23S Week 1: The Power of Radically Inclusive Women-Centered Spaces

A brief history of WomenExplore:

In 1973 Brita Stendahl started the Theological Opportunities Program as a way of giving the wives (and other interested women) a taste of what their husbands were experiencing at HDS.  She was assisted by a small advisory committee of women.  Many of the women who attended TOP went on to divinity school, not necessarily at Harvard, in their own right.

In 1978 Elizabeth Dodson Gray took over as "Coordinator" (her title) and radically transformed the program. At first she opened up the Advisory Committee to any woman who had attended TOP.  Liz developed a feminist method of taking the issues that were on the minds of the women in the Advisory Committee and developing a series of ten topics under a common theme.  Naturally the range of topics continued to broaden.  TOP was fortunate in having access to expert speakers from a wide range of fields in the Boston area.

A second innovation that Liz introduced was to ground each topic by starting the session with an "existential focus" in which a member of the Advisory Committee speaks about how the day's topic comes from her life.  This enhances and gives more meaning to the main speaker's lecture.

Elizabeth Dodson Gray remained at the helm as Coordinator for 32 years with the invaluable assistance of her devoted husband David. (Harvard certainly got their money's worth!)  A number of smaller sharing groups associated with TOP came and went -- today we have "Reflections".  Liz and David faced a number of upheavals over the years, the greatest being separating from Harvard and becoming an independent non-profit in 2003.  This meant that Liz became "Executive Director" and required the creation of a Board which had the responsibility of overseeing the Executive Director and ensuring that all financial dealings were above board. From the point of view of most of the TOP participants an even bigger upheaval came when TOP needed to find alternative accommodation, which it did at the University Lutheran Church in Winthrop St.  No longer located in the HDS Liz set in motion a process for finding a new more descriptive name for the organization. Finally Liz and David retired from TOP in 2010, but continued to attend the lectures for some time.  (At their retirement "garden party" Liz and David were presented the Donella Meadows Award by the Club of Rome (USA). This coveted award is given to highly outstanding individuals who created actions in a global framework toward the sustainability goals Donella Meadows, lead author of the influential book The Limits to Growth, expressed in her writings.)  All of these changes took the work of many committees to come to fruition.  Doing everything by consensus is not necessarily the most efficient!  

Since 2010 WomenExplore has had three executive directors, each brought her own talents to modernizing the organization and all brought more volunteers into the running of WE.  We also moved our base to the Democracy Center in Mt Auburn St.

The latest upheaval WE faced was the covid-19 pandemic.  We postponed the Spring 2020 series, which was about to begin, while we found our footing in an on-line environment.  Being on-line is a mixed blessing.  We can afford to offer the lectures cost-free since we no longer pay rent and it is easier and less time-consuming for us to be present at a meeting.  The downside is that we have lost the personal interactions which inevitably take place at in-person events.  At the end of a lecture instead of fifteen different conversations taking place simultaneously we can only have one, one where people need to raise their hands to speak.  We have sought to mitigate this somewhat by incorporating some in-person events into the series and in the times between the series.

Where next?  Only time will tell.

Focus: Muna Killingback, Tracey Hurd and Maria Behnke, prev exec dirs WomenExplore

Tracey Hurd (3rd ED) was unable to attend due to an unexpected work situation:

I come here after years in primarily academic settings—as a former Scholar at the Brandeis Women’s Studies Center, program director at the Unitarian Universalist Association, and faculty member at Boston College. The dual commitment to learning broadly about issues in the world today, and deep thinking about how those issues touch our own lives, drew me in. I attended a session with a friend, and came back again and again. I am honored to be part of a program that is so full of possibility and transformation.
I served for a very short time at WomenExplore but always hold the collective and Elizabeth Dodson Gray dearly in my memory. Elizabeth’s deep trust in women, her commitment to expansive feminist thought, and her lovely grittiness were inspirational. I am grateful to have known her, for being welcomed at WomenExplore, and for the truly incredible individuals who have carried on the vision of Theological Opportunities/ WomenExplore forward with the same thirst for knowledge, truth and justice that Elizabeth held. I am very glad to have met you all.

Maria Behnke (4th ED) is working now as a Montessori teacher and both her director and co-teacher have called in ill.

She says:

Please send my regrets and love to the group.  I owe so much of my success to WE and being ED changed my life in the most profound ways imaginable.

Focus talk by Muna Killingback, WE's second executive director

Lecture: Timothy Patrick McCarthy is an award-winning scholar, teacher, and activist who has taught at Harvard University for more than two decades. Educated at Harvard and Columbia, Dr. McCarthy holds a joint faculty appointments in Harvard’s undergraduate honors program in History and Literature, at the Graduate School of Education, where he is core faculty in both the Equity and Opportunity Foundations Curriculum and the new online Master’s Program in Education Leadership, and the John F. Kennedy School of Government (HKS), where he is Core Faculty and Director of Culture Change & Social Justice Initiatives at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy. At the HKS he was the first openly gay faculty member and still teaches the school’s only course on LGBTQ matters, he is faculty affiliate at the Center for Public Leadership. A historian of politics and social movements, he teaches courses on equity and justice, brave communication and leadership, and race, gender, and sexuality.

 

Film on abortion talks:

https://whatisessential.org/the-abortion-talks

Timothy McCarthy:

https://www.malindalo.com/blog/2021/6/15/daughters-of-bilitis

Timothy McCarthy:

https://www.pangyrus.com/politics/may-our-hope-persist-a-love-letter-for-my-niece/

The above is a love letter I wrote to and for my niece Malia.

I published it in 2015 but am giving it to her at her 8th grade graduation this spring.

Documentary film: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97Rp4L4XyUs

Women’s Political Council Flyer for Montgomery Bus Boycott:https://www.crmvet.org/docs/mbbleaf.pdf

Socialist Origins of International Women’s Day: https://daily.jstor.org/the-socialist-origins-of-international-womens-day/

Timothy McCarthy:

https://soundcloud.com/memorial-church/timothy-patrick-mccarthy-oct-31-2022-morning-prayers?in=memorial-church/sets/morning-prayers-at-harvard-4

No Trailer Anymore - Tralier:

https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#inbox/FMfcgzGrcsBJQCpPPCPTPzCNxhDwXRXt?projector=1