Betty J. Diener was one of the first women to graduate from Harvard Business School, earning her diploma in 1964. But she first heard of “feminism” after she left the school’s Allston campus:
“I remember, probably in about 1965 or 1966, going to a presentation by one of the women’s magazines. They were saying that they thought feminism would be the big topic in the next 10 years,” Diener said. “And none of us had ever heard of it.”
Diener was on campus during a time of change for women across the University. Women were confined to living in the Radcliffe Quadrangle but attended classes in the Yard with male students. 1963, At the undergraduate level, Radcliffe students were given the option of having “Harvard College” printed on their diploma, instead of just the default, “Radcliffe College.”
But by 1963, most graduate schools had or were beginning to accept women. Eight women were accepted to the Harvard Business School’s full two-year MBA program for the first time as a part of the Class of 1965. Sixteen women graduated that year from the Law School. And in 1963, the Radcliffe Graduate School closed and the Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences began accepting women.
But Diener and many of her peers at graduate schools at the time say it was too early and their numbers too few to overcome or challenge the hegemony of the male-dominated academic community. The carefully selected and amply qualified first guard of women entering the graduate schools, however, did not view themselves at the time as feminist pioneers, instead focused on their own studies and success.
FOCUSED YET SEGREGATED
“In going back to reunions, most of the guys think I’m there because of my husband,” said Janey G. Lack, a 1964 graduate of the Business School. “Some people didn’t even know there were women on the campus.”
In spite of Harvard women’s monumental achievements in the early 60s, there were “just too few [women] to make any difference in the societal environment that we were in,” Diener said.
“Women’s empowerment was something they were talking about back then, but I certainly wasn’t looking at it as women empowerment,” said Judy L. Allen, a 1963 graduate of the Business School. “I was looking at it as though I was going to get the best education I could possibly get, so that I could get the best job I could get, until I got married. And that’s what was in my mind back then.”
“We were barrier-breakers, but none of us were climbing the barricades or waving their bras or anything like that. We were just very focused,” Diener said.
At campuses across the University, female students had similar sentiments. Despite the addition of the Harvard name on Radcliffe students’ diplomas, the lives of female students were not greatly affected while still on campus.
Jill A. Kennedy ’63 remembers walking from the Radcliffe Quad to Harvard Yard, even in the cold winter months, wearing a skirt--the uniform required of all Radcliffe students.
“As soon as they had the men up in the Quad, they got shuttles,” she said. Though she remembers it humorously now, she said it irked her at the time.
Radcliffe women were forbidden to enter Lamont Library, as they might “upset the gentlemen’s concentration,” said Judith A. Dollenmayer ’63. She also remembered having to bring bagged lunches to school every day and being required to eat separately from her male peers.
At the Graduate School of Education and the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, the situation was not much different. Sybil R. Pollet, a 1964 graduate of the Ed School, said that, even though her program consisted mostly of women, the feminist movement did not truly begin until a few years later.
