author bonnie morris, in your book revenge of revenge of the women's study, revenge for what? >> guest: the final tight is not meant to be provocative or rude. it's about having the opportunity to talk back to many people who steer type my field, or ask really unfair students. i have a bunch of terrific students intimidated by taking a basic class in women's history. they come tome >> i have a lot of students were intimidated by taking a basic class. they are afraid what people say. what will look on their transcript. so those experiences led me to become aware of how many people feel that there is something

wrong with looking at half the world's history. and i have negotiated many of these things throughout my teaching career. the idea is that i wanted to talk back but in a cheerful way. a cheerful and playful way. and i wanted to be the smiling face of women's studies and women's history so that as a diplomat from academic feminism i am approachable and i love my students, but enough with being rude to the professor. people would come by and say that i love your class. you not at all this way. and so thank you for putting that out there. so this is my say that you are not root of the professor in the class will not hurt you, looking at women's history will only improve your life. and what is it like for those on the other side? those of us that have to deal with a whole range of our work

by people who are fearful. >> host: would teach? -- what you teach? >> guest: i teach at george washington university in georgetown. everything required for the minor and the mainer. introductory and women's history. women's sports and athletics and gender. since 1996 and i teach a big survey course in women's history which has about 120 first-year student. right now i have athletes from every sport and i have a lot of people who are in their thirstier and graduating seniors who have waited all of these years with a different major just to take a women's study class before they graduate. >> host: what is women's study? >> women study has been a department or a program at american colleges since 1969.

the first program was at san diego state in 1959. with an opportunity to look at pretty much all the humanities from the perspective of how women's lives have been shaped. many people can go from kindergarten through law school and still be considered an educated person. so if you want to the women at the center and that the focus and look at the very different experiences the women had because of law and work conditions and education opportunities as well, there is a good chance to make that the center of your research and we have covered just about everything. it is just like every other class. >> host: what the deal is a women's studies major? >> guest: the short answer is law school. many of my students have gone on to become title ix lawyers and a

lot of people work with women in development. many students go abroad very at the work with women's birth control and the issue of violence against women ranging from northern africa to bosnia and many students do development in terms of nonprofit and programming everything from planned parenthood to organizations that work with women and girls. and i have a couple of students who do women's health and then i have a lot of students and athletes involved in these trainers and one is part of this and the last winter games and i have another student interning at the winter games.

host document and take her classes? >> guest: you bet, they do. i have guys in my class at georgetown and all my classes. football and basketball. it also guys who are majoring in women's studies and the many of them take a part in this. i'd say the average guy who take the classes often already focus upon the experiences of women because he is the son of a single mom and i have a huge percentage of international students who are really perhaps is the only chance that they have to take a class like that before they return to korea or kuwait and i have guys that they have this background and i

recently went there and gave a guest lecture. and i have a lot of students who are serious or they heard someone else say that i am nice. so if they take one of my classes they take more than a repeat. >> host: what was that experience like? >> it was distressing in a lot of ways because i felt very much like not obligated to address ahead body cover down and i was willing to cover my hair. and i was starting to find large percentage of women in the country who cover their faces and many are not citizens. and many were not visible. and you didn't see their mouths

moving and the fence of there being silenced was magnified. much of this is tribal. and i was survived by western men in suits, beautiful and crisp white gown and women who are very much covered. and then there was me. need a western suit. so it was an eye-opening experience. and i also found an opportunity to interact with women from all over the arab world is what i wanted to do and that is why i was there. and i moderated a panel in sports, which ended up being very much about racial and ethnic discrimination and not furthering this. so there is a lot of work to be done. that is what i do. >> host: in your most recent

look, you open it by saying that read for your basic history book or in a state approved u.s. history textbook intended for middle school classrooms. and you are left with the impression that all of human history was achieved by this. >> yes. and unfortunately, that continues. and the biggest challenge for me is american educator is that women's history and women's studies threaten people because the assumption is that all women's issues are about the body and therefore they were all be about ed birth control and therefore it is not appropriate for a middle school class. and education boards pta, those that approve the textbooks and that is controversial. and it's age-appropriate that

encourages girls to run for office if they look at where women have come from in terms of political schools and charities. it's very easy to look at the ballot shearers and have it not the controversial and we just don't do that to have lessons that encourage growth to think beyond the imagery of the woman in the private sphere. and i think that is a person who also reads this, putting women's history into something that an honor student should know is gradually becoming a successful mainstream and we have to do someone who has this history for the ap exam. so it is often still possible that have textbooks that don't

be a part of this. or the focus will be women and minorities. and you have women and black men and guess who gets left out there. american women. so that is why i insisted that the cover be a majority of women of color because they have really been written out of the american curriculum. >> host: a little bit more from "girl reel, revenge of the women's studies professor and women's history for beginners." those very differences tell us a great deal about power and citizenship and democratic ideals. we may acknowledge that we have different but equally important function in human history. and most of what is described is his story. >> guest: when i was in graduate school, his argument was that even if you rely on documents only tell you what the author of the documents want you to know,

the fact is that we look at the constitution and the magna carta and the writings of men and women are usually illiterate and they didn't have the ties or the studio space and they didn't keep journals as many have been privileged to do. so we only have stories and narratives which we have historically put down as old wives tale of and we tend to think that what goes on is the private sphere and it does not count as history but it's making beds and raising kids. and it's and it is most likely live in the private sphere. postmark from the book preventive women's studies professor. depression is a universal norm and when there is a standard, women become a special interest group. every country has policies to

protect the women's rights but they are not enforced because women are not enforced or. >> guest: that is correct. the biggest example of that would be the taliban in regions like afghanistan and pakistan where technically girl and her girls have the right to go to school but they are threatened in the case of others even wounded further in education. so although most countries would say that yes, we permit this for girls, there is safety in that process is not guaranteed and the backlash against the educated girls is an issue in more places than we care to examine. that is the one example that is very painful. >> host: why didn't you use the word history in your book,

"history for beginners"? >> guest: i certainly come out of the tradition. but i wanted to avoid anything that would pigeonhole me as a certain kind of old-school feminist who is going to insist on altering language. and i want this to be as accessible as possible. i love the beginners series because it offers an available introduction to subject matter that everyone is serious about but maybe is intimidated by it. i've used it in casual conversation and i think that is a reminder that we don't expect to have women at the center.

and that does not mean that we hate men. >> host: you talked about school. what do you mean by that? >> i mean that i was influenced myself by the women who shave this radical feminism which supported the idea that there should be places where they can gather. it is really part of companies like olivia and all of those were in place by the time i was 16 and 17. so i came into a cultural feminism which was shaped by lesbian activists and my opportunity to do advanced work in women's history, in graduate school the concern that was expressed was how to make

women's history credible and academically coherent when so much of the women's movement and political grassroots activism, how the role that over into a field at every? my position is that you have to look at the grassroots heritage. you cannot just do this in theory of language that is going to sound so difficult and arcane. i like the postmodernist and some of them my best friends. but i tend to focus on social history and part of what i mean when i say that i am old-school is that you have to look at the activism of everyday people and not just of the ivory tower. and that is because a family that was involved in the peace movement, it's very natural for me to go from participating and not to participating in feminism

and the ltte movement and it has all been one long you a full arc of justice. and so explaining this at how we get from a to be in all of the movement is what we do. and a lot of them don't know when they got the vote. we will start then we will start earlier. and it's very important also. but if you don't know the history of enslaved women that he will never understand why we don't have this in the movement now. >> host: he be a conservative in women's studies major at the same time? just not sure. we used to have the assumption that people like dead out of a certain feminist standpoint, what is interesting now is as women advance they certainly do

so because of the feminist who came before them. and they are now in a position where they can distance themselves from earlier issues and be a leader as defined. and it is challenging because i will sometimes have students be seemingly hostile to the women who went for them to enable them to have the opportunity that they do now. and i also have students will be very engaged in the classroom and they lie about it to their friends and associates. the women in my class were hiding in the bathroom reading a book on how they got the bill because their stroke and transfer already had said that it was sending the wrong message about the house to have my textbooks on the coffee table when young men came to call. so how does that intimidate

others? i mean, that was an unusual thing. but what my position is is that everyone is welcome and a walking narrative. what happened you performed your viewpoint. let's just look technically a what the law limits women to in the past were you truly could not attend a university the university or you could not go to med school and you cannot play sports. you could not control her own money or own property. you are not allowed to train guide dogs. that's a good one. there were all kinds of things that the girls could not do. so when i was a little kid i was a brainy little girl who on the one hand fed oh, you can do this or that integrate them you can do whatever you want. to get these messages, that women are not allowed here and there. and that was a vague dissonance of blast in my developing line

and i knew that girls could do more. i was in classes with gifted girls and i was surprised that they want more outraged. whatever the wrong stereotype of the feminist is i thought i really am going to do what i intend to do and it is illogical to hold back this. we need to compete on the global stage. doesn't america want the brainy girl in the drivers need? does he want to keep up with other nation and what have you? >> host: how do you define feminism today? >> guest: we are not in a post-feminist era. i'm very concerned. we are rolling back access to reproductions right and there is no end to the regrettable

statistics on violence against women. we have not stopped shimming girls about their bodies. we have so much sexism in the media that imply that you have to have a certain shape to be loved or popular. the problem in terms of defining feminism is that it is true that what unifies a lot of women globally is what is done through women and i don't want to identify feminism as about victimhood. that's a very important critique. and powered feminism is that women should be equal in their rights and opportunities. there we don't see that, we want to push forward to make that possible. but no, there is so much work to do and globally the statistics are frightening in terms of women's access from everything to education to health and

information about their options. >> host: do you think that sexism plays any role in hillary clinton's presidential campaign? >> guest: absolutely. i used the film misrepresentation in my classroom. one of my students at the net. the film looks at media bias in terms of how women are observed as they pursue a political candidate fee. inevitably the tone of their voice and hair, all of that is addressed. hillary has been absolutely maligned by different commentaries with respect to men don't want a woman telling him what to do. she represents the hectoring and that is very much based upon the dilemma should women ever tell men what to do at a macro level. and men and women one them

making policy decisions because they felt that the influence of the mother figure should stay in the home. so we don't want women who are of childbearing age running because we have this thing that we say that they shouldn't have the chance to be in the oval office because he might have there. but otherwise there are those that are postmenopausal. and you can't win. i see that and lots of campaigns. watching news is important and it's painful. and i think it is in part because there is a long tradition whereby they defined their independence by leaving home and no longer having to do what mom says. so the psychological asked that his that mom is running the country? yes, of course. because we ask women to be multitaskers and to make all of

the decisions that keep private life in order. applying those skills publicly, there's a lot of concern about what that means. what a woman miss work because of childcare? even when they are part of this and how could they do this and also raise kids. i'm very familiar with all of those issues are at but each semester students are encountering for the first time how we analyze that. and what why does this keep happening. when women are such high achievers, why do we find these old ideas. and it's sad for me to see students along and feeling pain that there mother semitism did not nominate these issues. >> host: who are some of your personal heroes in the women's right movement?

>> guest: personal heroes are long list. all of the women who started women's bookstores and those who started the women's music festivals. those who made title ix popular. bernie sandler, who looked at higher education. and those who more or less created the academic studies in this history. and my friend and mentor tony armstrong junior who started a magazine called hotwire and women's music festivals of the 70s. and obviously the people who had done a lot of this around women's reproductive rights and the olympic champions who broke barriers making it possible for

women to finally do this or run a marathon and everyone who started the wnba and all of the folks who were the first to be in a class at an ivy league school or who broke the gender barrier in the service academy. it's a giant range. i'm leaving out people and later on i will go badly about that. but i admire everyone's who puts forward this entry to occupations. >> host: this is the first time that women in the olympics are doing the ski jump. >> guest: that's right, why don't we worry about the guy remap why don't we allow men to be injured and we for bid women. there's a lot of drama about that. and nonetheless we do allow

women all the time. and if we are concerned about this, everyone should be on the front line in dealing with the violence against women. but instead we hear that it is a woman who wants to play football or rugby. and so the those ironies are intriguing and i can certainly say that she was younger and she wanted to know if there was still violence against earls. and all i had to have to do is point out the window and say you see that mountain out there. and they were just appalled. i'm delighted that now that has changed because of her life time it was a complete reversal on the ski jump.

>> host: good afternoon and welcome to booktv and the in-depth program. this month, professor and author bonnie morris is our guest. and she is the author of six nonfiction books along with poetry books and here they are beginning in 1997 with the high school book called voices from west l.a. the identity and activism in the postwar era. her memoir "girl reel" from 2000. and then revenge of the women's studies professor and her most recent book came out last year called "history for beginners." bonnie, is there a danger in this way? >> with women's groups and women's bookstores and kind of a sense of this? >> that's a very good question.

>> the answer is that a lot of the separate culture has come to an end. we have integrated a lot of what used to be separate stock into the mainstream bookstores. and they are all now going out of business as well. some of what would be a natural change as you bring women's work into the mainstream as being affected by technological changes, they defined support groups and communities that before they headed i had to go to a physical site for. but the issue is intriguing to me because people will say why we need a women's studies program and should we have a men's studies program. but i think it is important for women to have places to gather, to exchange information and to have a sense of what it is like

even if temporarily. many of my students take engineering are still the only woman in a class. they don't know what it's like to be in a classroom as the majority female. it's a very good experience. in contrast i have a lot of experience with those who come out at a private high school. they are very familiar with leadership and women being the majority. and they are not self-conscious about being athletes and leaders. one of the things it that is very moving to me is that in the u.s. as we have a kind of integrated culture we have lots of traditional women's faces with others with those that do have. for instance i took students around the world we went to a bathhouse in turkey and again in south korea. and these are where women gather

traditionally because there was not a bathroom in the home and they also exchanged gossip and they would sing and scrub each other's backs and a very welcoming and intimate an authentic culture. and i was deliriously happy to experience something like that. my women's studies class that were with me, these young women were terrified. they were uncomfortable getting undressed and participating with local women. every one of them said the same thing. he said that i'm too fat. i can't do it. i'm too fat. i hate my body. and that american attitude of being unable to participate because you have a western bias view of your body, wow. so everyone wrote their paper about that. what does that say? ..areer woman, athlete, and

look perfect. no one can do all of that. and trying to control some elements of those self-scrutiny for perfection. my college-aged students, as opposed to my older friends, very much feel the burden of trying to look perfect and it takes a toll on your focus and your attention. you should be reading a book not worrying about your body all day. >> you can bring home the bacon, fry it up in a pan, and never let him forget he's a man. >> host: the commercial of mid adolescence. exactly. >> host: if you would like to participate in our conversation this afternoon with bonnie morris. we're going put the phone lines on the screen.

@booktv is our twitter handle. you ask send an e-mail at booktv at c-span.org or leave a comment on facebook.com/booktv. bonnie morris, where did you grow up? >> guest: i was born on mother's day in los angeles. i lived in west l.a. until from '61 to '71. until i was 10. a great time to live through the peace marching '60s. i had peace movement parents with a big paper sign in the front window. every christmas, and i went to a very international elementary school that was sort of the school for kids whose parents were married grad students at ucla. so a lot of people who are on citizenships from all over the world and various times i was one of a handful of, you know, american-born kids in my

classroom. i thought it was normal that everybody came from japan and india and the philippines and. when i was 10 we moved to north carolina. what a wake-up call. i was in durham, north carolina. >> host: why did you move? >> guest: my dad left his job at the aircraft, he was asked to design an antiaircraft missile. he didn't want to be an arms designer. he was very much against the war, and he went back to grad school and he took a position with the environmental protection agency. so the next thing i knew, we were in north carolina in the early '70 when the state had barely integrated, and after a year of a pretty abusive local public school, my brother and i enrolled at carolina friends school, which was the first integrated school in the state. a private quaker school where we were very fortunate to get a wonderful education with really

dynamic and caring progressive educators. i ended up graduating from high school there, and i owe everything to carolina friends' school. very much. and my parents. >> host: where did you go to college? >> guest: american university in d.c. i'm the first au grad to have graduated with the women's studies minor. it was established the year i was a senior. i did all the credits in one year, and i was the jewish history major as an undergrad. i spent a year in israel. i was in interested in looking at women's community, obviously. when i went to grad school, i looked at women in the ultra orthodox jewish community. the community and i looked at one particular community in brooklyn. i was interested in, at that time, examining jewish fundamentalism. everyone was looking at

christian fundamentalism. what is going on over here. i was hard i are raised in an orthodox way in any definition. it was as fascinating, to me, to see what it would be like to live as a traditional jewish woman but in the feminist time of our lives. i looked how the one in the community had taken some of the language of american feminism and applied it to their lives. i finished my doctorate at the upstate new york -- a public ivy. i had a really great education. >> host: and from the book, you write, no group of immigrant women committed to reproducing a spiritual vision of womanhood should be marginalize by the feminist historians. instead the feminist historian

has an obligation to acknowledge diverse content of ethnic and gender identities. >> guest: yeah. my friends in grad school, you know, were looking at women in history who were, you know, leaders for women's rights or who radical revolutionaries, and a lot of the feedback i had was you, why would you pick this group, you know, an extremely right-wing women who live in a community where women are not permitted to participate in the rituals men do. my argument is you have to look at the whole apple. look at the whole apple of women's communities globally. instead of spending at lough time saying why would any women live like this. you ask what do the women do with their permitted agency? what do they do within their permitted sphere? and it's interesting. i found that many women were the breadwinners, the men were

scholarly and the women had jobs. the girls were very empowered to the point of being fresh and rude. there was no self-est teem problem there. i looked at that community in part because it could have been me. it could have been me. my ancestors fled poland and russia. it scrolled been me, if there had not been the tragedy of the holocaust, you know, my roots could have remained in eastern europe. but i would not have been able to be a scholar because i'm a girl. the whole gentle thing, i wanted to know what if you are a brain any girl in the society where the men get to be authorities and brilliant minds and the women are expected to be informed but domestic. i went right to the women themselves, and in fact, they were very outspoken, well-published and touring,

frankly, with their own agenda. this is what i call the -- syndrome. women who travel around the world telling women their job is to stay in the home. what interests me in the movement of conservativism women. you have multiple figure head as they they live i do. the content is different. when you have women traveling around the world telling other women their places to remain uneducate, that is hypocrisy. i'm interested in that. >> host: talking about roger and mira. your parent. your mother is jewish. you describe your father as a surfer. >> host: -- >> guest: yeah. >> host: you write we dressed up like our parent. we went to formal dances. we had fundraisers like our parents. everything we did was rehearsal for what we were going to do

later. get married to someone of the right ethnic and social background. no other possibilities were discussed. >> guest: i don't know if that's my mother or father speaking. i interviewed my parent. i believe their marriage is a terrific story. after a lifetime of listening it their stories to turn on my tape recorders. probably during the year when i was a visiting professor at harvard. i started interviewing my parents. they broke all kinds of social taboos by intermarrying in their day. that the time they went to a high school that had segregated clubs. there were jewish clubs and jentil clubs. and jack camp was in the christian club. my father pledged a jewish club. he joined a jewish gang, the cardinals, he was the token. my parents thought the whole business of ridiculous, and they

actively worked -- if they didn't dismantle it all together, they certainly took a standby challenging some of the norms. and then having this radical wedding at the time when you weren't supposed to marry outside your group, and their example put me on the path of, you know, where i am now that everybody should be able to get married and you, you know, choose your own partner. they were very much the people who made me what i am in terms of a concern about social justice and as much as we were, you know, unusual family in term of involvement in various progressive causes, they were extremely responsible with, you know, bedtime. the orthodontist and everything. i think everyone's image of a progressive family is a chaotic home. i did not get sent to hebrew

school, i honored think mother and father. i have written a great deal about my parents. >> host: where they still alive? >> guest: my mother is. she is probably watching. my father passed away almost four years ago. we miss him very much. he was an important figure. he's the guy locally in d.c. who built the volleyball court at the lincoln memorial. his contribution was to create a free, acceptable reck creation space for all citizen in the district of columbia and there are double tournaments going on on the courts right now thanks to his vision. >> host: you write by the early 1970 the women's movement in the u.s. had grown enormously. making gangs in some area of legal and economic change but still divided. along the lines of race, class, sexuality. members of political groups such as now faced off over the question of lesbian disability and over the question of whether to condemn male super structures

such as organized religion and the military or demand women's integration in to those existing halls of power. movement leader betty declared that lesbian rights were a lavender herring. >> guest: okay. well, yes. i went from describing women in one sort of women-only space to the other end of the spectrum. radical women's music festival. this is the link of my work. i'm interested in women's communities on all ends of the spectrum. a history of women's music and acceptable culture which were a dynamic part of the '70, '80s, and '90s. i wrote it, because i was participating by then in women's music festival not being

described anywhere else in main stream jock journalism. it gave us the indigo girls and tracy chatman and many other performers who are not household names, and i wanted to document something that i felt was a very important aspect of my culture. i was in graduate school doing women's history but nowhere being introdoesed to the history -- lesbians. i was out and proud at age of 18. i had the impression even in an excellent ph.d. program in women history there were no narrative or history of -- lesbian groups worthy by the time i finished my ph.d. programs students a few years younger than me were looking at different women's community. i went back to this past spring

after 30 years and gave a talk. i said, you know, we lived up -- many students were doing doctoral work on the campus and the rest of our time we were involved in a lesbian bar. we knew our lives mattered. we weren't being made to feel they were worth writing about. i had a keenly that i had an almost moral obligation describe what i was participating in. which was women creating spaces for each other when they had limited right and opportunities. one very important subculture was women's music festivals where artists were make the music that enabled women to see their partnerships as valid and decent and loving. and nobody else was feeding that. that validation came from artists including comedians and dramaists. and festival culture impressed

me. women did all the jobs. if you wanted to have a space for performances that nobody else could stage, you needed people to run a stage. techies, lightening designers, sound engineers, and these are some of my favorite people. the techy women who enabled the sound to reach an audience. so i would be sitting in the audience doing multiple documenting. i'm listening to my friends' performing on stage. i'm taking notes and tape recording speeches being made and taking photographs. [laughter] and i have one of the best archives of women's music in america today. it's all in my front room in a giant pink dresser. didn't plan on it being pink. something i inherited from my parent's basement. my mother kept dance costumes in a long time. >> host: gwen tweets inspect i don't hear much about the equal

rights amendment. what would the ratification for the u.s. in the done for women? >> guest: what a great question. i went door to door for era as an 18-year-old. equality of rights under the law should not be denied or abridged by the united united or any state on account of sex. that's all it says. that equality of rights was a misunderstanding by so many people who feared it would mean mandating unisex bedrooms, which we have, by the way. going to door to door in affluent montgomery county i knock on the door of senators and congressmen. i would hear from everyone we can't have the era. it would mean everyone using the same bathroom, mandatory gay marriage, all about abortion. wrong, wrong, wrong. it's about equality of rights. i believe if it passed, we would have found it was much easier to track women in to opportunities

that remain closed for quite awhile. we had to piecemeal, undo a lot of sexist legislation. but the dealing that equality was that controversial was so strong that in 1979, when i was going door to door. i had people threaten me, stick their dogs on me. you know, quote from scriptture, tell me i was going to burn in hell. order me off the lawn in a scary way. it was quite an education. and i was right out of high school. i believe that many women devoted so much of their energy and their lives to getting the era passed. beginning with al las paul who introdoesed -- introdoesed it in 1923. we forget it consumed so much energy of the women in the '70s up to '82. the fact we never got three fifths of the state to ratify the equal right.

that's chilling. i know, a lot of women did everything from fasting to putting all of their savings in to the hope that we really would amend equality for women in this nation. >> host: let's take some calls for bonnie morris. we begin with paul in morristown, new jersey. you are on booktv. >> caller: thank you. professor morris. >> guest: hi! kristin: in august or september or 2008 when the nation was getting to know sarah palin, did you regard the governor as a powerful symbol of a success of feminism or perhaps even as icon in the fact she built her political career pretty much on her own. [inaudible] and, you know, to the wife of a powerful man. >> host: if i may, quickly. how do you feel about sarah palin? are you a supporter of hers? >> caller: oh, yeah. one of the original supporters of hers.

i thought she cleaned up the corruption in alaska. she, you know, put, you know, a lot of people -- i like some of the crusaders for against corruption. >> host: thank you, sir. let's get an answer. >> guest: i thought that, you know, obviously in many ways, she was elected or selected to be an important symbol for not just a woman politician who had already been, you know, empowered as a governor. her representation as a person who was a family woman who talked very adamantly about her kids and who presented a certain kind of main stream -- i think it was intended as an opposition to the qualities that people feared about hillary clinton or other feminists candidates. i think any woman who wants to run should run.

when a woman is empowered to make policy and is not necessarily supportive of women's reproductive rights, i get anxious. i was not a supporter of palin. obviously at the time, the big question around the country was if you support women's rights why wouldn't you support any woman running? because by the time you're voting, i think there's a difference between a female candidate and a feminist candidate. i remain a staunch feminist. >> host: if you can't get through on the phoneline. you e-mail booktv@c-span.org. you can make a comment on twitter@booktv or make a comment on facebook.com/c-span. cc from portland, oregon. hi? >> caller: hi. i'm interested in your thoughts about black feminism. i'm concerned about the turn of

women's history that oftentimes, for me, is con con -- con at a times white women of a certain class. often time i don't hear about the experience of women of color, but particularly african-american women. within the context -- [inaudible] when you say the word women's history it involves all women. it should. in practice, i think it really talks about experience of white women and the concerns they've had in dealing with white men. >> host: i apologize, i want to ask her. do you consider yourself a feminist? >> caller: i just consider myself someone that is interested in equal rights for all women. but particularly women that are marginalized. so i don't know i don't mind the term feminism, but in only the issue of equality that would make a feminist. i don't mind the term. i'm concerned about the way in which i hearing the way women's

history is being equal for all women, when people who subscribe to feminism or women talk about women's history don't rarely talk about women of color and their particular issues. and just assume that those issues will be taken care of as we -- take care of issues that -- >> host: i apologize. >> guest: that's a great question. you are absolutely right. this is the biggest concern in my teaching. my -- if you took one of my classes, i hope you would find that i absolutely represent the history of african-american women, we look at the position of women of color in feminism. how has feminism made mistakes? what are the critical turning points where white nists have the opportunity not to discriminate and unfortunately alienated black women in america. there's a very important book in

black women's study with the title "all the women are white. all the blacks are men, some of us are brave: black women's studies." it's a textbook issued called "still brave" inspect those writes and other books i assign. one of the things i look at where we see the invisibility of black women in history. it's around the 15th amendment. which gave black men the right to vote. they went to the black leader frederick douglass and said we supported you. will you support us? what is going to happen with women getting to vote? he said to you? the vote is desirable, to us it is necessary. okay. you -- who is missing in that statement? white women, black men. they it's one example of a turning point. we also have women who were

black sufferrists being asked not to march in the famous suffrageist parade that alice paul read. a number of white were hoping to get southern male senators to support it. these are all examples of what alienated folks from the each other in the movement. the fact that white women were abusive slave owners. add that and stir. if you look at the current film "12 years a slave." you see examples of women doing injustice to other women. so, yes, it is the agenda of every decent women's study program in the country to make sure that it is not just white feminism that is being instructed. i really appreciate your call. you can count on me. >> host: you are a professor. because in your book "women's history for beginners." you makes take a quiz. >> guest: i do. >> host: we might have some of our viewers take the quiz as well. in fact, question number 12 in

your quiz. in what year were the first african women brought to colonial america as slaves? i'm going to say 1700. >> guest: it's a little earlier than that. 1619, and that is the beginning of the scenario in this country where we literally control women's bodies both as property and sexually. i think, again, the film "12 years a slave" is reintroducing people to what the history looks like. the biggest i did dilemma i have, as a history professor i'm exposed in the media to criticism from different conservative religious groups that call on family values. traditional family values are supposed to be somehow an opposition to what feminists stand for. let look at what real

traditional values are in the united for something like, you know, 244 years of legalized slavery, we had people owning women's bodies, selling their children, slave owners had every right under the law to impregnate slaves. we had no rape laws protecting those women. we violated the mother/child bond in every way by separating mother and baby for profit. many women were forced to have as many children as possible to pay off their owners' debt. that's a tradition. we don't want to look at. it only began to change much later in american history. so as much as women's history is painful, sometimes i tell my students, oh, here is a day with the subject matter is so excruciating i wish i taught the history of baking. but nonetheless, we have to know. >> host: in your book "women's

history for beginners" you write throughout most of history a woman was her body. a dangerous equation. >> guest: yes. what was regulated about what we could and couldn't do was based on the modesty of her appearing in public. what was considered dangerous for her because of her childbearing capacity. there were a lot of misinformed doctors in the 19th i century that women lost energy every month and shouldn't do sports or study. they thought that learning latin and greek would direct blood away from the womb and in to the brain and make women infertile. back to cc's point and the whole range of issues. we have one view in the 19th century that women should be delicate and pure and stay away from dangerous work. or that too much strain would hurt your womb. then we have enslaved women doing difficult work and not only did it not damage their

fertility. their fertility is being exploited. what is the real ?riewt -- truth. women able to do what we need them. that's what i mean by the women's body is -- >> host: paul calling from missouri. >> caller: yes. >> host: you would like to take a quiz on women's history? [laughter] question 41 from women's history for "beginners." bonnie morris asks, when were women first admitted to west point and the naval academy? >> caller: i would say in 1996. >> host: let's get the answer. >> guest: actually 1976. they were brought in through a bill signed by president ford, and women who were the first class at west point very small group, were really not able to learn from each other. they were broken up and scattered to different units. in part to sort of showcase,

yes, we have a woman in each unit. but they had a very difficult row to hoe. they were the subject of a media attention. it made the other men angry they were running the same five miles and the guys weren't getting cameras. you know, had the women had a hard time proving they were one of the guys. because they were the subject of special interest. but yet we look at that in my women in war class. >> host: paul, go ahead with your question or comment. >> caller: quickly. our son is a graduate of west point. our daughter went one year and decided to be a pharmacist instead. [laughter] i've been a pharmacist for 40 years. when i started out, bonnie, i had 50% women in my graduating class and now there are 85% women in the graduating class. i live in a family of five brothers and four sisters. so my perspective is this, i think we must make certain that women and others now in a

minority of government -- that these people be qualified and able to stand on their own feet and not pushed to leadership role of repair. my main thing is they must be prepared. we know what that is. data that's is a problem we have in the government and suffering miserably for it. thank you. >> host: thank you very much. >> host: we have an e-mail from so fee in l.a. i would like to ask for bonnie's perspective on female characters in film, and if she can point to a recent role that illustrates women positively. >> guest: oh my goodness. what a terrific question. thank you very much. i talk about what it was like to grow up in the '70 with an increasing range of good female roles and the movies my parents took me to that made a deep impression on me. ..

i'm a fan of the film, a league of their own. i was able to meet penny marshall when she received an award here in d.c. one of the few films that shows the true history of women's sports and the all-american girl's baseball league is my favorite t >> -- penny marshall made to the point she was not

well-funded to make a film about women in sports. she had to cast her brother, and her daughter, and so we still have a really regrettable lack of women behind the camera, and it's startling to my students, who see hollywood as very liberal, that in fact it's one of the most job segregated areas in our country. the number of women directors and the women who do sound and lighting is regretably very small. i think we can do much better. i remember when barbara streisand appeared in "the mirror has two faces." she was vilified for being difficult and pushy and other awesomism for being a strong jewish woman. but while she was being reviewed as a director at the "washington post," i was appearing in a

movie at the same time. i was an extra in "contact" filmed here in washington. so it was on the set of a mainstream hollywood film while thinking about what is the future of women in film? i was able to see -- this was 1997 -- everybody working on the movie was a guy. a makeup woman, just as you see in cartoons, and somebody who brought in the catering snacks, and everybody else was male. very different than my experience working at women's music festivals where everybody doing the plumbing, the sound tower, is a woman. so not only was i startled how mass christian the -- the whole thing was impressive, and meanwhile these guys were saying, get out of the way, sweetheart, or move, honey, and they're moving cables around. and ironically i was playing a naval lieutenant so i was in a

uniform. lots of thought-provoking material, and i took notes in my journal while sitting in the chair. so have a good accounting what it was like to appear in a film while looking at how media treats women directors and all of the -- thank you. >> host: dick in reno, nevada, hearings another question from the quiz before you can ask your question. >> okay. >> host: in what year did american women win the vote and can you name the amendment? >> caller: 1919, and it's forget the name of the amendment. is that close? >> guest: that's pretty good. it 1920, the 19th amendment. and -- but thank you. the 18th for the record is prohibition. that's important because a lot of people were afraid to give women the vote, fearing women would ban alcohol. actually prohibition passes before women had the vote. that's a piece of trivia.

>> host: dick, go ahead. >> caller: this is just a wonderful subject today, and i was been in the 'oh hos so i saw this women coming into leadership getting into higher education when i was in college in the '60s and my account class there was one woman, and that same college today it's 60% women. so, these whole things are moving in a wonderful direction. the question i have, bonnie, globally, what percentage of higher education enrollment today are women versus men? >> guest: that's a great quit. don't have the answer globally. in the united states, women are the majority on college campuses, and the point you bring up about the shift in accounting and the previous caller, about the shift in pharmacy, this is very important. theser great questions. no one ever planned for women to be enrolled in colleges in equal

numbers, and the fact that women have now surpassed men in enrollment, this is not -- was not in anyone's plan and it's alarming to some people because so much funding has been set aside for, say, women's sports, that was never planned on. when title ix was passed that said higher education that receives federal dollars may not discriminate on the basis of sex, women were a very small percentage of college enrollment, so didn't seem as though a whole lot of money would have to be shifted to women's sports or that women would be as large a presence in higher education as they are. now the fear is that education is being feminized because there's so many women, and there have been changes necessary because women do attend college classes in larger numbers and so on.

it's a huge contrast for women in afghanistan, pakistan, globally a challenge for a lot of girls, but, say, throughout africa, not being able to afford school fees, not having shoes, not having clothing, not having sanitary products, things we don't like to think about but that prevent 12-year-old from going to class. what i found is that the more that women take courses which we once considered mass christian, the more that field starts to be seen as something women do, like pharmacy, and the fact we have women in med school, law school, graduate school, they were trying to keep women out of the evey league for years, and the harvard and yales, for instance, had a quota for every two women admitted, three men had to be admitted on campus.

so, women had to be much better in terms of their test scores and so forth. when i look at the campuses where i teach, there is a majority of women, but that doesn't mean that the women are going to take women's studies or have a lot of female professors. it means the undergraduate enrollment is majority female. so you can still have a female environment but not learn women's history or have female role models. how about that? >> host: neil tweets in, how do you see marriage continuing as an institution if women are going to equal or surpass men in society? >> guest: okay. well, first of all, i'll take this opportunity to say on national tv that, of course, i'm an advocate for gay marriage, and again, as the daughter of an intermarriage i have seen the possibility of lasting marriage where people predicted failure because of difference.

i think that marriage can only be strengthened by the equality of the participants. i believe that what is challenging in our time is that much of the law around marriage and households is based on the idea of there being a head of household and a subordinate. so the fact we legalized both parties in terms of their access to controlling money or making decisions, that is hard to adapt. we come from a position where the woman -- everything she brought to the marriage became he husband resident property. back to ancient greek and roman law. a woman was child bride, treat as a child, and all of her concerns are taken care of by the husband because he was much older and more educated. she never became an adult. she was perpetual minor in the eyes of the law.

never participated in politics or the economy. and that ended up all the way through history, affecting english law and colonial law and early american law and then law, law, law, right up until world war ii. technically, the decisionses have been made by the husband and women could not operate separately. moreover, married woman is distinguished from an unmarried woman by our forms of address, miss and mrs.. ms. was a huge big deal. sort of effort to mask what is a woman's marital status. we mask a man's. a lot of people don't know that ms. was adapted in spanish, for sena. that's a wonderful piece of trivia from mexican feminism. >> host: is that -- >> guest: i don't know.

but i was aware of these issues really early. again, much detail. we had a subscription to ms., and when it began publication, i read it in our library, and then we had women residents studies classes from '72 on so we introduced women's studies to middle school and ten-year-olds were taking it. and i participated in a class there based very much on the articles i've read in ms. magazine that interested me, and then i had my own subscription as a gift on my 14th birthday, and that covered the range of the same questions that the caller is interested in. the changing nature of marriage, how the law reflected women as an independent agent, and any relationship and so on. >> host: rod is calling from

florida. here is your quiz: when were women first allowed to participate in the olympic games? >> caller: um, 1960s. >> guest: well, actually the 1920s. either '22 or '28. this was a big part of the problem whereby we had the modern olympics introduced in 1896, but the gentleman who was in charge for many years did not support women going to the games. he felt that women in sports were unappealing and it was improper. there was actually a women's olympics held in france. when women were permitted into the olympics there was a very famous event where they ran a race and critics were frightened by the illinois of women being tired and -- the image of women

being tired and lying down on the track, and then women were banned from doing distance running until the 1970s. and women were banned from the boston marathon until katherine switzer ran nonetheless, and these changes have all happened quite recently. but, yes, women were at the olympics in the '20s. >> host: go ahead with your question. >> caller: i failed miserably on the quiz so i'm not sure whether i'm qualified to ask the question, but if you permit me -- >> guest: please. >> caller: i am writing a book on successful indian-american woman, and so my question to professor is that are you -- have you done any study or research on specifically on the indian-american woman? >> guest: you bet. and hello to my childhood friend and various others. the neighborhood i lived in, in l.a. in the '60s, had many

families from india. i was very aware of the lives of indian women in first and second grade i had quite a few friends who were from india, learned to say indian words, and i was interested in the -- of course when you're a kid, the holidays and the language, but i actually incorporated those images into the stories i wrote as a little girl. as i grew older i became much more aware of the dilemma of women in terms of the caste system and troubles based on tribal practices and so forth. what it utilized today was text book called women, the unfinished revolution, which, of course, presents viewpoints of women globally and has a lot of material about women in india. on semester c, where i work as a visiting faculty, on two global

tours, we went to india. i took my students to bangalor to the women's book store and we were able to spend a wonderful afternoon there, also met with a national cartoonist, women writers. that was terrific, and the week spent in india remains a central part of the semester 2 curriculum. for my students it was very moving to meet with women who were working on behalf of women's rights at the time, and were directed to look at that again with recent concerns about violence against women in india getting a lot of media innings the country. but -- media attention in the country. is was affect by writings by indian men as a kid because the school library had a lot of becomes donated. he who rides a tiger, and books

about untouchables or the caste, so this is one of my favorite subjects. thank you for asking. >> host: we are talking today with professor bonnie morris, who teaches at george washington university and georgetown university here in washington, dc. also the author of six nonfiction books beginning in 1997, with the high school scene in the 50s, in 1998, mature women in america came out. >> girl reel, revenge of the women's studies professor came out in 2009, and her most recent book, women's history for beginners. and i should mention that women's history for beginners is the booktv book club selection for me month of february. >> guest: woo-hoo. >> host: go to book of.org and there's a to be that says book club and you can participate in

our discussion at booktv.org. we'll be posting video and reviews and articles up there tomorrow. so the discussion will begin tomorrow. we'll also be posting on a regular basis discussion questions. so, i hope you'll be able to participate. bonnie morris' women's history for beginners is our february 2014 book club selection on booktv. next call from jan in north carolina. jan, back to the quiz. when were women first admitted to yale university? >> caller: i believe it was also in the early '70s, '73, '74. >> guest: somewhere there around. i can't remember the exact date. you could take classes before then but integration into the ivy league comes after title ix. >> my husband graduated west point, and several years before women were in -- enlisted into

west point, he always wondered how they did all the things he did. always amazing to him. my basic question is, how do you answer whether the feminist woman against a conservative or conservative woman against a feminist. the opposite contrast of allowing them to believe their beliefs, whether the woman is a feminist and she doesn't believe in guns or war, or she is a conservative and she goes out and handles rifles or does hunting or camping, or stays home and does the knitting and crocheting. why do they tear each other apart and not get together as women? >> guest: what a great question. got a couple of years? well, okay. you're raising the question, do you have to subscribe to one set of political beliefs to be a

feminist, and another question you're raising is, why do women in failing to unite, waste a lot of energy tearing each other down. there's a lot of trashing that goes on in the women's movement. no doubt about it. and i certainly experienced some of that myself. i believe, though, what you're bringing up is very significant, and that is how many issues do women disagree on where you have more than one stance, as moving women forward. for example, the we of women in the military -- the question of women in the military is complicate. one filmist viewpoint might be, yes, women have every opportunity, including combat if they qualify. close no occupations to win. everyone should have access. another feminist viewpoint might be, women shouldn't kill. women shouldn't participate in militaristic enterprises.

these are both women's viewpoints and they're both very significant viewpoints. another example would be, does it empower a woman to participate in football or is it violent? these are issues where there's a lot of dissent. i think there's space for disagreement. where i become concerned is when a woman is empowering her viewpoint, voting or giving money to causes, but take opportunities away from other women or going to forbid women to get services they need. i think that among my circle of friends there's a lot of disagreement on different issues, and i think in the classroom it's very important that i create a climate where everyone's viewpoint is welcome. i think i do that reasonably well. the fact i also have office hours and e-mail where students

can disagree privately with something somebody else might have said and they don't have to engage in a public debate, that's helpful. i think it takes a while for students to bring up the kind of confidence that i just have naturally. and it's very hard to argue in a public forum when you're in your first year of college. it takes a while for a student to develop the skills and maybe arguing with someone in the next seat. i don't have an answer to your question in terms of how women discourage one another from following their own goals if to the goals feel right for them and a great criticism of feminism, it made women feel like if they didn't have a career they weren't valuable. women said, i'm just a house wife. that is a problem because it was supposed to be about choices. you choose to be a stay stay-ate

mom, rock on. but, yes, those different approaches to empowerment should be honored. >> host: what wave are we in now? you said the second wave -- >> guest: there's a lot of disagreement whether it's use toll continue thinking in wave. the third wave was seen as a moment by young feminists of color to look at intersectionallity. race, class, gender. your it neck heritage, racial standpoint, inform your feminism, i would say that right now, the predicament is everyone is reacting against their mother's feminism. the students i have now are the daughters of moms who were activists in the '70s and have to make their own definition. as radical as our mothers were in the '70s, the fact they were mothers makes what they did

square, if you follow. in other words, i understand it's normal to rebel against your parents. i'm close to my patients but the idea you have to come up with a new definition understandable. what everyone is still interested in are these issues of the body, the majority of papers my students do are about images of women in the media, how women are made to feel negative about their bodies, excessive dieting, girls being pushed to dress very sexually at an early age, that toddlers and tierras program where little girls are pushed into beauty pageants as age three. all of the ways in which we sexualize kids, which is a big problem in a country dealing with a pedophilia scandal here and there. those endlessly interest my students. they're also very interested in international issues of the

body. how do we evaluate something like female circumcision, what do we do with issues of women who are expected to have what another definition might be, genital mutilation? how do you control that? all of this is material that speaks to my students who are dating and reproductive age. they're not as quick to want to look at property issues of the 1850s. and that also is a reminder that each wave of feminism is addressed different things based on who is participating. >> host: from revenge of the women's studies professor, you write: when student don't like the grade on their exams and blast off an e-mail my first caution to them is always, stop, think, would you speak to a male professor this way?

>> guest: yeah. i now am very familiar with ambitious students who fall apart at the sign of an aye-minus and that's a haulmark of our excellent universities here in the district. but i know that on some occasions i've had students confront me in ways i don't think they would in an older male professor. when i first started teaching, no one believed i was a professor. i had several appointments in places where there weren't a lot of women faculty and i would be challenged if i went into the faculty room or would have -- actually i had some students say you're in the wrong place, this is a women in war clarks on the first day. i said, that's right, i'm the professor. so stick around, okay? i was asked at harvard to show my i.d. when i entered the english department's faculty lounge. i was meeting a colleague to have lunch, and then the embarrassed guy who confronted

me said, oh, well, but you're too young and pretty to be a professor. and i'm like, really? what does that say? that the image of a woman professor is some kind of angry hag? and these are -- these all of events and encounters that made up my one-woman play, revenge of the women's studieses professor, and the book is based on what it was like touring with a play that engaged audiences to look at what is going on in schools. >> host: dana, twitter: why are liberal feminists so antisecond amendment? paraphrase. god created humans but sam colt made them equal. >> guest: well, i think that the problem of gun violence is a very significant one. i think there's a lot of women who come out of the peace movement and the movement that looks at violence in all its forms. i think a lot of women do feel

safe if they have been sexually assaulted and are experiencing post traumatic stress. often proficiency with firearms gives that kind of -- the recovering victim more confidence. i also say that women are on the front lines of seeing how gun violence affect communities. they're in hospitals. because women still are the majority of nurses and teachers, the issue of gun violence in schools and how it's affecting how kids are -- the psychologically terrified. i think that's a women's issue. >> host: bonnie morris do you have any male heros in the women's rights movement? >> guest: oh, sure, you bet. my gosh. okay. burtch by, of -- bayh, behind title ix. now i'm going to race around

memory. >> host: you do that. if you come up with one throughout the program you can added in. that as a little bit of a curve ball. bruce in laurel, maryland. bruce, which black woman ran for president of the u.s. in 1972? this is from bonnie morris' quiz. >> caller: her last name is davis? >> guest: no. shirley chisolm. she poke at duke university. when i was 11 my mother took me to see her and that had a big impact on my life. i had show a film about her campaign in my class. >> host: good ahead, bruce. >> caller: when you say women -- >> what, i apologize. bruce, that was me who cut you off. i was moving on, i have no idea why i did that and it was inexcusable. and i apologize to you.

dep bra in detroit, michigan. high, debra. >> caller: good afternoon. how are you both and a special greetings to professor morris. enjoying your show. wish i'd gotten that question because that's my statement was going to start off with three of my political sheroes, and joanne watson who went off council in december, and have something experience working on campaigns as well as going through a lot of respect of he woman lea wilson about closing the leadership gap. i had the opportunity to meet her and to go through one of her programs here in michigan. one of the things you see ones that it women are very unrepresented, but the other is just how that intersects with

race, and gender, and for african-american women, just seems to be you have to transcend the issues of class, race, and i'm wondering if you have given any thought to looking at how this plays out in terms of the kinds of policy that we're seeing. to me there's an attack on the working class nowdays. >> guest: absolutely. >> host: professor, if you can hang on, debra, i wasn't prepared but now i have your quiz question it you would like to take one: who is the first black woman to win an olympic gold medal. >> caller: that would have been -- she ran track -- will ma rudolph. >> guest: actually, i think alice coachman before, but wilma rudolph then, yes.

i have posters of both in my office. so let me answer you question. my great privilege is to occasionally work with donna brazil at georgetown. she is on the faculty of women's studies and i defer to her in terms of her class on women in american politics addresses many of these issues from her perspective as a long-time campaigner and critic. in terms of, yes, could we have better representation of working women and women issues if we had more diversity and representation? absolutely. and what is great about shirley chisolm. she was put on the agriculture committee as a freshman representative, and she refused saying, you know, i represent bedford stuyvesant and we don't have a lot of agriculture trip. need to address my constituent issues. i just love that. by the way, my grandfather lived

in bedford stuyvesant as a little boy as a jewish immigrant kid. anyway, the idea that we don't have a full representation says a great deal. first of all, it means it's very difficult for women to run and a lot of women are reluctant to do so. this is often credited to women believing they're not prepared or having difficulties fundraising. and i think there's a lot of reluctance on the part of many women to subject. thes to the criticism that comes when you run for office. i also believe that if women like chisolm run, their campaign is less of a focus on gender than on race, and we see that in the story of shirley chisolm. she was not primarily seep as a female candidate but as a black woman, and she was treated very differently than the way hillary and sarah palin were evaluated

in terms of femininity. >> host: guess what, bruce is back. they i cut off. bruce, hi, thanks, i apologize. >> caller: that's all right. i was saying, a book by sheila rothman about feminism, she went into detail about how the reason women wanted the vote was two things, they're morally superior and wanted to limit women's participation in the work force, and she goes in detail how they did that. my point i wanted to ask about, she talking about title ix. she says title -- women's studies courses, and there's no men's studies. i've been told it's actually -- there are men's studies and the reason she said there's engineering is dominated, one woman in the class, and obviously women in most colleges, more women in college, you see more for women than men, and all sorts of things you can

have in a men's studies course that have never been brought out before. >> guest: actually we have a lot of classes that look specifically asthmas christianity -- at masculinity. there are classes now that are more likely to be defined as gender studies and look at sexual limitationses, experiences for men and women, and there's obviously great deal of interest in transgender identities. so actually looking at men is found in women's studies where it might not be found elsewhere. in my sports class we begin with men's history because i like to point out that it's not true, men always played sports. men as well as women were banned from sports by our puritan an -- an zest are sos who thought it was the devil's pastime and only later did men become involved in football elm issue that not having men's studies violates equal rights, it's an

interesting argument. i'll take you on. i think what happens is in the same way when you have a black student union and white students say we get to have a white student's union, programs, groups, institutions, that begin to rectify invisibility or lack of opportunity do not necessarily then impede other students' rights to see themselves as a majority all the time. students will get men's history in every class they take. they will not often be told, oh, bill the way, this didn't apply to women. oh, biffle -- oh, by the way no women were allowed to do this. and women's studies is an elective. no one is required to take it. it is a part of an option for furthering in-depth study in our field. in higher education you get to specialize. here is a chance to specialize and why were women in the past

forbidden from sports, the military, medicine, higher education, diplomacy? why are so many schools still closed to girls? why do we see these statistics, one in three women will be raped in her lifetime. often times these are uncomfortable questions. a classroom is a good place to negotiate, hough do we know what we know about women's lives. when have women been empowered to tell their own stories and back to the question about mail feminists i admire. jon stewart mills who wrote, on the subjects of women in 1869, he was an early proponent of, quote, women telling their truths to men, and was one of the first guys to name the problem of domestic violence, he said we don't know women's truths because women are afraid. they often live in context where they're physically intimidated. so we have gentlemen addressing

these questions in the 1970s. we did not get the first rape crisis center until 1972. so 100 years later. so for all of these reasons in some scenarios, it's necessary to have a faith base to provide backup info on women. but, yes, most universities also include courses on masculinities now, and i address that in one of my classes, too. >> 202s the area code, 535-3882. if you can't get through on the phone to talk with bonnie morris you can send a tweet @booktv. or an e-mail, book toe toe@c-span.org. we have a little over an hour and 20 minutes left with our guest this month.

we like to visit our authors in their work places or homes to see how they write and where they write. the producer of this program, tawnya davis, visited with professor morris at george washington university. >> as i will write my first ideas for the next project usually in my notebook in maybe the back section. so making it separate from this is my day ex-here's what i want to do next. and i start with a title and an outline. i almost mete immediately break it into how many chunks are in this idea and with that encloses bond to like chapters, and then some chapter i can flesh out. when you send a book proposal to an editor they want content,

table of contents and chapters, so i automatically think in terms of what i can show a publisher. you have to boil everything down to not a sound bite but a very succinct chunk. usually in writing almost all of the books i've pressured, die the middle chapter first. maybe an introduction, and then something like chapter five or chapter seven, because often the thing i'm best prepared to write is building off something i might have written even ten years before or -- i kind of pirate off my own past work. i write in the middle of the day because that's when my office hours are. and what i have done is, of course, i have quite a lot of time in my office when students can come and meet with me, but they don't. they really do prefer to e-mail, and it's -- a couple of year ago

i recallized i was using the time waiting for students to come in to work on chapters, and now most of my productivity seems to be between, like, 10:00 and 2:00, and the downside of that is that when students come to see me, know my greatest fault is sometimes i will show on my face that i'm annoyed at being interrupted and that was the biggest sin, and then i immediately cringe and apologize, no, please, come in, sit down. let me take this off the screen. the fact is, i have a very comfy office with a great tape player and i'm dating myself but i have mixed tapes of women's music. if i come in here on the weekendses and no one is around in the building, man, i will make the coffee, blast the music, and i am just so happy.

>> host: bonnie morris, what is it about harriet, the spokeswoman, and louise fitzhugh. >> guest: it's the answer to every question about my life. when i brought my ancient tattered copy earlier i showed it to some other folks here. well, hairest wants to be a writer. i knew i wanted to be a writer from the age of five or six. i know that when i was six, when adults asked what i wanted to be when i grew up, i said writer. the book is unusual in that she is a knowsy little girl who is not just writing about dogs and bunnies, but is spying on adults and trying to figure out, frankly, their mixed messages, even their hypocrisy, their variety. she is independent. her parents are somewhat absent.

she is very attached to her caregiver. a lot going on in that book. that was the book that all the girls in my generation were reading by the time we were eight or nine, and the fact that here was a role model, some young girl who wanted to be a writer, i didn't know at the time that the author, lewis -- louise fitzhugh, was gay, and i only found another after a search. but fitzhugh lived in greenwich village, was a contemporary of a lot of other women who are influential in the arts, and harriet struck me at the time -- a little kid in sneakers and blue jeans, writing stuff down, why i wouldn't identify with that? and many of my other friends did, too. >> host: you also talk about tony armstrong, jr. >> guest: my friend who is a

women's music journalist, and who brought me into writing about women's music festivals with an editorial eye, and made me a much better writer. i'm very grateful. and also a friend i love. >> host: right below that is thing my womyn's music festival. >> i'm 0 coordinator for the community center in michigan. i try to live year-around as though i'm in festival culture, meaning it's a place i identify as a home and where most of my most beloved friends return annually to create a city of women once a year. writing about that experience can be very personal. one of the reasons i'm grateful tony is she was -- that is her own basement, running a women's music magazine, and he invited me to write for "hot wire" and was an editor, get to the point,

what do you mean? i think everyone requires an editor if way don't be a writer, and i came out of academia and can be quite long-winded, as you see, so it's a different kind of writing and also wanting to create an accurate record about what women musicians were doing. so, yes, festival culture, not just michigan but camfest, national women's music festival, sister flyer, the new england women's music retreat. my mother went with me to nine different festivals and my father went to one, sister fire, which had men as well as women in the audience. those are the most valued memories for me in terms of taking in as well as reproducing women's culture. >> host: men were welcome at some of those? >> guest: yes. quite a few are in public venues. national was at a college

campus. sister fire was held for years at tacoma park in a middle school, which is an open lot. and there's a couple others as well. it just depends on if it's a day event or a privately-owned lan. >> host: from revenge of the women's studies professor, thick you're talking with either a book editor or chairman of your department and you were told always make the main character of your book a boy to increase sales. girls will read books about little boys but boys won't pick up a book about a girl. >> guest: that's actually a job interview i had in the midwest, where i was brought in as a candidate for a women's history position, and the gentleman interviewing me was the head of the history department. looked at my syllabus and said, well, i think there's a problem here. all of these courses have the word "women" in the title. i thought, yeah. so i don't think you'd say to he

specialist in chinese history, we take the word "china out" that might stop some of our students. and i'm told to my face in an interview for women's history, professorship, the word "woman" will turn off the male students. this was recently, in the span of american history, and anyway, in that session i'm reflecting on, when you market to a general audience, the main imperative is not to offend the male readership or male students or whomever, and i found that was a message i got in a job situation that i really didn't expect. >> host: george washington and georgetown professor bonnie morris is the author of six nonfiction books. the high school scene in the '50s. women in america, 1998. eden, built by eve, 1999.

girl reel, 2000. vaccine of the women's studies professor, 2009. her most recent, women's history for beginners. are you working on a book now? >> guest: i certainly am. i'm working on several. and in fact i should add i also had three other books that were supposed to be in present, all of which experienced the press going bankrupt just as the book was going to be published. that's a sign of the times. i'm working on a women's sports textbook, to correspond in my class, international athletics, and i'm also working on a book about the erasure of recent women's culture, the disappearance of women's book stores and events, and why that is happening. that is very much a look at how we've built lgbt history into many of our universities now but the l is being written out. there's less of a representation in terms of classes that look at

the female experience. what i want to do is talk about what it's like to live through an era that ises shifting, and are we going to lose information about women's lives which we will have later on, in the same way that poetry was celebrated and then burned, fragmented, now we wish we had it in front of us. a lot of contempt for the kind of achievements that were really centering around lesbian activism, which impelled feminism forward. now it's the stereo type of the birkenstock, eating grandknoll la, and i was happy to be that person i did a lot of work. >> who was safo.

>> guest: greekpot. sixth century. you can -- she wrote in a way that simultaneously described everyday life for young girls who expected to mary as child brides and were terrified of dying in child birth. a lot of that it's their fear of losing their maiden head. and she had women lovers and wrote about those relationships in a romantic way. one of her most moving pieceses, you may laugh but some day someone will think of us, and i think that has made my really committed to ensuring she is remembered. >> host: dan in bridgewater, new jersey. you have been very patient. please go ahead with your question or comment for professor bonnie morris. >> caller: yeah. i had the unique opportunity to see the feminist issues unfold in my grandmother's generation,

before world war i, my mother's generation. my own generation in world war ii and this was in eastern europe and coming to america and being exposed to feminism in the '60s and '70s while i was married. i had a chance to see feminism unfold in asia, and i had a chance to see it unfolding in my daughters and my granddaughters. so, it's a sort of spectrum there that shows many variations and complications that women feel no matter what kind of support or nonsupport the family -- >> host: what some observations particularly maybe about your mother and grandmother's generation in eastern europe? >> caller: this was in eastern europe, where you would think they were much more closed-minded than in the united states. women were in quotas to be sure,

just like jews were admitted in quotas to university, but if they made it, really pushed them to excel, and when they excelled. like madam currie, they were totally recognized for their position, but i -- what i'm really interested in was a complaint that ben friedan had about a certain switch of feminism that was going from women in general, into the lesbian area, which was something completely different, and as a grandson to a grandfather of girls who may or may not go into that area, i'm deeply concerned that we're being distracted from the real issue of the woman fitting into the new society by some of the particularities. >> host: hsu to much. >> caller: one more thing.

is that as a physician, and coming from a family of physicians who in those days there were no female physicians so we had to do the -- still had to do the medical care of women, we find that these kind of social notions that are going on today and not dealing with really medical crisis that women face, the high price they pay for child birth and all these things, and it just seems to me that not talking about women in a normal flow of situations, given how much we know, just like talking about men in the normal situations, and getting kind of stuck in the lesbian homosexual environment. >> host: i think we got the point. let's hear from professor morris. >> guest: a very get subject. first of all, i want to refer to a very good book title by suzanne far, homophobia, a

weapon of sexism. one of the reasons there is a focus on lesbian identity in women's studies is not only to cover the full range of women's lives and experience, but also as long as a woman is shamed for not getting married or not being attracted to a man or expected to put all of her energy into attracting a man, that is behind a lot of the limitations on what women are allowed to do. as long as a woman can be pushed into a relationship with a man because if she won't say yes to him, someone is going to call her a lesbian, that is an issue. huge issue in terms of sexual violence in the military. prove you're straight by going out with me. so, it's very important to look at, if lobes-and-the worst thing you can call somebody, how does that affect women then submitting to forced relationships with men or

foregoing other opportunities or what have you. so that's very important to say. i agree with you that the majority of women around the world do marry and become mothers and, therefore, we have to look at what are the conditions and emergencies, frankly in reproductive health care. absolutely. but we also see lesbians as mothers. that's very important, and we see how shabbily they're treated in the healthcare system. are their partnerships even recognized? we have a really checker boarded legal system in the united states. state-by-state, there's no guarantee if you go into an emergency room that your partner is permitted to see you. that you have say so over your partner's kid that you're allowed to adopt as a second parent. your partner's kid. that can result in everything from death to the complete alienation of lesbians in the health care system, which then

>> guest: verse sis the needs of, you know, a young soccer

player in northern virginia. all of those issues can be addressed in women's studies, though, and thank you for letting me talk about them. >> host: bonnie morris, on your quiz in women's history for beginners, who founded bryn mawr college? i wrote mrs. mawr, but i don't think that's the correct answer, is it? >> guest: no. you know what? i know who it is, but i'm so distracted by this last discussion, so, boy, am i going to hear about this. forgive me. a really dynamic woman. everybody should read the book "to believe in women" which looks at the founders and activists of women's colleges. >> host: paul, hemlock, michigan. paul, who was the first woman admitted to medical school in the united states? >> caller: you know, i'm drawing a blank. i do not know. >> host: that makes two of us. all right, go ahead with your question or comment for bonnie

morris. >> caller: violence has been used -- i'm a father of three daughters, and i've got three granddaughters, and violence has been used against everybody on this world walking this earth. but when it comes to my children, i would lay down my life for 'em. but my i question is -- my question is, why culturally do we have women abusing -- people abusing women in the middle east and the eastern bloc of europe? it's a cultural thing. this the south pacific. -- in the south pacific. women should be held in high regard. my mother was held in high regard. i just don't understand how cultures have formulated their idea of keeping women down, so could you address that? >> host: paul, do you consider yourself a feminist? >> caller: no. i'm a man who believes in equal rights for everybody. so that's not feminist, that's just humanism. >> guest: okay. although it would make you one. anyway, the answer is elizabeth blackwell. she was anytimed to geneva medical college as a joke.

>> host: as a joke? >> guest: okay. yes. she applied, and it was put to a vote of the male student body, and they thought it was so i lair yous and that she would surely fail, and they were amazed when she actually showed up and completed the course of study. okay. why is there violence against women, and it is local as well as global. it's not limited to any nation. it's an issue in every country. and the fbi can offer all kinds of bitter statistics that showcase how much it's a part of american culture. the will to keep women limited or to treat women as property which is supported by custom and law since time immemorial, a lot of it is simply a part of patriarchy which enables men to control women and anyone this their household -- in their household. that included in ancient history servants and slaves and

concubines. a man was empowered to punish anyone. and the earliest code of laws we have shows that there were already dozens and dozens of laws about controlling women and how to punish them and distinctions between good women l and bad. it also gave men the right to put their wives and their children to death if they disobeyed. so it begins with scriptural support, violently controlling anyone who's disobedient and the absolute authority that men had over wives, and it moves into the control families are permitted over their kids. and some people take that to a violent extreme. it's really only been identified as, you know, pathological behavior in my lifetime. >> host: they just gave me the answer, i just got the answer from -- >> guest: i know. >> host: and meg in the control

room, they're writing up words, and is it martha carey? bryn mawr? >> guest: no, it's somebody else. >> host: oh, okay. chris in seattle. >> caller: hi. >> host: please go ahead with your question or comment. >> caller: hey, bonnie, it's chris williamson calling. >> guest: oh, my god, i love you so much. >> caller: i love you too. i'm so happy. >> guest: this is one of the most important women in music whose album should be known and put forward the future of olivia records with her best selling album. >> caller: oh, you're the best. [laughter] i just called because i am so proud to see you on this show. i watch it pretty regularly just to see who's writing about what because as a writer myself, you know, i feel it's my job to lean into the wheel, and i love that you love harriet -- [laughter] because i think musicians and writers are all spies, it's what

we do. you know? it's where we get the pulse of life, by listening. and you are such an avid listener, and you, your embrace is huge, and it just gets -- i've seen it get wider and wider. i just want to thank you for keeping the heart in there, you know? because you know when i came in, there just weren't any courses in this at all. and so i learned by heart, you know? and at the feet of mostly, you know, really intense women who were intent on changing the world for women bit by bit by bit. so cheyenne -- i just wanted to i throw this in, the cheyenne nation has a great saying, and they honor grandmothers like crazy because they're the keepers of the story. and the greek word history just means the story -- >> guest: yes. >> caller: you know? and we're in charge of the story of our lives. and the cheyenne nation says

when the hearts of women are on the ground, a nation is finished. >> guest: uh-huh. >> caller: so i thank think -- think the work you're doing is just imperative to, you know, keeping the heart of this world up there where it needs to be on the high road. and i love that one of your influences was that you entered the wave unafraid, and you always have. you entered -- you're entering the second wave unafraid. >> host: chris, how -- >> caller: -- and thank you. >> host: -- how did you get involved in the music festival industry? [laughter] >> caller: i wouldn't call it an industry, i'll tell you that. it is a way of life, is what it is. i became -- i've been a musician all my life, and i've been involved in independent record companies, three of them, three different times. and olivia records, which i helped invent right there in d.c. around a round table which

is how women gather their ideas, circumstance harley -- sirularly, they asked me about sexism in the industry, and i'd had a major label for about a second, and i puz thrown back into the pool, the big gene pool of musicians where i swim quite readily. but, you know, there were a lot of us who were invisible, and i know, bonnie, you have been imperative in addressing the invisibility of women. you just bring it forward, you bring it forward, bring it toward and say look at this, look at in this woman, look at that. the names, the history, all of it. so that we are not invisible. and what i have done is mostly without very many pronouns, honestly, a few there at the top when i wrote "sweet woman" which was a love song to a woman by a woman. women wrote to me and said i had to drive off the road because i was weeping so hard. and we address the heart of the

thing, of the matter. and honestly, the man who said he was a humanist probably not a feminist. if embrace goes wider, you'll see, sir, that with all due respect, feminists are humanists. this is the human condition. we're born, we have this middle period where we can do some good work, and then we check out at the end, you know? like a grand hotel. and bonnie has been there at the hotel desk checking people in, checking them out, noting their passage through life. so thank you, bonnie. this is just me calling to say how proud i am. you're the arrow we shot from the bow in the '70s. we shot it high and far as we could, and you are still flying. >> guest: you know, there's nothing like having your role model call in and give you a compliment to make you feel like you can die happy. so chris is on the cover of my book, she's one of the musicians

who's featured. and, of course, that's one of tony armstrong's -- >> host: which one is she? >> guest: she is right there in white. >> host: all right. >> guest: and, of course, i have every album chris ever recorded, including the first one on different label. and we've worked together on o olivia cruz's -- one of my best memories is chris singing in the arena at the temple of diana which is also, of course, a very famous place where, you know, paul's letters to the ephesians told all women to shut -- to shut to their -- to submit to their husbands. the women's music tradition, of course, predates the '70s movement. i'm writing about that now. there were, of course, women's songs in every culture in the oral traditioning, it's what made women's stories possible when women were illiterate. but i want to credit chris to something else related to an

earlier caller who asked me to remember the stories of women of color. chris has been very good about foregrounding native women's stories in her music. "grandmother's land" is one of my favorite songs. and it's been very important to me to incorporate the histories of native american and native canadian women, aboriginal women of all backgrounds. when i lectured in new zealand, maori women's stories and their historical oppression and their survival. one of the things i'm very proud of right now is i'm helping a women's basketball team get to the all-native basketball tournament in british columbia, and these are women who come from what used to to be called e queen charlotte islands. it's as far west as you can go. and it's one of the oldest nonaffected by the ice age sites of north america.

but there you find women who were members of the hyda tribe and others who are trying to preserve ancient ways as well as participating in modern life. and that story, also, is often left out of women's history, or we'll focus entirely on black and white women and struggle. the experiences of native american women, wow. not having the right to be an american citizen until 1924, let's start there. highest degree of sterilization without consent. on many reservations. but on the other hand, stories of leadership as well. women with great names like wilma mankiller, but also great traditions of poets and writers. all of that's important to me, and i appreciate that what i've found in the women's music movement is women like chris who are not leaving that out of the story.

and other women who bring in a diverse perspective of women's lives in song and performance. >> host: berkeley girl 63 tweets in: so excited to aerofrom chris williamson -- to hear from chris williamson. the changer and the changed is a must-have in every collection. next call comes from renee in akron, ohio. nay, from bonnie morris' book, "women's history for beginners," what is griswold v. connecticut? >> guest: that's a good one. >> caller: i have no idea. [laughter] >> host: okay. what is griswold v. connecticut? >> guest: it's a 1965 case that says that married couples have a right to get a birth control prescription from their doctor. the griswolds were a couple in connecticut who found they couldn't, even as a married couple, get birth control, and they brought the case to the state, and it became reinterpreted as a right to privacy issue. >> host: go ahead with your

question or comment, renee. >> caller: okay. i'll do my best here. so much is going through my mind. i just went online and ordered your book. >> guest: oh! >> caller: when you had the discussion about the first african women to set foot in americas, that really piqued my interest in what a valuable writer that you probably are, so i had to have your book. when i consider the history of slavery and domination and oppression of african-american women in this country by whites, i wonder do you write about this your book about the identity struggle that black women have in trying to align themselves with movements throughout history? >> guest: uh-huh. >> caller: and what to take seriously and what to not take

seriously. and i wonder as black authors that you have encountered, do you feel that they have made an adequate attempt whether recognized or not to try and put forth a chronological and realistic history of our struggle in this country? >> guest: yes. >> host: thank you, renee. >> guest: yes, thank you very much for that great question. obviously, i was very affected by the writings of alice walker, audrey lord, also the work of belle hooks. there are a lot of really dynamic critics. i have a very good library of writings about black feminism, also a lot of literature. and i would say that d.c. is definitely a place where you hear those voices. busboys and poets is a location where some to have best writings

by black feminist critics can be bought. i was part of a women's stage for 14 years which is of a very diverse venue for women to read poetry into the microphone about identity as black and female. and i've participated as well in a lot of readings and workshops that are held at the universities. georgetown, actually, had in the spring of '89 a very intense three-day conference on ethnic identity and feminism. very contentious, as these things go. definitely one of the issues, of course, is to what degree any woman identifies primarily with her racial or ethnic group and then when the focus shifts to being a woman in that community. and, you know, i'll joke that in a group of women i'm, you know, a woman, and if somebody makes

an anti-semitic joke, then i'm jewish. and so forth. so what i find is the difficulty bringing this material into the classroom where you might have, let's say, 20 white students and three black students. and the black students are put on the spot to represent everything about black women's history that they might be reading about for the first time. and white students will assume that they should be on the defensive and can't participate in the discussion. those are real issues of how each generation transmits important material to the next. i would definitely say that we are not given enough information many particular about the lives of black women in slavery, but i also think it's difficult to put a focus on that or on someone like rosa parks without keeping

a kind of feeling of violation at the forefront. this is the same issue in feminist studies. where do you draw the line between a history that paints you as a victim and a history that makes students feel truly empowered? you have to look at the outrages and the violations, but you also have to talk about what are the tools that empowered women to survive, how did they cope, how did they teach each other to read, what were the songs of slavery, how did they quote maps of the underground railroads in their embroidery, who did take acts of revenge, who did run away continually to be reunited with a child, and who who were e white women who hid the runaway, and who were the white women who turned her away? all of that knits us together. my mother was putting me very

early on the path to studying racism. she remembers when i was a toddler sitting on the front steps with me explaining why the trash collectors were black. and i became very involved in looking at these issues from a young age because i have a short story i wrote in second grade on martin luther king and the language of slavery. it's always a -- i was a very unusual little kid, but that story's there. and in that story i was able to relate the struggle for black identity with my own understanding of having a i jewish identity. when you start a conversation with a kid, it will flower. but a lot of people believe you have to delay those conversations until, you know, you're in college. a lot of people don't go to college. so this is why we have to get women's studies, black history, everything into high schools and middle schools. by the way, m. carrie thomas is the person who founded bryn

mawr. it came to me in the synapse just now. >> host: and you know what? that was my next thing because i wrote it down. they gave me the right -- they gave me that information. >> guest: i remembered it. >> host: pardon me. arvin tweets in to you, professor morris: please ask professor morris to narrate her story about asking president clinton to watch the women's basketball game. >> guest: well, i know, i filmed an interview about that earlier, but sure. okay. so already a women's sports fan and basketball fan when i first began teaching at gw in 1994, i went to a doubleheader, and this was when they would have one ticket got you the men's game and the women's game, a long afternoon. so i was going to see two games, but i was surprised to have to go through a metal detector which had never happened at gw s. and somebody said the president's here. president clinton had brought chelsea to the game. he was very accessible. you could go right up and shake

his hand. he went into the crowd and met folks. and the men began to play. they win. and then the president got up to leave, and i was startled and then outraged. here is the commander in chief who's supposed to support title ix law at that time, by the way, the women's team had a better record than the men's, and he was going to walk out with his daughter when the women took the court. i didn't think so. so i pushed my way through the crowd, stuck out my hand and said, hi, mr. president, i'm a women's studies professor here, and i'd like to ask you that you stay and support the women's team. don't leave now that the women have won. it would be very important to the women of america and your daughter to show your support for women's sports. and he shook my hand and said i'd love to stay, but i have a meeting at the white house at two or something. and i looked at my watch, and i said, well, you can watch the first half of the women's game. please sit down. and he went back and sat down. so i gave a direct order to the

president of the united states. and he became the first president to phone in congratulations to the winning women's team of the ncaa championship that march, and i like to think i had something to do with that. >> host: gordon, felton, delaware. hi. >> caller: hi. can you hear me okay? >> guest: yes. >> host: we're listening. >> caller: okay, great. i do appreciate the great passion that i do sense coming from your guest. but i'm coming at it from a completely different perspective there's no argument that domestic violence for so long was not handled in an appropriate hander by the system -- manner by the system, but i'd like to speak to the whole issue of, quote-unquote, women's subjugation and them being the victims of domestic violence. with everything that's been done now, i've seen this throughout history, you know, as i've studied history, when you

attempt to confront a social ill that is on one extreme, inevitably you're going to go to the other extreme. i think we have the axiom for it called the pendulum effect. and i had seen that. in fact, i'm going to be speaking at a conference in d.c. this summer sponsored by faith services and the center for -- [inaudible] integrity. and it's going to highlight my experiences, how that i was thoughtfully arrested nine times which all have been expunged and i've received an apology, but it was based upon the allegations of what was proven to be an emotionally disturbed individual. but because there has been such one extreme to the either and, you know, my experience was not an isolated incident. it seems to be that that's where we've gotten to, where the system instead of going by rule of law regarding domestic violence issues, we now adhere

to a more err on the side of caution. so that has been my experience. and i would like to get any kind of feedback or comment from you regarding -- >> host: thank you, sir. let's leave it there. we got the point. >> guest: yeah, no. i think that's an important point. i understand what you're saying. i have a friend who was falsely accused recently. i this think you're quite right -- i think you're quite right that the erring on the side of caution has been a problem in terms of families being charged, for example, with potentially abusing kids if the kid shows up at school bruised. we have schools expelling kids for bringing in aspirin or a fork because of our anxiety about weapons. i would say these are aspects, yes, of a system that's adjusting to responding to things no one ever did respond to before. i don't think that there is that much of a extreme pendulum swing. i think, if anything, we're

uncovering more and more examples that we're horrified to see have been accepted as normal all along. i know that in the past, for example, a double standard sent women to prison for much longer sentences when they committed crimes because we were so shocked that women would break the law at all. so there's plenty of room for adjustment in the justice system, and i'm sorry for what you experienced. i would say that looking for evidence of domestic violence as part of, say, you know, a patrol car's response in any scenario, that is a good thing. and what we've found is that when women are paired with men in police partnerships, that often we do get a better story or a fair story in a call like that. i would also add that having discovered the huge problem of

assaults on girls, we have rapidly moved into an almost total focus on assaults on boy withs. and while that's an important thing looking at what happened at penn state or altar boys being molested and so forth, it again makes it much more egregious if a boy is violated than a girl. and i think we respond her rapidly. i don't have an answer to how we prevent false accusations. and i certainly do know of women who have abused the system by making false reports. people do that also with inventing, hate crimes. we certainly know that there are women who, in fact, were guilty of abusing their kids who blamed an outside party. all of that is a part of people abusing the system. >> host: just about a half hour left with this month's "in depth" guest, professor bonnie

morris. she teaches both at george washington and at georgetown university. the author of six nonfiction books and poetry books as well. her most recent is "women's history for beginners" which also is our booktv book club choice for february. so if you go to booktv.org, you'll see a tab up at the top. it says book club. you can participate -- just click on that, you can participate in the conversation. we'll be putting -- we'll be posting everything up tomorrow, this video from this program as well as reviews and articles by bonnie morris. we'll also be posting questions, discussion questions throughout the month of february. so pick up a copy, and we'd love to have you participate and interact with each other. it's kind of an online book club since so much of our world is online anymore. well, our next call comes from dory in san antonio, texas.

dory from women's history for beginners, who was the first tale member of -- female member of congress? >> caller: i don't know that. i'm 80 years old, and i can't remember dates anymore. i'm an -- i was an activist in the women's movement in the 1970s. i had a feminist bookstore in nashville, tennessee, called woman kind -- >> guest: yeah. >> caller: and had all the recordings of the women's music that you talk about. i've been a jazz musician all my life, and that's what i want to talk about. the thing that impacted my life the most negatively in terms of developing as a jazz musician was unintended pregnancies. because birth control was not in

sight any place. it was not in the media, it was not available, it was not legal. and so i've been a jazz musician all my life, and just last year i received a lifetime achievement award in san antonio. but i would like to hear you talk about margaret sanger, because she is my finish. >> guest: okay. wow. well, first of all, the first woman elected to congress jeanette rankin, and there's a statue of her in the capitol rotunda now. second of all, thank you for everything you've done. i'm writing a book chapter about women's bookstores, and i will add you. and i'm delighted to hear about your career in jazz. i write about that as well. i play the music of women who were in jazz for my classes including the international sweethearts of rhythm, a

mixed-race band in world war ii, but also many other women in jazz. margaret sanger, yes. a personal hero to my grandmother, my mother's mother, it would appear was one of the first young women in the united states to go to margaret sanger's clinic as a young woman in the 1920s and always held sanger in the highest esteem. i regret seeing birth control reemerge as a controversy almost a hundred years later. sanger, of course, was forced to leaf -- leave the country in part because she published a magazine called "the woman rebel" at a time when it was illegal to send information including discussion about birth control through the u.s. mail. so postal authorities seized her magazine. she had to flee. she, basically, studied in europe's first birth control clinic which was in holland and returned with information about the diaphragm for american

women. what most people don't realize is birth control became legal because men were at risk. condoms were legalized after world war i because more men returned from service overseas with sexually-transmitted diseases than with actual bullet wounds. much embarrassing uncle sam. and the result, we made condoms legal for men as long as they were sold with the provision, "sold for the prevention of disease." so we've actually protected men's health through legalized contraception before women had access to it. for prevention of pregnancy. this is all vital to the material my students are reading now. my students are reading "deliberate daughters," "the body project," and and "the girs who went away," about sex education ask birth control and how that -- and birth control

and how that created pain and suffering for unwed moms. as you indicate, interrupted opportunities. great question. >> host: next call is mary ellen in livermore, california. mary ellen, from bonnie morris' book "women's history forkers," who was the slave who bore thomas jefferson's children? >> caller: ooh, oh, i cannot -- almost, not quite getting it. >> host: okay. >> guest: sally hemings. >> caller: of course. >> guest: a huge controversy here at monticello. >> caller: of course. >> host: go ahead with your question or comment, mary ellen. >> caller: well, first of all, thank you, booktv, this is fabulous. i want to be in the book club. anyway, there seem to be some really strong voices in pop music today. katy perry, i know she has a huge following, pink. i turn on the radio, and i hear these really powerful women, and then there's the miley cyrus

thing and lady gaga, and i'm wondering if you have any comments about that, and thank you very much. >> guest: oh, you are so welcome. yes. i don't mean to situate all of the music i listen to was recorded in the '70s. and i am a big fan of a lot of contemporary musicians. i think one of the things that we're looking at is how women present themselves. on stage. do you have to present yourself many a sexually-provocative way in order to be considered commercially viable. do you have to appeal primarily to the male audience in order to get a commercial contract? if you don't present yourself as attractive in a certain way, will you be dropped or rebuked? si maid o'connor famously shaved her head because her agent told her to look more feminine. what my students are concerned

with is that -- because lots of little kids want to be famous or appreciate celebrity. is looking up to someone who dresses provocatively the wrong message to send to little kids? and one of the things that i've, obviously, studied is when you're not worrying about making a good impression on guys who might p want to date you, you can do whatever you want on stage. and it brings out a lot of talented women who might not fit the bill where someone is looking specifically at covergirl looks and so on. right now a big issue i would say is definitely the degree to which performers generate millions of dollars and have so much opportunity to say useful things at the microphone, do they take advantage of that opportunity. what could they say to younger women that would inspire them? how could they help young women accept themselves? how can you be a role model to young women who don't fit what

they think is the american ideal of appearance? and that could be racial, ethnic, size, sexuality. i think it's really important that you not just be successful, but that your message contain elements of empowerment. i think there's a lot of young artists who are doing that now. i think there's work that could be done. >> host: next call for bonnie morris comes from karen in astoria, new york. karen, here's your quiz question. who warned her powerful or husband that he better, quote, remember the ladies. >> caller: abigail adams. >> guest: yeah! >> host: ding, ding, ding. >> caller: and i partially know that from reading dr. morris' book, "the women's history for beginnings," which c-span booktv brought her work to my attention when you interviewed her, a shorter interview several months ago. and so i read "women's history

for beginners" from my public library, and thousand i'm currently reading-- and now i'm currently reading "revenge of the women's studies professor." learned a lot from both of them, and my comment is i wanted to say thank you to c-span booktv for bringing this to our attention or what this points of view that are so marginalized in ore media, but you are -- in other media, but you are devoting three hours that we can learn from professor morris, and i'm thankful. >> host: karen, what is -- can you -- tell us about yourself. >> caller: i'm a feminist, always have been, always will be. i'm dr. morris' age, and i am, happen to be a graduate of a women's college. >> guest: wow. i can't thank you enough. and, of course, i spent many, many happy years in astoria. and i hope that you use the public library that's just down the corner.

many good memories and hello to all my friends in astoria. i would say that -- thank you, again, but i want to also thank c-span. thanks for giving me an opportunity. doing this kind of work, many people doubted me when i announced my intention to become a women's studies professor. my family had concerns, my friends. they were supportive, but people worried quite openly how i'd earn a living or if i'd find a job. i think it was such an unusual occupation to be interested in. no one was sure how this would work out. it's worked out wonderfully. i've managed to carve out a job for myself. i've hanged to do the things i've wanted to within feminist action and also a as a citizen of the global world. i would add that for people who are considering going into

women's studies, do not let anyone tell you it's not a good role, occupation, pronegatives. when i see -- profession. when i see how the students respond and how lives are changed, right now i'm one of the scholarly advisers to the national women's history museum we hope to build here in d.c. that's right, we don't have one. we don't have a national museum of women's history. and when i see how my students are outraged we tonight have one, we don't have more monuments to women here in the capitol, what does it mean if you don't see your life or your sex represented in statues or in the architecture of a city? so there's much more to be done, and we need even. we need architects and painters and theorists and pharmacists and doctors and lawyers and accountants and even to remember the ladies as abigail adams said, remember the ladies. >> host: laura tweets in to you, professor morris: all the women's studies majors i knew in

college were back in school five years later getting business degrees. [laughter] >> guest: well, you know, i think a lot of students in my class right now are in the business schools. they're doing work as future wall street women or running nonprofits is on their agenda. i think that a lot of people major in something that may not necessarily be what they work in later on. but i wouldn't discourage anyone from pursuing it. i would also say that what's interesting is we have more majors this women's studies than in math and physics combined. we have a lot of people who minor. and we have a huge number of students who simply take the courses. they don't necessarily major. working with athletes on both campuses is just such a privilege, and many of the athletes are just discovering the history of women in sports for the first time. they're thrilled, they're

uplifted. i go to all their games. and i think that making the information available to people you might not think would take the class -- yeah, tool guys, they're -- football be guys, they're incredible. basketball players, track stars, everybody. and, of course, women in sports. having everyone together and creating a climate in the classroom is what makes the study of women a successful enterprise for everyone, because they can connect to each other's lives. and right now i have students from all over the world in all my classes. just off the top of my head, haiti, singapore, hong kong, vietnam. and one thing that i allow students to do is, of course, write from their own cultural perspective. what has it been like for them to observe the changing status of women in their culture and society.

so we're engaged in, you know, global perspectives, we're working on the development of the different countries. i have a whole lot of students as well who are very excited by the possibility of doing work in health that's going to prevent some of the illnesses that have kept women from participating more fully. and, of course, in terms of women's sports, one of things i really love is just cheering on many by players. >> host: r.j. williams, pell broke pines, florida. , mail: is margaret chase smith, our republican of maine, senatorial decision ever discussed, and do you consider christina of summers a feminist colleague? >> guest: good lord. yes, i include the history of women who have run in my classes, absolutely, and we

spend a lot of time on women in politics. who was the first, who were the unknown candidates. christina love summers has been very critical of women's studies, and a lot of her books are very hostile to the field. i'm happy to talk back to that viewpoint. i think that the field is both academically viable, scholarly -- sound in a scholarly way. there's very mixed stereotypes about women's studies. one is that we're all, you know, like axe-wielding, castrating man-haters. that's a very harsh image. and and then there's the opposite which is we're tree-hugging, you know, nothing really goes on in the classroom, it's all airy fairy and so on. wrong, wrong, wrong. what's startling to my students is just like anything else, you can flunk this material. do the readings, take the it'ses, turn the work in -- the tests, turn the work in on time

or watch your grade go down the tube, and isn't that a wake-up call? so people enrolled thinking this is, you know, an easy class or i just have to agree with the professor and i'll get an a or, oh, we're all going to sit in a circle and give each other pap smears, wrong. inaccurate. so i have to be fairly tough on the first day and scare away anybody who's not going to work seriously. and you have to do that. i have to interrupt students who are shaming other students who might be in the room whether that's unintentional, say someone who makes sweeping generalizations about anyone who is on welfare be, right? we talk about unwed moms. suppose somebody is one, you know? so let's check out who's in the room. this headaches the material -- makes the material personal, yes. it is personal because it is about the body and sexuality and is life giving and so on. at the same time, i'm very clear i am not a counselor, i'm not a

rabbi, i'm not your therapist, so students who need support i can refer them to the appropriate places. i do have students who have cheated. i've had to deal with plagiarism. obviously, it's a sign of the times that a lot of students are unfamiliar with how you quote correctly from the internet. what this says is women's studies is mainstream. it's like any other class in terms of the academic as educate. aspect. what brings students in is a variety of motives, and being ready for each of those is also, you know, a very demanding aspect. at the end of day, i come home exhausted, and my replenishment very much comes from being able to write in my journal about my teaching day. and i find i write more and more about teaching and less and less, you know, about other things because i'm concerned

with doing a good job. but also because these interactions raise so many questions about our current moment historically. >> host: bonnie morris, mary jo e-mails in to you from dearborn, michigan: my question deals with the novel "the help." my sister is white ask a women's studies professor at a small college in kentucky. she assigned this book to one of her introductory classes and was criticized by a black colleague for using that book. i remember that there was a lot of controversy surrounding that book and wonder what you think about it. >> guest: well, my mother gave me the book, and i've read it, and i've assigned it. i use a number of other books as well. i use "the mailed narratives -- the maid narratives" which is a very useful book because it's actual interviews with women who worked as maids. there's also interviews in there with women whose moms worked as

maids and women whose moms had maids. in other words, both white and black women, everybody involved this these intricate relationships. i understand some of the criticism of "the help" was that it was written by a white author, and at the same time i think it's useful in getting students to think about a really complicated problem in women's history. segregation kept people apart in housing, schooling, public accommodations. but women were with one another intimately because black women worked in white women's homes and were assigned to do the inti hate care, the daily intimate care, childcare, actually nursing white babies with their own breast milk. all of that. that's an intimacy that sounds strange when we look at how segregation is supposed to keep us from touching. so it demonstrates a whole lot.

one aspect that we tell gate child -- we delegate child care to people who are seen as less socially important. because throughout history aristocratic women have always had nurses and servants. so there's a history of servants as well as a racial history. all of that can be summarized in a novel, but it has to be sup mr. presidented with real stories -- sup mr. presidented with real stories from women who lived through the experience, and there's a way to do that through the curriculum. it's a great question. >> host: robert in atlanta, georgia. robert, in what year did a women's bathroom finally have to be added to the senate building so that newly-elected women would not miss the roll call for votes? >> caller: ms. chism was there, i imagine, so it would probably be '88? >> guest: well, actually, 1992, '93. a lot of women ran for and were elected after the anita hill

hearings, and you had to leave the senate building and go across to another venue to get to a women's facility. this is another example of women's history through architecture. the georgetown science building didn't have a women's bathroom until quite recently, because there were never any plans that women would major in science. they had to make a broom closet into a women's room. so the history of segregation through toilets is something i also talk about. and it's okay to laugh at this stuff. >> host: robert, go ahead and ask your question and make your comment. >> caller: yeah. i'm 58 years old, so i, i've seen the women's movement, you know, and archie bunker. i guess i consider myself a feminist, but duplicity is the summit of this call, and that's kind of bothered me about the movementment i -- movement. i want to ask you to address two

liberty things, one is -- [inaudible] i propose this question. if you have a group of women put together in a room and you ask them to take a vote, would you prefer that your future husband headache more money than you or less money than you, that was an interesting answer, particularly considering you want equal pay. and oleana, well, you can just tell me anything you feel about that. thanks. >> guest: okay. well, i don't know enough about oleana to respond. camille polly is an interesting figure. part of what she was anxious about in her work was empowering women or reclaiming in her book sexual per sew nay that women had as femme fatals and that they shouldn't jettison that and it wasn't a negative thing. she was hostile at the concept of victim feminism which many other people have argued puts

feminists in a bad light in emphasizing the negative aspect of womanhood. the question, you know, about earnings, that was also addressed in a great tv interview about women breaking into women's sports. so i'm very familiar with that question. and the idea that women still expect to be supported by men this some scenarios and yet want equal pay in others. part of the problem there is that if a woman takes time out to have kids, if he doesn't get maternity leave or doesn't have health coverage and so forth, to what degree is a woman really compromised financially by giving birth or needing time for child care? and if she doesn't have a partner who can assist, that's one of the reasons why we find

that women are more likely to live in poverty than men. women who expected to be supported either emotionally or financially by a loving husband who are then abandoned need to go to work in a scenario where they will be paid wages that they can live on. ask one of the reasons -- and one of the reasons, the '70s saw so much change, many women were being divorced and discovering suddenly without a husband's income they were very bad lu off, but they weren't being offered fair wages if they entered the work force in their 30s and 40s. i would also add that a unique issue here, of course, is that we have a work callen da daughter that -- calendar that's built around the idea of one person working and a partner being at home. now we expect everyone to work, so we have everyone out in the public sphere, million dollar houses and and nobody's in them. so concerns about who's taking

care of the children. i understand where that comes from. we now have the ability for everyone to work out of the home again because of computers. you don't have to go out in the public sphere to be a businessman or woman. these are all changes that we look at in my classes. they're wonderful discussions. what does it mean that we now expect everybody to have a primary identity outside the home, and yet homes are more and more expensive, you know? if you're going to invest all that in a home, don't you want to be there some of the time? i ask the same question. i have a nice amount that i'm hardly ever -- apartment that i'm hardly ever in, and this winter i've within enjoying being in it in the cold weather and kind of looking around at my 1500 books and going, yeah, i live somewhere. i live at dupont circle, and i'm happy. >> host: mar e-mails in: i'm an academic at marries college.

what i want to ask, is there any sustained, actionable focus among feminists on behalf of women in prison? >> guest: yes. terrific question. hi to my two colleagues from grad school who were maris professors. i am fortunate to teach in a women's studies program, george washington, chaired by dan moshenberg whose focus is women in prison or women in the prison system. we offer an excellent curriculum on this topic. i showed the film "what i want my words to do to you" in which eve especialliler teaches a writing class at bed forth hills prison in upstate, new york. my students addressed the subject of not only women as summits of violence, but women who are in prison for crimes or who have taken violent action. and they read a series of papers by women who have experienced living long term in prison. much of that literature covers the way that women are either

rewarded or punished with, you know, access to chair own kids -- their own kids, what to do with women who become mothers while behind bars, how we accommodate access to child rearing this those conditions. but we also examine the fact that many women are imprisoned because of intimate violence. they take the rap for a boyfriend, they fight back if they're battered. they turn to prostitution because they're addicted. and the other social ills we're familiar with. so, yes, that is very much on my syllabus. >> host: dwhren reilly e-mails in: mail chauvinism bad, female chauvinism good. i use up a significant part of my weekend watching this generally excellent tv show. this morning is pushing the limits of objectivity and honesty. this should not be the place for political propaganda. thank you for your comments, sir. appreciate that.

and the next call for bonnie morris comes from annie in pilot hill, california. >> caller: this is a terrific show. i'm to happy you're running it, and i love booktv. i grew up in the '70s, and it seemed like it was sort of the first era maybe when girls were asked what are you going to be when you grow up instead of just assuming that everybody was going to be a mother. and this kind of does hail back to a question you had earlier about katy perry and pink and some of the people that are in the entertainment industry. i'm just wondering what your comment is, if you think there's progress in the fact that we have everything from now women can choose to be a professor or an astronaut or even, god forbid, you know, the star of a reality show where you, your job is to, basically, dress up and fight with a bunch of other women. do you see that as that we've

made progress, that now women can basically make choices like that, or -- [laughter] or do you see that as sort of backsliding? >> guest: well, that's a great question. thank you very much. i do think we've had, we've made progress. i would say it's very limited to a small section of the, you know, western world. i have traveled widely, and in much of the world women are living in very traditional villages, they're subject to tribal law, they're not permitted to advance in any profession, let alone get, you know, an education there. primarily living agriculturally, doing very hard work in fields. throughout china, many women are working in factories making our stuff. and the conditions for women vary from place to place. so what with we experience in terms of progress is, is a mask for the work that still needs to be done. but within, let's say, american

culture one of the predicaments we have is we valorize people based on how much money they earn. something i resent bitterly because i'm infamously underpaid. i also would say that there's a sense that to be provocative is to gain be fame. so as long as people see that you can make money being controversial, we have hate radio, we have reality tv, we have women fighting each other in a public forum because it improve ratings or generate income. i don't know how much of that would go on if it wasn't compensated. so part of it is to what degree do people still look to become rich as a motivating factor? i never did, and, you know, i'm not. but i amish shoe-driven -- i am issue driven, and i think a lot of girls as well as boys are pushed to identify with material

gain and comfort, so that is going to affect the choices they headache in terms of how -- make in terms of how they can be rich and famous. >> host: bonnie morris, in your favorites list that we got from you that we ran at the break, you listed writing in your journalings. 668 of them. are they ever going to be published? >> guest: well, i am crowd to show off the last journal, and i am ending this one, here's the last page, something i've always wanted to do. i amening my journal on -- i am ending my journal on national tv. i am starting the next one this night. i've been keeping a journal since i was the. i don't know be they'll -- since i was 12. i don't know if they'll ever be published. my handwriting has gone awhoo. as i write on the keyboard more and more, my hand can't keep up with my thoughts, with the pen. i still use a fountain pen. i love feel of paper and the

journal in my act and the physical act of writing and the fountain head gliding over the page. i don't want to lose that. i've tried to write historically and write about what it's like, you know, to be a lesbian in late 19th, 20th century america. those accounts will be instructive to somebody someday. i do have an archive that has requested all hi papers, the schlesinger library at radcliffe, and they're going to get all my journals and recordings in women's music culture, interviews and narratives and so on. i've tried not to write anything unkind, and i've tried to be honest about my life. >> host: bonniejmorris.com is her web site. thank you for being with us on "in depth."