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Nobody's Perfect: Alumnae Share Their Real Lives, Woes and All By Julia MacKenzie dipl '79 ...................

"A Century of Women on Top" proclaimed the famous T-shirt slogan when I was at Smith in the late 1970s, and I wonder how many students and alumnae have not basked in the reflected glory of their famous Smith sisters: Julia Child, Sylvia Plath and Gloria Steinem, to name just a few. But what happens when we turn the spotlight on ourselves and ask if we are "on top"? Do we find that we measure up to the image of the successful Smithie, or are we left with a feeling of inadequacy? Or are we asking ourselves the wrong question? Has there been too much stress, not only at Smith but in society generally, on public success at the expense of other aspects of our lives? Nowhere are these questions brought into sharper focus than at Reunion, as I discovered in 1994 while making "Ribbons and Revelations," a BBC Radio documentary about the event. So pervasive is this emphasis on visible success that some alums told me they hesitated to return at all or found it very difficult when they did. One woman from the class of '92 confessed that she had been planning to tell her classmates that she was a patient at the Betty Ford Clinic to avoid admitting that she did not have a wonderful job. And an alumna from '59 could vividly recall being so intimidated at her fifth reunion that she swore she would not come back until she had done something of significance. Judging by the women I spoke with (all chosen at random), competitiveness is particularly acute in the first few years out of college, when everyone is collecting some of life's outward credentials-further academic qualifications, jobs, partners, property-but even some of those attending their 25th reunion admitted they were anxious about comparing their lives to those of others in the same class. As one woman said, "It is very hard to come together and say, 'I've had these problems and those problems and sometimes I haven't exactly made the right choices.'" Looking back, many women commented on their idealized view of the world. The vision of the successful woman carrying all before her was epitomized by a '92 alumna: "You graduate from here and think you can be queen of the world." But two years out in that world had moderated her view somewhat: "You can be queen of the world eventually, but it might not be your first job." As another, older woman put it, however: "If at twenty-one someone tells you about life's problems you will never want to go out there, so the innocence is a protective covering that keeps you moving." Losing this naïveté means letting go of perfection, according to a member of the class of '79: "The big lesson we have to learn is that our lives will not always be how we originally conceived them or thought that they would be when we graduated from here, and that no matter how hard you try, and how much study you do, there are things you are going to fail at." Through their experience of balancing careers, marriage and children or coping with divorce and loss, the alumnae I met had concluded that it is not possible to "have it all" or that, at best, they could have "it" (whatever "it" may be) only sequentially. Once the public facade is taken down, the experience of Reunion changes, for as one alum said, "It is only in the honest moments that we have a good time here." Then, in the words of a '69 graduate, "You understand that we are all still groping and we're all still wondering what we are going to do when we grow up, and the secret that we are learning here is that there are no grown-ups and maybe that's what it means to grow up, to finally understand this secret." Through this kind of comment I came to see the value of getting together every five years (because I'm British, reunions are not part of my culture in the same way). For in the late-night discussions among returning alumnae, the question of public success became far less important and the crucial issue was fulfillment. This was what underlay so many of the conversations: not "Are you more successful?" but "Are you happier?" There was a tacit admission that inevitably we have all felt inadequate, whether we are career women or have stayed home with the children. People wanted to know how others had achieved contentment, and they found inspiration from those who had. One alumna from '74 recounted a conversation with a '54 graduate: "She wanted to be a visual artist, was too frightened to do it early on, did volunteer work, had a family and then twelve years ago trained as an artist, and is now licensing her designs and going all over the world. And she had to tell a younger alum, 'This can happen, do it.'" We are learning that we can, and will, reinvent ourselves, that each one of us will live many lives and have different careers in the course of our lifetime. Achieving something in personal terms is what came across as important in these discussions. It is a question of how we define that achievement; for some women it could indeed be outward success. I found it interesting to hear how many women felt they had come into their own only in their 40s and 50s. As a '74 alum put it: "One has to see one's strengths, decide what's important and focus enough to bring something together. That takes time, regardless of what title one has on the door or what salary one is getting." And it was to this task that they brought the self-confidence, resourcefulness, resilience and risk-taking that they believed they had learned at Smith. It is only at that point, perhaps, that we can come to terms with the fact that, as one alum reflected, "although we may not all have our names in the newspapers or be able to contribute thousands of dollars to the Alumnae Fund, we have done very well with the hand we have been dealt." Discussing these issues openly with our peers is a benefit both of our sex and of attending a women's college. In contrast, as a woman from the class of '59 remarked: "From what I understand from my men friends, at their reunions they're still talking about how much money they are making and how much they have to pay their therapists. And we long ago stopped worrying about showing off." "Ribbons and Revelations" was broadcast in the U.K. last May. Copies of the 40-minute program are available for $9 from Julia MacKenzie, 19 Courthope Road, London, NW3 2LE, U.K. Make checks payable to the Alumnae Association of Smith College. Julia MacKenzie is a senior editor at Phaidon Press in London.

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