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[Marie Laberge] All right. It's June 20th. I'm here at 9:30 AM with Margaret Stetz in her Women's Studies office. Thank you, Margaret. [Margaret Stetz] And just to get the official stuff out of the way,

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I am the Mae and Robert Carter Professor of Women's Studies and Professor of Humanities. [ML] And you've been here since 2002.

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[MS] I came as a visiting professor in 2002 and I was appointed with my present title in 2003. [ML] So let's start, go back a bit.

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I wanted to talk a little bit about your early years, and your early education. Get some background about how you entered and got to where you are. [MS] I came from a working-class family

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in New York City. My mother had put herself through Hunter College by working as a typist.

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My father, who never finished high school, but later got a GED and then later got a two-year community college degree.

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Worked for 20 years as a police officer in the New York City subway system until he retired and later re-trained as a respiratory therapist.

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So it was very much a working-class background. Nonetheless, it was also a feminist background.

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And both my parents read Betty Friedan's "The Feminine Mystique" when it was published and told me about it. I identified as

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a feminist from the age of 16. When I first heard that word, I did not like the word "women's liber" which was being kicked around.

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But "feminist", I thought, had a certain dignity that suited me fine. And when I started college at the age of 16 at Bard College,

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where I spent one year. Before transferring to Queen's College, City University of New York. I joined a consciousness-raising group,

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but was part of it for only a short time because it seemed to me entirely too insular and focused on the self, with no activism and with

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no political connection to the working-class women on campus. The women who were cleaning the rooms, the dorms,

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the classrooms were underpaid, were unhappy with their conditions, and the women in the consciousness-raising group

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were doing nothing to make solidarity with them. So I dropped out, but I always remained interested in women's issues.

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When I majored at Queen's College, City University of New York in English, I focused on women's literature.

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And then when I went to Sussex University in England for a Master's degree in 19th century studies. I worked on a feminist related project,

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the work of the male writer, George Gissing, who was famous for his novel, "The Odd Women" about feminists of the 1890s. And then when I went for my Ph.D.

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in English and American literature at Harvard University. I did a feminist dissertation on the Irish woman writer George Egerton,

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who was part of the New Women of the turn-of-the-century. My first job was at the University of Virginia,

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where I was hired straight out of graduate school in 1982. And the following year in 1983, I was recruited to join the Advisory Board,

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which was the governing board of the Women's Studies program at the University of Virginia. I was recruited by Sharon Davie,

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who had recently started both the Women's Studies program and the Women's Center. So I was involved from

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the beginning and I was also on the editorial board for Iris, the Women's Studies interdisciplinary journal that was published

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at the University of Virginia. I left the tenure-track. I jumped off it, as I like to say, in 1986,

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so as not to live in Charlottesville any more and moved to Washington DC, where for three years I was full-time adjunct faculty,

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called Visiting Assistant Professor at Georgetown University before going back into a tenure-track position at

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Georgetown in the English department, but also teaching for the Women's Studies program. And I taught my first Intro to

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Women's Studies course in 1987. I arrived at Georgetown in the fall of 1986. I was teaching Intro to Women's Studies in 1987, and I've continued to do that.

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I left Georgetown after getting tenure there, getting promotion there, and after both crafting

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for myself the first official joint appointment in Women's Studies. And also serving as

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the first faculty advisor to the Women's Center, where I was very active in the feminist community, feminist programming, etc.

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I left Georgetown when it became a climate of harassment by the right-wing organizations based in DC that were trying to use students,

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conservative students, to clean up Georgetown and make it a more conservative, more Catholic focused university. So feminists were targeted,

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and I was one of those feminists. I came to the University of Delaware, as I said, in 2002 on visiting basis. And the following year,

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Mae and Robert Carter, Mae and Bob Carter, wanted, had wanted for a while to create a permanent named professorship

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in Women's Studies. And they thought I was the right person to be that first named professor. So that was how I got my position,

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which I was very happy to get. I was first offered by the Dean a split appointment with the English department.

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And I said, "No, that I had been trying since I first became an English professor to move into Women's Studies.

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And here was my opportunity, and I really want it to be based in Women's Studies. [ML] And you've been here since. [MS] I have been here since. And I will be here until they

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carry me out feet first. [ML] So has your activism in the Women's Movement continued at different locations? [MS] Uh, yes in different ways. One of the things that I'm proudest of is

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my seminal involvement with the Comfort Women Redress Movement. While I was at Georgetown, I first began teaching a new course in

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the early 1990s on representations of women in war. And for that course, I applied for and got funding

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to have a short-term research fellowship at a Japanese women's university, where I was looking into Japanese women's involvement in

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the Second World War. While I was there, the word was being passed from the Japanese-language newspapers

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to the English-language newspapers, which I could read about discussions in the Japanese diet, which is their version of Parliament,

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about Japan's war-time responsibility for the sexual slavery of Asian women by the Japanese military in what was called the Comfort System.

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And I came back to Georgetown with that information. And by sheer happy chance, the Director of Women Studies at

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Georgetown had been talking to another professor in Korean Studies named Bonnie Oh, who was interested in creating a conference,

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an academic conference on the subject of Comfort Women. Mentioned to Bonnie Oh, that I was working in a similar area.

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And she and I got together to be the co-creators with many other creators and sponsors of that first academic conference. And since then,

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I have continued to be active in that movement, to publish regularly in that scholarly area. And even today, before I got here,

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I was reading an essay which I was asked to vet for the journal Asian Politics and Policies on Comfort Women activism.

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So that's an ongoing interest of mine. And yes, I've been involved in other kinds of women's activism. Living in DC as I do on

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weekends while living in Delaware on weekdays, I've been able to participate over the years in a number

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of marches and protests, often anti-war, but also involved with gay and lesbian rights, and abortion rights. [ML] That's still important. [MS] Still important.

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[ML] So you've been involved with Women's Studies now for over 30 years. [MS] Yes. [ML] How do you think Women's Studies, from the beginning of your involvement

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to today, how do you think as a field changed, in any way? [MS] It changed greatly with the increased activism of women of color and working-class women

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insisting that the Women's Movement be more diverse, but also insisting that the focus of Women's Studies

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change from white middle-class women. And that's been an important change, I think the greater importance of gay and lesbian issues

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in the Women's Movement also changed the face of Women's Studies and the increased attention to the concept of gender itself,

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as a kind of vexed and problematic category has had a huge influence on what Women's Studies does, and calls itself, and thinks about.

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[ML] In my interviews with a number of the early founders here at UD, several of them have talked about how a lot of the initial activists to create

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Women's Studies here were untenured faculty, and were often putting their careers at risk to do so. And I wonder what

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experiences you had in your career of that? Sort of people, I don't know, warning you off of or out of Women's Studies Or this sort of.

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What impact that has had in terms of your experiences in the academy because of the political nature of Women's Studies and also the sort of "new field" aspect of it?

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[MS] No one ever warned me off. And I think anyone who knew me knew it would be quite pointless ever to say anything

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to me because I'm stubborn as a mule. No, I faced, as I said, a great deal of harassment at Georgetown.

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I mean, everything from having tampons stuffed into envelopes on my door, to sponsoring a talk at the early version of the Women's Center,

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which had a big plate-glass window where a rock hit the window in the middle of one of our programs, to getting regular phone calls from

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the Public Relations Office telling me that various conservative women's groups, we're going to name me in the Washington Post as

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a political obstacle that was indoctrinating students in radical feminism, et cetera. So yeah, I had lots of those experiences

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and my reason for finally leaving Georgetown, the straw that broke the camel's back, was when I went to the EEOC Office and

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said that I was being harassed, that other women were being harassed, and what was the university going to do about it?

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"What would it take for Georgetown to intervene?" And the EEOC officer told me, "It would take someone dying."

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So I thought that was enough. I didn't want to be a human sacrifice. [ML] So what impact do you think those early Women's Studies classes had on both

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faculty and also on students? Bringing this different lens to the classroom. [MS] They were enlightening for all of us. Even before I was

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teaching Women's Studies, while I was still at the University of Virginia and sort of covertly smuggling feminist work into courses with broader labels.

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I was part of a several-year long informal Feminist Theory reading group that was started by faculty

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and Ph.D. students alike, and that produced some of the most active and important feminist scholars working today.

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For instance, Holly Laird, who for many years was the Editor of Tulsa Studies in Women's Literature. Suzanne Jones, who ran

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the Women's Studies program at the University of Richmond. Pamela Caughie, who ran the Women's Studies program at

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Loyola University Chicago. Ann Ardis, who is the Interim Deputy Provost of the University of Delaware. I could go on with a long list

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of women who became a prominent feminist academics who really trained, trained each other,

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trained ourselves through that Feminist Theory reading group. And I have to say that my courses in Women's Studies at

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Georgetown during the early years when I was teaching them, also produced a number of women who have gone on to

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be important feminist scholars, activists, human rights workers, feminist psychologists. So yeah, I'd say those

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were very valuable courses. [ML] And in terms of your work here at UD, you started, as you said, in the English department-- [MS] No I said, here at UD,

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my visiting appointment was in Women's Studies. That was Marian Palley's doing. And I was also

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teaching for the English department. And the way my course load is crafted, I continue to teach cross-listed courses

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for the English department, but no, I was never based in the English department. They continue to claim me

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as a faculty member because they-- [ML] But you're claimed by many departments. [MS] I'm claimed by Material Culture Studies. I'm claimed pretty widely, but,

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but I claim Women and Gender Studies. And speaking of the change of name, Women and Gender Studies, I was one of those who was most

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adamant that if we had to change our name, which I was not sure we had to do. That we not produce a name that suggested a separation. (Phone rings) Can you turn this off for a moment?

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[ML] So you were talking about the change to Women and Gender Studies? [MS] Yes. Yes. I wasn't sure that we

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needed to change our name from Women's Studies to Women and Gender Studies. But I was persuaded that

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that would be a useful change. But I was adamant that we not create a name that suggests separate, inseparable parts from which

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women could be extracted. In other words, that it not be Women's and Gender Studies, where there could be Women's Studies

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separate from Gender Studies, or Gender Studies separate from the notion of women. And it was really that latter thing

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that worried me most. Because I do not want to see the loss of the word women or the historical record of women's experiences,

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lives, et cetera, being overshadowed. However one feels about the theoretical category of woman.

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It is certainly in practical and real-life terms, a category that has very importantly determined lives and fates.

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So that was crucial to me. I am, as I look at what's happened at the University of Delaware since I arrived here in 2002,

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distressed to see a certain erasure of the word "women" from a number of administrative offices that we no longer have

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an Office of Women's Affairs that the Office of Equity and Inclusion does not focus on women or gender as its primary categories of service.

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And that there are no longer funds available to bring women to lecture here or to send women graduate students,

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for instance, to conferences to give papers. And that I think is a real loss. [ML] When the Diversity Caucus was created and there was no one in the so-called Women's Caucus until

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after this embodied that. [MS] Yes, yes, yes. One reason why Women's Studies, and now Women and Gender Studies has done so well at the University of Delaware at

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the same time that it has not been necessarily flourishing, well-supported at other universities is that enrollments,

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our enrollments are high because when the curriculum was set up, the general curriculum and the idea of a multicultural requirement was instituted,

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courses in Women's Studies were seen as fulfilling that multicultural requirement. I believe that if it weren't for-- (Pauses) Loud truck. --if it weren't for

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the multicultural requirement, and if it weren't for Women's Studies being defined as fulfilling that requirement, we would be a much smaller department

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in terms of our enrollment. Many of our students come to us to take a required course to fulfill their multicultural requirement.

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But then because they find our courses exciting, intellectually stimulating, revelatory in terms of history and politics,

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and so well-taught by a committed, pedagogically innovative faculty, they want other courses, they stay, they sign up for more.

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They become minors, and in some cases they become majors. Then the other thing that has kept our program and then department active,

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well-funded, well-supported, and well-received throughout the University, is our donor. And again, most universities

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do not have a donor who is particularly and individually committed to supporting Women or Gender Studies. We do in the case of Mae Carter.

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And universities are very cognizant of where their donors are, where the support is, and that has made a huge difference.

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And it's why I think we are where we are now. [ML] And Mae Carter has been that support-- [MS] From the beginning. [ML] --since the day she arrived. [MS] From the beginning.

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She is a marvelous example to all of us. And truly she is my role model. [ML] And not just in terms of Women's Studies, but acknowledging the need of women all

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across the University, in a variety of different ways. [MS] Oh, yes. [ML] So you talked a little bit about some of the changes taking place at the University that have arrived,

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that have happened since you arrived, and I wonder if you could speak to some of the shifts that we're seeing here in terms of the University,

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in terms of a structural changes, sort of focused in different areas? And what impact do you think that's going to have on Women's Studies? [MS] Well, I think we're

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looking at something that goes beyond the University. There's a new report that was just released about

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the decreased enrollments in the humanities across the U.S. at all institutions of higher education. And about the decreasing support

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for the humanities, including federal support, which has been funneled largely into the so-called STEM areas.

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It means that both the arts and the social sciences are being disadvantaged in this current political and economic climate.

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And although Women's Studies, Women and Gender Studies, Gender Studies, all of the above, whatever they're called at various universities,

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are truly interdisciplinary. They do tend to be associated more often with the arts, humanities, and social sciences in general.

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And therefore they are under threat. I think they're under threat at this university. I think they're under threat

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at all other universities. So, yes, it is going to be interesting to see what happens in the coming years if there is such a narrow focus on math and science,

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without thinking in broader humanistic terms and without considering the importance of the categories of gender throughout. [ML] And I'm fascinated the way the University has sort of

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taken up the mantle of interdisciplinarity and yet doesn't seem to acknowledge those areas that actually have been doing it,

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since Day 1. [MS] Yes, yes. What makes our discipline unique and important is that it is interdisciplinary from the get-go.

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And we are the pioneers in this. We have the expertise. That's why most of us were interested in

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teaching these kinds of courses. Yes, we had a political base, we had a feminist commitment, but we also had

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an interdisciplinary activist commitment. An idea about what learning itself means. That is something that happens outside of the strict boundaries of

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disciplines policing themselves and keeping out intruders. [ML] So how do you think Women's Studies here at the University

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has been able to address issues of diversity in the field? And how have we been able to... What do you think have been some of the struggles around

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issues for diversity in our own department? [MS] I think in terms of the identities of the faculty,

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we have the difficulty that many of those who teach here are either white or Latina rather than Asian-American

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rather than African American, rather than Afro-Caribbean. I'm pleased that we're going to have joining our faculty next year,

00:24:08.090 - 00:24:17.860

another woman of color. But it means that those of us who are not women of color have been making

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conscious and very successful efforts to use diversity as a core principle in our courses. So it's a matter of what we

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teach rather than who we are, but who we are as important too. And I think that is an issue for the future. [ML] And you mentioned

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you were our first tenured faculty in Women's Studies. Why do you think it was important for us to have tenured faculty? And what do you think that means for us, going forward?

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[MS] I think for the same reason, it's important to be a department. It is a matter of status. And academia is a very status-conscious,

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hierarchical kind of profession, but also permanence. Whoever is tenured, it's hard to get out of

00:25:10.900 - 00:25:19.470

the University. If someone decides that they want to get rid of feminists, tenured feminists are much harder to fire.

00:25:19.470 - 00:25:29.030

So I think it gives us permanence and it gives us status. And in terms of my own personal accomplishments,

00:25:29.030 - 00:25:40.660

because I publish so often, so widely, because I speak so often, so widely at a variety of settings, my name is out there,

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and I am certainly getting the name of the University of Delaware out, not just across the U.S. but internationally in a variety of fora.

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[ML] We now have a couple tenured lines. Pasha Bueno-Hansen being our first official tenured hire. What do you think about it in terms of the whole department as

00:26:04.140 - 00:26:19.930

moving forward in terms of our faculty lines, and status? What is that going to do? [MS] I think that tenure lines across the whole university system in the U.S. will be disappearing.

00:26:19.930 - 00:26:34.160

I think that universities increasingly we'll want to keep themselves, quote, "flexible" by hiring on a part-time, on a temporary, on an adjunct basis.

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I think with the various financial crises, with the decreased funding for the humanities, social sciences, we are going to have a very hard time

00:26:45.580 - 00:26:52.910

getting new tenure lines or replacement lines. And we're going to have to fight for every inch.

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[ML] And what do you say to critics who say Women's Studies is not a serious discipline? [MS] (Laughs) I'm not-- [ML] You've heard it said? [MS] Well, yes but I'm not allowed to use bad words here.

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[ML] Oh, okay. [MS] Because often I have used bad words. [ML] For the historical record, she's not saying bad words. [MS] There you go. [ML] In other words, that would be your response.

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All right, I want to ask you about feminist pedagogy. How do you define it? And why do you think it's so important? [MS] Many people define feminist pedagogy

00:27:31.670 - 00:27:43.490

in different ways. But I think we all agree on certain core values, such as the importance of collaborative research,

00:27:43.490 - 00:27:54.530

the importance of lateral rather than top-down learning. The importance of attending to individual voices,

00:27:54.530 - 00:28:06.470

to looking for the silenced voices in history and experience. The notion of empowering students to use their own voices,

00:28:06.470 - 00:28:19.900

but also to listen respectfully to one another. Feminist pedagogy for me means you will never in a classroom of mine,

00:28:19.900 - 00:28:33.210

hear me stand up and lecture and expect people to take notes, and absorb like little sponges. [ML] And why you think it's so effective for students?

00:28:33.210 - 00:28:49.530

[MS] Because they need to exercise their own critical faculties. They need to learn how to pick apart someone's argument

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and not be brainwashed. They need to learn how to make their own arguments and to marshal evidence to support them.

00:28:59.360 - 00:29:08.760

They need to learn how to write. They need to learn how to communicate both orally and in writing. And none of that happens

00:29:08.760 - 00:29:19.110

when they're just listening to a lecture and being told to repeat something for an exam. It happens only through discussion.

00:29:19.110 - 00:29:26.720

It happens through large and small group discussion. It happens through essays. It happens through feedback on essays.

00:29:26.720 - 00:29:35.900

It happens through revision of essays. And those are the things that I do in my courses and that I identify as important parts of my own notion of

00:29:35.900 - 00:29:48.550

feminist pedagogy. [ML] So along with those skills, what else do you think our students take from a Women's Studies class? [MS] I hope that they learn the importance of thinking

00:29:48.550 - 00:30:03.860

outside of themselves. I think that it's painful when students first come to the experience of others and see that

00:30:03.860 - 00:30:14.390

experience only in terms of themselves. I cringe when students say, "Oh, I can identify with Comfort Women of World War II

00:30:14.390 - 00:30:29.330

because I had such and such experience." And I try to move them from seeing experience as identical and to understand it as different.

00:30:29.330 - 00:30:39.830

It is the recognition of difference, the embrace of difference, the understanding of difference that is the critical underpinning

00:30:39.830 - 00:30:56.230

of a feminist classroom. [ML] One of the things that always sort of fascinates me in my classes is that "click," that feminist moment when all of a sudden the lights go on,

00:30:56.230 - 00:31:05.600

and the students are sort of forever changed. And I wonder what you think is most effective in moving them to that, or in providing them

00:31:05.600 - 00:31:12.420

with the opportunity to get there? [MS] Well, I don't know that there really is one "click" moment. I mean, I think that's part of a kind of

00:31:12.420 - 00:31:25.970

myth of feminist conversion. I think... I've certainly seen students who supposedly had that feminist "click" and who wound up in

00:31:25.970 - 00:31:36.230

their later lives showing that there was a kind of slipping back. I've also seen students who did not experience that feminist "click"

00:31:36.230 - 00:31:44.900

in my classroom, who got to it later through other means. Who, for instance, when they first went into the workforce,

00:31:44.900 - 00:31:57.110

women who got their first jobs discovered that much of what they had discounted as the problems of the past were the problems

00:31:57.110 - 00:32:03.620

of the present and were the problems of their own lives. And who wrote to me later to say, "I didn't realize when I took

00:32:03.620 - 00:32:11.060

your class that these things were going to be true for me." So the, "click" moment happens in all kinds of places and

00:32:11.060 - 00:32:24.080

for all sorts of reasons, and we can certainly provide the opportunities for it to happen, but I no longer believe that it is the crucial thing toward which

00:32:24.080 - 00:32:33.200

I am working. Because it may not, it may not happen in my class. [ML] And it also comes built on a whole lot of different experiences

00:32:33.200 - 00:32:43.930

in their own lives. [MS] Absolutely, absolutely. One thing I am always happy to hear, however, is the classroom not being confined to the classroom.

00:32:43.930 - 00:32:55.250

I do take it as a great compliment when students tell me that they are sharing the things that they read in my classes or sharing

00:32:55.250 - 00:33:07.190

the discussions that we've had in class with friends and family members. Nothing thrills me more than to hear that a student has passed

00:33:07.190 - 00:33:17.140

along the book that he or she has been reading to a family member and that they're talking about it now together outside of the class.

00:33:17.140 - 00:33:27.580

I think that is really important, that learning happens everywhere in our lives and that the classroom is something that should

00:33:27.580 - 00:33:41.290

excite and encourage that kind of learning. And again, that's the reason why lectures are never going to be the answer. [ML] So how have you seen

00:33:41.290 - 00:33:53.500

your field of English literature impacted by Women's Studies? [MS] Well, I wouldn't define my field as English literature. It was interdisciplinary

00:33:53.500 - 00:34:01.240

from the start when I, when my field was Victorian Studies, I was already looking at matters of material

00:34:01.240 - 00:34:10.700

culture and visual culture, although they weren't given those names at that point. But I've done exhibition work for,

00:34:10.700 - 00:34:19.990

gosh, more decades than I care to remember. Having started doing exhibitions in the 1980s of print culture and visual arts,

00:34:19.990 - 00:34:29.840

as well as literature. My field includes fashion history and dress culture, in which I'm publishing extensively.

00:34:29.840 - 00:34:39.890

My field includes history of women in warfare, in which again, I have multiple publications and a long track record of

00:34:39.890 - 00:34:52.490

organizing and attending conferences and testifying on Capitol Hill in one case. So my field is not English literature. [ML] But do you think Women's Studies has

00:34:52.490 - 00:35:09.440

impacted these other disciplines in significant ways? [MS] Yes! Short answer. [ML] So what do you think will be the impact of the Women's Studies program becoming a department?

00:35:09.440 - 00:35:20.660

How do you think that's going to impact us here and in the University context? [MS] Well, I don't know that that's for me to say. I mean, that's really something for

00:35:20.660 - 00:35:31.160

all of us together to say. And I think that changes from day to day, year to year. Now again, status never hurts.

00:35:31.160 - 00:35:37.940

Permanence never hurts. I think that's what that change has given us. But in terms of whether that's going to get

00:35:37.940 - 00:35:45.990

us any further resources, I have no idea because I think the resources for everyone will be limited and dwindling.

00:35:47.020 - 00:36:00.120

[ML] And certainly making more work for us. [MS] Yeah. [ML] How do you think the situation for women at the University of Delaware has changed in the 11 to 12 years since you've been here?

00:36:00.120 - 00:36:09.350

Both in terms of the status of women at UD and also in our own department? You mentioned somewhat about the disappearance, but-- [MS] Yeah, I think that's

00:36:09.350 - 00:36:18.890

my chief notion of what has change that the disappearance. The idea for instance that we are no longer the hosts of

00:36:18.890 - 00:36:30.440

the Geiss Research on Women conference for students. That seems to me a bad sign. The fact that at

00:36:30.440 - 00:36:43.010

the top level of the administration, I've seen a change as well. For instance, when I first got here, one of the graduate students

00:36:43.010 - 00:36:55.970

whom I was supervising won the Geiss Prize for graduate students and the then-President of UD invited her and me to come to

00:36:55.970 - 00:37:03.620

his office to meet him so he could congratulate her on, in person on winning that award. He also invited

00:37:03.620 - 00:37:14.930

the undergraduate winner and that disappeared when we got a new President. And I've seen no interest on the part of the current President in

00:37:14.930 - 00:37:26.660

making that kind of gesture. So I think that is a bad sign. [ML] And we've talked a little bit about the change, the name change from Women's Studies to

00:37:26.660 - 00:37:36.830

Women and Gender Studies. My recollection is that early on, you were actually resistant to that? [MS] Yes. And I continue to insist that the word

00:37:36.830 - 00:37:46.700

"women" is the first and most prominent and that it never be erased. My own title, by the way, does not change. My title is: Mae and Robert Carter,

00:37:46.700 - 00:37:54.680

Professor of Women's Studies. So I'm a part of a department of Women and Gender Studies, but I am a professor of Women's Studies.

00:37:54.680 - 00:38:05.310

That is how Mae Carter conceived that position. And if I drop dead tomorrow, that named position continues to be Professor of Women's Studies.

00:38:05.310 - 00:38:21.920

So I, in fact, do represent a focus on women. [ML] So let's talk about the addition of Gender Studies. We created the minor. Gender and Sexuality minor

00:38:21.920 - 00:38:29.620

and that has impact in terms of some of our classes and students. What do you... How do you see that sort of adding

00:38:29.620 - 00:38:41.660

or impacting us today and also going forward? [MS] I cannot remember a time, when I was teaching Women's Studies, when the issue of

00:38:41.660 - 00:38:48.560

masculinity was not already part of what we were doing. So in fact, it's largely a cosmetic change.

00:38:48.560 - 00:38:59.660

It's largely the addition of a name. But what we've been doing all along was Women and Gender Studies together. Certainly in all of my classes

00:38:59.660 - 00:39:07.290

this has been true. Just this semester, I created a new course called The New Woman in Black and White

00:39:07.290 - 00:39:15.150

that was meant to go along with the two exhibitions at the Old College Gallery. One on a turn-of-the- century

00:39:15.150 - 00:39:24.630

American woman photographer. The other about the history of American women's culture, politics, and clothing in the 20th century.

00:39:24.630 - 00:39:35.800

And the focus of my course, The New Woman in Black and White, was on transatlantic turn-of-the-century feminism through the lens of photography,

00:39:35.800 - 00:39:47.000

journalism, dress and race. And an important feature of that course was the concomitant issue of the New Man, which was much discussed,

00:39:47.000 - 00:39:54.200

much debated at the turn of the century. So although the course was called the New Woman, it was impossible to teach

00:39:54.200 - 00:40:01.370

that course without also considering the related issue of envisioning the New Man at the turn of the century.

00:40:01.370 - 00:40:13.390

And that's just one example of what we do. What I do. [ML] So in some ways it's making sure that everyone acknowledges what we're already doing, [MS] Exactly.

00:40:13.390 - 00:40:31.360

[ML] So what do you think you are most proud of, over the last 12 years here? [MS] Different things from what I was most proud of when I was working at Georgetown University for 16 years.

00:40:31.360 - 00:40:40.840

There, I was proudest of having created the first official joint appointment between Women's Studies and a department. And I was proudest

00:40:40.840 - 00:40:57.130

of having helped to create, found, support, and run the Women's Center. I tried very hard when I first got to UD to get a Women's Center going here,

00:40:57.130 - 00:41:09.390

and unfortunately, that hasn't happened. So I count that as a failure that I wasn't able to initiate that idea

00:41:09.390 - 00:41:21.250

and implement it successfully. Most of what I'm proudest of having accomplished at UD involves my own public outreach.

00:41:21.250 - 00:41:30.040

I'm very proud of the exhibitions that I've done, both here and elsewhere. I'm proud of the conference's that

00:41:30.040 - 00:41:45.470

I have helped to sponsor here, including the 2004 "Michael Field and Their World" about two lesbian, aunt and niece, women writers who wrote together.

00:41:45.470 - 00:41:56.210

And I'm also proud of my involvement in the "Useful and Beautiful" conference in 2010, the exhibition work I did for that.

00:41:56.210 - 00:42:06.260

So I'm proud of having done a lot of interdisciplinary scholarly work that goes beyond the confines of the University

00:42:06.260 - 00:42:15.410

and that invites other people in, but also takes me out. For instance, right now, I've been asked by the Shakespeare Theatre Company

00:42:15.410 - 00:42:22.390

in Washington DC, which is mounting a new production of "The Importance of Being Earnest" by Oscar Wilde and the fall,

00:42:22.390 - 00:42:30.470

whether I would write the essay for their program. And they approached me because they had read an essay of

00:42:30.470 - 00:42:37.830

mine on Oscar Wilde and women. And they are particularly interested in having an essay that focuses

00:42:37.830 - 00:42:47.000

on Oscar Wilde's relationship with women, with the concept of gender. So I'm very proud to be doing that kind of outreach,

00:42:47.000 - 00:43:05.220

and to be bringing University of Delaware's name, to that kind of public community context. [ML] When you mentioned the Women's Center, why do you think there's such resistance to it here?

00:43:05.220 - 00:43:15.610

[MS] I wouldn't say there's resistance to one. It's that if somebody had come up with a large pot of money and said, "Here, I'm going to give you

00:43:15.610 - 00:43:24.970

so many million dollars to found a Women's Center." UD would have jumped on it. But in the absence of

00:43:24.970 - 00:43:36.180

a donor who was targeting funds for that, UD was not interested. And I think money drives a lot of the things that happen here.

00:43:36.910 - 00:43:45.800

[ML] Why do you think that we as a program and now a department have been able to be successful when other department have

00:43:45.800 - 00:43:51.920

been shutting their doors? A number of Women's Studies departments or programs have been dismantled. [MS] I would take it back to

00:43:51.920 - 00:44:04.410

what I had raised earlier, which is the multicultural requirement in the Gen Ed curriculum and the fact that our courses count for that requirement.

00:44:04.410 - 00:44:14.480

That was-- there was no such requirement when I was teaching at Georgetown, Women's Studies courses did not fill, fulfill any sort of requirement,

00:44:14.480 - 00:44:23.120

and therefore they were an extra. And because they were an extra, the enrollments were small. And I think this is going to be

00:44:23.120 - 00:44:33.380

increasingly true at a time when parents and students alike are very nervous about whether students are enrolling in

00:44:33.380 - 00:44:44.030

courses that they quote "need" or not. So, so long as there still is a multicultural requirement, so long as our courses count,

00:44:44.030 - 00:44:56.550

we will be successful in ways that other kinds of departments and programs elsewhere are not. [ML] And we have created a graduate certificate program

00:44:56.550 - 00:45:10.200

that's been going through some growing pains. Why do you think is going to have one first? And then where do you think it's going to go in the future? [MS] I'm ambivalent about this.

00:45:10.200 - 00:45:23.500

I'm not sure at a time when graduate education in general is under a lot of stress because of the absence

00:45:23.500 - 00:45:31.280

of employment opportunities for people who get graduate training. I'm not sure whether we're going to be able to

00:45:31.280 - 00:45:41.410

succeed in floating a graduate certificate or not. I think it is important for the students themselves. I think it's also

00:45:41.410 - 00:45:52.910

very appealing to the faculty. I think it allows for high-level research and new kinds of work to be

00:45:52.910 - 00:46:07.850

done by both faculty and students alike. But given the financial realities, given the employments limitations for those who aren't doing Ph.D.s,

00:46:07.850 - 00:46:15.000

I just don't know what's going to be possible. I think that other departments at this university

00:46:15.000 - 00:46:24.380

are being very protective of their own student populations, trying to keep their own enrollments up, trying to limit their students enrolling

00:46:24.380 - 00:46:32.300

in courses in other departments. And that will work against our efforts. So I don't know what will happen.

00:46:32.300 - 00:46:45.140

[ML] And one of the sort of practical areas that we have sort of the job practicality areas that we've ventured into has been through the Domestic Violence Advocacy Program.

00:46:45.140 - 00:46:56.120

Again, also, potentially threatened due to finances, but I wonder if you see different areas where a model like that can be addressed in other contexts?

00:46:56.120 - 00:47:08.540

[MS] Well, I don't know because again, that was something that depended on funding and on a large and marvelous grant. So unless we can find

00:47:08.540 - 00:47:20.560

ways to target money, I don't know that anything equivalent is going to happen. [ML] And what do you think

00:47:20.560 - 00:47:38.650

still needs to be addressed? [MS] By...? [ML] By us. By the fields? What do you see coming down the road? Or areas that we still need to sort of spend some time to focus on?

00:47:38.650 - 00:47:49.260

[MS] Things roll back if you're not pushing forward. And that's always a worry. And that's in terms of gender equality in general.

00:47:49.270 - 00:48:02.240

I'm disheartened every time I find women students, and I do find women students in particular, who seem to me to be

00:48:02.240 - 00:48:08.910

very like the women students than I first started teaching in Women's Studies courses in the 1980s,

00:48:08.910 - 00:48:24.260

who were unaware of their own political history, who were unaware of the importance of activist work and who

00:48:24.260 - 00:48:35.930

were frightened to speak up. Many things have frightened them. And in some cases they have had truly horrific experiences

00:48:35.930 - 00:48:46.450

and pasts and backgrounds. In many cases, however, they haven't and they have just never felt the need to speak up and

00:48:46.450 - 00:48:57.180

out or recognized that to paraphrase, Audre Lorde: This is how you save your life. Your silence will not protect you. So I am distressed

00:48:57.180 - 00:49:06.180

when over and over again I find young women who are afraid of the sound of their own voices in a public forum.

00:49:06.180 - 00:49:18.190

That worries me a lot. I think we're also looking at the problem of women who not only find themselves reduced,

00:49:18.190 - 00:49:28.640

but reduce themselves to their own bodies and appearance. In a world where media encourages women to be seen and not heard,

00:49:28.640 - 00:49:41.950

but really to be seen under a microscope, women are having more problems than ever with body-image issues. And that's a real concern that we

00:49:41.950 - 00:49:52.890

have to continue to address. I'm concerned about women at this university who do not see themselves as part of a global community,

00:49:52.890 - 00:50:08.900

who do not understand the ways in which they are tied and their lives are tied, and their consuming habits are tied to global forces and to global injustices.

00:50:08.900 - 00:50:18.590

And I'm concerned about students at this university who have a hard time looking outside of their own communities

00:50:18.590 - 00:50:26.870

in terms of race and class. So there is a lot for us to work on at this university, but that's also something

00:50:26.870 - 00:50:34.740

to work on at all universities, whether we will be allowed to do so, and whether we will have the resources to do so,

00:50:34.740 - 00:50:45.410

whether we will continue to have class sizes that enable us to use discussion formats, to do critical thinking in a deep way,

00:50:45.410 - 00:50:54.170

to do critical writing in a deep way, I don't know. And these are things that we're going to have to fight for.

00:50:54.170 - 00:51:10.030

So I hope we fight well and hard. [ML] And that sort of raises the sort of issue sort of why we still need to be here. When I was interviewing some of the early founders,

00:51:10.030 - 00:51:18.600

they talked about how there was a sort of sense that if we did our job right at some point Women's Studies would put themselves out of business.

00:51:18.600 - 00:51:31.660

And yet what we've seen is we have not yet put ourselves out of business, and in fact, we're still needed. Why do you think we are still needed? [MS] Well, I can well imagine why

00:51:31.660 - 00:51:43.100

the early founders thought and hoped that we wouldn't still be needed. But I've used the analogy of the UN. When the UN was created,

00:51:43.100 - 00:51:57.350

probably no one foresaw that as a permanent body that would be endlessly working on human rights issues and finding those human rights issues

00:51:57.350 - 00:52:08.700

rolling back, rolling back needing to be pushed forward. So just as in terms of global politics, the UN will never become

00:52:08.700 - 00:52:16.300

unnecessary or some equivalent body will never be unnecessary. So what we do is never going to be outmoded,

00:52:16.300 - 00:52:26.430

unnecessary, all work wrapped up. We're talking about issues, and kinds of learning, and kinds of understanding,

00:52:26.430 - 00:52:40.740

and kinds of working toward a better world that will come up in generation after generation after generation. Nobody solves these problems.

00:52:40.740 - 00:52:54.330

They get solved again and again and again. [ML] So I was asked by some other folks: Why Women's Studies? [MS] Why Women's Studies, what?

00:52:54.330 - 00:53:06.280

[ML] Why do you study Women's Studies? [MS] Oh, why do I study Women's Studies? I'm a woman. [ML] I'm fascinated by what that means. [MS] Yeah, it's meant many different things in

00:53:06.280 - 00:53:15.550

many different contexts. And I am interested in the experiences of women in many different contexts because

00:53:15.550 - 00:53:23.850

those experiences continue to be different from the experiences of men. And again, we can problematize categories of gender,

00:53:23.850 - 00:53:34.990

as indeed it's important to do so, but when it comes to lived experience, how you are defined. And we are still defined as men and women.

00:53:34.990 - 00:53:45.420

However we might wish to define ourselves will determine those experiences. They will be different and they are well worth learning from.

00:53:45.420 - 00:53:55.160

[ML] And so, why do Women's Studies at the University of Delaware? [MS] We should be doing Women's Studies at every university. We should be doing Women's Studies in

00:53:55.160 - 00:54:03.960

secondary schools and primary schools. So the question is not for me: Why University of Delaware? But: Why not everywhere?

00:54:03.960 - 00:54:14.810

[ML] Is there anything that we haven't touched on that you feel it was important to sort of address? [MS] No. [ML] Concerns you have? [MS] No.

00:54:14.810 - 00:54:17.730

[ML] Well, thank you very much. [MS] You're very welcome.