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"I joined Wharton in September 1963, having arrived from India the day before classes started. For the first several months my classmates -- all men -- refused to say hello or acknowledge my presence. Finally, I asked a European male friend about my predicament, and he replied that the men didn't say hello because they believed that Indian women didn't speak to men! I promptly pointed out that India's population was 600 million (in 1963) and we Indian women did more than speak with men! Interestingly, the message must have gotten around because a few brave men did rather sheepishly start saying hello. Another experience involved understanding the American grading system. I realised quickly that all students aspired to get an 'A,' and 'D' was not something to brag about. In one of my classes we had our first case study and we were asked to partner with a fellow student. No one wanted to partner with me and I was humiliated. I asked the professor if I could do it by myself and he said that was OK, but he wouldn't give me a break just because I was working alone. My response was, 'Fine, I'll learn twice as much!' (I was a brash 20-year old.) When the case study was returned I had superlative comments but got a 'D.' Walking out of the class I was totally confused. A student passing by asked what I got and I told him it was a 'D.' At that point he grinned and said there was only one student who got a 'D' for distinction while the rest got credit or failed. I had many volunteers who wanted to partner with me after that!" -- Gail Thakarar, WG'65 "I was in the undergraduate Wharton School, Class of 1960 and when I began in 1956, very naive. In my first assembly, the row of boys beside two of us girls stared at us before they moved their seats. Only a handful of women were in the class and we were objects of curiosity. The autumn before I graduated the placement office advisor asked me how fast I could type, and when I asked whether she asked the men that question she replied with finality that I wasn't a man. I remember the faculty as being more hostile than the male students, but I don't believe that the students took us seriously. Still, it was a tremendous advantage to be exposed to ideas and people and the kind of energy which was then almost exclusively available to the men in our culture. I felt as if I had the best of both worlds. Also, compared to most other colleges, there was a tremendous amount of freedom for women at Penn, and even more for those of us in the Wharton School. There were rules in the dormitories, but for the most part we could express our ideas and go and do where we wanted to without much restriction. I don't think that there could have been an educational experience anywhere at that time which would have prepared us for the modern world better than Penn did. P.S. I should add that in 1963 I became a lawyer and I never did learn to type!" -- Elizabeth Carter Seeley, W'60 "When I started at Penn in 1965, women were still required to wear skirts to dinner and to sit at group tables. We were also required to wear skirts in all academic buildings, including the library. I still remember one night coming back to Hill Hall (34th street) from the biology building (Leidy Lab, 38th street) and it was so cold I had to duck into the library. Unfortunately, I had pants on (it was WINTER and COLD) and they wouldn't let me in the building! They finally decided to let me stay in the vestibule between the two sets of double doors until I warmed up enough to continue on. We also still had a rather medieval curfew system with sign-out cards and different curfew hours for different nights. If you missed curfew, you were locked out of the building and had to pound on doors to get back in. THEN you had to go before the Student Review Board and be punished. Of course, people who knew the monitors often had them 'pull their cards' so they could stay out. I still remember finding out that Candice Bergen (yes, the actress) had to sign out like everyone else, only her escorts would be people like George Hamilton who'd arrive in limousines to pick her up, and her destinations would be far classier joints than Smokey Joe's. Penn certainly has changed for women. And I am glad of it!" -- Penny Bernstein, CW'69, GFAS'78 "I recall the 'men only' rooms in Houston Hall. My mother, a 1930 Penn grad, remembers being chased out of class by a male professor who shouted at her, 'I don't teach women!'. All this is in sharp contrast to my children's experiences at Penn in the 80's. Imagine my surprise, during a visit, to find myself flanked by men in the stalls of what I thought was a women's bathroom!" -- Joan Myerson Shrager, ED'60 "My favorite memory: during my sophomore year, a very attractive woman named Liz ran an ad in the local newspapers asking if someone would marry her for a year. (At the time, women students had to live with their parents, in the dorms, or with their husbands -- no exceptions. If the Dean of Women found out a woman lived in an apartment with a friend she could've been expelled.) Liz did have a roommate for the dorms but all the rooms were taken, so she hoped to gain a husband for a year so she'd be able to live where she wanted. Her ad attracted attention nationwide and she was invited to appear on the 'Tonight' show. The host, Johnny Carson, asked how her hunting had turned out. Liz said she'd had a number of very attractive offers, but in the wake of all the publicity, the Dean of Women had suddenly found a housekeeping apartment for Liz and her roommate, and the campaign to find a short-term husband was called off!." -- Laura Sunstein Murphy, CW'69 "I was a member of the class of '65 and a math major -- a major women were discouraged from completing; in fact, only three women in my class managed to do so, the rest had been 'weeded out.' After receiving a zero in a midterm exam, I went to see the professor. I identified myself as one of the thirty or so students in his class (and one with perfect attendance); he then introduced himself to me as though we'd never met! I asked about my exam grade and he replied that all the girls got zeros and all the boys got hundreds: 'Girls beat around the bush. Boys hit the nail on the head.' This was the first time gender bias was so blatantly expressed to me. After repeated requests for an explanation with no response, I was ready to give up. Then he finally asked what grade I needed and agreed to give me the 'needed B' to continue as a math major. That's an example of what it meant to be a woman at Penn in the early 60's." -- Karen Silver Brown, CW'64, Ed.D. GSE'83 "Several lasting memories of Penn are: walking up Spruce Street after an exam on November 22, 1963 and someone yelling that Kennedy had been shot ... Cutting my 8 a.m. French class so I could have a real breakfast in the richly paneled basement cafeteria of Houston Hall. It was such a treat to sit and read by the sunlight that poured in through the windows ... My geology professor planning a field trip on Skimmer Weekend ... Into-the-night study sessions, interrupted by running to the deli on 40th street to buy surprise treats for my roomate and me ... Not getting into the Art Survey Course, but buying the book anyway!." -- Susan W. Marks, CW'66 "It was a very difficult being a woman at Wharton during my years at Penn. I was almost always the only woman in each class that I took. Most of the professors didn't like the idea of women invading 'male' territory; one in particular made a point of telling off-color jokes and being very unpleasant. On the other hand, the male students were, on the whole, extremely nice. One of my memories involves the professor mentioned above. I had missed two classes in a row and then ran into him at Mom's Restaurant. He turned to me and said, 'Miss Cook (my maiden name), I haven't seen you in a while. You'll find the class has changed considerably -- I'll welcome you back.' It turned out that in my absence, the male students had gone to him and objected to his treatment of me. The professor actually listened to them, and things improved in that class." -- Penny Rubincam, W'60 "I have strong memories of being female at Penn. One of the most vivid: Houston Hall, the student union presumably for one and all, where one huge room was reserved for males only! I can recall standing wistfully at the door of that room listening to someone playing the piano ... and never questioning why I couldn't enter. How bizarre that seems now! And how wonderful that when my daughter entered Penn in 1982, such strange rules didn't exist. I also recall the 'boldness' of attending classes in spring wearing Bermuda shorts hidden by voluminous raincoats. The dress code back in the late 1950's demanded proper skirts or dresses. Shorts were daring!" -- Sally Schwartz Friedman, ED'60 "The recollection that gives me the biggest giggle is that we weren't allowed to wear pants into academic buildings. Do I remember that correctly? Could that really have been the case? I was among the first group of women to live in the Women's Residence Hall when it really did house women only. We had curfews. Does anyone remember 'blanket permission'? I never perceived any of these 'regulations' as attempts to keep me down. I left Penn with a great education, ready to meet the world as a self-confident human being. I'm proud to be a successful Penn woman!" -- Alice Hoffman Kalish, CW'64 |
