Foremothers and nowmothers

I’m just back from the annual conference of the Association for Women in Psychology, a perfectly fitting place to have spent International Women’s Day, March 8. The conference was a lesson for me, a lesson in movements and their shifts, a lesson in patience and persistence. A lesson I can always use, since I’m prone to impatience and its attendant crankiness.

AWP conference logo
Reminiscent of Sojourner Truth and Helen Reddy

The Association for Women in Psychology, AWP, was created in the early 1970s as a response to mainstream psychology’s persistent disregard for women—as subjects in their research, as clients in psychotherapy, and as professional members of the discipline. This sort of feminist rebellion was happening all over the place in those days—in medicine and law, history and business, union halls and grass roots organizations, art museums and gyms. Everyplace you looked, women were protesting their exclusion from mainstream society and all its tributaries. AWP was psychology’s most radical version of the rebellion.

Over the years, as psychology has become more responsive to women’s voices and women’s issues—arguably precisely because of AWP—the organization has sometimes languished. In fact, it has sometimes looked like it might die of neglect, as foremothers moved on and younger women went elsewhere. But even in those periods, AWP remained a bulwark, a safe harbor where you could go to present your latest sort of edgy work, hang out with friends and colleagues, and always be safe in the assumption that you were among feminists (including a lot of lesbian feminists). Occasionally that assumption gets tweaked by an odd comment—which can be a bit jolting—but usually, progressive positions (feminist and otherwise) are taken as given. Besides, the atmosphere is wonderfully open and supportive, and the conference is small, which together make it a perfect place for students to enter the professional fray.

These days, AWP seems to be enjoying a resurgence. The offspring of those early foremothers are now themselves mentors, “nowmothers,” of a new generation of feminist psychologists. And recently, those younger folks—graduate students and early career psychologists—have been showing up in droves with exciting new work. So, a weekend at AWP is almost always a treat, and it was this time.

Thinking about AWP’s ups and downs provided the first part of my “lesson” for the weekend. One of the women I virtually always see at this conference is a founding “foremother” who has done consistently amazing work in the field. I’ve never worked directly with her (the closest I’ve come is being on panels with her), but I consider her an intellectual mentor nonetheless. I’ve sometimes wondered why she bothered to stay so involved with AWP during its less stellar years. I have to admit that there were periods when I didn’t go to the conference because the offerings seemed so feeble. Yet, now I'm enjoying this newly enlivened AWP as it thrives on, despite my skepticism. I actually know this about movements—they move in fits and starts, and sustaining them requires not giving into the fits, as impatient folks like me can easily do. Seeing this woman yet again, I realized that I owe the life of this organization to the patient persistence of people like her who didn’t bail, who had faith.

Another version of the same message was delivered by the conference theme and the program supporting it. This organization has tried long and hard to become truly inclusive, and the program this year was a striking example of that effort. The theme was “Voices of Indigenous, Immigrant, and International Women,” and the two keynote speakers were a Thai feminist, Buddhist activist, founder of the International Women’s Partnership for Peace and Justice, and a Navajo historian from the University of New Mexico, whose work is on indigenous feminisms and colonization. The alternative perspectives these women brought—“alternative,” that is, for many of us, but completely central for them—were a reminder of why this sort of inclusiveness is so important. Both of them challenged ideas I usually take for granted—ideas I only realize are culture bound when I hear someone speak from a totally different vantage point. Otherwise, I’m the fish who doesn’t know she’s wet.

Here’s that lesson in persistence again: It has taken years, decades even, for AWP to make this crucial shift. They started from a very privileged position that passively welcomed non-mainstream people and their work to the conference. This despite the fact that the conference was totally shaped by (and for) a white, middle-class, educated, U.S. perspective. Over the years, they have aimed for—and increasingly achieved—a position that actively seeks out different experiences, other perspectives. One that insists on “cleaning house” in all the ways required to make those additional perspectives integral to (instead of attached around the edges of) the conference. The two keynote talks were lessons in this sort of expansiveness. And these women’s presence with us was testimony to the dogged persistence of the organization in trying to walk its talk.

But I don't want my focus on my “lesson” to misrepresent my time at the conference. It was also rich with really interesting small sessions, like a discussion of the evolving meanings of sex, gender, and desire—complicated notions if ever there were any. (If you’re looking for a hit of confusion, ask me for some readings on this topic.) Then there was a movie about Daisy Bates, the largely unheralded African American woman who was the force behind the “Little Rock 9”—the students who integrated Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, during the mid-1950s, the most heated part of the Civil Rights movement. Another session amounted to a guided tour of issues related to race, sexual orientation, and religion. And then there was a video and discussion about micro-aggressions (a concept I mentioned in an earlier post), whose title wins my award for the best concise summary of a topic: “Did you just say what I think you said?”

Besides all that, I got to hang out with some friends whom I don’t often see. One of these women is doing amazing international research, studying LGBTQ activists in other countries. Soon, she’s off to Kyrghyzstan, where she has an ongoing program of work. She speaks Russian, which is helpful to her, humbling to the rest of us. Another was a Salt Lake City social worker whom we got to know during some long-ago research about LGBTQ youth in Salt Lake. Through her, we caught up a bit on the high school “kids” we studied … who are now in their 30s. (How did that happen?).

Finally, to top off the weekend … AWP takes the legacy of its elders/foremothers and its mentor/nowmothers seriously. The annual program always includes a celebration of “crones” (wise old women), and the organization gives an annual award for mentoring. This year, my partner received the mentoring award for her wildly diverse mentoring activities. Over the years, she has served as a mentor (sometimes officially, but more often not) to pre-college students, first-generation (and other) undergraduate students, graduate students, doctoral candidates, post-doctoral students, early-career professionals, and well-established colleagues. She always says she “didn’t do anything,” but plenty of folks thought otherwise and submitted a very impressive group nomination. To celebrate, I bought her a gorgeous purple hoodie with the conference logo. Call me a big spender.

So what, I ask myself, did I bring away from this weekend? (She got a sweatshirt and all I got was a lesson?) I brought these things: A reminder that movements move, but slowly and not always steadily. A reminder that it takes individuals who are willing to stay the course when the going gets tough—or worse, boring. The inspiration of women doing remarkable work around the world, women who share important values with American feminists and who also have a lot to teach us. A mix of regret that my particular life course was ahead of (rather than in the midst of) all the things that are happening these days and satisfaction that those things build on older stuff, some of which I did. Gratitude for the foremothers and nowmothers who created and create the space for all this to happen.

Especially, a deep sense of the continuity of it all. The conveyor belt of people moving the movement.