November 1979 Newsletter

WOMEN IN GERMAN

Number 20                                                   November 1, 1979

Membership/Subscription fee: $7.00 ($3.00 if unemployed or student)

Two themes that emerged over and over again in the discussions of women’s writing at this year’s Women in German Conference were Christa Wolf’s "die Schwierigkeit ’Ich’ zu sagen" and Helene Cixous’ "Woman must put herself into the text—as into the world and into history—by her own movement."[*] The problem of speaking ourselves resonated for us so strongly because it is a central concern for all of us as teachers and students of German within institutions that either silence us or make us feel ’other’. Women in German has provided a means for us to say not only ’I' but ’we’ as well within the profession. Over the past five years this ’we’ has grown both in numbers and in its sense of itself. Some of the decisions reached at last week’s annual conference dealt with the possibility of expanding our ’we* even further. For the first time, a German woman writer will be joining us next year at our conference in Milwaukee.
We decided to use the Luise Rinser Fund to bring Margot Schroeder here next year and would like to be able to invite Angelika Mechtel for the year after. To that end we came up with a new category of membership for those WIG supporters who can afford to be CONTRIBUTING MEMBERS at $15.00 and up per year.** Although we are not incorporated, such a contribution would be considered professional dues and is therefore tax deductible.***

On behalf of all conference participants, we of the newsletter collective in Madison want to take this opportunity to thank Johanna Moore and Beth Weckmueller for the wonderful job they did in organizing the conference. As has been our experience in the past, the weekend proved to be stimulating, validating and supportive for those of us who attended. We neither want to assume that our experience reflects everyone’s nor do we want to assume that it doesn’t. For that reason, we would like to dedicate part of our Dear Wiggy column next issue to your thoughts and feelings about/from the conference. We were thrilled to get so many responses to our Wiggy column this time.
(See last section of newsletter.) Keep them coming. As we said in Newsletter #5, "....what you send us is the fabric of this Newsletter."

Please feel free to comment on our footnotes. They are deliberately not MLA style.

* From "The Laugh of the Medusa" in" Signs, 1976, vol. 1, no. 4, p. 875

** We are also applying to the Goethe House for funds.

*** See memberrship blank for other exciting membership possibilities and changes in subscription fees.

**** In response to people's interest at the conference, we are going to start a Research in Progress column next issue. Let us hear from you.

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BOOKS                               

On Bringing Shedding to Fort Wayne, Indiana

This past semester I concluded my course on Women in German literature with Verena Stefan’s Shedding (trans. Johanna Moore and Beth Weckmueller, Daughters Press 1978). The impact of the book was even greater and the students’ responses more positive than I had anticipated, considering the makeup of the class (10 students, all but one taking the course to fill a requirement; 3 men; only 3 women who identify themselves as feminists).

The class discussions of Shedding were the most stimulating we had; there was much more sharing of personal experience and also greater expression of support and considers tion for each other’s differences than in most other class sessions. (Only one student responded negatively, saying she saw Verushka’s "homosexual" experiences as "repulsive," while the others chose to focus on the need for greater closeness among women.) Several students had shared the book with friends and lovers, and brought these "outside" per­spectives to the class. Three students chose to write their term papers on Shedding; I quote from one whose paper was in the form of a letter to Verena Stefan:

All women who read your book Shedding can easily find themselves somewhere along the pages. You open up old wounds, old feelings. We go slowly, hiding at the ends of sentences and around the corners of paragraphs, hoping we won’t meet ourselves along the way. It is frightening, this truth. It is embarrassing, this frankness. Our feelings have surfaced. Our soft sides are exposed. We feel we should read it with our eyes closed.

To me, one of the most impressive aspects of this paragraph is the way this student in writing about her reaction to/interaction with the text, has adopted a rythm and style of writing similar to Stefan’s. This tendency also appeared, somewhat more sporadically, in the writing of several other women students (even in their final exam essays), and I mentioned this to one of them, who responded emphatically: "Well, sure! Stefan gave us a language!" I found this an eloquent testimony to the power of the text to move, to inspire creative self-expression and, not least, to the quality of the translation.

If any WIG readers have been wanting to teach Shedding but feared their students might not be "ready" for it, I encourage them to wait no longer. Shedding was a success in Fort Wayne, Indiana, Middle America, USA. Need I say more?

Jeanette Clausen
Indiana-Purdue University at Fort Wayne

WIG CONFERENCE

Summary of Business and Planning Meeting
4th Annual Women in German Workshop
October 14, 1979
Chaired by Naomi Stephan, Karen Achberger, Charlotte Smith

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Evelyn Beck reported the Newsletter Collective’s income and expenses for the past year. Only paid members of WiG can continue to receive the Newsletter. It was decided to raise membership dues again and to reduce the number of newsletters published annually to three, with one issue to be published shortly before the annual WiG Workshop, one shortly before the December MLA Convention and one in the spring.

The revised dues scale as approved at the meeting is:

$3.00 graduate students and unemployed, $7.00 employed (one year)
$5.00 graduate students and unemployed, $12.00 employed (two years)

Also approved was the establishing of supporting memberships. Those able to contribute $15.00 or more per year will become supporting members. We hope that money can be raised in this way to fund various projects; currently all of the money available goes to publishing the Newsletter.

The Steering Committee reported that as of 1980, AATG meetings will be held only in states which have ratified the ERA. The 1980 AATG National Meeting will be in Boston. It was agreed that WiG should try to have a session on feminist pedagogy at this 1980 meeting; the Steering Committee will contact the AATG program planning committee to request one. The proposed session is:

Feminist Teaching in Practice: New Teaching Materials. Coordinators are Joey Horsley and Ilse Evans. The session will focus on language teaching, women’s culture and reading materials; will provide sub­stantive material to be distributed to all participants; and will aim to involve high school teachers as much as possible.

Naomi Stephan reported that she had contacted Margot Schroeder and Angelika Mechtel, and that both were willing to participate in future WiG Workshops. Also, WiG still has the money ($530) raised last year to bring Lulse Rinser, whose visit did not materialize. It was decided to invite Margot Schroeder for the 1980 WiG Workshop and to use the "Rinser fund" to pay her fare. The possibility of having Schroeder speak at various universities will be investigated. The WiG Newsletter will pub­lish a bibliography of Schroeder’s works.

Angelika Mechtel will be invited to the 1981 workshop. Planning this far in advance will allow time for us to seek funding from the Goethe Haus or other sources.

The possibility of inviting a GDR author in 1982 was discussed. Donna Hoffmeister will investigate possible sources of funding for this.

The next WiG Workshop will again be held at the Siena Center in Racine, Wisconsin, on October 3-5, 1980.* Beth Weckmueller, Johanna Moore and Hildegard Melstrand of Milwaukee will coordinate the physical arrangements. The cost of registration,

* Because of an important conference that is taking place in Minneapolis on October 3-5, 1980, we will possibly want to change the dates of our next conference. Watch the newsletter for this change. It is likely to be changed to the second weekend in October.

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lodging and meals will be on a sliding scale. Renny Harrigan of Milwaukee will coordinate child care arrangements. It was agreed that the costs of child care should be absorbed by the group as a whole. Ric Johnson and Jeanette Clausen will serve as general coordinators. A natural foods option will be provided; conference participants wanting this option will pay a small surcharge (contact Ric and Jeanette).

All conference participants must become members of WiG. There will be a procedure for providing some travel money for those travelling long distances.

A site for future WiG Workshops is needed. Sandy Frieden is investigating the possibility of having our conference in Texas in 1981. Other possible sites (preferably west of the Mississippi) should be investigated; this will be brought up at the December 1979 WiG business meeting at MLA.

5. Sessions for 1980 Workshop

It was agreed to reduce the number of Saturday sessions to three to allow more time for discussion; to schedule two "free" time periods so small groups can form and discuss their special interests or projects; to schedule time for self-criticism at the end of each session; and to have one session conducted as a seminar (ovular) The sessions agreed upon are:

Friday p.m. Transforming the Structures of Our Lives and Our Work, coordinated by Evelyn Beck and Angelika Bammer.

Saturday
(1) The Forms of Our Bodies, coordinated by Bonnie Beckett and Jill McDonald.
(2) Voices of Working Women, coordinated by Miriam Frank and Nancy Vedder-Shults.
(3) Seminar (evening session): Women Relating to Women, coordinated by Susan Cocalis and Kay Goodman. Women only.

Naomi Stephan will be responsible for contacting Margot Schroeder and coordinating her visit.

6. WiG at the 1980 MLA

The topic agreed upon for the 1980 WiG session at the MLA Convention is:

Women Writers Prior to 1800, coordinated by Gabriele Strauch and Julie Prandi.

7. WiG Steering Committee (Continuing members: Karen Achberger, Charlotte Smith, Marjorie Tussing)

A modification of the structure of the Steering Committee was approved. In the future the committee will consist of 6 members, one of whom will serve as Treasurer and Liaison to the Newsletter Collective. Further, Steering Committee members will be elected at the annual WiG Workshop but their term will begin at the December MLA meeting and end with the MLA meeting in two year’s time. New members elected at the WiG Workshop will serve as non-voting members until the MLA meeting. New Steering Committee members are: Biddy Martin (Treasurer/Liaison), Sara Lennox, Jeanette Clausen. An effort will be made to reimburse Steering Committee members for phone calls made to conduct business when the WiG budget allows.

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8. WIG Newsletter—Job Announcements

It was agreed that in the future the WiG Newsletter will publish job announcements, but only those relating to German and Women’s Studies. The announcements will be printed as sent.

Yes, we really did accomplish all these things! Yay us.

Jeanette Clausen, Acting Secretary

Presentations:

CONFERENCE ABSTRACTS

I. Women Writers Before 1800:

Mechthild von Magdeburg (13th century)

Mechthild’s work Das Fliessende Licht der Gottheit (The Flowing Light of the Divine) is generally called the first great literary work of German mysticism, but, in fact, very little is known about her or her work. Her text has been covered, buried by hundreds of years of "objective” research which did and does not allow Mechthild’s work to be known, simply by concealing her text through erasure. To lay bare one example of the vicious cycle women’s writing is trapped in, I dis­cussed the tendency among literary (male) historians and critics to distinguish between two forms of mysticism: Frauenmystik or Nonnenmystik (intuitive mysticism) and Mystik der Meister (speculative mysticism) and to trivialize the former. In the course of a feminist analysis of Mechthild, it becomes necessary to challenge and question these and other categories, statements, and views on women writers, not for the sake of pulling women writers out of the darkness and abysses of oblivion and putting them on the same pedestal with male contemporaries. That seems hypocritical and by no means truly feminist. We should not re-cover women writers by interpreting their works to be like or equal to the writings of men and thus worthy of the patriarchically defined canon of literature; nor should we be afraid to find in the writings of women that which is specifically female as a result of their female experience, or shy away from attributing to these writings the value and recognition they deserve.

With regard to Mechthild and her classification as representative of Frauenmystik, I suggest that we can adopt this label and transform it because it acknowledges— at least on the surface level—the existence of a literature that reflects a uniquely female experience. What we must reject, of course, is the value system overshadowing what at first glance appear to be objective categories with their attempt to invalidate, ridicule if not discredit the writings of women. In the course of the discussion, I tried to apply these theoretical points (that I derived from studying Mechthild’s work) and attempted to challenge the traditional definition of her writings as pure mysticism by showing the ways Mechthild "wrote herself into the text—as into the world and into history—by her own movement." (Helene Cixous)

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One exciting way of illustrating Mechthild’s historical and literary importance was the discussion of the Beguine movement, a religious lay women's movement in which Mechthild was actively involved. The Beguine movement had its beginnings in the 12th century and represents a successful attempt to counteract the church's discriminatory and classist policy toward women and their aspirations of leading a religious life. Mechthild wrote her text in the German vernacular, thus providing the beguines with an educational tool and helping to further this religious move­ment, which was of profound political importance.

Gabriele Strauch

[image: The Beguines]

The Image of Womankind: Eve and Mary in the Middle Ages

Rather than discuss women writers or women in history, I traced the background of the images of Eve and Mary through the high Middle Ages. The characteristics of both served as models for all women. I began with the discussion of Eve in Genesis and explored how this image was modified and applied to all Womankind by the church fathers. My approach to Mary was similar. Beginning with her treatment in the New Testament, I looked at the development of Marian theology in the first four or five centuries of the young church, a crucial time in terms of formation of church doctrine. As background to the doctrines of Eve and Mary, 1 discussed Merlin Stone's When God Was a Woman. In years preceding the patriarchy, God was apparently a woman and was seen as the Divine Ancestress of all humankind. Society was both matrilinear and matrilocal in the days of her reign.

Jill McDonald

II. Lesbian Themes in German Literature

I introduced the topic by emphasizing that it makes no sense to study lesbian images in texts without understanding what it means/has meant to be a lesbian in our society. Possibly the most significant factor about the panel was that it took place at all, that some of us at the meeting broke the taboos and spoke out as lesbians, expressing our solidarity with the nation-wide March on Washington in support of gay rights that took place that same weekend. It is important to note that we did not select the Bachmann story; it chose us. The fact that three papers

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all focused on this one story says a good deal about the dearth of lesbian themes in the German literature in print and about attitudes towards lesbianism in Germany. Miriam reported on the cultural-political scene in Germany; feminist publishers like Amazonen Verlag and Come Out Press are now making new and old lesbian material available. We agreed that it was time to break the old stereo­types and create new, positive images; to do this, we must become articulate and visible.

Evelyn Beck

The Lesbian Relationship in Ingeborg Bachmann's "Ein Schritt nach Gomorrha"

In "Ein Schritt nach Gomorrha" Ingeborg Bachmann uses a lesbian relationship to call into question traditionally accepted sex roles in marriage. She illuminates the male-dominated world of decision-making and controlling and thus clarifies for her protagonist, Charlotte, that she, like many other women, has existed solely as an appendage to this world. But despite an apparently positive view of lesbianism, Bachmann finally shows that love between two women is not a real alternative to the prevailing heterosexual norm, not because lesbian love is inherently sinful, as is strongly suggested in the title, but because the love between the two women as shown by Bachmann is no different from the love between a man and a woman: both result in partnerships of unequal power. Bachmann suggests the need for new myths, new images and new language to help create better love relationships. She rejects the old myths of Adam and Eve and Sleeping Beauty and calls for a world "wenn dies nicht mehr gilt—Mann and Frau." However, she ultimately provides no model after which women who want equal relationships can pattern themselves.

Dinah Dodds

Self-identity and the Relationship to the Other in Ingeborg Bachmann's "A Step

Towards Gormorrah"

Bachmann focusses on the question of defining and evaluating female identity and the relationship between self and other. There are several attempts made to invalidate the old belief that a woman can define herself only in relationship to a man and that female-identity is primarily associated with the model of complementarity. The encounter with Mara may be seen as an attempt at exploring new possibilities of defining female identity without relatedness to men. Through­out the text there are indications that a new concept of women’s selfhood should be based on a woman’s own judgement disregarding how men view her. Mara challenges Charlotte with questions of what is important for her as a woman: her music, her profession, or loving. But Charlotte does not answer these questions positively; instead, there is a note of resignation when she concludes that it was "too late for everything." Charlotte’s comment that the language of men was bad but the language of women worse, indicates that she cannot respond positively to either men or women. Thus, the relationship between self and other is rendered meaning­less. The quest for self-identity does not lead to emergence of greater knowledge of self but results in alienation and in detachment. For Charlotte feels separated from women, "from their language, their suffering, their heart." Although Charlotte is acutely aware of the hypocrisy and meaningless of the conventional male/female relationship, she is not able to envision how a woman to woman relation­ship would be a meaningful experience that would enable her to define female- identity in a new light. Bachmann seems to suggest that the encounter between the two women was without significance, and did not lead to emergence of woman’s selfhood.

Renate Delphendahl

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The Lesbian Theme in Bachmann's "Ein Schritt nach Gomorrha"—its Literary and Human Significance

The paper attempted to analyze the encounter between Charlotte and Mara in terms of its significance for Charlotte’s awakening insight into the oppressiveness of her feminine role. As a lesbian Mara is particularly suited to representing a position outside of society and its conventional bourgeois values; she provides the distanced perspective required for a critique of these values and offers an alternative form for a new life beyond the traditional male-female relationship.
As a woman like Charlotte and in love with her, moreover, Mara also fosters the unfolding of Charlotte’s female psyche in a unique way, in part as a projection of suppressed aspects of Charlotte’s self which must be brought to consciousness if she is to attain insight and wholeness. The emotional and perceptual impact of this encounter liberates Charlotte's thoughts and feelings from the old patterns "Ihre Gefühle, ihre Gedanken sprangen aus dem gewohnten Gleis, rasten ohne Bahn ins Freie. . . . Sie war frei. Nichts mehr erschien ihr unmöglish." This freedom allows Charlotte to criticize the traditional male-female relationship in a pain­fully profound way, and stimulates her attempt to envision a new form of existence beyond a society divided on the basis of sex.

Charlotte’s failure to imagine let alone to realize a genuine alternative to exploitative relations reveals some typical problems of traditional portrayals of lesbianism as well as reflecting Bachmann's personal and historical situation. Charlotte perpetuates patriarchal society's negative valuation of woman and its exploitative, hierarchical organization by her acceptance of the traditional masculine role of domination as the only route to selfhood and in her ambivalent belittling responses to Mara's body and speech. To some extent Bachmann may be bending to a perceived expectation on the part of society that lesbians be por­trayed as unsuccessful, unnatural, unloving, and as inevitably repeating roles of dominance and submission. Bachmann's lack of contact to a woman's movement, moreover, may have had much to do with her difficulty in affirming a female self and with her character's inability to image a more genuinely liberated future, based on a clearer critique of unequal power relationships. Thus, while the story points ahead in its suggestion that the lesbian relationship poses a critical and creative challenge to the limiting, self-denying role of woman in a traditional heterosexual relationship, its ambivalent and contradictory portrayal prevents it from being a model for future literary treatments of lesbianism.

Ritta Jo Horsley

III. Women and Aesthetics:

Leslie and I introduced the panel on Women and Aesthetics by stressing the importance of considering the question of women and aesthetics in terms very different from traditional notions of aesthetics and in ways that avoid the tendency to build a prescriptive or a descriptively binding "feminist" aesthetic that cannot begin to approach the fundamental interconnectedness of form, ideology, sexuality, gender, and history. Focusing on Christa Wolf seemed particularly appropriate in this context.

Biddy Martin

A general presentation of Wolf's present political and aesthetic position prefaced a discussion of her latest work, Kein Ort, Nirgends. Christa Wolf's political position was discussed within the specific context of the GDR, in which she addresses structures of domination as they are imbedded in concepts and language.

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Her literature is an attempt to break down these structures through the creation of language and form. Kein Ort, Nirgends was discussed specifically in this context. In that work, Wolf is exploring the roots of oppression in the past which help in our understanding of the present in all of its complexity. Although this work is part of a trend toward re-evaluating Kleist in the GDR, it is also unique in its concentration on the roots of women’s oppression through the figure of Karoline von Günderrode.

Mary Rhiel

The Politics of Form

The purpose of my presentation was to raise some questions about the woman writer’s complex relationship to the patriarchal literary tradition and to language itself. I suggested that the study of women’s writings extend beyond the exploration of "content” to the study of form; form, indeed, is itself ideologically determined and is therefore a kind of content, manifesting a wealth of assumptions, perspectives, and responses to censorship. One fruitful area of formal analysis in fiction is the study of narrative voice—the relationship of the textual speaker to her story, to her audience, and to the writing act itself. For women the securing of narrative authority is particularly problematic, and this problem is reflected in a range of narrative devices in women’s texts.

To illustrate my suggestions I looked briefly at some narrative practices in the works of Christa Wolf. I noted the role of prefatory disclaimers and epigrams, the experiment with narrative person that characterizes her corpus, the tendency in her prose to eliminate the grammatical subject of a sentence and the general "difficulty of saying ’I”’ that is expressed not only thematically but structurally in Nachdenken Uber Christa T. and the later works, all of which may be contrasted with the formal and thematic conventionality of Per geteilte Himmel. Finally, I raised some cautions from the study of feminism, women and literary form, noting the importance of avoiding premature closure and of exercising caution in dis­tinguishing characteristics of "female" or "feminist" literary consciousness.

Sue Lanser

IV. Feminist Pedagogy

We have not yet received abstracts from the coordinators or presenters for this workshop. We hope to be able to print them in the next issue.

ANNOUNCEMENT 1

Lisa Kahn notified us that a second article on "American Women Writers Who Write in German" has recently appeared in MELUS (Journal of the Society for the Study of the Multi-Ethnis Literature of the United States). She writes: "The number of women writers has now increased to 20, the three new ones: Gerda Nishan, Lilo A. Pretzer (Dickinson College), and Rita Terras (Connecticut College). My approach in this article is rather different from the one in Schatzkammer, as you will notice." (We mentioned her first article in WIG #19.)

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As to the periodical Schatzkammer, Lisa Kahn points out that it "regularly publishes poetry and short prose written in German. In the past, much of it, if not most, has been by women. This should be of special interest to those WIG who write creatively in German and have a hard time finding a publisher. In addition, other American papers and periodicals which publish poetry and prose in German are listed in footnote 9 of Lisa Kahn’s first article in Schatzkammer."

MEETINGS: 1979 MLA

ANNOUNCEMENT 2

Leontine Sagan's Mädchen in Uniform (1931) has recently become available for rental again. The film deals with life in a Prussian boarding school. It is a sound film, black and white, German with English subtitles and has an all-woman cast. It is based on Christa Winsloe's Gestern und Heute (English translation The Child Manuela). Contact Films, Incorporated, [redacted]. Telephone [redacted]. Rental fee for a single showing: $125.

Members who wish to send letters of support for the Anthology of German Women Writers of the 1970's by Jeanette Clausen and Naomi Stephan should please address them to:

Gloria Z. Greenfield
Persephone Press
P.O. [readcted]
Watertown, MA 02172

and

Editorial Advisory Committee
Women and Culture Series
University of Michigan Press
1058 L.S.&A. Building
Ann Arbor, MI 48109

Letters should be sent immediately, as we expect decisions forthwith and letters they receive will certainly help.

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Dear Wiggy:

No More Cinderellas or
Some Observations on the Disadvantages of Being a Woman in German (French, English, Russian, etc., etc.)

Though I shall mainly draw on my personal experience as a teacher of German, I could list (by name!) a number of women who have encountered almost identical or similar situations. I know of some who have been able—for many different reasons—to over­come their adverse circumstances. Others will continue to suffer from them, as I do.

If, during the period of approximately 1950 to 1965, you were looking for a position in German, but happened to be married to somebody who was a college teacher, you were faced with the nepotism law. Lucky the couple who lived in a metropolitan area, for sooner or later there was bound to be a vacancy in a less prestigious school or a high school, and many wives would jump at the opportunity (as I did) to get "back into the field." Little did I know!

As the job market widened in the late sixties, why did these women not grasp at the chance to move upward on the ladder to a "better" school? Fortunately, a few did.Many of them did not, and these are some of the reasons:
a. They had not been working in their field for a number of years, and this disqualified them.
b. They were now at a high school or a college with a poor reputation and could not compete with job seekers from more prestigious schools.
c. They did obtain good offers, but could not leave town because of their obligations towards husband and children.
d. Other universities in the metropolitan area had no interest in getting the wife of the chairman (or otherwise prominent professor) of the "rival" school.

Financially, the situation was not devastating, though they always received a far smaller salary than their husbands, while their working loads were much heavier, namely twelve hours per week (I have taught many a semester 15 hours!), compared to the husbands’ six or nine hours. Husbands either had a secretary of their own or one who did some work for them, most of the secretaries had some knowledge of German. At the wive’s school the secretary generally does not speak a word of German, but then, she is not available anyway. There may be ten or more people in a Foreign Language Department, and the chairperson generally keeps her busy enough.

If the husband wants to do research, his school will grant him a semester or two sabbatical. The wive’s school may be in such financial difficulties that she can only take a leave of absence (without pay, naturally) and that is not always granted!

Supposing husband and wife have equal interest and devotion to their work, need we ask whose list of publications will be longer?

And who will have more time for committee work? The partner who has dinner served to him when he comes home, or the partner who has to shop and clean and cook and set the table and serve?

And who will be invited to present lectures, read papers at prestigious colloquia, be a guest lecturer at a summer school, etc.? The one who has made a name for himself through publications? Or the one who has published little (if anything)?

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And who will reap the golden fruits of research grants from national and international institutions and organizations?

It is not unlikely that the discussion among "learned men" who award Fulbrights and Guggenheims and Alexander von Humboldts, etc., goes somewhat like this:

"Adam Soandso, teaches at....(prestigious name), is (was) chairman for....years, received a....grant in...., and a....grant in..............., look at the volume of his publications!" And the names of colleagues who have written letters of recommendation for him read like a Who’s Who in the field."

Contrast this evaluation with the sizing-up of the female applicant:

"Eva Soandso, teaches at....(where is that? never heard of), what, still Asst. (Asso.) Prof?, must be something wrong there. No book (one) published, only articles! Doesn’t look very impressive to me. Who’s recommending her? Never heard of. Perhaps, her chair­man (chairperson)? Good grief, she’s already 50! When I was 50, I had already written (book) and (book), and look at Adam Soandso!"

Any doubts to whom the coveted grant will go?

Is there anybody among these learned men who would say, well, if under all these hardships such as the tremendous teaching load, plus family, plus household, she has been able to publish, imagine how productive this woman might be if she had only one sabbatical!

So the old wives sit, continue to teach 12 or more hours, continue to do their research and writing at night, type their own MSS, receive few and small grants—if any!—and continue to be ignored by the luminaries whose arrogance would never allow them to admit that they can publish largely due to their good fortune of light teaching loads, unpaid housekeepers, sabbaticals, grants, etc.

Suggestions for breaking the vicious circle: Let us elect more women into stipend- and grant-giving committees. Let us alert everybody in the profession that women need not do inferior work just because they have had lesser opportunities. If only she gets a chance, she may try especially hard to prove herself. This goes not only for research grants, also for promotions and calls to more renowned schools.
The vicious circle which I have tried to describe must be broken for those in our profession who are still young and should not be trapped into the frustrating situations in which we older ones try to survive.

Name Withheld

New York, July 7, 1979

Women In German
818 Van Hise
Madison, WI 53706

This is in response to the suggestion of sharing experiences of alternate solutions to academic employment.

I myself passed, in May 1969, at the age of 37, my Ph.D. orals in German at Columbia University. In September of 1969 I found myself without a job and without any income. I had gotten divorced one year earlier and was living alone.

My first impulse was to try to apply for welfare and write a dissertation while on welfare. I found I lacked in savvy for that solution.

My next attempt was to find work with language schools and to do private tutoring. Actually I got off to a very good start, but lacked in confidence and whenI was offered part-time, editorial clerical work, at $2.75 an hour, I accepted it.

Psychologically and emotionally I was not ready, as I see it now, to work without the security of a small steady income, and also the companionship an office provides.

During that time I was trying to get certification to work on the secondary school level, or to work in a private school. German however, in New York, is just about not taught. It is not even on the list of approved subjects of the Board of Education.

1 was also toying with the idea of working in a Free School, or living in a commune. Or - joining a street theater group (the Pageant Players were my favorite group.)

"However, when in March 1970 I was offered a full-time clerical position as editorial assistant by the American Foundation for the Blind, at $125.- week, I accepted.

Another year later I was promoted to the professional level (no more timeclock to punch!) and given the title of "editor" and a glorious salary of some $8,000 a year.

I now had an office with a window, assistants and a typist. I was rarely more than five hours a day behind that desk - they seemed like fifty.. The days and weeks seemed endless, the boredom of it all abysmal.

To my greatest relief the job came to an end by Christmas 1972.

I was considering re-training as a social worker/psychotheraplst. Instead I found myself painting walls in the fall of 1973. It was bliss compared to sitting behind a desk in an office.

Nevertheless I was now 41 and I realized I was doing work geared to young, strong men. At the end of the day I was in a stupor of physical exhaustion and could not read, think, or talk. That was upsetting.

I now lived on Second Avenue and 11th Street - an area of Manhattan where New York University Is expanding rapidly and a major employer. I decided to try to get a job in their administration and to enroll at the same time in a Councelllng Program.

This venture lasted from September 1974 to April 1975. In my writings I have documented this experience in great detail.

In the fall of 1975 I decided to resume my "career" as teacher/tutor/translator of German. Again I felt the need to supplement my insecure earnings with a part time office job. This time I worked for an exporter of used pinball machines to South East Asia.. He had a great deal more sympathy for my predicament than any of my previous employers.

I have learned to live in Manhattan on incomes ranging from $4000.- to $5000.- a year.

Until June 1978, when the younger of my two sons graduated from highschool, I was tied to Manhattan by my children. Their father and I had joint custody. They grew up alternating between my homes (I kept moving) and the homes of their lawyer/businessman father (he kept moving also.)

Since October 1978 I have lived for the first time exclusively on free-lance work income. My job with the exporter came to an end in late 1977. Until October 1978 I received a small unemployment check:- $36.- a week.

The house with the loft on Second Avenue, that I shared with a painter, burned in February 1978. The landlord has not made repairs. The boiler stopped functioning. My painter friend decided to stay. I moved.

Now I live in a $200.- a month small tenement flat. My income since October has been sufficient to support my exceedingly modest life style.

This story would not be complete without mentioning the many "job efforts" I made in the course of this decade: I have a whole drawer filled with letters to colleges and to schools asking for teaching work.

My latest effort has once again involved New York University. I am a native German and my previous teaching experience is one year at U.C.L.A., four years at Columbia University and one year at St. Joseph's College for Women. I have taught beginning courses, conversation courses and reading knowledge courses. I loved teaching from the moment I stepped in front of my class at U.C.L.A. at the age of 22. From the first minute I felt in my element. I communicate with people with great ease. With every single class I ever taught I felt great rapport.

The doubts I had about the academic system while I taught at U.C.L.A I never explored. I became pregnant and rather than wonder what I had liked, and what I had disliked about academic life, I became Involved with my two children.

I returned to teaching at Columbia U. in the fall of 1965. Again, it was love at first sight. This time however I came to explore

the academic system and my role in it at great depth. Also, from 1963-65 I had devoted myself to the intense study of sociology, largely German sociology, a field that still fascinates me. It gave me tools to explore many questions that have troubled me going all the way back to my German Gymnasium education that was briefly started In 1942 and resumed In 1946 (the interruption due to a Jewish grandfather.)

Mount Holyoke College, where I arrived on a scholarship In 1951, also has been food for much belated thinking.

I had a lot of time In the course of the past decade for thinking. Obviously my funds also did not allow for that many other diversions than thinking.

In 1959 I started writing. I wrote a novel In 1959, another In 1961. 1964 I made a first attempt to document the dynamics of my marriage. In the summer of 1976 I repeated that attempt. In both of these "essays" a lot of room is given also to my encounter with the academic institutions. Besides that I have written fairly extensively about "work situations". Until now I have not found the energy to publish any of my work.

German women writers (I write only In English, still, I lived in German speaking territory until I was 19) are an obvious area of interest for me. Even though I never lived in Germany again after 1951 I find in my "documentary" style of writing a kinship to present German writers.

I still dream of being some day perhaps with a group of young people with whom I can jointly explore my interest In German writing. That would give me great pleasure.

Marianne Landré Goldscheider

P.3. Since I moved to East 6th Street I kept a diary that I have called "6th Street Log". I Just concluded 200 single spaced pages: It Is a documentation of my first year as a free lance teacher/tutor/translator/writer - and also deals with my relationship to my sons (mother), the painter who decided to dissolve our relationship after the fire (lover) and to my friends (friend). The juggling act all these roles Imply - and the fact also that they leave no time and energy for political involvement (citizen). I have been denied the role of citizen from the age of six months, when, in January 1933 I became stateless, due to my Jewish grandfather!

September 26, 1979

Dear Wiggy,

When I entered graduate school (1969) I had no idea I would have to consider alternatives to teaching. My father was a teacher, and I would be one, too. The bottom dropped out of the market in 1970-71, but I still didn’t worry. The MLA conventions came and went, but even two loose-leaf notebooks filled with rejection letters didn’t convince me. Even now I refuse to believe absolutely I will never be a tenured professor with a nine hour course load and summers free.

If other women feel as I do, a column will never be enough apace to contain even a fraction of the anger we feel. By choosing German as a major, and teaching as a career, I was programming myself to fail in a patriarchal system. To be fair, even if I had recognized that in 1966, I might still have majored in German (it was easy), and I might still have gone to graduate school. However, the one smart thing I did was opt for the Doctor of Arts instead of the Ph.D. because this program allowed me to take one-third of my course work in a related field. I chose Higher Education Administration, and am start­ing my fifth year as Assistant Academic Dean at a small women’s college in New York State. It isn't full time teaching, but it is education.

My current dilemma is that I am a single parent with a two year old daughter. I am fighting for flexible scheduling so I can spend time with her while continuing to be an effective administrator. I am not meeting with much success.

I feel two things are essential to our survival--flexibility and endurance. What makes our struggle different from that of earlier women is our networking, our realization that we can and must stand together.

I apologize for the length of this letter. Please use all/any/none of it. I have followed the development of WIG since its inception, and am delighted with your success.

Sincerely,
Susan Karr