Forum; 5; Behind Every Great Woman: Ellen Goodman

Good evening and welcome to the Sunday forum. Tonight we're presenting the fifth and final program in our series. Behind every great woman a collection of seminars on human development with outstanding women from New England. Our guest is Ellen Goodman. A reporter for The Boston Globe and a Neiman fellow at Harvard University. The host for Behind every great woman is Will Fitzhugh. This is another in a seminar series. Behind every great woman my name is Will Fitzhugh My guest tonight is Ellen Goodman reporter for The Boston Globe and presently on a Neiman fellowship at Harvard. In this series we try to learn something about how outstanding people get that way and in particular how women in our society which for a woman's got Heiney says for the last two or three hundred years as a has had an affirmative action program for white males but hasn't really called it that. So how did the women in our society

manage to survive and thrive. If I know that we're going to be an issue I manifest doubt I'm not sure it's sort of an interesting question you know why some people aren't as easily flattened by the flattener as those other people I think. Partially probably this is just kind of half baked but maybe it's because I don't have a brother you know. I think of you I think it's a funny thing both of you know I have I have I have I have a sister not her first child which generally you know my sister's. Inflow And I think that's sort of an intro for him so I think it depends a lot on what your particular sort of slander is that you get issued and stuff and I think that's one of the things about how late they are mine. Right and that's that's one things well I should say that the form and I suppose varies from week to week but in general I think when I'm moving towards a stranger. Some kind of a rough sketch from the beginning to

the present. And then. When we do the other people can come in and we sort of go back and forth and ask questions like that but it's helpful I think to get a framework. So I think that's. OK so let's say you were did you get started were reborn stuff when I was a boy here. Boston Massachusetts Yeah I was born actually in in the Newton Well the hospital if you want to go back that far. But I grew up in Brooklyn and went to Brooklyn public schools up to high school went to a small girl school and high school and then I went to Radcliffe private or parochial school. Did you go to a public school up until that until my junior in high school and switched because I was a misfit self-defined benefit up to them and had you sort of gone through elementary school. I don't know I have sort of thought about that a little bit and I think one of the things that was

really lucky about me was coming from a family that had a strong streak of skepticism and maybe humorous skepticism maybe even a Jewish trait I'm not sure but I never bought the whole package for one reason or another that that's not entirely clear to me. Certainly all the messages to society were there you know then that if one was pretty. You could ride on. And if you were female you didn't have to achieve and at certain stage you should stop being athletic and all this kind of thing. And I picked up a lot of those the athletic messages the high point of my athletic career was it. 13 and 14 you know and then dropped that to a large extent but I did have some reason or other that I don't really understand I've never really bought the whole. Thing up on a couple things One is that you have a lot of things interesting because well as I was saying this week that

practically everyone who was active in the women's movement which is not necessarily you we don't know yet but it has been it was a tomboy Early's there's something about I want to ask about that. But another thing that before that you were talking about a package and formal operations I wonder if there's a kind of cultural equivalent which has to do with when you first recognize that there's a package. I mean when did when did it hit you that. 1960 Yeah. This is all 20 20 hindsight you know. I mean that most of you didn't realize it was part of the whole package. Most of what part of the what were you what were you did you. Well I was always a very tall kid and I was always very. Oh that's an awesome we should get into because I have this feeling based on a double blind crossover study of almost nobody you know that tall women have an advantage because it won't even when you're little because you're the tallest in your class. Everybody expects more of you and they expect you to behave in such and such a way and have leadership qualities absurd of

course. But maybe for women that's a pretty decent bouncing thing to the negative expectations that people have women. So having always been you know outrageously tall as a child. I may have had a slight advantage in terms of a self-image of being stronger and you know fairly strong both physically and as a personality. I don't know. But back to athletics. Meanwhile back on the tennis court. I was just a pretty athletic kid and I went to summer camps which were all girls and was always one of the two or three you know most athletic kids. Then when you got into athletics being competitive with boys that was the No no you could be athletic competitor in competition with girls was just one. You were in competition with boys that was on except a ball.

When did that become a possibility. What became apparent and this is you know on a very subliminal way that one shouldn't run faster than boys. For example when you were about Typically I guess about sixth seventh grade seventh grade and you when you got your first training you all should meet it's all very related you know as soon as you. So really through elementary school it wasn't so bad I mean it was all right to be tall it was already to be outspoken It was to be girls for them our discourse to a big guest you know. I once punched a little boy in the nose who later turned out to be the capital football team that was frowned on however. Yeah I think go girls have it easier in the school system up to a certain age much more accepted by the teachers mostly female when I was a girl I think they have certain advantages. Schools are the public school system to a certain age.

OK no you talk about public school because you didn't get it right until Junior OK something you are just a couple times you said it and I wanted to see if it's a threat is something about being expected to be and to be an achiever or something like that. Oh yeah well that part probably in my merrily family but you know because I want to test it against the teachers in elementary school you were saying that. Well I mean the impression I've gotten from what you said is that it was all right to be tall and athletic and bright and outspoken and so on and so that your women teachers in elementary school didn't put that down at all. Not that you know it's really difficult for me to recall I don't have the greatest memory just for one thing. Certainly the boys were expected to raise the windows of running the project and that kind of thing. But it wasn't really have it. Until he had high school or until you hit puberty let's say did you go to junior high school or was it you know you know it was that 1 through 8 and

then an 8 through 12. So it was the end of elementary school or something difficult it was sort of when boy girl relations started to be something that's pretty clear now that it's directly related. So what was that word. I have called one of the things that were a while back. Well when I was in high school it was definitely the year of the cheerleader in the football player. When was this but 50s 50s. I graduated from High School in 1959. So I was really in the you know the Eisenhower years as we refer to them. And. Oh maybe 200 girls tried out the cheerleader I was not among them. You know I was even trying out for them. And but that was the kind of achievement the girls were expected to make to

strive for that that time and it was the whole thing. I think everybody in this wrong place protest is right some of you at least remember what it was like in the coed public high school at that time. If you got a reputation for being for example a brain you have had it socially. You know if you were a girl you know I was not especially. What I was wondering it seemed like well earlier you said something about some sort of working backwards from when I was a misfit earlier I decided to do something. I mean just you know the fact that I never went up the chain only that you know not I was the only one who never did there were. I had you know there were a number of rather a large number of Belgians who didn't ever go out for it some because they didn't think they could make it some because they thought it was a lot of hogwash. Even then you know it's not because it was devalued and that kind of thing was mot

moderately devalued in my family they wouldn't have made fun of me had I gone out for it but the expectations of my family were more for academic achievement. Then either athletically they would have been happy had been kept at the football but Or for Khan's status. Let me add something like. OK in the 50s was silent. So that's generation or whatever people were not sitting in and we're not saying what they thought particularly I wanted to try something you said. The impression I got from elementary school again was a backpack a makeover. But was that you were rewarded for being an achiever. Don't put it so you get grades and things and you did well athletically and did well and so on. But then the thought comes to mind that you get to high school the rules

change in a way different things the reward was that did you what the. Primary thing that I think was rewarded that I think is very destructive is a switch in behavior you know. Forget about grades and then and athletic achievements and ones when we're no longer supposed to behave in a way coherent with that with who they were it was for us to lay over this whole kind of it was a certain way to talk in a certain way to hold your hand in a certain way to drink your coffee. It's like a it's like a no play almost in the intricacy for roleplaying. You had a one way that you reacted with your girlfriends you're feeling much yourself with your girlfriend and you have another personality that you were to assume. I can remember you know for example I would never wear my eyeglasses on a day and I can remember this is not televised so I can't do this harmful gesture for you. But I can remember

that I had a way that I thought was absolutely devastating of life. It must have been totally myopic. When I was floored teen I thought this was you know this was maybe my calling card house was one of the things I have to do it was horribly destructive I'm being funny about it but you know we didn't learn again how to deal with man any kind of a real basis still. We were you know recently maybe three four five six years ago. That's all. But maybe it's partly because you're laughing about it but at least from the way you're presenting it doesn't sound like it really stops you in your tracks or something really bewildered you. And so I was like putting that together with the fake you family re-inforced doing well in school which probably you continue to do. It wasn't a great tailspin time. It wasn't for me but I mean take it away.

But I can see a way for someone who is either less successful at it or someone who is more sensitive or someone who had less support from home. It could have been an absolute wipeout. OK but staying with you because you know what. How did it happen that you decided that you. I guess you said acted on your being a misfit because of the picture I'm getting is that you were you wasn't great and it was destructive to you but you could do it you know. But you well you decided at some point that you'd rather not. You know I had a good. I had I had an older sister that was very helpful in that. And my sister had left the public school system at about the same time the law I did. And. So she had kind of gone before me and my parents presented this alternative to me. I might not have done it myself. But did she like it to your sister. She had gone to him also before and she had liked it there and.

It's I had kind of like the place when I had been there and so it was sort of readily available to me might be more interesting sometimes I'd have to ask her why she did it more than what. What do you like about it. It was only 14. There were only fourteen in my class my whole graduating class and a typical class at 7 or 8 and it was much more demanding. You know in other words if you walk into a class unprepared there are only three all because you know that you're proudest of you can't think that somebody is going to care you know that you're lucky. It had more emphasis on creative work and I think it was a different kind of atmosphere it was also all girls I don't know to what extent that was good. You know part of my experience there and I was only there two years.

I hated field hockey I remember distinctly rushing up and down the hill the field with a stick in my hand you know and despising it but I think I came to feel lucky to leave. Did you were you thinking about reckless at this point. Did you when did you decide you want to go. I guess but the end of my junior year I decided that I wanted to go to Radcliffe or Barnett those were the two schools I was interested in at the time. So you really didn't get thinking about that until you got to back. Yeah. Pretty much it was sort of typical about those things to your buddy junior and I thought I mean one of the things that says is that was one of the reasons for going there. I mean you know if you didn't say Brooklyn high or whatever my sophomore year I'm not going to get the records unless I get into a better academic environment or something that wasn't part of your reason for going there. Not that I recall. So maybe it was part of my parents interest willingness to finance that I don't know and have to you know ask them but so did you did you develop any particular economic

interests at backing in that your pursuit of kind of then you get interest in the subject more deeply than your history I guess I had a wonderful history teacher about him and I did go into history. So it's you know terrible to be so sketchy but probably exactly sketchy it's just it's just like ancient history I mean my my my my honest feeling is I had virtually no independent intellectual interest till I was out of college which is a horribly depressing thought but it's also very true you know so that all of this going back over you know whether I was interested in the X versus Y in high school is kind of. I'm not sure really word fits into you know what I would consider to be sort of critical points of my own life like going into journalism was the first time you had a touch for me that I realized I had a sort of interest in hunting information or a legitimate outlet for what would have seemed to be rudeness a

curiosity for good and all but I would like to go to this point since you raise that whole home. At what point and in what way did this interest in journalism come to you. Well when I left college you have to understand women never got any guidance all accident you know up to up to the age I was maybe twenty eight my life was an accident you know exaggerating but not entirely. When I left Radcliff I had no idea you know that my diploma and 10 cents would get me a cup of coffee for inflation. And. I really didn't know what I was going to do. And I went to New York. I got married one and two went to New York and started looking for work and I walked into Newsweek magazine. So a pretty nice address Madison in Forty ninth Street and I knew they took some recent college graduates and I walked in and they offered me a job which I thought was terrific. I learned

better later. 63 was in 1963 and they have me a job as a researcher which was where they channeled women and you had to work your way up to a researcher of course and I made fifty eight dollars and fifty cents a week. I thought this was terrific. Among other things it sounded fairly respectable at cocktail parties. People asked you what you did you said you worked at Newsweek and only the really crashes. Boortz said what do you do you have to lie and that is how I clip newspaper and after working there a year I became a researcher. Parents that are glad I went to work in the same department as a researcher for a male reporter and the reporter and I had gone to college together and the only difference in our academic achievement was that I graduated with honors and he had not and he was making a

hundred dollars a week more than I was but you know we're so done then you know well it didn't occur to me to sue the place now of course they've sued. We can talk and there get some good jobs. And that was sort of going to journalism back door but you mentioned it as though it were sort of a point of discovery that there's one outlet for your curiosity and so it was that did it sort of come on you gradually or was there a time when it really hit you that this was something you could you know you sort of said it's a nice address an interesting job. Yeah. After I was in it it's sort of like behavior modification you know you do something and then you figure out why you've done it and how it's changed your behavior and you know things that you're interested in and. I started asking people nosy questions and I discovered you know I've really always wanted to know these things before I really always been this curious I never had a kind of legitimate speaking role playing as we were before a gentleman and a mask

to put on whereby you know it was reasonably proper course in 1963 we didn't go around asking like you know Gay Talese or something about people's sex lives cut first. It pushes causes that. Well 63 human history going to three to 65 you mention 20 years old was a sure thing. Well I still didn't perceive of this is a career you know it was a job and it was a job until dot dot dot fill in the blank. You know for a lot of women had jobs until they were married others had jobs until they had children you know it was or until their house was with through graduate school you know was no less difficult to extract supply except I think a lot of women here have been through there there was no feeling that this is something I'm interested in not just for now but this is something I really want to pursue. And there's some sort of logical goal system and I want to

swine Xeon But then most will change into that at some point. Yeah I'd say after I had my daughter that was OK and a homeowner just skipped two jobs. So OK so you went with the good. Having that my job. Yeah I realized I wasn't doing this until something. I mean I had already gotten married I had already had a child and after I had my daughter the thing that I wanted most was after making sure she was adequately care for to give back to my work you know I think I was I was like a lot of women having their first child just hardly up time that this was going to mean a cataclysmic rather than interesting but cataclysmic change in my life and I think I was so concerned about this I didn't really enjoy her until I was back at work and then I enjoyed the whole gestalt you know then I could do that but I was so concerned that I was going to be you last likes.

It's not a paranoid fear it's an absolute general fear which I didn't even have the kind of group support to recognize the real legitimacy of that fear I thought it was my personal. When was your daughter born here 1968. So from 63 to 68 you muste of I mean you were a researcher just for that you got you know the first year I worked for Newsweek for two years and the end of the second year. Because of the kindness laziness of the guy I was working for I'd done some writing and I realized Newsweek was a dead end. And I went to a paper called The Detroit Free Press which is the largest paper Michigan morning paper in Michigan and I was a sort of conned my way into that fortunately I had some freelance clips because I kind of got there with the nothing I had from Newsweek to see the damage jobs don't even give you something to move with. I will buy that fortunately you had some. I mean you must have gotten the money.

Oh I have sold my house under some freelance work. But I mean I didn't mean that disparagingly you know if you recognize that you know going to the job at Newsweek was so dead in that you couldn't even take that experience and use it anywhere else except maybe at time you know. So I did have some clips from freelance work that I had done while I was sitting around at Newsweek you know. And I took those to the free press and got a print really is a very good paper. I had a very good experience there was a second woman in city room there the first woman. If you if you can stay if the story had been a woman who's now a be an editor at The Los Angeles Times but prior to my coming to city Rome she had been kept prior to her being a lead into city room which was only a few months before I came there. She had been kept in a little room all to herself like a copy hole that they had created for her. And then to the left of the city room

the princess room where it where it shoots where she all for copy went in the news hole. But her physical process. It was kept out of this really bizarre but not unusual for 7 all the time the people that women wrote for the news hole space but were kept in others like I think this is a little technical So I'd like some help with it the city of Rome is one where all the generals on that news police news foreign news news features with the new US is processed and so the people who work there are the reporters of that news they go out and get in the Gallic and write in stuff like that and not the special sections but so you are a reporter called reporter was a report was a general assignment reporter and also but then you said earlier that there were two jobs in between so that it was not just Newsweek and the whole Arabia. Then I went to the glove. OK. So many things to ask but I'm interested in the time to like. When was the Democratic convention in Chicago.

Was in 68. So that's because I started to far away it was were you. What kinds of then also the mid 60s were and like a lot of times were news newsy terms what were there what sorts of this is really a question I didn't ask which is the freeware stuff that you did. Did it have a content you know there was was there or was there a kind of story you were interested in which you did in the field as we're going to also we're able to do with the free press and that's generally. I did a lot of because I was in New York and I was freelancing for publications not in New York. I did a fair amount of arts coverage sets and you know I would do things like I'd write a story for the Louisville Courier Sunday germy Sunday magazine Lurie of lawful Courier Journal Sunday magazine you know I get that on you know Mrs. Jones formerly of Louisville now living on you know that kind of thing. Or you know Artist X from Milwaukee just opened an exhibit

in Upper Madison Avenue that would you know get a story in the Milwaukee paper. And then when I did go the free press I did cover some arts for awhile got some nice space doing interviews that way. But from the way you're saying it doesn't sound like that was your primary news interest. Or was it. Not really I didn't really have a real beat until I came to the globe. I was doing a lot of general summer work which I think was really good background yearly. So you go fetch you know cover this come back write it up and you get fast if nothing else. You get a certain degree of competence. You pick up the typing speed. And you know I don't think I'd like just a pause for a second and ask what kinds of competence or you know doesn't require. Maybe not

everybody knows I don't know you. You there are certain things you have to find out very fast. When you were here deadline and you get so that you can reach people get the information get the story written get it in you know perfectly coherent printable form in a very short amount of time. Sort of big premium on speed in a daily newspaper. And then you get if you're doing news features which I did a lot of here so you walk in you sort of pick up an angle that's kind of more like an almost intuitive thing though than you're talking about skill. I mean is that is an angle what they call a nose for news sort of knowing what it's knowing what it's knowing like for example we're sitting here talking now from all the things that we will talk about let's say that I was given three pages you know that's much as one short well call. So I have to know from what we said what's really interesting you know kind of pick up

of this you know maybe three quotes would be all I could have from either one of us and get that in the form to print. That's interesting that you do. I want to get to the globe in a second because and then you know starting to go back but. But it's probably because we're talking about a record number of listening. Talk about being a politician and it just occurs to me that probably there's something here. And the question is you're sort of covered as you must have a kind of not stereotype but a prejudgment about it's going to be about this which may condition your ability to pick up an angle I'm just wondering like Francis did you make mistakes you know you pick up the wrong angle you know what I tell the wrong person once the wrong Mr. Goldberg died in Michigan once it was really not want to back up the wrong initial and I picked up the wrong address everybody has done that once you do that twice a year looking for work. But you know. In that kind of thing once.

I've never misquoted anybody but I was thinking of the people who could not agree with that statement. It wasn't so much about there was a thing about picking up an angle. And what the intuitive stuff you're talking about you know I mean it's to think that you know to talk a matter of opinion what the NGO's what the important thing is it's all a matter of opinion it's all very subjective. I mean maybe I'm saying on the air what most people most generals don't like to admit how subjective the business this but you know it's like people say you're covering to me sometimes you're covering things from the woman's point of view. I think the response is you know my God who is not only that but if you think of millenniums of covering things from the male point of view but calling them objective you know it's just it's just late I know where I'm coming from you know. And if I project that you know where I'm coming from and I can make an statement of wry preconceptions of my.

Background and I whole mindset were the whole New whole is very often a male point of view never a label. It's just accepted the male point of view is the human point of view. The female point of view is a special interest is. It's just it's really. I'll give you an example of that in Chicago recently there was a story about Khan a woman who had everyone she had locked her children in the apartment to go to work and she had her husband had deserted the family and she would work all day in some sort of a ghastly job and come back at night the kids were 3 and 5 the 5 year old was making peanut butter sandwiches I guess for lunch for the two of them or whatever. And one day there was a fire in the building. Unfortunately the kids weren't burned. Policeman came in that was the

first that anybody knew that the him. Children were locked in during the day and three newspapers in Chicago took out after this woman. You know the whole Bad Mother routine locker in jail and she was in fact put in jail which was of enormous value to the children anyway. Female reporter from The Chicago Tribune subsequently right now she's with another Chicago paper Sun-Times but she went and was assigned to go interview this woman and she came back and she said you know the slant that this newspaper took on the story is immoral outrageous you know just totally wrong this is a story about a woman who's doing everything society is telling her to stand off of welfare supporting her family you know struggling night and day. It's a story about the lack of daycare in the city. It's a star of this woman's troubles not a story for being there. You can turn the home you know. So who said that that first story was the objective

story. Did you have any grief when you were starting from your bringing back your perspective at home people saying you'll never make it your way. People trying to turn you upside editors are you you have a lot of it. You get sent as a young reporter as a female a young female reporter you get sent often on specific kinds of stories you're more likely to be sent on a picnic for paraplegic children or a Governor Romney's wife Paula nor Romney I saw her coming up and down the pike for you know as you know. And she was marvelous though as a writer talk about women's issues she said nobody. I always like to talk a lot this was a quota story and I always like to talk a lot but nobody ever listened to me before I was the governor's wife you know. But so the two of us were at every tell you know how she did.

And you are subject to a lot of it you know it when I would go out and cover a fire if there were no males in the city room everybody was busy. The firemen would try to keep you away from the fire because you were female. The policeman give you a lot of Sweetie sweetie stuff and try to keep you away from the body. But it has its advantages. It's a lot of people will tell you things because they perceive you is so powerless and so. On aggressive they'll tell you things that you know when it's in the paper a lordy they wish they hadn't told you that but I think remember to Killie in politics much more likely to tell a woman things as a thing so he quotes or something like that.

Yeah ok but. So you talk about the goal because it's important and we should give other people a chance but assuming the globe sort of connects to the present and you're still doing what what sort of period of time is that there must be. I've been at the go for six years it's a long time but I went to the Globe when they were first changing their women's page from a traditional page. In fact if you go down in the bowels of the globe plant and look for your coffee before it goes into the machinery it's still labeled cook page and. Tom when Chip said he was interested in changing the pages and I soon. Found out that this is horrible loss and status at that time of going into the warin Spey age and the City Room. Yeah. I just get a slight perspective of the kind of bind women journalists who are in and then will go back into the glove because you were you know you know Matina who wanted motivation to avoid success

work with the degree that you're successful is the degree that you're de feminized and in essence you had a choice between being either loved or successful. So in journalism you had two role models both of which basically you either could be the hard bitten. Female in you know male and female Qualls model you know you tack out of the side of your mouth and you'd be one of the boys. Or you could be the lady in the flowered hat and be stuck in the society page for the rest of your life. Why gloves. It's not easy to start with. And. If you were if you worked in city room you had to be one of the boys in the degree that you through to push them were aggressive more one of the boys than I got you with. She's that now hard bitten new skin and that's going to be my least favorite word in the world this news anyway.

So is there a male equivalent to the term. Oh no of course they're never really off but you know you just couldn't win if you or you could sit back and get really horrible the sun and be reasonably well why do you go. It was very difficult. It's very difficult double catch 22 there. OK so that's one of the reasons you're saying it is a problem because you were faced with that when you got to the shore and it took me years to be comfortable being you know a woman journalist but particularly covering and the women's page we had such a diminution in status but yet it was the only woman model and so you had the women's pages a woman model but a very low level model and you had the city room as the male model but you either had to desex yourself. Or you know a real failure there.

All of the models with all the successful models who so that was there was good and sufficient cause for for hesitation when ships I'm going to change the Woman's Page and when you do it or no he said I wanted he wanted I was I think I was the first general reporter in there. You know before that I always said you know one society one fashion one cook and I wanted for the first time I wanted a general assignment kind of women's issues. REPORTER But this was 60 this was 67 68 and everybody had ever gotten into the one space that I could see was lost. You know you know you know in those days you never would've gotten for example Neiman fellowship from the respected you can you know it's like you know nobody ever ever had done that and

I was finally here sort of you know we talked about a lot and I said OK give me six months and he said you know great the end of six months for not happy there. Well I chatted city Rahm. I mean that's. When I talked about it to you know you get your guy sent back there you know I mean this is this whole thing you know there's no wonderful story one of the porters and you know women's page paper that you'll remain nameless talks about her editor threatening her you know if you're not going to send you back there you know and we everybody knew her back was to the women. So it reminds you of English habit of saying to America it was back to us it really isn't likely. Well I can get back to some of the questions that are on my mind when we people join him. Somebody must question.

You. Know. He she worked at Newsweek and he was in Detroit. Yeah he was. Because you want to look for your husband was moving because he was really you he was moving now definitely years where he moved to Ann Arbor to be to Ann Arbor and I who worked in Detroit which is a hundred mile round trip commute. So I was feeling motivated or terrified that I wouldn't be motivated about something to make that it was really a pretty rotten commute. And then the move back you know was mutually agreed upon divorce but that was a mutually agreed that he was finishing his training but it was at that point when we wouldn't have made a move to you know some place where it would have been impossible for me to work.

I don't think it will suit you. One of the first rumors and I don't know there was one going on about. Brothers being flat news. Do you have a brother in law Holmes I don't know I don't think brother's a flatness that was what I meant I said. One reason that my sister may not have been flattened is because we didn't have brothers had we had brothers perhaps on my father's expectations would have been. Transferred transferred to them but since he didn't have any sons in our you should be on the ball your hands out you know a lot of the kind of interest in achievement and motivation was centered on us. Really be disappointed if the answer is yes but I I feel you asked the question did it rather cliff have no effect on you and you will

probably all know I loved it you know I was someplace I was really very comfortable. And this is good growing for years. I second. That Riker probably gave you kind of mixed signals at that time and I've talked about honor in reference to. Now certainly you've got a group of of academically achieving women there and who are pretty motivated to do so. But there was a saying that you know we're all pretty motivated to do well in school but that was it. The line was drawn there. There was no planning of what was beyond school. No guidance no sort of feeling that this should take you anywhere that you could do anything with this. Maybe I'm getting a little trade school oriented or something and I you know in my vocational life but there was.

There was this whole societal expectation though that it was really wonderful if girls did very well until schools. Yeah certainly high level finishing school. They are referred to that way and it was quite acceptable for us to be argumentative and bright and I kind of sign up to run. Yeah. I'm always concerned about asking questions specifically because my memory is so bad but I remember the article you wrote about. That first for your graduation last June and I wonder what you think the present classes vary from the 10 year 10 years going 10 years ago from that 10 year ago when I said you were now out of the loop this movement is so oriented to just exactly what you say about career orientation as against a

finishing school with a real sense of human knowledge. And the image of yourself isn't good enough for us with this class. Well I'm back to now in terms of fellowship and I talk to a lot of the women now and a lot of them are very concerned about next year because the economic climate you know where they're going to get jobs because it's really a rotten time economically but they don't have. But at least a lot of them know they want to have them. You know I mean we all knew we wanted to do something the next year or get a nice little jobs until. But they have much more of a feeling that there's a career out there. You know maybe 20 20 21 22 nobody is sure exactly what that is and nor my sure that I'll be doing the same thing in 10 years no one is.

But I think there's a lot more or definiteness that way among my kids that I talk to and I ask about what it's like being back and maybe if you could say how it came about and also what it's like a lot of people I don't know much about the fellowship and stuff. You yourself you were at the glow of the NIM fellowship with set up by the widow of. Never. Nobody ever remembers that but it's set up to have a widow of a guy named Lucius Newman who was a publisher and. She the theory was that at the time in the 30s when it was set up to take sort of people in the upward mobile of the lavs between the ages of twenty six and thirty nine on those the age limits and take them to Harvard and let them run free and that somehow this would be good for American journalism to say people it has to be what a

newspaper person or do is a pain in the middle and there are broadcast people it's a little rare. But we have one French broadcast. But also it's not just American isn't you know there are 12 Americans there's a separate there's a separate kind of funding operation which is a mystery to me. For three foreigners and. They just sort of let us use Harvard for whatever purposes we see fit for the year. So it's a it's a wonderful time. Do you have regular meetings of the 15 meeting and talk about what's happening. Yeah and we meet with people who are interested in talking to from the community at small or at large. Pick their brains for information we want and debate with them and it's as if you're going to try and you know I mean do you have a this is a go or can you just sort

of you can do whatever you want you're expected to fulfill the requirements in one course and different everyone has different ways of handling it. When Anthony Lois from the Times was here he took his whole first year of law school I think that's excessive myself. There was someone else who you know are people who go through very cohesive plans and last year there was someone who wrote a novel you know what. What did you do so well. I don't know if I should say to somebody air either but I sort of felt I went there deciding and I what I really wanted to do was study change in America and I wasn't at all sure how you could get a handle on it. It's pretty big say. And I'm trying to do that and a semi-independent way through people who whose work I'm interested in. But the thing I really decided

was that. What I did not want to do was go to acquire knowledge for example to acquire knowledge in a kind of overt way in other words to go and sit in a history course and have people tell me the dates of various wars. So something I can do on my own and this is not the way I this is my own highly individual. Nobody else is doing what I'm doing but it seemed to me that as a journalist I've learned to acquire enormous amounts of information in very short amount of time and to go to Harvard to do the same thing in this very unique kind of year is a little absurd. So what I decided to do was explore different ways of looking at the world to different mindsets or you know different ways of seeing one way literally is through photography in the other way

is through taking a fiction writing course which is another ways through taking a law school course in law school has a very different way of looking at some of the same set of circumstances that I look at as a journalist and that's kind of interesting. So instead of picking up information I'm trying to pick up a whole kind of attitudes. You know this is very difficult to do. Why if you let me try this because it sounds like very much like epistemology and the example it was used I was taking a course in astronomy at Harvard and the guy was talking about Einstein being epistemologist and saying that that what that meant well he said that he figured out that the speed of light was the limit of information because if anything went faster the speed of light he wouldn't find out about it because light was away got the information. But the image to use for post a mile just generally is the kind of person that watches somebody who is a scientist searching the oceans for fish and to classify and just you know

plant and save what was there and they search and search and go pick up loads and loads of fish this is longer than I meant it to be anyway I think the class file and make the list and so on and then the Einstein epistemologist comes along looks at the net and one of the conclusions is that there are many fish in the sea all varieties and that one of the limits is that there are no fish in the sea less than two inches long or something like you know inside look at the net and says well this net has these gaps in it and you will never find a fish that's two inches long with this net. So it's sort of like somebody looking at nets. Yeah it seems to me that's what you're doing. Yeah that's interesting. I remember that. So you know then what I went through you wanted to spend the year looking at some of the people whose work you used to and I wondered who those people were going I also knew if you go way back I went you know. A little bit what you parents were like when the mother worked and who are the people you know and also with braces you with.

Eek. Thanks very much interest. Ha. If I had about a day and a half I figure that boy turns 5 past my parents had a very very good loving relationship that was very bold of fun Mallos is. While I don't I should not it is my mother. What do you say she doesn't still have that role so I don't know if that's a is or was but she was a very traditional mother and you know my sister IQ had been the basis of our conflicts. This is how parents can when you say we said that if you hadn't been such a wonderful loving traditional mother then we wouldn't be so conflicted about having a different way of life. Because on the other hand it you've been a lot as a mother you know. Don't blame that on our turf.

So we really do torture her by getting her in the double. And my father I was a lawyer and he was active in politics. In Boston and I think that was pretty interesting it certainly kept us unsheltered. Oh and he was very much of a debater and conversation in my house for better and for worse very often to form debate and had to defend one's opinions at all times and that sort of you know it made us angry sometimes we kept this kind of reasonably honed to. And I had a very I have had and have a very supportive and probably one of the last extended family kind of situations in the United States my own family still lives within maybe three square miles.

My maternal family and in fact my daughter is closest with her cousins and so very I recognize the unusualness of that and really draw tremendously from that. As far as right is I guess if I had to pick my friend one of my favorite writers would be Joyce Carol Oates. She's certainly right up there. In terms of journalists. Oh oh lord I you know there are a lot of good ones I guess among the people who I really have been most admire another work and maybe I'm really concentrating too much on women right now. But I think Gloria Emerson for example did some of the best work in Vietnam that was done. And I've you know it's marred her worry that it rolled arms in the woman in her purse.

You know and I don't know you know is for that I just can't think I was there in the Yeah Yeah but more that people know you this year that you said you wanted what you said photography and I wondered if there was a person in each of these fields that you regret. This is not not really. No it's more or less interested I'd like to see. Right there are some people who have done some reading. It's more like a privately organized group. But so what I want to push a little bit more and find out what some of the choices were though I mean you hear you know the words we got this year and you're going about a little differently you know I'm calling it as opposed to more logical inquiry whatever but in choices about certain people either living or dead either. I mean we're in fact people or what about authors or you know if it does involve that kind of thing that I'd rather stay a little bit away from like is that isn't really what I'm doing so much I mean just to have the leisure for you to pick up on all the reading that you wanted to.

I mean generally if you're a journalist and you have an evening free you feel compulsed to catch up on all the magazines and catch up on all the newspapers that invariably collect and stack you know up to there and you know like this year I'm trying to read a novel girl for her you know just trying to do things that I don't ordinarily have the time to do I mean in my normal life I don't have the time to sit down the afternoon read a book. You know if you don't want to say it but it's interesting you know what your truth when you get the time what your choices are like what sort of what novels do you get to after all these years. What do you read and what I've read some very traditional ones I read Harry Beecher Stowe's are talking about but I haven't read since I was 13 to talk about change. Yeah and I just. I read a couple of Joyce Carol Oates things that I have been meaning to catch up on and books of short stories and I was just finishing John Jane Howard's new book a different woman and I read one of the books of one of our

own demons Pat O'Brien who wrote a book called The woman alone which I just finished. And it's another one of the people. And I read a few other books on women and I read a little Saul Bellow's. Here in there. I'm very much there isn't your point you're pushing me and I'm resisting only because this year to me is to some extent the freedom to be a donor time. And you're pushing to channel that and I'm pushing to ooze out of it you know it's like punching Jell-O Aloha trying to scrounge up the saw is the worst that happens is the Ivy League is the reading list so it's like you know what you want to get in this story. Because something about. Tradition. Yes. I would say you are viewing this is that what you do you believe.

Would you like to move the children home. Do you think I do. I have no idea I mean my daughter may come certainly from all everybody in her within her view works. She doesn't understand women who don't which doesn't understand that some women don't work I mean now she does. She goes over friends houses and sees some of their mothers a home although in the community that I'm in not that many are at home but she fully expects women to be working Hans worker and grandmother were. Everybody works. All the women she knows works and she says things to me like look when I'm older I want to be a mommy and you know yeah you know they should go through any range and any other day although mummy remains a constant and some other career thing. Of course she's only five you know. Are On the other hand when she's 21 she decides the

things that she wants to do with. Make pots in Vermont. Good luck to her. I don't feel Willy was wondering in the traditional world. Martin says this thing is over 200 years and you broke the mold to become. Waters trying to become very. Career person. Some day and wonder what's going to what's going to be the result as you see the children. What is once is that you brought you into the career that you're projecting. More different was your projection for Jordan. But I'm just trying to see the difference in your daily and your daily 5 year old parents that you remember and you see in your children.

Here's more people taking care of her than I did I had one person taking care of me she said. Man I. That's certainly a difference between me at 5:00 and her father who I'm not going to going to handle any question but yeah. How will the world be different with her for her. I haven't you got to you know we talk about breaking molds we're dealing with such a narrow spectrum I haven't really broken very many molds Maybe it's the little one that I've broken is a big one but. I mean after all I had her you say so right away that I'm not really in an alternative situation I didn't decide to have a career instead of having a child. And so every one of us is going to get really complicated every one of us who has careers and children is still passing on a Muppet kind of cloning. There's no way not to you know. So Five's if I if the if the message that I've given her is that and I

would hope it is that you can't you don't have to choose. You can have both. Then I would say that she would feel free to make that one of a range of choices when she is grown up. One of the things that bothers me when I talk to college students now is that they think they have to choose. They can either have a career or have children or else they they have this idea that the only way to maintain a marital relationship is by having a very carefully constructed equilibrium. That seems to me to be so dependent on. So almost so flaccid inflexible so dependent on the careers marching together at exactly the same step. In other words her Canaria can never go about he is or can never take him somewhere. His career can overtake her somewhere that it's impossible I mean I think that somehow we just have to make much more flexibility both in

terms of lifestyles for women and in terms of lifestyle in terms of relationships for men and women. Don't ask me out but you know somehow taking power out of that. Out of it from its dominant position in male female relations I haven't really answered your question about children because I haven't really got it. I don't really have an answer you know is it. I know of situations in which children whose mothers who are working rebelled against and said they would not work when they had children most of them parents that equally eventually. But they said there. I think it depends on the messages that you do give to your kids I have one woman I know quite well who is older and her child is almost my age you know the whole time she was working she was apologizing she was giving non-verbal messages of apology to her child for the whole

show because she felt apologetic and conflicted. I feel neither apologetic nor specially conflict. I mean there are days you know everybody has and I think it's how your kids are going to handle what you do is dependent on how you're handling it you know I was like I can't do any of that over there. Yeah I know both of you think you. Well you know some days. Everybody does some days people feel guilt about everything. If I didn't have a child. Some days I feel guilt about that. You don't really get away from guilt. It's just making a decision that making a decision of relative comfort with one course of action and not expecting not to feel guilty. It's not really all time optimistic view of life but I think it's kind of

it's like people say how do you deal with having children working day by day. I mean but and and think about forecasting this stuff and something you said earlier about one of the question has to do with goals and stuff like that it's you know I care exactly what you said it was something I guess what I'm thinking about is that you know a long time ago you had the idea of a job until and then gradually began to be a career. And I'm wondering if if at some point you know I can remember exactly which is which is something about not playing for the future not having goals and specific objectives I think that the question is. Do you have them now and what do they look like. How do you. I think we're now as I said a while back when I went to the women's section it was in transition and I sort of got introduced to the women's movement through being a reporter being sent out to cover it and gradually becoming more and more interested in

and eventually writing a column that is essentially women's issues call at least three quarters of the time. And one of the things that I want to of these Chronicle is the change in women not just women's status but in women and in society because of changes in women. And that gives me at least for the moment a kind of all purpose without saying that changing women's status is my purpose I can't say that either because I'm not that much of an advocacy position but. But chronicling the change in the deal and talking to people and watching it and seeing what's happening and also you know chronicling injustices and writings of the injustices you know just kind of whatever report it

does but I've narrowed in the extent that I'm really interested and I have a vested interest let's be honest I have a vested interest. You know as long as women as second class citizens. I'm a second class citizen.