2.4 Interview: Women's “Libbers”
The recording
Running time: 2 minutes 41 seconds.
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Transcript
- Rosamonde R. Boyd
- And so naturally when they received the vote they didn’t assume the responsibility. Some of them not even registered or voted. Some who registered and voted would have been horrified at offering for a public office.
- Constance Myers
- It’s a little narrow to want to restrict this activity for women, because there will always be some who do want to exercise this privilege.
- Rosamonde R. Boyd
- That’s why we were obliged to have status of women committees, to stimulate the women, to motivate them. They just weren’t interested; they weren’t going to do anything about it. And they resented some of the activities of status of women’s groups, too. I would say now that I really believe that the women’s lib movement is doing women more harm than good. Yes, I do. I talked to the convener of our committee who was Madame Helene Thalman-Antennen from Switzerland, and I said, “You know we have worked to advance women educationally. We have wanted more women to take higher degrees. We wanted more women to take professional training. We have wanted to advance women in policy-making posts and elective office. We have wanted to advance women in business, in industry. We wanted to have equal pay for equal work. We wanted to do away with restrictions on night work for women because some women had to work at night; it was preferable for some women to work at night. We wanted to do all this and we did it in a way that brought respect for us and support.” I said, “Then when the women libbers; began to come forth and when they decried happy marriage and were against…”
- Constance Myers
- Oh, this isn’t universal in the women’s movement.
- Rosamonde R. Boyd
- It isn’t in the women’s movement but it is with some of these people who protest and get on television.
- Constance Myers
- In every movement you have an extreme wing.
- Rosamonde R. Boyd
- But they’re the ones that you hear from. You don’t hear as much from the women who took the position that we did. You just don’t hear from them like you hear from these extreme women libbers.
- Constance Myers
- There’s a position taken in the women’s movement that marriage is to be encouraged but marriage of a fifty-fifty partnership.
- Rosamonde R. Boyd
- Well, definitely. Those of us who graduated from Randolph-Macon and colleges of similar type had fifty-fifty relationships back in the twenties.
- Constance Myers
- Yes, I know that my mother did.
- Rosamonde R. Boyd
- So we never thought of a woman having an inferior role at all.
