May 14, 2008 - 15:56:29 CDT
Title: "It's Good To Be A Woman: Voices From Bryn Mawr, Class of '62"Author: Alison Baker
Pages: 230
Available: Online and booksellers
Why did I choose to read this book? I am not what you'd call a strong advocate of women's rights, although I have always worked for equal rights. Instead, my reasons for reading this book had to do with history.
Having graduated from college in 1965, I thought this might be a nostalgic trip into history of that era. While that was somewhat true, I found myself struggling with the author's portrayal of the Bryn Mawr graduates and their accomplishments.
Often I had to take a break and evaluate whether I was envious of their upper-crust advantages, or whether the author did, in fact, possess a self-inflated view of the graduates and their prestigious college.
In any case, this book did not call to me from its position at the top of my "to-read-soon books."
Alison Baker spent six years interviewing about 50 of the 159 women who graduated from Bryn Mawr, a small women's school in Pennsylvania. There are photos of the graduates from their class transcripts as well as up-to-date photos of them in a familiar setting of their lives today.
Baker also gained information from the surveys submitted at their 10th, 25th and 40th class reunions. She has an excellent list of written sources from which she gained ideas.
A classmate, Elizabeth Gould, contributed a section on demography that helps to put the accomplishments of these women in perspective. This book would be a good one for anyone doing studies on women's history beginning in the 1950s through the turn of the century.
When these young women began their college careers, most young women in America did not attend college, and of those who did, 82 percent did not complete college. With the national percentage of only about 7 percent of graduates having advanced degrees, most Bryn Mawr grads came from private schools and most received at least one advanced degree after graduation from Bryn Mawr.
Much of this information was gleaned from the respondents of the surveys from their reunions. The reader is at least led to believe that this is a typical representation of the whole group.
The period this book covers is made personal by the author's observations and involvement in the events of the time. During this period, the charismatic President John F. Kennedy called on citizens to "ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country." Many of the young women joined the Peace Corps in order to give back to others.
During this period, blacks were making a stand for their rights led by the peaceful Martin Luther King. Some of the young women from Bryn Mawr participated in the sit-ins and marches in support of their efforts.
After the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy, the shocked and disappointed young students realized they could not look to others to lead; they would have to do it themselves.
At the time these young women graduated from college, many professional occupations were not open to women, and if they were hired, there was not a uniform pay scale. Through the interviews of graduates, the author points out some of the difficulties women faced when they were hired in the fields of law and medicine.
Also during this period of time, more women broke out into the labor force, birth control became popular and families decreased in size. Today, all of this is taken for granted, but women of those days had to bear much anguish to reach this point. The author pointed out that "we are shaped by the times we live in, and in turn, we shape history."
Some of the traits of the young women that stood out for me were ones that many of us shared in those days. Many felt a desire to give back to society through talent and work, to help those less fortunate. Work seemed to be a vocation.
Another trait was one of can-do: We can accomplish anything we determine to undertake with hard work and perseverance. Many showed a love of learning which they portrayed through their work, further education and hobbies.
Baker makes a statement that's particularly meaningful for me because it's a statement right out of my own past: "In our mothers' generation, teaching was considered to be something that an educated upper-class woman might do for a few years before she got married, or before she had children. Even in our generation, classmates who went into teaching did not necessarily think of it as a long-term commitment."
In my own case, after staying home four years with my own children, I realized that my teaching was a vocation.
At the end of the book, the author has included questions for discussion. The questions are creative and thought provoking. They stimulate great discussion in any leadership or social studies classes.
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