Several professors spoke last night about what feminism means to them in a panel discussion before about 30 people.
The panel, part of a series titled "What is Feminism?" sponsored by the Women's Resource Center, was moderated by Director of the Women's Resource Center Giavanna Munafo.
The panelists were Spanish Professor Agnes Lugo-Ortiz, Susan Fraiman, an English professor at the University of Virginia, French and Comparative Literature Professor Marianne Hirsch, Director of Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action Mary Childers and Physics Professor Delo Mook.
Munafo, who introduced the panelists, said it is "interesting to hear what feminism means to different people so you can explore your common ground."
Lugo-Ortiz said as a child in Puerto Rico her grandmother told her she should have been a boy because she liked to climb trees and ride horses.
"My gender restricted my energy," she said.
Lugo-Ortiz said throughout her youth she was taught by teachers that Puerto Ricans were inferior and by her father that women and children were inferior.
"I was all three," Lugo-Ortiz said.
Later she spoke about the "penguins in ties" who run Congress and the United Nations. She asked, "How can you be blind to the exclusion of women?"
Fraiman said, "The seeds of my feminism were sown early in my youth."
She said her mother was a lawyer and her father pushed her to succeed, so she had "a positive female role model, gender-blind encouragement and a daily dose of patriarchy."
Fraiman said it is important to be willing to call on both the "difference and equality approaches" of feminism in discussing it.
Hirsch said she was in college in the late 1960s and was involved in student protests against Vietnam and supporting Martin Luther King.
She said she noticed "the world is very much led by male activists -- the women were making coffee, didn't have strong voices and were only helping."
She said as a graduate student she formed a consciousness-raising group with neighbors, friends and fellow students.
"That was the first time I felt a sense of belonging and a sense of commonality," Hirsch said.
She said when she first came to Dartmouth in 1974 there was a "tremendous feeling of community among the women faculty and staff."
Hirsch said she and other women faculty worked on collaborative projects about feminism.
She said there are "wimpy women who have taken the term 'feminism'" and it needs to be reclaimed.
Childers said she has been calling herself a feminist for more than 25 years and there were several "click moments" when she was proud to be a feminist.
She said one moment was when women picketed outside The New York Times because they wanted the practice ended of having classified ads divided by sex.
"Because of them, I could deliver carpet samples and make twice as much money as in a job that was formerly only for women," Childers said.
Childers said a topic of feminist discussion used to be sexual pleasure.
"Today students talk about sexual assault," she said. "We talked about orgasms."
Childers said she believed in family values and roles in feminism, and said women need to challenge male power where it is damaging, but share the power with the males they love.
Mook, who said last night was the first time he publicly acknowledged he was a feminist, began by saying, "I started out a sexist. I came to a sexist institution in 1970."
He said he underwent a transformation after he got to know female members of the faculty and began to read and learn more.
"I began to realize the histories and stories are not just about women, they are about me as a man," Mook said. "It uncovered an anger in myself I didn't know existed."
Mook said he began to wonder why he was admonished for crying as a little boy as he became "acutely aware of the oppression of not just women, of men as well."
Mook said he reached a stage where "remaining silent was no longer an option" and he began to speak out when he saw oppression.
He said he is "not sure how to even teach without being sexist," but he is trying.
