. Um. I’ve had some pretty good careers.
Yeah!
Some pretty interesting careers. So when people--have--you know, I’ve had a very interesting background.
(inaudible) hear people who have switched around from different careers and see how--yup--it’s actually pretty common. People don’t realize.
It used to be very uncommon.
Right.
When I first got my teaching job, I remember my first year when I was teaching at Bethesda, Chevy Chase, the kindergarten teacher told me she had not only be teaching for 50 years, but she had been in the same classroom for 50 years. And I thought “Oh my God. I will shoot myself!” (laughs) “before I will be in this classroom for the next 50 years!”
Yeah.
But that’s what people did, you know. If they didn’t teach in the same classroom, they were still teachers for…
Right.
30, 40 years. Until they retired. So. Um. I think it’s kind of healthy that people are switching around.
Yeah.
It’s, um. I think the more jobs you get, the closer you get to your real skill set. Kind of start off thinking “I’m good at this” and then realizing I’m good at that and then realizing I’m good at that. And I think each job, if you’re fortunate, brings closer to your true skillset. And I was really good at my last skilled interviewer job. I was really good at converting people that didn’t want to do it. And, um. I even got a, a commendation from the head of the project in North Carolina, because I converted so many refusals. Once you did your 50 people, then you got the people who said “no” to somebody else. So you had to get them to talk to you, and then you had to get them to do the interview. It was like a double whammy. And I got so many of them to agree to interview. I, I got this commendation letter. So I think I really reached my peak job, and then the pandemic hit and I’ll probably never be able to get back to it, so. Whatever, I’m probably old enough that I should have retired years ago, so. I guess this will be retirement. (pause)
(02:32:55)
Um, also I was wondering, ‘cause you said you taught for like 3 and a half years, so I was wondering if you’d decided just to stop teaching because you were raising your kids or, um, what, between the gap, between teaching I guess and going back to graduate school? Uh, that’s when my NOW career kicked in. I didn’t want to give that up. Um. I really, really loved teaching. I think, um. That was one of my favorite jobs. Especially because I taught 1st and 2nd grade. When you teach reading, you change a kid from a baby to a real kid. You know. Into a grown up. You know. You open up the world to somebody when you teach them to read. And they come into your class not knowing A goes to apple. And they go out reading. You’ve opened up the whole world to them. And that’s pretty powerful.
Mhm hmm.
Um. So, and I really loved that. And it was the age when kids really love their teacher. You know they, they, they hadn’t gotten fresh yet. They wanted to be in school. And they called you “mommy” because they forgot where they were.
(laughs)
Um. They didn’t want to go on vacation ‘cause they didn’t want to leave the classroom. It was a very, very, rewarding, um career. And actually, that’s when “Sesame Street” started. My first year of teaching in Cherry Hill is when “Sesame Street” started. And I brought a TV into the classroom, which was pretty much forboden, because, I mean, what on TV could be useful? But I convinced my principal and for half an hour we had “Sesame Street” on and they just loved it. So, it was a, it was an exciting time to teach. Um. I didn’t go back to it because of the money. Because, again, um, I could see that my, my marriage was not good. I really wanted to be home with my kids. I really, um. (pause) I saw kids, who my friends… I saw parents of my kid’s friends who didn’t have enough money, and who treated their kids terribly as a result. They took out their frustration over their divorce and their poor salaries, uh, the poor salaries that they were able to make on their kids. They were abusive to their kids, unnecessarily, because they didn’t have literally anybody else to kick. I saw parents literally kicking their kids out of frustration. And I didn’t want that for my kids. I thought, I, “yeah, I made a mistake getting married, but I don’t want to inflict my mistake on my kids. So as long as I can raise them, with my feminist values, I’m not go--I’m not gonna leave them. I wanna keep from doing that. And, I, you know, I loved raising them. I loved being a parent. It was hard and, I was like, kind of like a single parents. We used to go to the pool where we lived. Uh. One time my husband, for Memorial Day or Labor Day came to the pool with us for this big party, and everybody said “Who’s he?” And I said “my husband.” And they said, “We thought you were a single parents!” And I said “No, I just kind of live like a single parent.” That’s how uninvolved he was, you know. He never did any--he never bought them shoes, never took them to a doctor’s appointment. And I loved that stuff.
(02:36:04)
And I loved imparting my values into them. Um. And I loved doing my NOW stuff! You know, it was just, it was a good life. Um. But finally, it just became too… Um. Too kid-centered. That’s why I went back to graduate school.
Mhm hmm.
And it was really the money that never made me--right--decide to give up. You know--and…?--I wanted them to have private school and I couldn’t give it to them, so. If I wanted them to have a private school, I had to stay married, and I had to, you know.
Uh, you said, uh, you were really involved in NOW and that’s why you also--that’s part of the reason. So I was wond--did you start getting involved in NOW in like, 1972, or? What year was it?
I, I joined NOW in nine…. (inaudible mumbling) (pause) I joined NOW in 1974 and I joined, uh, South Jersey NOW, let’s see. In 1975.
Okay.
So. Yeah. It was, it was both in the mid-70s. And then, Alice Paul Institute kicked in in the 80s. So that, that was like double work. I did NOW, NOW work full time and Alice Paul Institute full time. And graduate school. I was a busy camper!
Yeah! Uh, and also, I wanted to ask more about, you talked about, like, the Click story, about having a pregnancy discrimination case, so. I had some more questions about that, um.
Sure.
Um, I was wondering, was it common policy in a lot of schools that once a woman became pregnant that they couldn’t continue working? Because I thought, like, I mean currently, I mean, the whole profession almost is still females. And. It’s like you said, for 50 years they’re working in the same classroom. So I was wondering, are they just expected to take off for a longer period of time or did they just stop working? What was the norm?
Every, every profession, but especially teaching because you were exposed to kids, and they would be horrified if they saw a pregnant woman. Yeah, they saw their mothers pregnant. Yes, they saw their neighbors pregnant. But if they saw their first grade pregnant, that would scar them for lives. You know. Whatever. I mean that’s, that’s what I was kind of told by the, by the superintendent. Yes, it was everybody. It was every school system. Like I said, Elizabeth Warren experienced it the same year. She was in Massachusetts. So yeah, it was pretty much every teacher. And I can’t speak for other careers, but I imagine it was. I imagine, even like, in nursing, if you started to show, they would worry about you lifting heavy patients, or, you know, moving heavy tables or something. Um. I imagine it was every profession, because as I said, a year later the Supreme Court passed a decision saying that it, the employer couldn’t be involved in that decision. It had to be the woman and her doctor.
Right.
So it must have been every pos--every profession besides mine. Yeah, it was, it was very common.
(02:39:03)
So then, usually would women come back to work after they had the kid? Or that’s because they used to be stay at home moms and then they just wouldn’t… (overlapping)
Um, I think if, I think if you could afford to stay home you did? Because it was pretty… Looked down upon to be a working mom. Um. There was kind of a battle going on between women who worked inside the home and women who worked outside the home? NOW was one of the few groups that insisted people say--when people say “I don’t work, I have kids,” NOW was the only group that used to say “No. You don’t work for pay. You work. And this is what it would cost your employees, all of the services that you do for your children and your husband and your family.
Right.
So, you know, you’re worth 150,000 a year, it’s just that you don’t get 150,000 dollars a year. Um. There was kind of a, a battle going on. People were very defensive. If they worked for pay, they thought that women at home disparaged them, for giving their kids off to a daycare center. And not taking care of them the way they should. And women who were at home, thought that working women disparaged them for staying at home because they were “dumbing down”. You know, they were not stretching themselves. They were not making themselves independent. It was called “The Mommy Wars.” It was a real thing. Um. You know, there were Time Magazine covers. There was probably even a Ms. Magazine cover I remember, where a woman was split down the middle, and half of her was holding a child and the other half was in a business suit holding a briefcase. So, it was, it was… Your circle as people who were like you, you know? Other than NOW, my whole circle were women at home. And other, you know, but most people, if they were working from home or, all work at home moms, and women who were in the business world, their circle were women who worked in, you know, for pay. Um. And never between shall meet. Um. I’m trying to remember when things started coming together… I’m not sure that they have! I think there’s still… I don’t know. I, I’m not in that age group anymore so I don’t know how it is for moms that have kids in school. But, when my kids were in school, if you were an at home mom, you were a good mom. And you were instilling your values. And you were making dinner, and you were, you know, providing everything that your kids needed. And if you were a working mom for pay, you were shortchanging your kids. And you were buying bakery cupcakes for the bake sales. And you were leaving your kids in the hands of people who didn’t really care about them. That was a real, real split. I hope to God it’s not still the same. I’d kind of be curious to know that it is. But, it was, it was a real divide. A real serious divide between--and that’s unfortunate! I think that some of those women who are now Trumpers, or at least conservative Republicans, are those moms who have always been stay at home moms.
(02:42:13)
They see the value of stay at home moms, and have never ventured into the business world because they had well paying husbands, you know. They had husbands who were lawyers or corporate guys who could make enough money. And so, I actually, now that I’m thinking about it, I know a few of those women. Who have never worked for pay after high school or college. And they’re very insulated and they tend to be Republicans. And the women who have made it on their own and um, are Democrats. I, I haven’t thought about that before. But a lot of women I know are single women with kids who are Democrats.
Mhm hmm. (pause) And you mentioned you got an injunction? So does that mean, uh, like, the, a pause in the case, or? What’s that?
It meant that he couldn’t fire me. It meant that he had to keep me as long as I wanted. So I came to them, you know, I, I showed myself as pregnant in September, or maybe early October. I think I started wearing Maternity clothes, and that’s when all this started. And when I went to the lawyers, I told them that I wanted to stay until one month before, which was Christmas Vacation. My baby was due in January, and I wanted to stay until Christmas vacation. And I probably went to the lawyers in October, November. And the injunction meant I was able to stay in the classroom. They couldn’t fire me, they couldn’t make me stay home. They got a substitute teacher who worked with me the last month so that she would kind of know the kids and know the routine.
Mhm hmm.
And then she took over for me, um, when I left. Um. So yeah, I was really grateful for that. I didn’t go in asking for that because I didn’t know what an injunction was, but.
Mhm hmm.
I said “I don’t want to leave and they’re making me leave. What can you do?”
Yeah.
So they fixed it for me.
Cool. Also I have a--sorry?
You’re good.
I had questions about things you mentioned about your involvement in NOW and things like that. So about the consciousness raising sessions, uh, you said you ended with an action that was related to what you’re discussing? So I thought, could you give an example of what that would be? Um. Was that planned ahead of time or was it just based on the discussion you had? (inaudible) … it had to come out of the group.
Okay.
And it had to come out of those specific members, and then, um, at the end of, uh, the weekend, all of the groups shared their action agendas with the other groups who had, who had different action agendas. So for example, when you talked about how you were raised differently from your brothers, um, you know, you were given different toys. You were disciplined differently. You were valued differently. The agenda, the action agenda item at the end might be to… Get the “Free to Be You and Me” album.
(02:45:07)
And play it for kids, so that, you know, to give that as a gift. So that people could hear other ways of raising their kids. To break the cycle of only valuing boys and not girls. Um. You know, ‘cause women in sports that we were talking about, um. You know. Uh. Support your girls’ Little League, you know. Get a girls’ Little League in your town. Talk, go to your school board and tell them they need to get a girls’ Little League. Support the girls’ Little League. So it was something that you could do in your family or in your town that would change the way you were raised and make it easier for other kids or adults.
Mhm hmm.
And it was very powerful! Because it--
Yeah.
Took from being out of control to in control! You know, it was a way for you to be powerful.
Um, and also, so I was wondering if you could talk a little more about--uh, I was a little bit confused about the timeline when you lived in Philadelphia versus living in South Jersey? Um. So, ‘cause you, I know you wrote, you lived in Philadelphia for a little bit and then moved to South Jersey, but it sounds like maybe you lived a little bit of your adult life in Philadelphia? No, No.
Okay.
Well, I moved--when I first got married I lived in Philadelphia. So I lived in Philadelphia from 1969 to 1974. So it was 5 years. And while, during that time period my son was born in 1972. So. Um. From 1969 to 1972 I taught. And I taught in New Jersey, but I lived in Philadelphia.
Mhm hmm.
And from 1972 to 1974, we moved to South Jersey where I remained and raised my kids. So I’ve been living in South Jersey since 1974. And I grew up in South Jersey. Um. You know, it felt like home to me. I was only in Philadelphia for the 3 years after I was married and the 2 years after I had my first child.
Okay. So that’s why you were first involved with Philadelphia NOW and then you moved and became involved with South Jersey NOW.
Correct. Yeah.
Okay. So (inaudible overlapping) where in South Jersey did you live?
Um. I grew up in Westmont. Um. I went to school in Haddonfield. But after I was married, um, I first lived in Morrilton, Percy, um, which is, uh, kind of next to Cherry Hill, for, you know. South Jersey, they know Cherry Hill but not Morrilton. Um. Then I moved, um. Shoot, we lived there for about 12 yars. And then we uh, bought a huge and beautiful house in Morristown. Um. And lived there for about 12 years. And when I, um, got divorced, uh, bought a, my current house in Mount Laurel.
(02:48:00)
The, all to--all of the towns where I lived in Mount Laurel began with “M”. It was pretty funny. And my ex moved to a Bedford.
(laughs) Not all of the towns in South Jersey begin with an “M”! But I’ve covered them all, or most of them. So I went from Morrilton, divorced him, to Mount Laurel.
Okay.
Within… About 15 minutes of each other.
Oh, okay. Um, and also I was wondering, so you said, the Walkathon on the boardwalk was a big part of your fundraising efforts. Um, so I was wondering when you were doing that? If that still continues, or is that--?
No, no. Unfortunately that does not still continue. (papers rustling) Um, those years… Wait a minute while I look this up… Um… Let’s see, for a Walkathon… Doot doot dooo… (pause) 1984--oh! 12 of them. So, um. That’s--and… (pause) Let’s see. Uh… (pause) Well my highest year was 198...4. And the 12 spanned 1984. So I will say… 76-88. (pause)
And can you explain a little bit more about the Walkathon?
Yeah, it was sponsored by NOW New Jersey. So it wasn’t just South Jersey NOW that participated. Everybody from every NOW chapter in, in NOW New Jersey, um, joined in. Um. NOW New Jersey got the permit. NOW New Jersey got the speakers. And one year we had Gloria Steineim as a speaker, so it was, that was a major big deal. And we had our bullhorn and she used our bullhorn! So from then on, it was like the Gloria Steineim Bullhorn!
(laughs)
Um. But it was a wonderful--and they plant--NOW New Jersey planned the route. Um. And they got the press. And they got people to, uh, to sign in as volunteers, to sign us in at the beginning. We got pledges. So everybody got pledges of people who would, who would support them. Um. So I went to 25, either NOW members who weren’t walking or 25 friends or 25 family members. Um. Neighbors. Who would pledge a dollar a mile. 5 dollars a mile. 10 dollars a mile. And it was, uh. I think it was 5 kilometers? Hmm… No, it was in miles. It was 5 miles, which I think was 3.8 kilometers or something. Um. And so they, they gave you a pledge for every dollar that you--I could have that math wrong, it could have been 10 kilometers. But, uh, 10 miles. You know, it couldn’t have been 10 miles, it was 5 miles. Anyway! Should have written that down. But, um, you got pledges for so much per, per mile.
(02:51:02)
And I always walked the whole thing. But NOW New Jersey organized people to sign you in at the beginning, to take your pledge sheet, um. And then people were at the halfway point to, you know, give you a drink of water and turn you around. And then people were there at the end to, uh, certify that you made it the whole way. And we would walk the whole Boardwalk from Atlantic City into Vatner. It was a really long walk. Um. And it was, it was just great. We wore our ERA t-shirts, our green ERA t-shirts I showed you the photo. Um… We, we, uh, called out marches. “What do we want?” “The ERA!” “When do we want it?” “Now!” And people who were walking on the Boardwalk would see us and see what we were there for. It was a great, uh.
Yeah.
Public relations. Uh. Thing. People would hang out the windows of the motel along the boardwalk and wave to us and shout. People even joined us! People who were walking on the boardwalk would say “What are you here for?” They would see the signs that we were carrying. And they’d say “are you for, you know, women’s rights? The ERA? I’m gonna join you!” And they would, you know, join in! Even though nobody was sponsoring them. So people sent chap--sent volunteers from every chapter. At the time, that was our high point of chapters. We probably had… (sigh) 15 chapters? Maybe, 15 to 20 chapters? It was huge at that point. And everybody sent at least a handful of people. We were one of the closest so we always had carpools and we had several cars full of people who, who came. So we had at least 10 or 15 people from our chapter. Um. It was just a wonderful, um. PR activity, fundraising activity. Um. And, as I said, they brought, uh, wonderful speakers to us. You know, seeing Gloria Steineim was just beyond the beyond at that point.
Mhm hmm.
Um. What--there were other politicians came to talk to us and, and rouse us on. Um. It was really a wonderful activity. I was, it was probably my favorite activity of the year. Um. I was in better shape then and, you know, if somebody put a gun to my head I couldn’t do it today. But it was, it was great exercise. It was just great everything.
Mhm hmm.
And um, yeah, I really loved those walkathons. It might not be a bad idea! Um, you know, once the pandemic is over. That might be a way for younger feminists to, um, you know, get involved, you know?
Yeah.
It’s something that us oldies couldn’t do! But, you know, there’s a group called GenERAtion Ratify that, um, I did a panel with, uh, who are young women who are trying to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment. And they’re gonna be program speakers for us in a month or 2. And I could see them, you know, carrying forward this ERA, uh, Walkathon, or for, you know, I think it should be for the ERA until the ERA is ratified. But it could just as easily be for, um, racial justice. It could be for any, you know--immigration? For any number of issues.
(02:54:12)
It would raise awareness, get people involved, get people in one place. Kind of like a rally that moves, you know? People are doing that anyway. They might as well be earning money for it, for, for a cause that they care about.
Right. And so I was also wondering, so you went to Florida to support the ERA? So I was wondering when that was and how long you were there for?
Um. That was 1982. And it was only for 3 weeks. But it was an intense 3 weeks.
Mhm hmm.
Because I did nothing all day, every day for three except, um…
Yeah.
Volunteer. To go to congressional offices. To hand out leaflets.
Mhm hmm.
To write postcards. Um. It was, it was pretty intense. And I was 36 that year. Um. And we wanted Florida to be the 36th state to ratify. So I celebrated my birthday there, that year, and my cake said “36 state--” you know, (laughs) “36th to Victory!” 36th for me and 36th for the ERA.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So was National NOW the one who organized people going to different states?
Yes, yes. National NOW set it up. Like, um, if you had a house, or if you had friends in another city that was unratified, you know. My inlaws had a house in Broward County in um, Fort Lauderdale. In Fort Lauder--near Fort Lauderdale. So I sa--I contacted National NOW and I said “I’ll take Florida.” Um. Other people who knew someone in Chicago, Illinois, had a relative or friend, um, said “I’ll take Chicago.” There were, mmm, let’s see, there were 36 states--there were 14 unratified states. 15 unratified states. So if you knew someone in one of those 15 states, or were willing to go, not knowing anyone, um, NOW chapters in those states would put you up. You know, you would sleep on--Right--somebody’s couch for 3 weeks. And, basically be another pair of hands. Who wanted to concentrate the energy where the need was greatest. You know, there is a limited amount to what I could do in New Jersey because New Jersey had ratified the ERA. Pennsylvania had ratified the ERA. Couldn’t do any good after all those letters we wrote. There was a limited amount we could do. I could do more in an unratified state. So I thought that was brilliant, actually, that they, that they organized this ERA missionary project. Um…
Yeah.
It was very heady.
So, um, I know the ERA was a major focus area of the Women’s Rights Movement when you first joined, but I was wondering what other issues you worked on and also if you think those areas have changed, if at all, or if they’re still the same?
Great question. Obviously the, the right to choose was a huge issue. Roe vs. Wade passed, um, when my son was a year old, so. It passed pretty much the same time I joined NOW. And, um. We were very active in, um, doing what we called “clinic defense.”
(02:57:05)
Um. There were 2 women’s clinic at the time who were being, in my area, um, that were being attacked by anti-choice people. This was, um, the time of Operation RESCUE, where I guy named Randall Terry was an organizer who tried to shut down clinics. And those people were insane. Aside from literally shooting, uh, Bernard Slepian and other abortion doctors to death in their homes, they also went to the clinics to try and close them down. And so they would come to the Cherry Hill Women’s Center and park their car in the driveway and swallow the key. You know. Handcuff themselves to the uh, car doo--car door handle and swallow the key. So, you know. People couldn’t get in. They tried to storm the doors to the Cherry Hill women’s center. And so we formed what we called at the time a Clinic Defense Task Force. One of my major heros, who is and, was Lucille Fleeger, um…. Oh jeez, she was… She was this great woman in a long term marriage who started our Lesbian Rights Task Force. Um. She integrated us--she was a white woman who integrated the pools, um, in her town. Uh, for head of the NAACP. There was a woman who, there was no battle too great for her. So she started our Clinic Defense Task Force. And she literally locked arms with her Clinic Defense Task Force in front of the door of the Cherry Hill Women’s Center so these crazy people could not get in. They basically risked their lives, you know. They, they did what a lot of the protesters today are doing. But she did it, and they did it so that the Women’s Center could not be shut down. Um. We went to Cherry Hill town counsel to try to get them to put up a barrier of police so that these people could not storm the Cherry Hill Women’s Center. And the mayor at the time was a woman, so we thought we were in good shape, but unfortunately she was an Italian Catholic woman and she didn’t want any part of abortion clinics. So she refused to get the police to help us. Um. So we were pretty much on our own. And if it wasn’t for our Clinic Defense Task Force we--I don’t know what would have happened. The Clinic never got shut down, but that was really because of us. And Lucille Fleeger’s team. Eventually, um, we got a good mayor in there. Um. And she did get the police--Bess Lavine. Another Jewish woman.Um. She got the police to line up along the road, um. Their police cars would be lined up down the center of the road, and they kept a barrier, um, which later--and then we had a Cherry Hill town counselor who, God bless him, who got a, um, bill passed in the Cherry Hill town counsel, um, that, um, protestors were not allowed, uh, beyond the sidewalk.
(03:00:05)
They couldn’t be on the driveway. They couldn’t be on the grass. They had to stay on the sidewalk or street. And that later became a federal bill called “FACE- Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances”.
Mhm hmm.
And this bill was the model for that. So. Um. That legislator since became not a good legislator and then passed away. But he did do that for us. So. We were responsible for getting that FACE, um, barrier. And to this day, um, protestors--who are still there! We’ve been at that clinic every Saturday for 4, probably--not 40 years, but since the 90s. So that would be 30 years. We have been at that clinic every Saturday morning. Um. Now instead of clinic defense, now because they can’t come on the property and because the clinic has hired security guards, they’re called Clinic Escorts. And they physically walk women from the car to the door. And they hold up a sign so that the protestors can’t see her, they hold up an umbrella or a sign. So that the protestors can’t see her or can’t shout at her, “you’re killing your baby! Don’t kill your baby! We’ll raise your baby!” Whatever. You know, they love… “This clinic loves killing black babies!” Whatever they holler. The,--Mhm hmm--the poor women walking into the clinic don’t have to hear that or see it. Um. THey bought the house next door so that they could peer over the fence because, you know, we built a fence next to the clinic. Built a fence so that they couldn’t be, get access from the side. You know, they’re, they’re just ingenious. It’s a baptist church and a clinic--and a, and a, uh, Catholic church who are doing this. Mostly men, mostly old men. Interestingly enough, who have no, uh… Idea of child rearing, or, you know, the burden on the woman. It’s always old white guys.
Right.
But there’s a lot of women and kids too, you know, with the rosaries praying. So that’s, we continue to do that, uh. First clinic defense and then clinic escorting. As I said, for about 30 years.
Mhm hmm.
Other things that we’ve been involved in is electing feminist candidates. Um. We started this thing called Alice’s Lists based on the national thing called “Emily’s List.”
Mhm hmm.
Where they interview, um, women and then based on their responses, um, collect money, bundle it, and give it to the woman. That’s what we do. Um. We find out each year who has, um… Won in the primaries. Um. Which women who win in the primaries. Which women are unopposed, ‘cause there’s no point, there’s no point in supporting women who run unopposed. We write them a letter and we say “We have this thing called Alice’s List.” Um. “We’d like you to tell us your views on these 6 NOW Core issues. Um. Do you support them or not? Um. What have you done, if anything, for these 6 core issues?” We collect those responses. We tell our members, “These people have answered our questions correctly. Please send them a check made out to their campaign. Not to us, not to the person, but to their campaign.”
(02:03:26)
“And send us your check.” Originally we asked for 25 dollars from each person, but we knew that that would be high for some people. Sometimes we would give them 5 or 6 candidates to support. Um. So we said “Whatever you can give. A dollar, 5 dollars, 10 dollars. Give it to one candidate, give it to all the candidates”. And we would bundle that money and send it to the campaign. So instead of getting 25 dollars from me and 25 dollars from somebody else, the selected candidates would get 300 dollars. Or 400 dollars. Or 500 dollars. From Alice’s List. And their male running mates would say “How did you get that money?” And they’d say “Alice’s List!” And they’d say “Well how do I get it?” And they’d say “You can’t! You’re not female! You’re not pro choice! Forget it!”
Yeah.
And then, the candidates didn’t always win. Maybe they won half the time. But even if they didn’t win, they had enough money for another mailing. Or, um, you know, a litra. Or buttons. Or lawn signs. Or paying a staff member. Or something! That they wouldn’t have had otherwise. And they couldn’t be women high up in the state. They had to be from freehold or lower. So they were mainly town couns--they’re mainly town counsel people. Freeholder. Um. Mayor. School board. That level. And, their first, um… Campaign. So nobody knows them, they have no name recognition. Previously they had no experience, they just got mad about an issue and they decided they had to fix it by running for office. And so we’ve been doing that for about 20 years. And every year we have a panel of Alice’s List candidates come back to tell their war stories. So that’s one of our programs meetings each year. We have 3 or 4 of them come back. And they love it! Because win or lose, Republican or Democrat, they’ve all had the same war stories. They were all asked questions that their male, uh, candidates were not asked. They all found it harder to raise money. Um. They were all not taken seriously. Um. And so they all loved meeting each other and learning--it was kind of like a consciousness raising group for them.
Mhm hmm.
And they kind of loved that. So. Um. And, and so--some of the people we gave money to, one of them is now mayor of Cherry Hill. Um. We have a lot of success stories. Um. Somebody had to run three times before they were able to make it in a very Republican town, she was able to make it as a Democrat, so.
(03:06:01)
And we’ve been doing that for a long time. Another thing we’ve been doing a long time is our Feminist Essay contest. Uh. We’ve been doing that for about 25 years. We come up with a topic. We send it to teachers, about 75 or 100 teachers. We used to do it by US mail, now we do it electronically. Um. They assign the topics to their students. Hopefully insist that their students do it, although not all students do. Um. The kids write on the topic. They submit their entries to us. We typically get at least 75 entries a year. We have former English teachers who read them and decide on the winners. Um. We pick 2 winners from the middle school level and 2 winners from the high school level. Um. Each winner gets a check. The first place winner at each level gets, um, like 50 dollars… I think we just raised it--yeah, we just raised it. The first prize winner at each of the, at each level gets 100 dollars and the second prize winner at each level gets 50 dollars. Plus they get a plaque. Plus they get a rose. Plus your parents and teachers come to that meeting and take photos and cheer them on. And hear them read their winning essays. And it is so heartwarming to hear these middle school students and high school students express feminist ideals in such heartfelt ways. Know that these kids, um, probably took some guff from their classmates who didn’t know women’s rights, or feminism, from a hole in the wall. And yet these people knew the right thing to do and were articulate enough to write about it. We don’t assign a topic that requires research. We don’t want them Googling answer to, you know, women leaders in history. We want this to be experiential. Like, um. “Why do you think it is that we don’t have a woman president?” Um. “Who were the strong women in your life?” Um. “Do we still need fem--”, you know, “Feminism? Do we still need to have, uh, feminism in our life?” Um. “Why are you a feminist?” And it’s so wonderful to hear two middle sch--middle school students and two high school students--male and female--reading their essays and having them be the stars of the show. Um. I don’t think that, I think this is something they’ll carry for the rest of their lives. Being that important for being right about social justice issues. You know, I won a stupid little baking award in, uh, 8th grade for my snowball cookies. And that turned me into a baker for the rest of my life. We’re hoping that these kids think about a situation in their life where they get called on to do something that doesn’t feel comfortable, but they know is right, and they’ll think back to this time and say “you know what? I was a little nervous about reading that essay to a handful of strangers. But I did it, and it worked out well, and I was the hero of the day, and I can tackle this other thing to.” I hope, you know, we hope that that experience carries them into their lives.
(03:09:13)
This--that’s probably my other favorite program meeting of the year, besides the Alice’s List members. We had the essay contest winners every women’s history month, every March. And um. It’s such a positive thing. Umm… What else did I forget about? Um… (pause) Da dad da da da… (pause) Uh, we have a support group for separated and divorced women. We have a trained therapist who once a month, every 3rd Monday of the mont--again, this is not happening because of the pandemic. But every 3rd Monday of the month, people could come to this therapist’s office if they were separated or divorced and get free counseling, um, for this project that they’re going through. They could go once, they could go every week. Um. A lot of people have told us that that’s what got us, got them through their divorce process. You know, they couldn’t afford a therapist. And so this was basically a free therapist. And we give the therapist a free membership, which is no big deal, but, to us. But she regards it as enough pay for her. And we’ve been doing that for about 25 years. Um. We have an afternoon group called NOW in the Afternoon for older people who can’t come to our meetings because they can’t drive at night. Um. THey get together for lunch. And they kind of shoot the bull about current events. Um. They used to meet at a library, and have a speaker come in to talk on NOW issues. But now they just stick together. More recently, they’ll sit together at a restaurant and talk about politics and NOW issues. And that gives them a way to be connected to NOW without having to drive to the meeting.
Right.
Um… Oh! And we also coordinated with the NAACP. Um. A couple of years ago, um, uh. A guy who was president of the Southern Burlington County NAACP, uh, Ken Gordon, um, came as a program speaker for us. And he did such a good job that we decided we would have, um, wanted to do an event in, in collaboration with each other. So we planned 3 events called “The Conversation on Race in America”. And he got great speakers. I got speakers from NOW who had been involved in racial justice. Um. And, uh, we had held them at the Mount Laurel library and at the Burlington County College. We had a great turn out. We had, um, speakers. Uh. State-wide speakers.
(02:12:01)
And one of our speakers is Eddie Glaude. Who was the head of African American studies at Princeton. Who I have now had the pleasure of seeing on CNN and MSNBC almost every day for the past 4 months. And it’s like, you know what? We found him first!
(laughs) We had him at our event first, before you guys discovered him! And now he’s written a book about, um…. Oh gosh, his name (inaudible), James Baldwin. And, and his relationship to what’s going on now, so. Um. Those were 3 fantastic events. Um. And we did it because, combating racism was one of NOW’s 6 main goals and we had not done enough on that, on that topic. So we were really happy to have somebody that we could, um, collaborate with. Unfortunately, when he left the area, a woman took over for Ken Gordon, and she was not as much of a feminst as he was. And I found that… It was sad. Um. I was on the board of the local NAACP when he was in charge, and when she was head of the NAACP I was no longer on the executive board. And when we were selling, um, Obama t-shirts, and I thought that would be a, you know, a good fundraiser for us but also something that the NAACP would, might wanna have? She told me that they didn’t welcome vendors at their meetings. You know, I wasn’t a vendor. I was a supporter of her group and a former member of the executive committee. I was kind of crushed she saw me as a vendor. So we haven’t been collaborating as much.
Yeah.
And Ken Gordon was the one who asked me to be on his radio show in Alabama. So that, that came full circle. But um. We’d like to do more with the NAACP. But we’ve started changing our program meetings to be all about white privilege, so. We’re going into that pot right now, and. We had at our, um, last meeting, a woman that runs diversity for the Detroit public schools. So, who we couldn’t have gotten in person--we tried to get in person before hte pandemic. And were able to get, as a speaker during the pandemic, so yet another silver lining of the pandemic. So, um. Uh, so civil, civil rights is something else the chapter has very much been into. Um… (pause) (inaudible overlapping)
I was wondering if you could--
Yeah, go.
Oh, I was just wondering if you could talk a little bit more about--I know, uh, you’re involved with the League of Women Voters a little bit, and also about the Judith Glick Buckman Fund for the Future?
Yup! I was gonna bring that up. I’m glad you did. Um. First, the Burlington County League of Women Voters. They have a program sponsored by the, uh, National League of Women Voters. They do this in many cities, but I got involved in a local one called “Running and Winning.” And that’s a program that selects 50 or so high school girls, usually juniors, sometimes sophomores, to participate in an all day program to become more involved with the political process.
(03:15:13)
So we invite in elected officials--women elected officials from the area to be speakers and to, um, talk to these young women. So they’re in groups of four. Um. One of the women, um, is a pretend candidate, one is a pretend publicity person, one is a pretend campaign director, and I forget what the fourth one is. And they take up an issue, um… Which, which we give them information on. Again, they don’t have to google or research it. Like immigrant rights or bumper stickers on the back of new drivers’ cars. And we have them, um, take a pro and a con position. And so during the day, they come up with a pretend campaign. Um. We give them breakfast and lunch. Um. They learn how to, you know, get involved in campaigns and as I said, have interacted with actual people from campaigns. And at the end of the day they present their candidates. And these girls who walked into the day looking scared, apprehensive, they don’t know why they’re selected, they didn’t want to be there, they didn’t want to be sup--er, separated from their friends--and they were separated from their friends so that they couldn’t hang out together. They were--and ah, it was very diverse. So you have high level students coming in, in, ah, er, high income students coming in contact with people, um, who were low income who they would ordinarily--and talk about clicks, er, getting together with your high school elites and having lunch with your like minded people. They were forced to sit with, work with, support, and do a project with people that they wouldn’t have a b--have had a conversation with before. And produce a political campaign. So they go from these scared-to-death young women who don’t want to be there into empowered women that are full of themselves, that will, um, think about running for office, that will think about running political campaigns, that will certainly not ever stay home from voting. And that’s a one day program that, that was the highlight of my year. The 3 years that I participated in that. So I was responsible for getting restaurants to donate the breakfast and lunches that we served to the girls. So I went and got breakfast and lunch items for, you know, a few people. 75 people. And to watch the progression of these kids from square 1 to political experts was wonderful.
(03:17:59)
And um. Now that I’m not doing that, I, I had to stop doing that because of my work schedule. We just send money to them. We raise money for them. And we are, um, give them 100 or 200 dollars a year so that they can print their materials and, um, get food and things donated, things like that. Just a wonderful program. I encourage people to Google Running and Winning. It’s, it’s just a fabulous program. I wish I had thought of it! It’s kind of parallel to the Girl’s Leadership Training Program, but.
Right.
In the schools, it’s girls that would have never come up against this stuff otherwise. So, um. The uh… JGB Fund for the future which is named for me was started, um. In 1914, um. We always got together in Alice Paul’s--a group of us always got together on Alice Paul’s birthday which is January 11th to have an Alice Paul birthday party. And one year, January 11th 1914 we were sitting there saying “you know what? It’s really a sin that we have to spend so much time fundraising when we could instead be spending that time and energy doing social justice activism.” And one of our members--not surprisingly, the one who had had the idea about buying the Ali--founding the Alice Paul Institute and buying Paulsdale, that same person, Barbara Irvine, said, “We need to start a 501c3! That can fund the educational activities of South Jersey NOW and other women’s groups!” And so we took a look at our budget to see how much of our budget was educational. We took each line item in our budget. And we saw that 80% of our budget could be considered educational. Our newsletter. Holding our program meetings. Um, and our newsletter, um, postage, printing. Um.
Mhm hmm.
And our, and our program meeting rental, church rental and all of that. So we thought “Darn! Nobody can give money to the NOW chapter and get a tax credit. But they can give money to this 501c3 called the fund for the future! And they can get a tax deduction. They’re not necessarily a member of NOW, it’s a completely different group from NOW because NOW’s a 501c4 and this is a 501c3. And we can fund 80% of NOW’s budget, as well as, we can give money to the Alice Paul Institute, we can give money to the, um, Running and Winning Program of the, um, League of Women Voters. And that’s what we’ve done. So. Um. It was hard. We had to do by-laws. You know, getting through the IRS hurdles, I wouldn’t wish on anyone.
(03:21:59)
But we did it. And so now checks that are written to the Fund for the Future are tax deductible. We have held an event every year. We have an event called “Celebrating Women’s Voices.” And every year, we choose a woman in the area whose voices we want to celebrate--or a group of women. And we have a big catered event with dinner, wine, live music, auction baskets. Beautifully decorated room, you know, with fresh flowers. The whole 9 yards. And we have that speaker present. And we serve them dinner. And again, people end up coming to that who wouldn’t be caught dead at a n--at a NOW event, but they’re funding NOW whether they know it or not. Um. They’re, ‘cause they’re funding the Fund for the Future and not NOW. And a lot of men come, just like with the Alice Paul Institute. It’s so funny. It’s, it’s almost like you have to trick guys sometimes into donating to feminist causes. But, we-we’re not adverse to doing that.
So what initially attracts them to donate to the fund then?
Our speakers. Either their wives bring them--
Mhm hmm.
--or the speakers bring them. Just like with the, um, Alice Paul Institute. Not as many men as the Alice Paul Institute, but we’re only 5 years old, so. You know. They’re 30 years old, so we’re just getting started. But, for example, last, um, our last event was a young woman who goes to the University of Pennsylvania who won an academy award for making a film, a documentary, um, her subject called “Period, End of Sentence.” Um, her name is Claire Sliney. And she had a project where she, um… Went to India--first she started this in her high school in California. She’s, such an amazing woman. But she took it to India to make sanitary supplies for young girls who were missing school because they had their period. And she taught their moms to make these pads. She, you know, a group, not she personally. But the group that this documentary was about taught the mothers to make sanitary napkins and sell them. So not only did the girls have sanitary napkins and were thus able to go to school, but the mothers were earning money for the first time in their lives. So they also had pride. And the dads who didn’t understand had pride. And they started making the sanitary napkins! And so this, um, documentary which I think it’s only about 20 minutes long--it was on Netflix, it might still be available on Netflix. It was called “Period, End of Sentence.” And their tagline was “Periods should end a sentence, not a girl’s education.” And this dynamic, young college sophomore--I mean, I didn’t know which end was up when I was a college sophomore. If anybody had, you know. I already said that I was not aware even as the 60s were going on.
(03:24:03)
This young woman was so aware in high school. She started this project then. And now, you know, took it to winning an Academy Award. Um. So she was our speaker. And guys came to hear her! Um. Because she had won an academy award! Not because she was doing anything feminist. And, um, we had, I think, one of our highest turnouts for that. You know. A lot of--I think we had 93 people come to that. Which was our, you know, pretty much a sell out crowd. And, um. So. We’ve done this for 5 years and that’s, the money that we raise, we have a budget of about 10,000 dollars. We give to the NOW chapter for educational expenses. We give to the Alice Paul Institute for Educational expenses. Oh! I forgot to mention. We, the money that we give to the Alice Paul Institute, we sponsor girls in their leadership programs. And in addition to the famous paid speaker, we have 2 girls from the Alice Paul Institute Girl’s Leadership Program come to speak to this big event. So. You know, these, high--middle school, high school girls come and say how going to the Alice Paul Institute Leadership Program changed their lives. And it did change their lives. But all of our attendees get to hear about how, what we’re funding through the fund for the future. Is changing the lives of these girls. And we pretty much try to stick to minority girls because they don’t get commended enough? And people in our audience don’t get to hear from them enough. So we kind of hope that minority girls get selected for this scholarship so that we can bring them to our dinner. And, um, it’s, it’s very impactful. And they bring their families and. It’s just a feel good event all around. I mean, they bring their brothers and sisters and their, their ministers and…
Mhm hmm.
It’s just good. So. Um. We’ve been doing that for 5 years. We had to cancel our event this year, but we’re hoping to, uh--we selected an honoree who’s the, um, editorial cartoonist for the Philadelphia Inquirer. She’s the first woman to win a Pulitzer Prize for editorial cartooning. And she agreed to be our, you know. Honoree, but then we had to cancel it. So she’ll be on for next year, so.
Mhm hmm.
Stay tuned.
That’s exciting. So I was also wondering if, uh. You could compare, um, how the Women’s Movement has changed from when you first joined to today, um. Have the issues changed? Um, what do you think is the biggest difference between NOW today versus when you first joined?
Oh boy, that’s the 64,000 dollar word question. The most obvious and important difference has been, when I first got involved, at least half if not three quarters of the members and activists who were women who did not work outside the home.
(03:27:00)
So we were all young mothers and homemakers. And so we were able to devote all day, every day--mhmm--to NOW. In my case, to the Alice Paul Institute. But, but mostly to NOW. Um. They could run errands. They could, they could make copies of the newsletter. They could lobby legislators. All of the work that NOW does, they could do during the day. When women started working more outside the home, the number dwindled, dwindled, dwindled. So that now, the only NOW members--most of the NOW members who are activists are retired people. Because they have the time, like the women who had young families were able to do, they have the time to be activists. And most of the young mothers these days have to be part of a 2 earner family. So our volunteers have switched from young women to older women. And even though older women don’t have to be convinced about the need for women’s rights because they’ve had life experiences like bad marriages and work discrimination, they don’t want to drive at night. They might get involved in other causes. You know, um, the Sierra Club or fracking. Or any number of important, worthwhile activities and. They give money to NOW but they don’t necessarily want to be activists in NOW.Um. It’s been in--every year, and I’ve recruited, um, new activists every--maybe 20 new activists every year for the 40 years I’ve been involved. Every year it gets harder and harder and harder to get people to take chapter jobs. So that I have to literally be on the phone begging people. Guilt tripping people.
Mhm hmm.
Minimizing the job.
Yeah.
Supporting them. Writing job descriptions. So that they can help the chapter activists. And it’s kind of heartbreaking to me. Um. That this is the case. And people say “Why aren’t more women involved? Why do only older women,” you know, “middle aged, older come to NOW meetings?” Because the younger women have kids! You know, they, aging parents. They have a career. They have kids. You know, they send their money to NOW, but they can’t afford to do more than that. And NOW, you know, NOW always got accused of being a white--a middle class white women’s group. Well, almost now, it has turned into that because minority women, I, I think minority women, a lot of minority women think that we didn’t support their issues, which we did. I mean, they don’t know the net, uh, combating racism was one of our 6 main goals.
(03:30:04)
Um. Plus they have other fish to fry! You know, like other, uh, non-minority women. They have older parents! They have kids! They have careers! So we have… All of these women who were members back in the 60s, 70s, 80s, who are now retired. And they’re the, they’re our chapter activists now. I wish that wasn’t the case. But that’s who’s available. I think that’s the biggest overall difference in NOW. And I see that to some extent in NOW New Jersey? Although NOW New Jersey has been more successful than us in recruiting younger women and I’m so grateful for that. I love it when I go to State Board Meetings and I see younger women. But. It’s still, I would say, at least half, if not two thirds women my age. And I don’t like that because we need to replace ourselves. So that’s probably--my biggest worry overall--and this was a worry for my daughter, is that they took so much for granted. “Yes, of course medical schools were always half women! Yes, of course law schools were always half women!” That they don’t know how to be social justice activists. And that if Roe v. Wade was pulled out from under them, they wouldn’t know how to get it back. And they don’t know that you have to support these social justice issues, or somebody like Trump will come in--
(coughs) And erase them. Or Regan, for that matter. Will come in and erase them. So. Um. That, that has always been my biggest fear. That young women won’t see the need, or have the skills to do what we did. That’s the good news and the bad news. That they don’t see the need. The bad news is that they don’t have the skills to fix it if somebody tries to take advantage of them. Although, NOW? You know. A tragedy brought them out again. All of the high school and college people who’ve been protesting since the George Floyd, uh, murder? Has been white, black, young, old, male, female, gay, straight, just like it always should have been! But there was nothing to pull them out of their houses. Somehow, they did not connect the dots. And see the need. They didn’t see that the system was broken like I did. But now they do. And I’m just hoping that never goes back. I think that’s another unintensive--unintended positive consequence of the pandemic. That it has brought people out that would have never been political activists, social justice activists before. Who will never not vote. Who will never think their vote doesn’t matter. And will never accept what politicians say just because politicians said it.
Mhm hmm.
Nope. Um. Other big changes in NOW? It’s ha--it’s harder for us to raise money?
(03:33:00)
Because nobody wants to raise money. Um. It’s not fun. Nobody wants to give up their money. We’re competing with other social justice causes. You know, uh, Sierra Group wants your money. Um. Uh. Planned Parenthood wants your money. It’s very hard to get people to give money to NOW, which is why we started the, the fund for the future. Um. But for groups who don’t have a 501c3, I don’t know how--that’s why there are fewer NOW chapters. As I said, it went from between 15 to 20, to NOW, NOW New Jersey we’re probably down to about 7. Um. Active chapters. And I, when I say active, I mean, to a greater or lesser extent. There are half of them that are maybe active and half that are somewhat active. So. I think part of that is leadership? But I think a large part of that is money. If you don’t, or if you weren’t able to fundraise--and nobody wants to fundraise! That’s the hardest job. We currently do not have one person fundraising. That is the one job I could not fill this year. So I instead get people to do “a” fundraiser. So one person does Barnes and Noble gift wrap. One person, um… Uh… What’s our other fundraiser--sells the food book. Um. You know, one person does this fundraiser, one person does that fundraiser. I cannot get one person to commit to fundraising. So that’s another big difference. We used to have fundraisers all the time and raise lots of money. Now, no. And I think a lot--and I guess the third big change is that a lot of people don’t see the need for NOW. For women’s rights. They think it’s fixed! They think the Equal Rights Amendment is in the Constitution! They see women in the work force in almost equal numbers, not raising--not earning enough money, but in the work force. They’re in law school. They’re in medical school. “What do we need a--” you know, they’re candidates. “What do we need, what do we need NOW for? It’s been there, done that.” So it’s really hard to get women to get that click these days and I guess that’s the, the third big difference.
And do you think 2016--do you think 2016 was a similar, uh, moment to more people getting involved or do you think that was more short lived or…?
No. That wasn’t short lived. As I said it, it tur--let me get a drink. (pause) As I said, it turned into the nationwide--no, world wide marches the day after Trump’s Inauguration. With the pink pussy hats and people wheeling strollers and carrying signs and bringing their families. And that turned into being at the airports. And that turned into Indivisible. And by the way, we have an Indivisible sub-group, we have South Jersey NOW. It’s called Indivisible. Which, uh, a previous president tried to talk me out of doing, but I did it anyway. The former president of NOW New Jersey did not want us to have an indivisible group but we have an Indivisible group. And that group went--and that group is run by a former physician, a retired former physician.
(03:36:09)
Who took the group from a group of about 9 to an online group of about 400. And they were responsible for flipping our congressmen. We had terrible congressmen in our district. Tom McGardner. He wrote the “no pre-existing conditions” in Trump’s healthcare bill. And we wanted him gone so badly. And we supported Andy Kim, who, um, South Jersey NOW campaigned--er, not New Jersey NOW, no. Our Indivisible group--we had to be very careful about that. South Jersey Now Indivisible worked for. And we worked so hard for him. By ringing doorbells. By making phone calls. Um. In Burlington and Ocean County. That he won by a handful of votes and--oh, we sent out postcards! I forgot to mention. We sent out about 40,000 postcards, which we, which, South Jersey NOW Indivisible funded and mailed out. And he won by less than the margin of postcards that we sent out. So we are literally responsible--not we South Jersey NOW, but South Jersey NOW Indivisible. Is responsible for flipping a Congressional seat which is part of flipping the Senate. And those people are now working on the anti-Trump campaign, as well as re-electing Andy Kim. Those people are never going back. And it all started from the Women’s Marches the day after Trump’s Inauguration. Those people are now protesting in marches. Those people are now donating to Amy McGrath so she can get rid of Mitch McConnell. Those people are in gear, as political activists, and are never going back. So no, I don’t--that’s not a flash in the pan. And I think that this huge activism that came out of 2016 was started by women, are led by women. The, the guy who now heads up South Jersey NOW Indivisible came to me and that retired women doctor to figure out the best way to bring the group forward. We’re kind of the, uh. Institutional Memory people who know how to lead, who knew how to get volunteers, who know how to get people in action. So. Women have started this latest, um, surge of activism. I don’t think we’re the only ones who will take it forward, but we started it in 2016 and I’ll always be happy, proud, grateful for that.
(03:38:56)
So I was also wondering if you think issues have changed now or if they’re pretty much the same? Because we’re still fighting for the ERA--Reproductive rights--We’re still concerned about reproductive justice, yeah.
Domestic violence, pay equity. The same issues as always. You know, pay equity was an issue the day I joined NOW and we’re still making 80 cents on the dollar. That has been the one issue that has totally been intractable. And that’s because employers do not want to pay full wages. Phyllis Schlafly got credit for, for, um. You know. Taking down the ERA? No. It was the National Association of Manufacturers? And the National Chamber of Commerce. Because they did not want to pay women equal pay. That’s why they funded her. That’s why she was successful. But they are still fighting efforts for a fair pay for women and for a fair minimum wage. As long as the New Jersey Association of Manufacturers and the Chamber of Commerce have any way about it, and their lobbyists have any way about it, we will never see a decent minimum wage. So that, much less, 100% pay equity for women. So that has been intractable. Domestic violence is still there. Um. And the pandemic has made that worse. Just like making, um, racial issues more prominent? Pandemic has made domestic violence more prominent. Because the gu--the abusers and their victims are locked in the same house. And the guys are mad about losing their jobs and if they weren’t abusers before, they’re new abusers. And there’s no place for those women to go. I don’t--I shudder to think what’s going on in women’s clinics, and. Hoping that they’re still taking abused women in, you know, masks and maintaining social distance, but. I don’t know. I’m not, you know, involved in, in that loop. So, unfort--and combating racism which was effective in the beginning is still an issue. I wish I could say, you know. We’ve accomplished at least half of our goals, but no. Um. They might look different. Um. You know, the ERA campaign is, maybe now done more online than people becoming missionaries and lobbying legislators, but. It’s, it’s still going on. Um. In terms of reproductive rights, it’s the same issues. They’re still trying to close clinics. Um. Now they’re trying to, you know, pinprick their way into abortion rights by saying that doctors have to be able to have hospital priveledges? Um. That’s not going away any time soon. Um… You know, I think all of the issues are still there. I wish I could say that we’ve, issues have changed. Let’s put it this way: the topics are the same. The way they’re implemented may be different. Um. Both on our side and the other side. But. The topics that were in focus when I joined 50 years ago are, unfortunately, are battles. You know. I used to say that, uh, the, the battle warps, but it never extinguishes. It never goes away.
(03:42:16)
Mhm hmm. And so what do you think is the best impediment to progress going forward for the women’s rights movement?
Umm… (pause) People not realizing the power that they have. Um. I think it was, uh, Maya Angelou or some, some African American woman that said--oh, I don’t remember who it was. But they sa--Alice Walker said, um, “The biggest way to take away people’s power is to not let them know they have it.” I mean, she, she phrased it better. But so many people don’t realize the power they have. They don’t vote because they don’t think that they have power. They don’t work for a candidate because they don’t think that they have power. They don’t ask for equal wages because they don’t think they have power. They don’t leave their husbands because they don’t think that they have power. Um… The biggest hurdle I think is getting everyone, but especially women, to know the power they have. It never fails to amaze me. Women who are lifelong feminists, lifelong NOW members, who would not think of asking fo--who would not think of negotiating for a fair salary. Or, would ask me, “What would be proper dress to wear to your Fund for the Future event? What’s proper dress?” It’s like, you really have--a grown woman have to--they don’t have enough power to figure out that what they want to wear is good enough, you know? Everybody knows you don’t wear shorts to an event. But basically anything else would be proper to wear to an event. Women especially have been so brainwashed into thinking they don’t have control. They don’t have instrumentality. They don’t have power. What they think is not good enough. They don’t have self esteem. If we could cut into that, we, we’d be home free. And I, I don’t know how to cut into that.
Mhm hmm.
Except to raise kids differently, which is not being done necessarily. Um. I still, you know. Am in touch with high school students who would tell me, you know. I have, we had a high school student who spoke at one of our meetings on period poverty, the same issue that I was talking about in terms of the movie. But she does it in her local high school. And so many girls are, are too shy to ask about sex education or about how to get pads. These are current high school students! If they don’t have enough… Self esteem to make sure that they have pads, they’re not gonna think about their political futures.
(03:45:03)
Mothers are still raising their daughters, fathers too, but. Parents are still raising their daughters, that they have to get a guy. They have to get, you know, somebody to take care of them, to provide for them. (sigh) Not all mothers, but a lot of mothers… Still raise their daughters as princesses, let me put it that way. As Cinderella stories. And to me, that’s the same as child abuse, but. They don’t see it the way I do and that’s one of our huge hurdles. That’s why the girls’ leadership program is so powerful. That’s why this Running and Winning program is so powerful. Those girls are combating the Cinderella message, and they’ll never go back. But you can only put so many girls into these programs. You can’t put them all in.
Yeah.
You know? (pause)
So on a more uplifting note, I was wondering what your proudest moment or achievement with NOW has been.
(sigh) I guess keeping the institutional memory and being able to keep the chapter going for… 48 years, 46 years. I’m the person, I’m the rock. I’m the foundation. I’m the person who mentors new leaders. I’m the person who’s supposed to know everything.
Mhm hmm.
Yes, it’s a collaborative effort, but I’m the locomotive that keeps the train going. Um… I’ve gotten a lot of awards. Um. In the, in the past few years. I got an award from Planned Parenthood. I got “Outstanding Woman of Burlington County” Award. I got the Alice Paul Leadership Equity Award. All of which, you know, kind of make me feel good and recognized. Um. But. More than the awards, I’m proudest of keeping the NOW chapter together. Saving Paulsdale. Starting the Girl’s Leadership Center. Providing girls with ways to not have childhoods like I had. And I had a great childhood, in many ways. But my options were limited. And I just wonder how different my life would have been in terms of career choices, in terms of marriage choices! If I had had a Girl’s Leadership Center to tell me, “You are smart. You are capable. You are powerful. Here’s how to do it. Go for it!” That’s, that’s what I’m proudest of. I, you know. I can die happy knowing that I put that into… Effect. And that I’ve impacted hundred of people who’ve been members of South Jersey NOW: Alice Paul Chapter. You know? Who could want for more than that? You know, it’s like I said, what I’ve gotten back has been 10 times more than what I’ve been given.
(03:48:01)
I’m, I’m a happy person. Is it, has it always been fun? No! Has it always been successful? No. Have I, have I sometimes wanted to tear my hair out? Yes!
(laughs)
But overall, it’s been a great gift. And… And I’m grateful for it.
And you touched on this a little bit before, but I was wondering if you have any advice for the next generation of women?
Oh gosh. I don’t think they’d be listening to any advice that I would give. (laughs) Just. The good news and the bad news is they think they know it all. Or they work differently. Like, I tried to start a consciousness raising group involving young women, and they said “we have Facebook for that. We do all of our consciousness raising on Facebook.” And I said “It’s not the same as being, sitting cross legged in a group with other women, sharing your innermost thoughts, crying and laughing together.” And they looked at me like I had just walked off the planet Mars. And they want to do the ERA differently! Which is great! I’m happy that they’re doing the ERA! I don’t care if they do it differently. Um. They’re doing, I think to some extent they’re doing choice issues differently. Um. (sigh) I don’t think they would want to hear my advice because they would just, for the same reason that people don’t generally value old people. That’s why people lie about their age. Because they think if you reach your 50, 60, 70, 80s you have nothing left to contribute. All your stuff is old knowledge. Old skills. Old values. And that doesn’t apply to us anymore. And to some extent they’re right! But, um, one of the things that I valued about that leader Lucielle Fleeger I talked about, she was my mother’s age. And she taught me, and I had more friends my mother’s age and my daughter’s age than I had my own age. And that’s because I valued what Lucielle Fleeger brought as a, someone my mother’s age. She had been through integrating the pools and, um, various other social justice things. But. So I was smart enough to go to that well and cook--pull up a bucket and enjoy everything that I could pull up out of her experience. But most people don’t. They don’t value older people, and they don’t want to pull up that bucket. And it’s frustrating, quite frankly! The older I get and the more my hair color changed, the less people listened to me, and the less people thought I had any value. I have frequently been invisible in groups where I have been in groups of women my age and I’m the only one with this hair color. Everybody else has blonde hair or dark hair. Because they don’t want to own their aging! Because they know that they’ll be devalued! If somebody thinks they’re old. And they’ll only be listened to if somebody thinks they’re 10 or 20 or 30 years younger. And unfortunately that’s the truth.
(03:51:10)
So… (pause) It’s, it’s--
Unfair.
It’s like an impossible thing to get around, but.
Mhm hmm.
It’s reality.
So you said that they’re doing the issues differently. In what way are they doing reproductive differently, or ERA?
Um, uh, we had a young woman who’s actually in charge of our clinic escort support team. Works at the Cherry Hill Women’s Center. And she was very active in our chapter, but she wanted to get involved with women her age with NJAAF, which is the New Jersey Abortion Access Fund. Which is a group that raises money to fund, uh, low income women abortion. So she’s doing it that way. Instead of working with South Jersey NOW, she is working with--she’s a board member for NJAAF. Because she wanted to work with young women her age. So they have bowl-a-thons to raise money. Which I support, with other, which other NOW speakers support. They’re doing way more, you know, via Facebook and online. They don’t want to come to meetings. I think that’s maybe the number 1 biggest difference. We cannot get a young woman under 45 to come to our program meetings. Because they think we have nothing to teach them. Um. They don’t like, you know. “I’m not a meeting person,” that’s what they say. So they’re doing it online. More power to them! And they’re doing all of their activities--not just ERA, not just reproductive choice, but they’re doing all of their mobilizing online. Um.
Mhm hmm.
And, you know, as soon as they hear I’m not on Facebook, that’s the last thing they want to hear from me. You know, that automatically tells them that I have nothing… To offer that would be helpful to them, or… (pause) Useful. So. You know, ageism is alive and well. And, um, anybody who tells you differently is lying.
Mhm hmm.
Just like sexism! You have to fight that. You can’t just lie down and accept it! You have to, you know. I have so many friends that are younger than me. But not necessarily NOW activists because they just don’t want to… (pause) Work my way. They don’t want to come to meetings, they don’t want to, they want their newsletter to be electronically, which, ironically we are now doing our newsletter electronically.
Mhm hmm.
But for 45 years we held out and sent out paper newsletters. And they said “Why don’t you send it out electronically?” And we said “because some of our members don’t look at their email!” You know, we fought that hard for a long time. There’s, there’s, there’s a huge gap among the generations. And that was, um… I mean, it was even apparent in the Mrs. America series over the ERA. The younger feminist didn’t want--Gloria Steinem didn’t want anything to do with Bella Absug and Betty Friedman because they were out of touch and old and… So. It’s all, was also true in the Civil Rights Movement.
(03:54:11)
Um. I read John Lewis’s biography, uh, memoir way back when which I highly recommend to everybody. Um… One of, it was 93 rating on, uh, Amazon. It was one of the best books about the civil rights movement that you could ever read. But that was a generational thing, too. He was the youngest. And he continually had to fight Martin Luther King and all of the other big 5 who spoke at the March on Washington for a voice. And they tampered down his speech at the March on Washington because he was too radical. You know, unfortunately, every social justice movement has a generational split. And he outlived them all and, you know, did great things. But they were also sexist! They wouldn’t let a woman talk on the stage at the March on Washington.
Right.
So I think that they let Naheli Jackson sing, big deal. But Dorothy Height who was president of the National Association of Black…. I think of Colored Women? I forget what her group was. Wanted to speak and they wouldn’t let her! What a total disgrace! I mean, if, if you read John Lewis’s book, you’ll talk about--you’ll read about what, how terribly Rosa Parks was treated by Martin Luther King. Um. Sexism was alive and well in the Civil Rights Movement. And generational issues are alive and well in the Civil Rights Movement. That stopped me from taking it personally. In the Women’s Rights Movement I thought “Well, if it’s so--if the Civil Rights Movement can’t overcome it, I guess we can’t either.” So it’s, it’s here to stay.
Yeah.
Generational issues are here to stay. Unfortunately.
I think that’s all the questions I have. I don’t know if there’s anything else you felt like you should add or anything?
I think you’ve been a great questioner! And hit all the bases! No, I can’t think of anything that uh, that we didn’t say. And I, I’m so grateful for this. I, this is… You know. History dies because women’s history has, you know, not been told. You know, that’s why we want to pull Alice Paul forward. Because she was named by the New York Times one of the most influential woman, women in 1920. And she was lost to history. Because she was so radical and nobody wanted to tell her story.
(03:56:27)
And it wasn’t until we came forward, quite frankly, that I knew her name. And then people were, nationwide, they knew her name and her contributions. So, um. You know, I have all of these files that I’ve collected for 50 years that I don’t know what to do with. I have my ERA t-shirts that I don’t know what to do with. Um. That’s how women’s history dies. Because, you know. People die and their stories go with them. So I think this oral history project is just a brilliant idea and one way to keep history from dying so. I am super grateful that--I don’t know who came up with it, but I’m super grateful for whoever did. And I’m super grateful for you and other interviewers for making it--yes--happen because otherwise it would have never happened, so.
I’m also really excited to be part of this project. I think my mom came up with the idea? I’m not really sure, though.
I wouldn’t be a bit surprised. Your mom has come up with so many great ideas that, um… I, I cannot imagine how lucky we were to get her. I don’t know how we got her! But, um. Thanks to be to the goddess and to Alice Paul--during the Paul Stone campaign we always used to thank Alice Paul. When we were trying to get a mortgage, when we were trying to do an auction. Whenever we were doing something that we didn’t know what the heck we were doing, and there was no possible chance of success, we always knew Alice Paul was looking out for us and we thanked her out loud. So every time now, something happens out of the clear blue sky that couldn’t have been predicted, like getting your mom as President of NOW New Jersey, I thank Alice.
(laughs)
And, um. She’s a gift from Alice, I’m convinced of that. She’s still looking out for us. She may be in Heaven, but she’s still pulling the strings for us.
Thank you for taking the time to speak with me. This was all really interesting for me to learn about, and help--so, I mean, for the piece of it, but I’m also really excited to see what coLAB Arts does with it.
Me too.
In a larger project.
Keep me posted.
Yeah, I’ll definitely keep you posted.
Is this gonna be part of the NOW New Jersey State Conference? Your mom said--
Yeah! So I’ll be writing an article about, um--
Got it.
About this conversation that’s gonna be part of the program book and also go on the website.
Awesome! Awesome. Spread the word, that’s great. What--
And I’ll definitely send it to you once I’ve written it and everything.
Awesome. What a joy to meet you! What a joy to have you involved in this project, and what a joy to know your mom. Thank you so much for interviewing me.
Thank you!
Thank you!
Have a good weekend!
Bye!
(03:59:03)
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