WOMEN'S MOVEMENT
Hieu: Were there a lot of women doing exactly you did during that time?
Brinton: Yeah! Yes! There were a lot….there were very active women in Boston who particularly in active place. Mary Dailey was writing the first …..yeah ..I think it might be her first book, the book called “Church in the second sex”. She also published the book call “beyond the father” She organized along with other feminists in the area …..a walk out in the memorial church which was a big chapel at Harvard university, and protest of the ways women were treated at the church. Um…there was the beginning of a woman resource project and program at our Divinity school. There was much broader …..(cough!!!) woman movement. A lot of it was white- middle class, women that read…Ann (unclear) ...book. had catalyze the whole large group of women …um….to kind of recognize their marginalization. And that was also when I got evolved and started at women counseling research center where people were Harvard school education. Um…to provide mental help. Um…services that were one kind of …first attempt to recognize ……psychology was not necessary recognizing women problems some which define those problems …as…aimed .to do with ….women themselves…within the effect with social constraints.
(01:06:34)Hieu: What would be the most challenges being a woman involved those activities during that time?
Brinton: WELL……you know I think from the Divinity school. point of view and sort of theological , scientific point of view, um…..HUGE challenge……..At a Catholic woman …..you couldn’t be a priest! …..there was …..NOW I have to say that I would never particularly …….I mean when I was a child I think I would want to be a priest. We used to play mass at home. …..(unclear) …play with a little kid had to be a prisoner…um…by the time I got to be…you know….graduate student, I actually thought a priest was quite patriotical quite male and quite a problem…. more of problems …something we saw after. ..BUT…none the less….in those days, woman was exclusive from ordination…..and many of them protestants ….and …...denomination. So Once (1:07:35)huge problem… if you felt to call the ministry, you could not become a ministry if you were a woman. Second set of issue…was that ..um…there was not very many men …role models sort of …there weren’t many women in field of education, there weren’t current many professors who taught religious study. Um…….Thirdly, there was huge, you know…..problem of violent against woman and of woman being …um…...abused that was just the beginning identify as horrific challenges. Woman of also classes, they’re facing men was thinking they were entitle to physically abuse woman or psychologically abuse woman…um that was another whole set of issue.
AND THEN there was within the woman movement….challenge us around...um… wasn’t really a movement for all women, it was sort of white middle class movement. We really understand that for woman of color, some time identify problems was not patriotic…..but identify problem of racism. And if WHITE women felt …like…..the only way that black women and white women could work together …..And black woman identify man as a problem. But black woman didn’t see man as problem, they see white people as problem, so that meant working together with people who was you were part of the problem ,not part the solution. So that was also very complicated. Um…(cough)….and most of the woman they were in the university at that time. They were much more likely be a white middle class woman than that was a poor woman or a woman of color….
Hieu: Because they had more education or because they had better….
Brinton: BECAUSE they had more opportunities and more economic support to go to school
Hieu: I see!
Brinton: For the most part….