..............................................................................................................................................................
|
When Ms. magazine marked its 25th birthday last fall, part of the celebration took place on the Smith campus. One birthday wish to the magazine came from "CBS Sunday Morning," the long-running television magazine. The program's producers decided to observe the milestone by bringing Gloria Steinem '56, one of the magazine's founders, back to the Smith campus for a discussion with current students and other alumnae about the impact of feminism on women-and men, too, for that matter-over the lifetime of the magazine. In less than a week in September, one of the program's producers convinced Steinem to participate in the project; identified (with help from the college) and interviewed current students and alumnae who might also be willing to take part; chose three members of the class of 1998 (Lauren Brown, Crystal Daugherty and Melissa Day) and an alumna from the class of 1976 (New York attorney Anne Cohen) as discussion participants; brought a camera crew and reporter Terrance Smith to the campus; filmed an interview with President Ruth Simmons and 90 minutes of the roundtable discussion; and departed. The final piece, which aired as the show's opening segment on September 28, used only about nine minutes of the many hours of videotape shot on the campus, in the garden of the President's House, in classrooms and in the Alumnae House living room, where the roundtable discussion took place. The roundtable participants, who represented three generations of Smith women, all strongly felt that the women's movement has had a profound impact on the lives of women during the 40 years since Steinem graduated from Smith. But, interestingly enough, the three current students agreed that they had heard more about the women's movement from their mothers than they had learned first-hand. For them, Smith, rather than feminism, seems to have been the more significant influence, teaching them that "the doors have been opened and I'm going to walk through, and that's just that" (Brown); that "if there's a glass ceiling, I'm going to break it--nothing will hold me back" (Day); and that "one of the biggest things for me is to keep raising my voice and never stop speaking up about things that I think are unequal or places I see injustice" (Daugherty). |
..............................................................................................................................................................
