Center for Women Executive Director’s College of Charleston Commencement Address

By Jennet Robinson Alterman
December 20, 2008

Dr. Jennet Robinson Alterman delivers CofC Commencement Address

Madame Chairman, President Benson, members of the Board of Trustees, faculty and staff…my thanks to you.  To my esteemed fellow Doctors of Humane Letters…Mary Ramsay and Lucille Whipper…we have certainly come a long way and folks don’t even think of calling any of us baby.  I am humbled to be in your esteemed company.  

To you the class of twenty oh eight…Congratulations…you have made it!!!  Now before I start I need to know a few things…Will all of the women who are receiving degrees today please raise your hand…You and Mary and Lucille and I would not be receiving degrees today were it not for a woman named Carrie Pollitzer.

Today we are celebrating 90 years of coeducation at the College of Charleston…but for an educational institution founded in the 1700’s it is interesting to look at what prompted the longstanding male student body and faculty to change their minds and admit women… You all need to know the story of Carrie Pollitzer…Carrie was one of the three Pollitzer sisters of Charleston…Carrie, Mabel and Anita. All 3 of them went to Columbia University in New York because there was no higher education institution for them to attend in Charleston in the early 1900s. In April of 1917 the United States entered World War One. Thousands and thousands of men began to be shipped overseas. Carrie Pollitzer was running the first kindergarten program in Charleston in a carriage house behind her family home on Pitt. St. She had been concerned for a long time that the College of Charleston did not admit female students. So in light of the impact the war would have on student enrollment she though it an appropriate time to press her case with the College Administration. She took it upon herself to call on Dr. Randolph, the President of the College at that time. She implored him to allow women to be admitted. Dr. Randolph, who adamantly opposed coeducation refused to consider her plea. But Carrie pressed on asking for a concrete reason for continuing to not allow women. He finally said to her that the College couldn’t afford to admit women as they didn’t have the money to add a separate ladies room. Carrie took that as her call to arms. When asked how much building a rest room would cost he told her it would cost $3000…which was a fortune in 1917. He obviously thought that a sum that size would intimidate  Carrie into dropping the subject of coeducation. Au contra ire…instead Carrie said…let me see what I can do. She spent that summer (before AC!) and fall going door to door asking for donations from friends and neighbors and by the end of the year she had raised $3000.

And in fall of 1918 ten women were enrolled at the College of Charleston…and now today all of us follow in their footsteps.  

Read the rest here.

Time now for women’s equal rights

What a day to vote. It was rainy and a little chilly, but the line for my polling place stretched for blocks. We were a mixed group that reflected the diversity of peninsular Charleston.

Astonishingly, everyone was in a good mood, apparently sensing the history being made. I couldn’t help but think of the history that brought me to that line. A history of struggle that began with the writing of the Constitution.

In the 1840s, the first organized movement for women’s suffrage began, and it didn’t end until 1920 when the 19th Amendment passed both Congress and 36 states giving women the right to vote.

Just a few blocks from my polling place is the home of Anita Pollitzer, whose efforts with the National Women’s Party sealed the deal when she successfully lobbied a reluctant Tennessee legislator whose vote ultimately proved to be the one that broke down this barrier for women.

It was a hard-fought battle and I think of those women who bucked the conventional wisdom on my behalf.

While women have the vote in America, there are millions of women on this planet who don’t: The women of Afghanistan who have been so degraded by their culture and for whom the right to vote is the greatest of privileges but a fleeting privilege that will disappear overnight if the Taliban takes power again. The women of Saudi Arabia who not only can’t vote but aren’t allowed to drive or leave the country without a man’s permission.

The women of Swaziland who live in a country where 26 percent of the population has HIV/AIDS.

I vote on their behalf with the hope that the new administration will support efforts to bring respect and human rights to women worldwide.

I also vote for the women in my own country who don’t have access to affordable child care, whose pay is a third less than their male colleagues and for whom health care is a luxury and care giving is not a valued commodity.

In a year when Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin broke through the glass ceiling of politics, when our vote ended up being the deciding factor, it is only right to recognize that we have a long way still to go.

Our current rights are limited to laws and amendments to laws that can be overturned in a legislative session or by executive order.

Our rights are tentative at best and can turn on the dime of public opinion or a state legislature dominated by one ideology.

It is time to bring women to the table with equal rights under the Constitution. It’s time, and that is what I thought about when I voted on Nov. 4. For more information go to http://www.equalrightsamendment.org/

Jennet Robinson Alterman is executive director of the Center for Women in Charleston, S.C.

Blogging – You Can Do It!

Interested in starting a blog, but don’t know where to begin? Lyn Mettler, owner of Step Ahead Web Strategies who regularly helps clients create and manage blogs, will discuss the benefits of blogging, provide a step-by-step guide for starting your own blog and offer tips for increasing readership in “Blogging for Beginners” as part of our You Can Do It Series on Wednesday, November 19 at 6pm. Heather Solos of the Lowcountry Bloggers will be on hand to help you set up your blog! Only $20 for Center members and $25 for Non Members. Register Now! See her in action on her blog and her website.

Lunch with the girls

Beth Bailey, Attorney with Haynsworth, Sinkler & Boyd, and I took advantage of the networking opportunities before the luncheon.

Wow. What an inspiring and truly uplifting lunch I went to the other day. We were there to honor Charleston Regional Business Journal’s first ever Influential Women in Business winners. I was lucky to be seated at the table with two ladies that I have admired and looked up to for some time now, SC’s 1st District Congressional candidate Linda Ketner and one of the most powerful women in business and the lunch’s keynote speaker, Darla Moore. Not only were these great ladies at my table, the sold out room was filled with women (and some men) that all play prominent roles in the business community! No one disappointed this crowd. From Darla’s invigorating and truth telling speech to ending with local Hat Ladies founder Archie Burkel’s wit and heartfelt appreciation. Congratulations to all of the winners! And I look forward to what’s in store for next year!

Can eating cold food solve our nation’s energy crisis?

I nearly fell off my chair last night in disbelieve over what I was reading in a flyer sent by our congressman Henry E. Brown. Listed as a “Common sense step that every American can take to help solve our nation’s gas and energy crisis” was “eat cold food instead of warming every meal, especially leftovers.” Is no one in Congress taking our energy crisis seriously?? Eating sandwiches instead of soup is going to solve our dependence on foreign oil? Our politicians are quick to tell us that we have the highest standard of living in the world. Having traveled to Europe many times now over 30 or more years, that’s simply not true. Not only do other countries afford a very comfortable middle class lifestyle, they far exceed our ability to deliver health care and energy independence. Countries such as Denmark, Sweden and Brazil are world leaders in both renewable energy and alternative fuels and have been working hard at the issue since the 1970’s. Our leadership has failed us on energy issues and I for one cannot be placated by tips such as eating cold food and keeping my tires inflated properly. I’m off to nuke a lean cuisine.

Broken, cracked or shattered

Are we really seeing the glass ceiling in US national politics shatter during this presidential election? I think we are. Hillary Clinton’s run for the Democratic presidential nomination was as serious, as well-funded and managed as any bid. In the end, Hillary did not get her party’s nomination, but it was due to complex reasons, not a single issue – her gender. And, it certainly wasn’t due to cigar smoke filled, back room politics of yesteryear.

I’m sure that there are Americans that think McCain’s selection of Sarah Palin as his running mate is strictly to attract women voters to the Republican Party. While this certainly must be a Republican objective, the issue is more complex. McCain has to believe that Sarah Palin’s upside will more than outweigh any downside of having a woman on the ticket. I think we are witnessing a sea change in this presidential election. Both parties are looking to strong, intelligent women to fill our highest elected offices. Neither Hillary Clinton or Sarah Palin feel like “tokens” to me. They are both the real deal and both are shattering glass ceilings.

Paycheck Fairness

Congress just passed the Paycheck Fairness Act which puts more teeth into being able to fight pay discrimination on the basis of gender. It covers a range of actions women can take to address a pay inequity but interestingly it also requires the Secretary of Labor (Elaine Chao) to provide training for women and girls in how to negotiate for salary.

Women are 8 times less likely to negotiate their starting salaries then men and if a woman with a starting salary of $25,000 fails to negotiate for $5,000 more a year, she stands to lose more than $568,000 by age 60. Now that’s a reason to get some training!

A fabulous workshop on Negotiating for Salary is being offered by the Center for Women on Sat. August 23. Click here to register. Elaine Rosenblum with Courageous Conversations will be conducting the program and she is an awesome negotiator and trainer. She is all about discussing salary issues with decency, respect and integrity. Her strategies will enable you to obtain the optimal “total compensation” package and plant the seeds for or maintaining a productive and long-term employer-employee relationship. Check her out at www.courageousconversation.net

If you think about it long enough it will make sense to deal with this issue at the beginning of your career…get paid for the value of your work not your gender. In my early career I realized that I was being paid less than 2 men who had the same job. I finally worked up my nerve to ask my boss for a raise based on the difference between our salaries. His response to me was that I ‘would always be a secondary income’ and he didn’t have to pay me as much as the men. I was livid but instead of having a meltdown (it was 1975 after all) I went back to my office and wrote my letter of resignation. That took a lot of nerve on my part and real guts as I had no other job lurking in the wings but I did it and I have never regretted it.

What is mom worth?

This picture says it all: “I’m torn between wanting to stay at home, and wanting to escape.”

A few moms that I know are doing things differently now. We have more options, or at least I’d like to think so. Some moms give up their careers and/or social lives while others go back to work. Then there are some that do both – maybe work from home while looking after the kids. Let’s not forget about those stay at home dads! Some of us have a choice while most do not. Money plays a huge factor as well. Is daycare or a nanny worth all of the expenses? Should you work from home and take a pay cut or lose benefits? At the same time there are those horrible feelings of guilt with going back to work, or the gut wrenching fear of losing your identity if you don’t. So, you weigh the options – what’s best for you and your family? What if money were not an object?

Pattie’s Boys

I just finished reading the biography of Pattie Boyd. She was married to George Harrison and a little later after she divorced George she married Eric Clapton. So she married a Beatle and then another icon of rock and roll. Her insights are basically that they both (George and Eric) were addicts and narcissists and had little time for the missus. Ok so I was sympathetic with her reaction to George bringing Hare Krishna families into the house and chanting all the time BUT Eric was a different guy with all of the same issues i.e. addiction, alcohol, sex, drugs and rock n roll. What is to be learned from her experiences other than history repeats itself? What did the 1960’s free us from in the long run?

Stumbling in stilettos.

I, along with a billion other people, watched Miss USA stumble and fall the other night. I felt terribly for her and was impressed when she got right back up and started a round of applause. But there is a more bothersome aspect to the ‘fall’ and that is why those contestants are required (?) to wear high high heels to compete (not to mention the whole bathing suit category).
What do you think?