1.9 Using the International Historical Perspective interview

By Kristin Post

Provided by UNC Libraries / Documenting the American South

Introductory script

So far, we have learned that Dr. Boyd has complex views of the role of a woman. On the one hand, she considers herself feminine and would not take to the streets. On the other, she has held prominent positions in faculty, and encouraged other women to take more prominent leadership roles in politics and in academic life. She has said she does not agree with women’s libbers, but she did advocate equal pay for equal work. In this next excerpt, we learn about the issues and problems she encountered working on these issues outside of the United States as a representative of the International Federation of University Women.

Preliminary questions

1. In another portion of this interview, Dr. Boyd mentions that some women are wise enough to play their roles of wife, mother, civic leader and employee sequentially. Recall the biography I read earlier. What roles did Dr. Boyd play in her life? Were they sequential or simultaneous?
2. What is your impression of how women are treated in other countries, especially in regard to holding powerful positions and being treated equally?

The recording

Play the International Historical Perspective oral history excerpt. Running time: 4 minutes 1 second.

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Transcript

Rosamonde R. Boyd

Another thing, in 1965 I was elected in Australia to a three-year term on the Legal and Economic Status Committee of the International Federation of University Women. I served three years and went to conferences in different European countries every March. I was then re-elected to my last term when I went to the Karlsruhe, Germany conference and served a total of six years.

We were making decided progress I thought in encouraging women, when they secured the franchise in their country to be very active—which we had failed to do when we secured the franchise in 1920. Women in countries that have recently enfranchised women have done amazing things in getting themselves elected to the central legislative body. I think that’s the way it should have been with us. Unfortunately, it wasn’t. The International Federation of University Women exerted a good deal of influence in that direction.

We also exerted a good deal of influence in regard to the study of community property laws in our country in the eight community property states, to bring about some modification, where these laws still discriminated against women, although it seemed that they didn’t. But there were discriminatory aspects. We worked on that.

We also went far in advocating equal pay for equal work. Of course in the International Federation, we found that some of the countries would listen and some of the countries would bring about improvement but we had greater difficulty with the Catholic countries. They had this cultural pattern of subordinate roles for women. They were to be the wives; they were to be the mothers. They weren’t as interested in our efforts to push women into the political scene and they weren’t too interested in equal pay for equal work. We found that in many countries, when you move toward equal pay for equal work, then employers simply wouldn’t employ women. That mitigated against them.

In the International Federation, we couldn’t be too extreme because we had to bring up the Catholic countries to get the general public [thank you] to accept women as having a role other than that of the home. With the countries that accepted equality of women, we found that certain of our proposals didn’t set well and that women sometimes lost when we achieved the equal pay for equal work. That was rather difficult.

You’d think that England would be just as equal as we but I had clippings sent from many English newspapers in regard to job opportunities. I was amazed that so many of the ads would list the range of women’s salaries lower than the range of men’s salaries for the same job.

Constance Myers

What year was this?

Rosamonde R. Boyd

This was in 1968—the triennial conference was in 1968.

Constance Myers

Unabashedly they listed the women’s jobs at lesser salaries.

Rosamonde R. Boyd

Yes. There were other ads which specified that the applicant must be a man. Another interesting thing was that where there were new jobs in electronics and in radar and whatever was new, that they didn’t care whether they had a man or a woman. There was a shortage of people able to apply, qualified to apply. Therefore, in the newer occupations women could get in on the ground floor and stay there.

Constance Myers

And hopefully open the doors for other women.

Rosamonde R. Boyd

Yes, they could.

Follow-up questions

1. What countries does Dr. Boyd mention in this excerpt? Why do you think the Federation dealt with these countries as opposed to those in Asia or Africa?
2. What did women fail to do in the United States that she was working for in other countries?
3. What surprised Dr. Boyd about the treatment of women in other countries?
4. Which countries would probably have been considered “Catholic countries” at that time?
5. Do you think Catholicism and other religions still represent a barrier to the equal treatment of women? If so, how?
6. What is the significance of the “newer” jobs that Dr. Boyd mentions?
7. Are there jobs that women are more or less likely to get today? Are there any jobs available now that would never have been available in the 1970s or earlier?

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