In 1971 Rutgers College administration was left to ensure that all Rutgers College programs and facilities were equal to both sexes. Among the areas addressed were residence halls, fraternities, health services, and athletics. Residence halls were kept either single-sex, or made coed by floor or co-ed by rooms. Most fraternities decided to allow women to join as "little sisters" and a part time gynecologist was added to the staff of the health center. Unfortunately the women's athletic program would not begin until 1974.
Listen to the voices of the first women of Rutgers College as they describe their experiences. After you have listened to the excerpts respond to the questions below. Please note that the audio files are rather large, so they may take a few minutes to load. Be patient and feel free to read the text of the interviews as well.
In 1971 Rutgers College administration was left to ensure that all Rutgers College programs and facilities were equal to both sexes. Among the areas addressed were residence halls, fraternities, health services, and athletics. Residence halls were kept either single-sex, or made coed by floor or co-ed by rooms. Most fraternities decided to allow women to join as "little sisters" and a part time gynecologist was added to the staff of the health center. Unfortunately the women's athletic program would not begin until 1974.
Listen to the voices of the first women of Rutgers College as they describe their experiences. After you have listened to the excerpts respond to the questions below. Please note that the audio files are rather large, so they may take a few minutes to load. Be patient and feel free to read the text of the interviews as well.
Deborah Jacquin Bracaglia
"No complaints"
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Q. Did you in a way find a connection with the other women there right away, you know, like as opposed to friends with the guys, did you have in particular, did you make some close friendships right away?
A. Pretty quickly, I guess.
Q. Did any of the men in the dorms look at you differently, maybe say, "Wow, this is the first time women have been in a dorm?"
A. Well they did, they said that a lot. But the men were great, I have to tell you. They in no way harassed us. If anything, there were a lot of friendships. Some people dated. A lot of closed friendships, and a group of the girls in my dorm developed a relationship with some of the guys in A, which was just another section of Davidson, that one was all male at the time. I mean they would watch out for you. They were great. The men were great there. I have no complaints. I met a woman who was in the first class at Princeton and, oh, the horror stories she told of how they really were not well received at all. That was not -- I didn't have that experience at all at Rutgers. I thought the men were glad to have the women on campus. Treated us with respect, openness, I mean no problem at all. I have no complaints.
Phyllis Messinger
"Sexism at Targum"
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Q. Did you ever feel like you were breaking a gender barrier on campus--either in your classes or major or extracurricular activities... for example The Daily Targum?
A. Targum was very...well there were a couple of guys who were really sexist up there. So, they were very... I mean I was in the first class of the women coming into there, so it just took a while.
Q. How were they sexist?
A. I don't know. They just weren't ... you had to just seem to go over.. and prove yourself more.
Q. Did they criticize your work there?
A. Yeah, I guess... they were just a-------[expletive deleted] truthfully. You know, in general, that's how I still take most people who are sexist like that. I mean they're a------- [expletive deleted] in other aspects of their life too...so...
Q. Your boss was a man at The Targum, right?
A. Yes. Well the editors were all, always male when I was there.
Q. So if anyone said anything to you that was sexist...which, did they? Did they make comments to you? Or actions towards you?
A. No it was… I mean most people who have college educations or who are in college are not stupid enough to just blatantly say stuff but it was just a feeling that you got. No, the longer I was there and more women were coming in it became a little different.
Q. How many women worked at The Targum that year?
A. I can't remember.
Q. Did you feel any unity among the women on campus at that time?
A. Yeah, all of us who came in at the same time were together all the way through. That was why I was interested in hearing what the other women had to say. But I thought it was kind of a kindred spirit. Because there were not that many of us and I lived on campus it was like that all the way. You kind of got to know almost everybody, or heard of them, by the time your third year came along.
Q. No you don't get that now. Was there any racial tension among the first group of women?
A. I don't remember there being very many black women. Not to mention other minorities, Asians were not even taken account of at that point, so no.
"Camaraderie"
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Q. Structurally, how was Rutgers College prepared for women when you came? For example, the buildings, facilities, supplies, health services. Did you feel that they were set up for women?
A. That second year I was telling you where they had the alternate rooms-- male and female -- they would switch the bathrooms and the only change that was involved in the switch was they would put up shower curtains. Which I though was totally absurd. I thought, "Men would probably like the shower curtains too. Why do they have no shower curtains and we do?" So, I just thought it was really stupid. They made minimal efforts, that's what I thought.
Q. Did you experience any sort of discrimination in either subtle or obvious ways while you were at Rutgers--based on gender or anything else?
A. In general, I guess I didn't feel that way. Maybe it was camaraderie or something since all of us were in similar circumstances. So...no.
Q. What was the best and/or worst thing about being in a minority at Rutgers?
A. I guess the best was that we got special attention in the sense of...or we felt that we were going through this together. Maybe that was it. Not so much that we were treated better, but that we felt a kind of camaraderie among each other. And the worst part of that ... it was unnatural to have that much of an imbalance between women and men. I don't know what the numbers are now, are they more equal?
Diane Verhasselt
"Douglass v. Rutgers"
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Q. So, going to college was the first time you'd move out.
A. Moved out, yes.
Q. Can you talk about how you felt?
A. Um, I can't remember any outrageous concerns, I'd say it was mostly the anticipation that you'd have for anything like that, not knowing what to expect. Maybe because I wasn't going specifically with a good friend that I had from early in High School, I might've a little anticipation that I wouldn't've if I'd had that person there. Most of my good girlfriends just happened to scatter, we all went to different colleges around, like a lot of people. I guess not knowing what to expect, not knowing the people in the dorm, never having lived in that kind of situation, but I wasn't really nervous about it.
Q. Was the thought of going to what had been an all male institution worrying at all?
A. No, I didn't really think about it at all, one way or the other, as a positive or a negative, I just saw it as a good State University.
Q. We are starting to do a thesis on different aspects of this and one person is doing it about Douglass women and Rutgers women at the time. Do you remember having any feelings or thoughts about this?
A. Well at the time, I don't know about now, but they were all called Debbie Douglass and I guess the image we had of those women, which definitely was not correct, I'd say, were that they had their tea parties, if you think of the stereotype with the white gloves and proper dress and the whole bit, which some of their dorms at the time had, it was pretty much like that. I knew at the time I didn't want to go to Douglass College. Growing up and going through public schools where it was male and female, I didn't feel I wanted to go to an all girls college. But from the guys I guess there was sort of, I don't know if it was sexual tension, but some kind of tension between the male and female, because the only time they really got together was sort of "oh let's have a dance" between the two schools, it was a very forced issue at the time. Over the years it got better because they incorporated classes between the two schools and I guess with more women at Rutgers also it made it more comfortable. But, I know in the beginning it was sort of, the guys saw the women a certain way and I guess we came along with certain preconceived ideas so it reinforced each other.
Q. So you think there was tension in the dormitories or between Rutgers and Douglass?
A. Sometimes, because they were always put in real forced situations. Very few men, in the beginning had taken courses at Douglass and very few women had taken courses at Rutgers, it was possible that the social events was the only time that there was a mix and it was very forced where you couldn't...there was a meeting room downstairs in the dorms at Douglass, and to go upstairs you had to sign in and only between certain hours. I'm sure there was reasons for it, but the rules were so rigid that it almost set up a tension.
Q. So do you think women moving into Rutgers College helped dissipate a lot of...
A. I think in time it did, in time I think it relaxed people, made them realize that that was the way it should be, people should be comfortable with each other.
"Classes at Rutgers"
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Q. Moving back into the classroom, what kind of ratio was there between men and women?
A. I'd say for every five women there were thirty guys.
Q. how many people generally were in your classroom?
A. I had everything from the small ten-twelve people to the giant, eight zillion people in a lecture hall, and everything in between. In my Junior and Senior year there were more women. Being in Elementary Ed., which is mostly a woman's area, the ration of women definitely went up.
Q. Did you take any courses where you was the only woman, or there were just two of you?
A. In the beginning in my freshmen year I'd say that's how it was mostly. We had to take a Bio course, and at the time Bio course were pre-med and we were required to take it as Ed. majors, I don't know why but we had to. It was the same Bio course that pre-med students had to talk and the Rutgers philosophy on pre-med at the time was that they wanted to weed out as many people as they could. If you made it to your senior year you had the material. They were proud of how people many they could get out of pre-med. So here we are, Ed., majors and Psychology majors, taking the same course as people who are being weeded out in pre-med. I remember to Professor getting up in my Biology class and saying, there was probably two girls in the whole class anyway, not wanting to really be here, it wasn't that we didn't like Biology, it just wasn't something we wanted to Major in, and he said he had led the fight to keep women out, and we went "Uh oh! we're in trouble now!" I don't think he had any animosity towards us, nothing openly was displayed, I don't know if he was a male chauvinist, or if he just liked the way it was, if he was a traditionalist. That was our welcome to Rutgers, "Hi, by the way I'm the one that led the fight to keep you out."
Q. And how did the class progress?
A. We did O.K., we didn't have problems, he didn't openly do anything to us, but he didn't make us feel welcome in the class. If it was something that I was going to major in, I would've reacted differently, that I would have had this professor for other classes also. But we looked at it as a challenge, that we'll going to get through this course, just because you didn't want us here.
Q. So when you were in class with this professor and you had questions, what was the interaction like?
A. He wasn't really open to us per se, but I don't know if it was because we were women or if that might have been his reaction to all freshmen. It was a very, very heavy class any way and this was one of those classes where they gave you a notebook and you had the lectures on the TV's Every Bio class has the same lecture and you had to take notes from this lecture onto the sheets and then you had a discussion afterwards with the Professor. A lot of us didn't have any idea what was going on for a lot of it, you had to assimilate it into your head first. We didn't come in with a heavy science background, so at times we were just totally lost and when we said to him something we don't know if he reacted in a "dumb females" way or if he might have reacted that way to anybody. He never said "you dumb females", but I don't know if we had asked the same question as a male if his reaction would have been any different.
Q. How do you think that reflected on your classmates, what was your interaction with them?
A. I think they were as lost as we were! Male - female wise, I don't think there were any differences. The Bio majors were going to ace this course and they were the ones that graduated pre-med majors four years later, but a lot of people in the class were struggling. I don't think they saw us a problem, we were all in it together.
Melanie Willoughby
"Trailblazer"
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Q. Did you go straight from high school to college?
A. Yes, I did. I went straight from high school uh... so September of 1972 I entered Rutgers College as the first class of women to go to Rutgers College. And it was a very distinct decision for me. I wanted not to go to really any other school then Rutgers, that was the only one and the reason for that was I did not want to go out-of-state, because I wanted to go to a school that was going to have the kind of political connections and vision that I wanted to be able to be involved in politics, and so Rutgers was going to definitely be it. And my guidance counselor sat down with me, Mrs. Laperior I still remember her saying "Melanie, we've got good news. Rutgers has gone co-ed, and so you have your choice to go to Douglass or go to Rutgers" And so she said "but I suggest you go to Douglass" she said "because I think that would be a more supportive atmosphere" and I said "Well, that's not what I'm looking for" I said "Why would I want to go to Douglass, when I can be a trailblazer and go to Rutgers, that doesn't make any sense to me at all." And I believe they accepted like two hundred or three hundred women in that first class and to me that was an honor, that was a privilege, that was an opportunity, that was like all of the things that I wanted out of my experience, was to be one of few and to be able to do a lot of exciting things. And so that, that was what I was able to do at Rutgers for me. It worked out really well.
Q. So you expected, like it to be this new...
A. Exciting...
Q. Exciting, thing..
A. Trailblazer, right...
Q. And it was?
A. And it was, absolutely. Well, it was in a lot of ways. First of all it meant that I was going away. Even though it was only going, I was only going an hour away from when I had grown up, that that was far enough because it was the first time that I had ever lived away from home, and that was very exciting. I was very pleased to be in an atmosphere that was far more exhilarating then, you know the rural area which can be quite boring and take a lot of imagination to try and figure out what you want to do with yourself. It also... there was a lot of different kinds of people from all over New Jersey who where much more my kind of people, I mean you can find that when, you're in a much more diverse population then you can when you're in a rural area. I was like, away from home... Yes! That was great.
Q. So you first got...
A. Very happy...
"Shower Curtains"
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Q. How did the, the co-ed living situation, in general, with the first year going into a co-ed dorms. Did you notice it or was it something that was just there... because other women that we have been interviewing have mentioned things about shower curtains and things that they wouldn't have shower curtains...
A. Yeah, we did have shower curtains, they didn't have shower curtains in the, initially because the guys sort of gang shower and the women were, well we sort of like to have a little more privacy, so that it was an issue when we first arrive and there were urinals in our bathrooms, but what were you going to do? It used to be an all male and so that's the way they built them. And there was a big joke about, you know we going to make the urinals into planters. And I think the men had more difficulty, in my personal opinion then the women, because what happened to the upper class men was that they had come to a school were they had assumed that they were going to have total male dominance, with no women and if they wanted women they could go across town to Douglass and they'd find them, but they weren't going to be a distraction to them, right there in their very own living environment. And, so all of a sudden the school goes, well not all of the sudden but there was a period of discussion, but none the less the school goes co-ed and it is like they felt they sold a bill of goods "you promised me, that this was going to be single sex and now we are co-educational, oh my God." So there was a lot of grumbling, on the part of the men, who would come to knock on our dorm doors and say "You're in the room that I would have been in had you not been admitted here." So we did get some disgruntled people especially since we were taken up their space, when they would have, might have been in that room, so there was that. Uh especially since housing was tight then as it is now. There was also the... uh.. the fact that the upper class men who choose to live with us, where, I think more amenable to having women on the dorm floor with them. And the slogan of Campbell, it was "For the brothers and sisters of Campbell fifth: incest is best" was our slogan. And that essentially was true. The arrangement, because I had brothers, I think, well for the women who didn't have brothers and for the men who didn't have sisters, living together perhaps was not as, were not as accustomed to it then if you do, I mean you know, it was not unusual for me seeing men walking around in their underwear or with a towel around, I mean I was just, you know, very comfortable around men in any kinds of situation, including opening the door to the bathroom and saying, "Well, hello there" I mean that's not unusual when you're used to having brothers around. But, I did find that , a lot of them were unsure of what their relationships should be, that women living in such close proximity, some of them felt that if only able to view the opposite sex as a object of your lust, whether coming from a man of a woman, then it is going to be harder to adjust, and to living with them and so that is where the "brothers and sisters of Campbell fifth: Incest is best" sort of cropped up because, everyone was, a lot of people were struggling with well, you know we really should be able to see each other as, as just like pals, and isn't this great and aren't we having a wonderful time together, versus always saying, feeling like, gee I should be asking you out on a date on a regular time, I you know bump into you in the bathroom. And so, I think that was a trailblazing time...
All interviews are from "Women at Rutgers: A Living History" Oral History Project. 1994. Rutgers University Special Collections and University Archives except S. Fernekes, taken by Kerry C. Kelly, 2001.
Questions for Discussion
Summarize the experience of these women at Rutgers in 1972.
How do their accounts compare to your own predictions above?
What, if anything, surprised you about their experiences?
Brainstorm 2 — 3 questions that you would like to ask a female graduate from the Class of 1976.