Feminist Forum at Rollins College, October 2011

Gloria Steinem drew an overflow crowd to the Rollins gym this past weekend for a surprisingly intimate yet rousing retrospective on the women’s movement—past, present and future.  Three Rollins presidents and many of my former colleagues showed up. 

            In the posed picture of Rollins women, I’m amazed to find myself between Past President Rita Bornstein and Gloria Steinem with Lynda Glennon and Twila Papay, old friends and colleagues.

Veteran Feminists of America, a group of women involved in NOW and other feminist political groups in the sixties and seventies, sponsored the conference to celebrate the 45^th anniversary of NOW. 

Wendy Brandon enlisted students from her feminist theory class to interview twelve of the VFAs for an oral history project and asked me to moderate the final session on the Legacy of Feminist Activism.  What fun!  Two other sessions examined history and coalition-building. 

In the picture below, you have left to right: Amy Hackett, student Jamie Pennington, RK, women’s studies director Rhonda Ovist, Sally Lunt, Sheila Tobias, students Sarah Spurling and Norma Mangual Price, and Jacqui Ceballos. 

Lisa joined me for all Saturday events and pushed me from place ot place in my rollator when I was too breathless to walk.   I couldn’t have done it without her.  She enjoyed seeing her old profs.

I was thrilled to see so many of my old colleagues who had helped me launch women’s studies at Rollins three decades ago.  They said I sounded the same as ever—like the good old days when I was leading the charge.  It felt fantastic to be back in the saddle again.  Again in 2011 at Rollins we were riding a tidal wave of energy and enthusiasm into the future.  Rollins women’s studies gave me a certificate for “pioneering feminist leadership.”  Wowza!

Let’s hope this return to Rollins, if only for a weekend, creates new connections and jolts me into writing about those years (roughly 1979 to 92—my forties in the eighties) when we (all my women’s communities) forged onward through backlash.  My blocked creativity now for that period is probably rooted in my own conscious memories of pain, strife, frustration, and grief that must be faced if I write the truth.  Lesbian Nuns came out in 1985, and my mother died at the end of the year.  I burned out.  And I found Sisters Everywhere.  Truly “It was the best of times.  It was the worst of times.”

Doris arrives tomorrow for twelve days.  On Saturday we drive to Durham, NC, where I have another evaluation scheduled next week at Duke Lung Transplant Center.  We’ll be back here by the end of the week, but I may be away from email for a while.