Oral History Center University of California The Bancroft ...

[Pages:52]Oral History Center The Bancroft Library

University of California Berkeley, California

Gloria Bowles Gloria Bowles: The Founding of Women's Studies

Bay Area Women in Politics

Interviews conducted by Amanda Tewes In 2021

Copyright ? 2021 by The Regents of the University of California

Oral History Center, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley

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Since 1954 the Oral History Center of The Bancroft Library, formerly the Regional Oral History Office, has been interviewing leading participants in or well-placed witnesses to major events in the development of Northern California, the West, and the nation. Oral History is a method of collecting historical information through recorded interviews between a narrator with firsthand knowledge of historically significant events and a well-informed interviewer, with the goal of preserving substantive additions to the historical record. The recording is transcribed, lightly edited for continuity and clarity, and reviewed by the interviewee. The corrected manuscript is bound with photographs and illustrative materials and placed in The Bancroft Library at the University of California, Berkeley, and in other research collections for scholarly use. Because it is primary material, oral history is not intended to present the final, verified, or complete narrative of events. It is a spoken account, offered by the interviewee in response to questioning, and as such it is reflective, partisan, deeply involved, and irreplaceable.

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All uses of this manuscript are covered by a legal agreement between The Regents of the University of California and Gloria Bowles dated May 5, 2021. The manuscript is thereby made available for research purposes. All literary rights in the manuscript, including the right to publish, are reserved to The Bancroft Library of the University of California, Berkeley. Excerpts up to 1,000 words from this interview may be quoted for publication without seeking permission as long as the use is non-commercial and properly cited.

Requests for permission to quote for publication should be addressed to The Bancroft Library, Head of Public Services, Mail Code 6000, University of California, Berkeley, 94720-6000, and should follow instructions available online at .

It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows:

Gloria Bowles, "Gloria Bowles: The Founding of Women's Studies" conducted by Amanda Tewes in 2021, Oral History Center, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley, 2021.

Oral History Center, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley

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Gloria Bowles, c. 1987

Oral History Center, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley

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Gloria Bowles attends a potluck with "Theories of Women's Studies" Seminar, 1979. Renate Duelli-Klein sits on the left and Bowles is in the center.

Gloria Bowles, on the lower left, attends the Women's Studies graduation at Strawberry Creek Clubhouse, 1980.

Oral History Center, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley

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Abstract

Gloria Bowles is a writer and the founding coordinator of the UC Berkeley Women's Studies Program. Bowles was born in 1942 and grew up in Plymouth, Michigan. She earned her BA and MA at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor before completing her doctorate in comparative literature at the University of California, Berkeley. Bowles is the author or editor of several works, including Theories of Women's Studies with Renate Duelli-Klein, Strategies for Women's Studies in the Eighties, Louise Bogan's Aesthetic of Limitation, and Living Ideas: A Memoir of the Tumultuous Founding of Berkeley Women's Studies. In this interview, Bowles discusses growing up in Michigan and her family, including her father's work in Democratic politics; attending the University of Michigan and editing the Michigan Daily Magazine; graduate work in comparative literature at the University of Michigan and UC Berkeley; foundations of the Women's Studies Program at UC Berkeley, including work as the coordinator and a lecturer starting in 1976; early moments in the field of women's studies; challenges in the Women's Studies Program and leaving in 1985; lecturing at Stanford University, UC Davis, and UC Santa Cruz before leaving academia; post-academia writing projects; the establishment of the Berkeley Women's Studies Movement Archive at The Bancroft Library; and feminist culture in the Bay Area.

Oral History Center, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley

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Table of Contents

Interview 1: April 16, 2021

Hour 1

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Birth in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 1942 -- Move to Michigan -- Parents' occupations -- Recollections of World War II -- Mother's previous marriage, stigma surrounding divorce -- Father's involvement in Democratic politics -- Memories of Labor Day and meeting labor organizers as a child -- Family's values -- Childhood in Plymouth, Michigan -- Involvement in school newspapers -- Decision to attend the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor -- Summer in Germany during high school -- Sophomore year of college in Paris -- Senior editor for the Michigan Daily Magazine -- Tom Hayden at the Daily -- Memories of the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr., John F. Kennedy, and Bobby Kennedy -- Lyndon B. Johnson's "Great Society" commencement speech, 1964 -- Secretarial work in San Francisco after graduation -- Master's program at University of Michigan -- Marriage and return to the Bay Area, 1967 -- PhD program at UC Berkeley -- Women's Caucus of the Comparative Literature Department -- Dissertation on American women poets -- Sexism in the Comp Lit Department -- Exposure to the women's movement -- Timeline of the Women's Studies Program -- Identifying as a feminist

Hour 2

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Florence Howe's Feminist Press newsletters -- Theories of Women's Studies book with Renate Duelli-Klein -- Integration versus autonomy debate, establishing the field of Women's Studies -- Development of Women's Studies major at UC Berkeley -- Ethnic Studies as a model -- Drafting proposals -- Support from Carol T. Christ and Arlie Hochschild -- Approval as a special program -- Similar programs and departments across the nation -- Sense of solidarity in early days of women's studies

Interview 2: April 26, 2021

Hour 1

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UC Berkeley Division of Interdisciplinary General Studies (DIGS) -- Women's Studies and DIGS office at Campbell Hall -- Student interest in Women's Studies courses -- Desire to create a more inclusive course of study -- Responsibilities as the Women's Studies Program coordinator and a lecturer -- Collaborative research and new knowledge in the early days of women's studies -- Students in the major, organizing a Women's Studies Board -- Student-led funding proposals -- Dissolution of the Women's Studies Board -- Challenges of working within a conservative university system -- Group dynamics in the women's movement -- Discussion-based teaching style -- Women's Center and Re-Entry Program at UC Berkeley -- Push for tenured faculty -- Committee review led by Marian Diamond -- Strife within the Program -- Decision to step down as coordinator, return to teaching -- Faculty changes in the mid-1980s -- Reflections on leaving the Women's Studies Program, 1985

Oral History Center, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley

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Hour 2

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Experience as a lecturer at Stanford, UC Davis, and UC Santa Cruz -- Comparisons between women's studies departments -- Editing Theories of Women's Studies with Renate Duelli-Klein -- Strategies for Women's Studies in the Eighties, 1984 -- Establishment of the Berkeley Women's Studies Movement Archive at The Bancroft Library -- Feminist culture in Berkeley and the Bay Area -- UC Berkeley professor Barbara Christian -- Christian's Black Feminist Criticism -- Post-academia writing projects -- Reflections on mother and childhood through a feminist lens

Oral History Center, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley

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Interview 1: April 16, 2021

01-00:00:00

Tewes:

This is a first interview with Gloria Bowles for the Bay Area Women in Politics Oral History Project. The interview is being conducted by Amanda Tewes on April 16, 2021. [Dr.] Bowles joins me in this remote interview from Berkeley, California, and I am in Walnut Creek, California. So thank you so much for joining me today. I really appreciate your willingness to participate in this project.

01-00:00:29

Bowles:

Thank you. I'm honored to be asked.

01-00:00:31

Tewes:

Excellent. Well, starting from the very beginning here: when and where were you born?

01-00:00:37

Bowles:

I was born on August 20, 1942, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

01-00:00:47

Tewes:

And how long did you live in Milwaukee?

01-00:00:50

Bowles:

I'm told that I was there for six months. And my father, [George E. Bowles], got a job in the [National] War Labor Board in Detroit, so my parents moved to Dearborn, Michigan. My mother, [Catherine Janes Bowles], had been a teacher for nine years before she was married, and she--and my dad was working as an insurance investigator. My parents told me that when my mother became pregnant, she had to live apart from him, because teachers weren't allowed to be married. [laughs] So anyway, so off I went to Dearborn at six months with my parents.

01-00:01:36

Tewes:

And this would have been for the World War II effort?

01-00:01:41

Bowles:

He was working for the War Labor Board, and that was--the goal of that War Labor Board was to keep people in the factories, and of course the factories of Detroit were retooled for armaments. I guess the fact that I was born also would have kept him from going off to war, but he was in one of those crucial stateside jobs.

01-00:02:09

Tewes:

Did your family ever share stories with you about this time? Because you're born during this big international moment.

01-00:02:19

Bowles:

You know, my mother was incredibly smart, and once she started having kids, she really--she became a mother. And funnily enough, my mother taught

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