Rebels in White Gloves: Coming of Age with Hillary's Class--Wellesley '69

Having attended an institution which was itself originally founded as a woman's college, I was moved to pick up this book. I was curious how the experiences of myself and contemporaries in Texas had contrasted with the New York Senator and her own classmates. They had, of course, attended college in an era of Vietnam, the rising women's movement and waning in loco parentis policies at colleges. Initially instituted (ironically by progressives) to 'protect' young people from the outside world and keep us instead focused on our college studies, in loco parentis policies came under criticism from these students for not acknowledging that college students were adults. Administrators did not necessarily have to like the decision, but they had to let students make it. Such perspective was reflected in Hillary's infamous student speech (pp. 45-47) challenging then Massachusetts Senator Edward Brooke's defense of status quo policies which the students felt WERE the problem with their world. The book is divided up into topical chapters, but the format reads like a personal conversation between friends over a cup of coffee at the neighborhood cafe. Miriam Horn followed up what happened to the women after their college graduation. Practicing it in their different lives differently, 80 percent of this class describe themselves as feminists (p xxi). Kris Olson Rogers, another alumna, also entered government service--ultimately getting appointed U.S. Attorney for Oregon by newly elected President Bill Clinton. Never doubt the importance of keeping in touch with your college friends! This writing is so compelling that I read through the entire book in one sitting! Technically about the class of 1969 at Wellesley, this book ultimately covered many areas and ideas relevant to my generation of women across the country today. Another strength of the book is that it reminds readers that women's education and public sector participation remains an essentially hot button issue. Women now receive college degrees in America without protest, but other types of our public sector participation now stir the discomfort once generated by higher education. The book would (of course) be important for people involved with Wellesley in any way. It is also essential reading for anybody who attended a woman's college or is just interested in women, education and history in general.

You know, what I really liked about this book was that it portrayed the real life paths of real women. Women like you and me. Women who had to make choices. And who sometimes had choices made for them. I happen to like biographies and so I've read a lot about a lot of famous people; but what makes this book so fascinating is that the girls we meet in it are just regular people -- no manifest destiny, no ends justifying the means. Just real people advancing uncertainly in a time of chaos and prosperity. Sure, the author doesn't examine in detail the life of every Wellesley grad - that would defeat the purpose. But she took a few very real lives (Hillary's not being among them) and she followed those people through war and peace, protest and conformity, personal triumphs and personal f--k-ups. And I thought to myself "these women were so generous to allow the world to peer into their private and public past". I feel very indebted to them ... although it still doesn't help me guage where I'll be when I'm 40.....

As one of the beneficiaries of the paths set by the 1969 Wellesley grads, I found the book fascinating. That class provided many role models for me when I was at Wellesley and led me to pursue an MBA and a business career. However, I thought the author was selective in the graduates portrayed in depth. There are several members of the class who have achieved a balance in their lives, combining interesting careers with families. Although Lonny Higgins achieved this, she did so in a very unorthodox manner. There are graduates who achieved this with traditional jobs. The other issue not mentioned is that of women who would like to stay home with their children, but do not have that choice, either for financial reasons or their husband's unwillingess to take full financial responsibility. I also think too much time was spent on the two women who discovered they were gay. More pages were devoted to Nancy Wanderer than the other women.

Having been a 20 year old working at the College last in 1968 just before jumping into the Army and incoherent world events in Vietnam, this book reminds me of a great time in my own lifetime, and surely of many others. The 60's was present and now in the 90's upon reflection, am very glad I was a teenager/young person THEN, NOT now. This book is great, thankfully, the times were too.

As someone who graduated from Wellesley with Hillary's class, I was fascinated to learn more about some of my classmates than our alumnae magazine's "class notes" would ever reveal. But apart from that, I learned to appreciate the huge debt that I and so many others owe to this generation of women - wherever they graduated - who decided it was time to take off the white gloves, get into the ring, and make noise until the world paid attention. What this book does is bring the women's movement of the last thirty years into perspective for women who, even today, may not understand how important it has been in terms of their own lives -- who may even have thought that since they did not define themselves as "feminists," the movement had nothing to do with them. I should talk: when we graduated, I thought that the world would welcome me for the strength of my intellect and the power of my ideas. I was so naive that it's taken me all this time to realize just how far I wouldn't have gotten if my contemporaries of 1969 hadn't made a fuss, and helped to make at least some things possible. For other women of my generation, this book will reveal our struggles in a new light, and help us understand that the trials we've dealt with so intimately and personally are part of a very large, very compelling chapter in the social history of this country. For readers of my mother's generation, this story will be a reminder of the thought that many must have entertained down the years, "if only I hadn't been a girl...." But above all, young women should read this book to understand how many battles they'll never have to fight - and how many still remain to be won.