Calm Before the Feminist Storm

The Radcliffe Class of 1961 missed the revolutionary boat. Born during World War II, they arrived at college in the late 1950s still limited by prevailing stereotypes. But they graduated too early for the women's liberation movement to have an impact on their college experience.

"Lamont Library was closed to women and I was irate at that, but I made an individual response. I disguised myself up as a boy, got my friends to sneak me in, and studied there for a night," recalls Margit Johansson '61, a research associate in Womens Studies at the University of Colorado. "My feelings were there, but there was no women's movement to back me up."

Some former Radcliffe students say they felt vaguely dissatisfied, but "we weren't conscious of a national pattern," says Myra Lakoff Rich '61, now a history professor at Colorado.

But once the national women's movement gathered steam, the Radcliffe Class of 1961 joined the bandwagon. Fully 81 percent of the alumnae who responded to a recent 25th reunion poll said that the attempt to pass an Equal Rights Amendment and the women's movement had affected them personally.

Although many of the 241 women who graduated in the spring of 1961 now say they later realized that they had not had all of the opportunities as the male undergraduates, most of them took their status at Radcliffe for granted. "I didn't feel like a second-class citizen, but I think I was," says Mary Catherine Bateson '61. Virginia Rogers Patterson '61, who lives in Philadelphia and has raised five children, agrees: "We were used to being second string."

Bateson, the daughter of Margaret Mead and now a professor of anthropology at Amherst College, and other alumnae point to their living arrangements as a symbol of the disadvantages Radcliffe students confronted. "We had to live in the [Radcliffe] Quad, and there was no transportation. But we took it for granted and developed strong leg muscles. Now you can't get anyone to live there unless you provide transportation."

"The basic set-up was such that women were second-class citizens," says Maryland resident Shelley Pallay Levi '61. At that time, Radcliffe students lived in dormitories with house mothers while their tutors lived in the Harvard houses with the male undergraduates. "Not having the tutors around made a difference in the intellectual quality of our lives," says Levi, now a travel consultant in the Washington, D.C. area.

"Tutors would come up for dinner a few times a month, after having a little sherry to get their courage up," remembers Johansson, who earned her doctorate in sociology at Columbia in 1977.

While coeducational living with Harvard did not start until ten years after their graduation, Radcliffe students of 25 years ago lived under rules which, by today's standards, may seem archaic to returning alumnae. Dress codes, curfews, and signing in and out at the bell desk were regular features of daily living. "There certainly were a lot of irrelevant constraints on our behavior," says Cornelia DeNood Swayze '61, who today lives on a farm in Vermont. "We couldn't wear pants without a long coat over them."

All Radcliffe students had to be in their dorms at 11 p.m. on weekdays and 1 a.m. on weekends, and the Quad at night frequently looked like a scene out of a bad romance novel. "All the couples would be kissing good night on the steps at the same time," says Levi, who married a member of the Harvard Class of 1960 a few days after graduation.

Some women chose to avoid the restrictions of Barnard, Eliot and Comstock by moving off-campus. "I liked living off-campus because it was a little less cloistered. On campus you were expected to follow schedules all of the time," says Beverly Helbling Wood '61, a radiologist.

Despite the restrictions Radcliffe students lived under, many alumnae praise the college for providing the best education possible given the times. "The school was very supportive of academic endeavors, unlike most schools at the time," says Wood, now a professor of radiology at the University of Rochester.

And some women students didn't even find the rules restrictive. "I rather liked the protective atmosphere of the dorm," says Helen Arnold Herron '61, a biology Ph.D. turned housewife and mother of two. "I didn't feel at all cramped by the hours because I certainly didn't want to be out after 10 or 11 anyway."

Single-sex housing did provide certain benefits. "We had the opportunity to be grubby, dirty and quiet at home without anyone knowing. It was a great relief to hide out and not bother for a while," says Sara McGuire Muspratt '61, while Peggy Gilkerson Heywood '61 adds that dorms were "very pleasant, small-scale homelike places.

"We used to joke about gracious living, but it was quite pleasant to sit down and have a good meal," says Heywood, now a psychiatric social worker. "Harvard had those wonderful dining halls which looked elegant, but it was very uncivilized."

Although the Class of 1961 graduated two years before Betty Friedan debunked the myth of the happy American housewife in The Feminine Mystique, many Radcliffe graduates were already struggling with having to chose between family and career.

"For young women trying to make decisions it was very confusing. Distinguished individuals disagreed," says Judith Wilson Rogers '61. "Radcliffe had a traditional senior-junior luncheon. At ours [then-Radcliffe President] Mary I. Bunting gave a statement on how it was possible to combine marriage and a career. Margaret Mead was the second speaker, and she told the class that it was not possible, that you had to make sacrifices."

"We had to be pioneers and figure it out for ourselves," says Rogers, a judge on the District of Columbia Court of Appeals. "But that may be what a Radcliffe education was all about."

But some alumnae say Radcliffe didn't adequately prepare them for the real world, where they faced more limited opportunities than their Harvard counterparts. "We all hoped to be able to combine career and family, but when we got out and faced reality, there was a severe reassessment. A lot of people were turned down by high-powered graduate schools. The doors weren't open," saysPatterson.

Although many alumnae praise Radcliffe forsupporting women's professional endeavors, some ofthem point out that they received less supportthan their Harvard classmates.

"The people who went on to graduate school wentto academic programs rather than law or medicine.It was much more acceptable for a girl to do,"says Rich. "I started out thinking about medicine,but my father said no."

Forty percent of the 151 alumnae who respondedto a 25th reunion poll conducted by Radcliffe saidthey now work in the field of education; 14percent work in health and human services; 15percent are in business; 7 percent are in law, 9percent work in the arts, 3 percent work inbusiness and 11 percent are in some other field.

Although Radcliffe students in the early 1960scould plan on having some sort of a career, theywere not expected to provide for themselves. "Iremember one dean told us that our advantage layin the fact we were not main wage earners. So wehad the intellectual freedom to explore thepossibilities that men might not," says VivianPerlstein Folkenflik '61, who teaches at theUniversity of California at Irvine.

Radcliffe women of the early 1960s say theywere not supposed to allow this intellectualfreedom to interfere with their family lives. "Itwasn't the norm for women to have their career andchildbearing all at once," remembers Ann BoodyMorgan '61. "The women I knew raised theirfamilies first, then had careers." And Heywood,mother of three children, says: "My generation gotthe message that you planned a life so that in thefirst part you would have a family, but when thekids grew up you would have a career. Theywouldn't be simultaneous."

At present, all but 7 percent of the alumnaewho responded to the Radcliffe poll now workoutside their homes at least part of the time, and68 percent work full-time.

But 25 years ago, the recent graduates of anelite women's college had different aspirations."When we were in school we were generally expectedto go out and get married," says Claudia BurghardtMorgan '61; "Most of the women I knew were marriedwithin a year of graduation," Rich says.

With marriage on everyone's minds, datingHarvard men played an important part of Radcliffestudents' lives. "My family expected that collegewould introduce me to appropriate spouses," Levirecalls. And the distance between the Harvardhouses and the Radcliffe dorms only enhanced theimportance of having a date. "It wasn't easy toget into a relaxed situation [with Harvard men].Classes weren't oriented towards making friends,"says Gaby Stevens Kimmel '61, while Levi mentionsthat "the primary way of doing things was with adate. Even going to football games you had to beasked by a man."

Radcliffe may not have given the Class of 1961a perfect education, but most alumnae looking backsay the college gave them a good education.Seventy-one percent of those polled said theywould attend the school again.

"We can see how things could have beendifferent, but...Radcliffe did the best it could,"Folkenflik says. "I can't fault Radcliffe becauseI was born in 1940.