You Laughed

Dramatizing the move to coeducation

For the men who attended Dartmouth during the thirties, it was the great Depression; in the forties, it was World War II; in the mid- to late sixties, it was the war in Vietnam. In each case, "it" was an event that occurred during their time at Dartmouth that affected their daily lives as students and altered the way in which they saw themselves in the world at large. For the women and men of the mid-seventies, the "it" was coeducation.

In September of 1972, having graduated from a high school class of 32 women, Meri Miller Lowry '76 entered Dartmouth - a college 4000 strong with a ratio of nine men for every woman. A year later, 800 men and 275 women matriculated in the Class of 1977, reducing the ratio of men to women to five to one. Of the 275 women, sixtyseven of them, including Liz Epstein Kadin, Penny Kurr Rashin, Pam Rowland Bartlett, and Paula Selis, had Dartmouth dads.

As some of the College's first 'coeds," hese women routinely defended their right to attend Dartmouth and accepted the arguments, catcalls, and beauty ratings at Thayer Dining Hall as part of the 'Dartmouth experience.' For most of them, acceptance was far easier than sticking their necks out and subjecting themselves to ridicule. In fact, most Dartmouth women kept quiet how some of the traditions and 'male camaraderie' actually felt until November of 1975, when eleven women undergraduates, including the five named above, produced a play which changed the College environment and the history of coeducation.

The play, YouLaugh, described the tribulations of being one of the first women at Dartmouth. As reported in the February 1976 issue of the Alumni Magazine,"[You Laugh] brought out a lot of tension from under the surface." While there were countless letters in The Dartmouth prior to this time and much more vocal protests afterwards, YouI Laugh, in retrospect, served as the catalyst for public expression of the frustration, anger, and resentment many women students felt about Dartmouth. Suddenly the lovehate relationship most of us had with our College, a relationship never discussed, was being talked about all over campus.

Today, ten years later, Dartmouth is as different a place as are the women who participated in You Laugh. Over the past few months, these women recounted the making of You Laugh, their Dartmouth experiences, and their lives today. Their tales reveal a wealth of history about Dartmouth in transition and the variety of alumnae experience.

Yon Laugh came about as part of a class project for a philosophy seminar entitled "Feminism and Revolution." Noting the somewhat radical sounding title, Ellen Meyer '78 admitted, "The title scared me. I had never taken anything like that." Liz Epstein Kadin '77, who is now in institutional sales on Wall Street for the brokerage firm of Drexel, Burnham, Lambert, explained her decision to take the course. "I was a philosophy major and completing a seminar was part of the major requirement. At the time, the course content sounded interesting and relevant." Judy Roitman '78, who has made the rights of women workers her vocation, commented, "I took the course for no real good reason. I was not even considering myself a feminist or a revolutionary at that point."

One of the seminar's requirements was participation in a study group to discuss the readings. Professor Marlene Fried suggested that students might want to create an all-female or all-male study group. While the latter idea never took hold, Kadin, Roitman and five other women chose to participate in a women's group. Each week the group met in the philosophy lounge in Thornton Hall ostensibly to discuss the readings. "Right from the start," remembered Meri Miller Lowry '76, "we were talking about what it was like for us to be women at Dartmouth." Penny Kurr Rashin '77, now a trial attorney for Robinson and Cole in Stamford, Connecticut, recalled, "We discovered quite quickly that we all had felt somewhat isolated and alienated. There was a tremendous amount of resentment to coeducation at that time amongst alumni and students." Pam Rowland Bartlett '77, now a hospital administrator in suburban Boston, probably best explains how many women students felt, "Before I went to Dartmouth, I was never any kind of feminist or women's libber, but alumni and fellow students pushed me to have to defend my right to be there and that really annoyed me." "Coming to Dartmouth from the New York area," recalled dancer Roberta Kirn '77, "I was totally shocked by the sexism at Dartmouth. I didn't think there were people like that anywhere in the world." Melanie Graves Rios '78, today computer education coordinator at the Sidwell Friends School in Washington, D.C., echoes that awareness. "It was the first time I encountered people who didn't like me and were really obnoxious to my face simply because of who I was."

Roitman recollects that Rios suggested the group try and do something together such as a few skits or some guerrilla theater out on the Green. "It snowballed," remembered Kirn, adding, "The more we talked about it, the more excited we got, particularly as we realized how important it was to do." Each woman was to create a skit about how she felt about being a woman at Dartmouth recalls Meyer. One of the skits pondered the supposed bliss of the three-to-one ratio. Another quoted some of the more virulent anti-coeducation letters from The Dartmouth. Others looked humorously at the family versus career dilemma these women expected to encounter. While most of the women wrote something, Kirn, who as an undergraduate had begun her life-work of expression through dance, spoke to Michele Ratte '77, with whom she had frequently performed about creating a movement piece. Meanwhile, Roitman had asked fellow Co-op House resident Paula Selis '77 if she would be interested in directing the skits. Roitman also asked flutist Helen Andrews Noble '77 to join her in providing music. A regular 'techie' at the Hop, Pam Rowland Bartlett '77, was asked to be the Technical Director. The title, first enunciated by Meyer, came from a discussion about what the reactions to a performance might be. Finally, as the group realized that they wanted their work to be seen and heard by an unsupportive audience, they entered You Laugh in the Intramural Play Contest. Apprehensive, the group decided to invite all women students to their final rehearsal in Rollins Chapel.

Despite the ten years that have elapsed since that first rehearsal performance of You Laugh, all of the women involved remember it vividly. "We expected about twenty-five people to show up," remembers Lowry. "We were all in this little room to the side of the stage and when we opened the door there were well over one hundred women and a few men in the audience. It was extremely exciting! After the performance, people really wanted to talk."

The women involved recalled how many members of the audience commented, "I don't believe it. There are other people here who feel the same way I do." The production generated a large amount of comment and controversy throughout campus. A group of fraternity brothers came to the IMPC performance determined to sing Menof Dartmouth during a You Laugh skit decrying the bonfire. They did and the show went on. A front-page headline in The Dartmouth noted "Women's Play Stirs Opinions." Student reaction ranged from "It only portrayed the negative," stated by a woman in the Class of 1977, to a male '79's comment that "[You Laugh] depicts a frustration that many people, and not only women, feel." The interest in the play necessitated a third performance, again in Rollins Chapel, before a standingroom only audience.

Creating an emotional statement such as YouLaugh was not easy. To begin with, most of the women had no theater experience. Selis remembers the assembling of the production as "a self-actualizing experience." Everything the script, the castHi

ing, the staging, the costumes was done by the women involved. As Selis recalls, "Everybody creformlygood farmed regular more we in it." have ence, reated unistuff and we out parts like a play. It became than just a script were all invested Kirn, who did theatrical experinoted that what she membered of the production "wasn't anything memorable theatrically,but that it was incredibly heartfelt." While individually creating skits was relatively easy, editing and synthesizing them were not. Roitman recalls that the differences between the women nearly halted the production. As Rashin explains, "We were a very diverse group - some had strong leftist political beliefs, others had no political beliefs, but we all did not like being discriminated against." Lowry, now a corporate attorney for Union Mutual Life Insurance Company in Portland, Maine, as well as wife (of Lee '73) and mother, was frequently seen as the group's most ardent feminist. As the woman in the group with the longest tenure at Dartmouth, she was also the angriest. At the other end of the spectrum was cheerleader Kadin. "I knew I believed in the underlying themes of the play, but I worried that some of the statements were much stronger than I felt. She in fact thought about dropping out of the play right until the night before. What kept her in was the belief that "some of the people that might not be able to relate to the more negative feelings being expressed might realize there was some truth to what was being said, if even a cheerleader feels this way."

For all of the woman involved, YouLaugh was seen as a positive statement not simply a protest. Rashin saw it as "a creative way to maybe change things." For Meyer there was an anger expressed that came from caring not from hate. Kadin recalls being given a "hard time" by some dorm-mates and acquaintances. She found herself continually explaining, "I don't hate Dartmouth, I want to see Dartmouth become a better place for women. That is why I did the play."

You Laugh had both immediate and long-lasting effects. Through the discussions following each performance of You Laugh, the seeds of a women's center and a women's studies department were sown and many women were able to find other Dartmouth students who shared their concerns. "I was finally able to integrate myself into the College," admitted Kirn. Rios described it as "feeling I had a community." Ratte recalled, "We women were a minority and we had to band together to pull each other through." "It totally changed the climate of women getting together at Dartmouth," recalled Roitman, adding "You Laugh was the only thing women had at the time besides the Glee Club and [women's] basketball."

Ellen Meyer related how, much to her surprise, she had never discussed Dartmouth with her alumnus uncle. A few years after graduating, Meyer asked him why they had never talked about the College they shared. After he responded that he knew she did not like Dartmouth since she had been in "that play," she corrected his impression, telling him, "I do love Dartmouth and it is because I care about what happens there that I participated in YouLaugh." Kadin's sister, Peggy Epstein '79, who is now an Alumni Councillor, remembers, "At the time, I hated Liz for being in You Laugh. Today, I respect her a great deal for participating in something that was so important to Dartmouth."

Many of the lessons from You Laugh are vividly retained. For Michele Ratte, who currently imprints her artistic vision on fabric in her Martha's Vineyard studio, there was the recognition that "I could and should care about politics and that I could make an impact. Similarly the realization that speaking up when people are being insensitive can make a difference and the self-confidence to do just that has stayed with Liz Kadin. For Ellen Meyer, the need for understanding and communication has remained an important influence in her choices since graduation; first as a Peace Corps volunteer in Honduras, then travelling around the world; and now as a graduate student in Inter- national Negotiation at Harvard's Ken- nedy School of Government. Melanie Rios remembers the exhilaration of successfully communicating a need for change through theater and music something she fantasizes about being able to do again on a larger scale. As a member of a socially conscious urban commune in Washington, D.C., that shares food, income, shelter, and property, as well as an affinity for drama, that dream will undoubtedly be realized.

Noting that "directing YouLaugh was the best experience I had at Dartmouth," Paula Selis adds, "It was the first experience I had working with a group of women it was a very comfortable, non-threatening environment. As a result, I became a lot closer to women as a group." Selis, now a lawyer specializing in consumer affairs with the Attorney General's office in the State of Washington, keeps those interests alive as a member of Washington Women Lawyers and through being involved with feminist health issues." You Laugh allowed me to realize that it wasn't me, there was something the matter with the school," remembers Judy Roitman, who has a father, two brothers, a sister-in-law, and an uncle who are also Dartmouth alumni. She adds, "Sexism in this society affects your mind and the way you think about your self, not just wages." The latter is a lesson she has taken with her as an or ganizer for 9-5 and currently as Secretary/Treasurer of Local 205 of the Service Employees International in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, where she bargains contracts and handles grievances for predominantly female hospital employees. While commenting that from her vantage point today, "You Laugh seems narrow in its focus," Roitman offers, "It may be one of the most dramatic things I have done. Now it is real nitty-gritty working for 5 cents an hour here, an extra holiday there."

The diversity so apparent amongst these women ten years ago remains in their lifestyle choices and their relationship to Dartmouth. Of the eleven women, nine are married (three to Dartmouth men) and one lives with her "common law husband" of the past seven years. Of the nine married women, two have kept their name, one has kept it professionally, and Melanie Rios and her husband chose a new name for them to share. Two have toddlers and four have newborn babies. Eight work outside the home fulltime. Pam Bartlett works part-time so that she can spend more time with her son, Nicky (the elder toddler). In addition to Meyer, Helen Andrews is attending graduate school. She is finishing her third year of medical school at the Medical College of Wisconsin Medical Center in Milwaukee.

While all of the women have fond remembrances of people and events at Dartmouth, the degree to which they connect it to the actual place (and the Alumni Fund) varies. Most lamented the loss of the close friendships that are inherent to being in college. Kadin, Rashin, Bartlett, and Selis all contribute regularly to the Alumni Fund. Ratte would like to be able to contribute, but as a struggling artist cannot afford to. Meyer, who was a Peace Corps volunteer in Honduras, tithes her income to a family in the village where she lived. Most recently, they had used her money to buy a dairy cow so that the children in the village could have fresh milk. Some of the women have participated in alumni interviews for the admissions process. Club participation seems to depend on the area and activities. All of the women maintain ties with close friends from their Dartmouth days.

For the women of You Laugh, indeed for all of the women of those early classes, their Dartmouth experience was an education. Whether more of it occurred in or out of the classroom is open to debate. Yet as one alumnus wrote to Liz Kadin ten years ago, "Because of what you did, a lot of other Dartmouth women will be spared your pain. It is part of the price of being a front-runner, and I hope you will continue to think it's worth it."

MELANIE GRAVES

JENNIFER A. KURR

JUDITH ROITMAN

PAULA SELIS

Author Nancy Wasserman, whose work forthe Dartmouth Alumni Magazine ismore usually photographic, was one of themore than one hundred women in the au-dience for the final rehearsal performanceof You Laugh in November 1975 in Rol-lins Chapel. Her younger sister, Amy L.Wasserman, a free-lance graphic designerbased in the Boston area, collaborated withNancy on this article; she created the collage(using Nancy's photographs) onthese two pages and designed thelayout for the article. A thirdWasserman sister, Cathy, as amember of the Class of 1985,experienced a Dartmouth muchchanged from the mid-seventiesin its acceptance of women —-partly because of the effects of You Laugh.