Interviewee: Jodi Glass

Interviewer: Anne Lewis

Date of interview: December 5th, 2003

AL: This is Annie Lewis interviewing Jodi Glass on Friday, December 5th 2003. So, I guess, to start off, I was hoping to find out a little bit of background about you, where you grew up, your family, just so I get to know you a little better.

JG: Okay. I am from Long Island. New York. I grew up there. I was born. . . I'm fifty. I just turned fifty. And I moved to Rhode Island in '78. So most of my adult life, I am a Rhode Islander, but truly a New Yorker. I have all older brothers. I am the youngest. I'm the only girl, and uh, it was a very sports-minded family. And I still got out, being a strong feminist with a good, strong mom as a role model, and she was a musician. So hence, the arts and all, and still, can sing beautifully, and plays piano.

AL: Wow.

JG: Yeah, yeah.

AL: So she inspired you to become interested in music.

JG: There was always music in my life, always music in my life. And I've played music through my school. So in high school, I studied music, and then in college I studied music and I went to Berkley School of Music in Boston.

AL: Oh wow.

JG: Mmhmm. And at that point, there were only about two thousand students there and eighteen hundred were men, so it was a whole different culture, and um, then I got very interested in feminism. This was in the very, very early seventies, and they didn't have Women's Studies degrees at that point, and I realized I really wasn't going to make a living in it, and I knew I wasn't going to make a living in music, so, I decided to always develop my appreciation for music and stay in music in one way, but I left that as a field and went into Audiology. So, I am a Doctor of Audiology, which is the study of sound. So, that's what I do.

AL: And, do you work with people, with hearing. . .

JG: I do. My specialty is again, everything I do is basically kind of civil rights oriented. So I've always, and I continue to specialize in working with those who most others don't work with, those who are considered difficult to test. And so my specialty is identifying hearing loss and or normal hearing in folks with all different kinds of disabilities, from birth to geriatric. So, yeah, I have worked with folks with hearing loss, those who are totally deaf, but mostly the folks that I work with have hearing that is normal, but they're not given the credit for that, so it's my job to find their normal hearing or find that there is an issue or find that they can hear you but they can't quite understand the way that you're speaking or communicating and so have to deal with alternative ways of communicating.

AL: Wow. That's really fascinating.

JG: It's neat. It's great. And I just finished my Doctorate a couple years ago. It's great. It's a great field. But there's always music there. Yeah.

AL: And how did you become involved in the feminist movement?

JG: Well, when I was in college, about my third year in college. I was in Buffalo, State University of New York in Buffalo, and I had missed some time. When I was in Berkley, in Boston, I busted my elbow, and I had to leave school for a little while, like for about a half a year, and I needed to make up some credits, and I remember going to class and my best friend was there and she said. "Take this class, it's a really easy A", which I never did things for an easy A. I always liked to do my work. I loved school. But I needed the credits and I took the class, and the class was called "Women in Contemporary Society," and I went to the first class and I said, I can't believe you took that class for an easy A. I mean, the class absolutely changed my life. And absolutely, I'm sure that through my mom being who she is, and she was never and still isn't an activist in any way, but just the person that she is, um, that's who I always was. And I never turned back.

AL: And what made your mom so strong?

JG: Uh, you know, I don't know, I think she had a tough time. Her mom was not all that well, growing up. And she was the only girl, also. She had some nice brothers and a great dad, but uh, I don't know. You know, something that's interesting, that my mother always said to me as I was becoming an adult in the women's movement, she used to always say to me, "What happened?" (whispered), like you know, "Let's go back with this repressed memory thing. Let's think, were you ever assaulted? Or is there something that I didn't see?" or, you know. I never had. . .I was a lucky kid. I had a lot of love and a lot of blessings, and whatever boys I was with when I was little, I was never taken advantage of, sexually, or physically. I was lucky. And I say all the time, you don't need to feel passionate about something simply because something horrific happened. I think, everything good happened for me, and I just love being a woman. And being a feminist is just a natural part of my being. So, there isn't anything else that I would. . .I wouldn't be doing anything differently. It's just how I see life. (Pause) As a matter of fact, I get real angry when people are not like this (she laughs). You know just taking, um, I hate when somebody has to be touched very directly by quote, "a cause", in order to do something. I just believe that we should all be caring about all kinds of things. Even if it doesn't affect us very directly, because it really does affect us. So, for me music was always just a great way of singing my politics, because, I can talk, as you can tell, forever. but people like to hear it through music I think, so. . .

AL: Definitely. The arts is a different avenue of access.

JG: Absolutely. Absolutely.

AL: So, you took this course, which was really life altering, and how did that. . . What was your first event that you attended related to the movement, or speaker that you saw')

JG: Okay. Oh, yeah (softly), that's such a nice memory even. Um, well, I never stopped. I mean, so I immediately became involved in the women's center there, at Buffalo, which was just a wonderful space, and actually, was at the time of the Atticca trials, the really, the well-known trials in upstate New York. And I was there picketing, so I learned, you know, I learned all about social activism through those kinds of ways. Like the "safe", I say "safe" in quotes, on-campus ways, because I do believe that it's a whole different thing in real life. And I got off-campus, and I learned how to do things, you know, learned how to speak out intelligently, and sometimes not so intelligently, and then my first organized event, which was off-campus, was when I graduated and. . . Oh no, I'm sorry, let me go back a little bit. I did my graduate work at Hofstra University on Long Island, and I couldn't believe the women's center there. I had only been in really, in the movement, so to speak, for like a year and a half or so, but the women's center was really quiet, and I didn't understand that, so I took. . . I was then the director at the women's center, and we had Flo Kennedy come in and speak, from New York, and we started doing all this really neat advertising about her, you know, like just educating people about names and speakers, and that kind of thing. And I was only there for about a year, but it just never stopped. I moved then to Connecticut. I was, actually I was in Foxboro for a while, and we were trying to pass the Equal Rights Amendment, and I remember working with a real small group of women from what was the League of Women Voters then and I was much younger than they were, and we had a walk-a-thon, so that was my first, real public situation. That was like seventy-eight, you know, like, "off campus", because it really is a different life. I don't mean that to be disrespectful in any way, but it is very different. And that was great. We had a two-mile walk-a-thon, we raised money for equal rights, and people in Foxboro were talking about the Equal Rights Amendment, and they weren't before. And then right after that, that was great, because then I wrote a piece of legislation. I don't remember how this came up but it was you know, in the little town council. Somebody must have encouraged me, but I'm very. . . you would probably be interested in this, but I'm very interested in language, and I believe very strongly that sex exclusive language has a terrible effect on people, so we wrote a piece of legislation, saying that from now on you could not write laws that were sex exclusive. So you can't say taxman, policeman. You have to say tax person, police officer, fire fighter, you know, and it passed, in 1979.

AL: Was it for New York?

JG: No, Foxboro.

AL: For the township. Okay.

JG: Yep. I wonder if they use it. But, what was so helpful about that for me was that, when I then moved to Rhode Island, I wrote the same thing for the state of Rhode Island. And it did pass.

AL: Wow.

JG: Yep. So, I know for a fact that they don't use that law all the time, but I mean if I had the time and energy to go back over every single law from 1979, I think that passed here. . . It's not that I got that passed, it was representative Liz Morancey, who I urged to do this, and she, to this day, remains, just somebody that I admire greatly. And she was wonderful. She got it through, and we passed it. We got laughed out of there and I'm sure if I brought it up now, which I probably will do now, now that I'm thinking about it, and said, by the way, you see these laws that you passed from then til then - they're wrong, you need to change that, we'll get laughed at again, even at 2003, but that's the way it's supposed to be. You're not supposed to say that anymore folks. (Pause). But, you know, I mean, it's amazing how legislation's written, because they even write abortion legislation using sex, you know, like he, to include he and she, I forget how. . . what I'm trying to . . . but they do that.

AL: Really?

JG: Yep. Yep. It's unbelievable. Yeah. (She laughs) So, I just. . . I don't know how to describe it. People, actually a lot of people think I'm just kind of crazy because I just never stop. I just, I believe that you know, we're here to do something, and I actually had a lot of illness as a child, so I think that not having a whole lot of strength always made me say I'm never gonna stop, you know, just keep doing and keep pushing, And it's all kind of paid off I guess. (Pause)

AL: And, have you felt healthier and stronger since that point, since being a child?

JG: Um, I actually, I have Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, which is kind of an odd thing to add on to an oral history, but, you know, I had my share of medical problems, but I have a great family and a lot of support, so I'm really very, very lucky as far as I'm concerned. (Pause)

AL: And it seems like you have done so many incredible things

JG: Yeah I do a lot of things.

AL: that take so much energy to do.

JG: It takes a lot of energy, yeah, but it's very worthwhile. So it pays back.

AL: Wow. So, you passed this piece of legislation in Foxboro, which was around seventy-eight.

JG: Seventy-eight or so, just a little before.

AL: Which was right before you came to Rhode Island. Did you come to Providence immediately?

JG: Yes. I moved right over here, to John Street. I moved here for my job in Audiology at Meeting Street, which was Meeting Street Center, Meeting Street School at that point, which is in East Providence. It's a school for kids with multi-disabilities. And I'm thrilled to say that I'm still with them. I consult with other folks also, but they're my major group, and it's a fantastic agency. But again, it always gave me the ability to use my interest in civil rights, because it was people who don't have a voice, figuratively and literally. So, in the very beginning when I was at Meeting Street, I even represented Meeting Street on an Equal Rights Amendment piece, because while we were writing, the committee rather, cause what we were writing in this bill was that it be all inclusive so disability would be included in there. So it was really great for me to be able to meld pieces of my life and do that. As a matter of fact, I saw a shirt downstairs when I came in about hate crimes, and right now part of the work that I do is that, I work with the commission on prejudice and bias and the attorney general's office to organize all the hate crime trainings for law enforcement throughout the state. And that comes from having written a bill in eighty-eight that increased the language for hate crimes, so that. . . Rhode Island's one of the very few states in the country that has gender included as a category.

AL: Really?

JG: Yep. It's only twenty tops, and we were the eleventh in the country. The federal legislation does not include gender, so. . .

AL: Is there any hope that it will, or lobby to get it to include that?

JG: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I don't work on that nationally. There's enough to do in Rhode Island, so. . . But Rhode Island does have that language. We included disability, gender and sexual orientation in 1993. So that's pretty good. Now we just have to see that they're counting the incidents as true hate crime incidents, but that's another whole story.

AL: Yeah.

JG: So, I bet you wonder where I got into music in Rhode Island anyway (She laugh.,)?

AL: No I do, I do.

JG: When I moved here, and having always loved music anyway, there was a great group, and I hope that somebody in your project has spoken to them, called Rhode Island Feminist Theatre.

AL: I'm trying to look. . .

JG: Sherry Brown. Rhode Island State Council on the Arts. Um, and they were. . .Well, they'll speak for themselves. But, as a community person, I just said, wow, that is so great that not only is it feminism right there in the title, and oh, feel great about this F-word, but it's arts, so that's wonderful. So, they were my personal inspiration for forming the Rhode Island Feminist Chorus.

AL: Oh wow. Okay.

,JG: And I believe strongly in history and herstory, which is why I cannot mention them strongly enough, because if it wasn't for them, maybe we would have had a little bit of a different name and maybe it would have taken us longer, but, they made me feel immediately - course you can do this. So we met, and a lot of the folks were from Brown. I just put up ads in what was then the Sarah Doyle Center over on Meeting Street, and a couple of the. . . you know, people would come and go. I'm trying to think of some names because I do like to give credit where credit's due. Mimi Jefferson was a Brown student and she sang with us, until, actually til about five, six years ago and other non-Brown people. And people would come and go, and eventually we just started to. . .We sang publicly. We would sing once a week, in my kitchen, or my, you know, living room, or whatever. And in 1983, I had been working with what was then the Rape Crisis Center. I was an advocate and on the board and that kind of thing, and hopefully you know the story where there was an incident where the director had to go to jail for not giving up records. She didn't want to violate that person's confidentiality, and where it really should have been, as a board member, that the board would have done that. The point being that the center would not contribute to violating someone's confidentiality. The point of me telling you this story is that, at the concert that we had to celebrate this momentous thing that we got accomplished, Betsy Rose was singing, and she's a writer, and she wrote the song "Glad to be a Woman" and so many others. But she's well known within the first wave of the women's movement as far as music is concerned, and so she was there, and the little feminist chorus, which was only about five of us at that point, sang at the end of it. And it was from that moment on that everybody wanted to join. So, not everybody, you know, but people joined and we became a regular group from like 1983. We just folded. We just closed last year.

AL: Oh, it closed recently.

JG: Yeah, we did. We did. Yeah.

AL: And in that span, what were some of the accomplishments of the chorus, or favorite pieces, or what kinds of pieces did you do?

JG: Yep. We sang a lot of music by Sweet Honey and the Rock. Specifically, because we absolutely loved their politics and their sound. I mean, we knew that we weren't this incredibly phenomenally talented group. We were so spirited, and we were about singing our political message. Towards the end, and I think what kind of made us stop at the end is that we really needed to sound very good. It was just kind of getting to the point where some of us who have had some musical training just wanted to sound really, really good, and still not compromise our principles in any way, so . . . But some of the great things that we did is that, we brought music into rallies, conferences, parties, but all of political themes. We sang at places where people wouldn't expect to hear music. They expect things to be solemn, or that having to work for struggle is a sad thing, or has to be a down thing, you know that. And even though our music was pretty heavy, we'd sing things like Harriet Tubman. Actually our biggest problem was that we didn't have enough songs that were fun, or funny, and people, you know, just assuming, (deeper voice) "Oh you're feminists, you're serious, you're whatever, you don't laugh, you don't have a good time." We had a lot of good times. But I think aside from the fact that we had some great times, you know, as in any group, we had some very difficult times also. But that's like, internally, group kind of things, just with getting things going, and we didn't have any money or anything like that. And yet, at certain times we tried to have a director and then we would want to pay the director, so we'd charge each other dues. We started to write grants for a while. But people in the community love us. They just loved it. We were just shocked. We made one cd.

AL: Really?

JG: Yep. I should've brought you a cd. I'll send you a cd.

AL: That would be fantastic,

JG: Absolutely. Absolutely.

AL: It would be really cool to also include it in the exhibit.

JG: Yeah, oh yeah. That would be. We'd be honored. We'd love it.

AL: So you applied for some grants, did anyone else support the chorus financially?

JG: The community was wildly behind us. And that's how we got our cd done. Like we had to fundraise before. And we didn't have that much of a hard time asking people for money. We had a great release party for the cd. You know, and really, I smile when I say it, cause it kind of stymies me, cause I'm telling you, I mean I know a little bit about music. We didn't sound fantastic. We sounded okay and good. But people loved what we were trying to do, you know they really just loved the idea that we were keeping the word feminist out there. People...we had more conversations, and you probably have had the same ones, you know through being in a women's center anyway - maybe you should take the word feminist out of your title, maybe you'll get invited more places, you know, and we'd say please, you know, if we take the word feminist out I don't want to be in the group anymore, you know, that kind of thing, um, so... But we had so much support. We would sing almost every year at something called Girls' Night Out, which was a routine thing where the women storytellers in Rhode Island would have an event and the Feminist Chorus would be there. Every Take Back the Night for the past twenty-three years we sang at. Urn, I'm trying to think of. . .But your typical where you'd expect us to be, and then other places where you wouldn't expect us to be. That's where we really preferred. We sang at senior citizen homes, and it's amazing how, I'm trying to think of a really nasty group we sang and I actually can't really think of any. You know, we didn't do great outdoors, so we had a hard time singing at outside rallies and we always wanted to be present for Pride, but we're not great outdoor people, so we just didn't sound too good outside. But, I don't know. Ask and I'll try to answer instead of blabbing (She laughs).

AL: Um, what was the greatest membership that the group had?

JG: Number-wise?

AL: Mmhmm. Sure.

JG: Um, we always tried to keep it to about eighteen tops.

AL: Okay.

JG: Yeah, cause that's...it's hard. It's very hard, and we eventually established as a 50 I C3 because we wanted to raise some money, and we wanted to be a tax write-off for people, especially when we were doing the cd. So we had that entity, we were a corporation for many years, and that's what we gave up last year, But it became cumbersome. The reason we had it was we did want to raise money and we wanted people to be able to give us a, you know, a donation. And we did want to pay a director, cause it's a lot of work. It's not like...

AL: Absolutely

JG: It really is. In the very beginning when we would hang around, you know, it was okay, and a lot of people weren't as busy as we all got to be anyway. But then we would come from full days of work and want to feel directed. So we had to pay some one, and that would last... that was hard because people would come and go, students would come and go, then we would say things like well, we really want an age range. And I think, for me, what was the most interesting thing about it was the ages, because I started in my twenties, and I just turned fifty, and watching the way the core ages of the group was, was very interesting, because at first we were all kind of around the same age, and then it spread out more, which was kind of neat. And by the end of it, we were, I think from twenty-three to uh, let me think for a second, sixty-eight, maybe, which I think is great.

AL: Yeah. It's incredible.

JG: Yeah. Yeah. That was much more meaningful. And now I sing with the next generation of that, which is called Rhode Island Feminist Voices. So it's similar in a way, but it's much smaller. We're no longer a 501 C3. We're a bit more tuned musically, and can learn faster and have more flexibility, and actually what we just did is possibly my biggest honor musically. A woman named Marianne Gagnon, who's a professor at Johnson and Wales, did a documentary, a twenty-seven minute documentary which is called Herstory, and it's about Johnson and Wales, who are two women who founded that university, and she asked us if we would do the back-up voices on it. So we sing on it, and it's, it's not because of us, but I mean what she did, it is beautiful, absolutely beautiful. And to be included in part of that is just an honor, you know, for our voices. It really is great. It's great.

AL: Definitely. So this "Voices", is a derivative of the chorus. Like, was it inspired by the chorus, and sort of a continuation of it."

JG: Um, it was inspired by me. So, I just want to be fair so that I'm. . . it's really not a continuation because there are folks who did not leave the Rhode Island Feminist Chorus. But, though that group doesn't exist anymore, other folks sing in different areas now. In other words, it's not just one unit where they're singing. But, so, for me, as the founder of the Rhode Island Feminist Chorus, Feminist Voices is definitely the next step for me. And it's tighter, smaller, less cumbersome, because we don't have some of the rules. It's interesting though because when you think about arts, I think, for me, what's always lost is the need for money, and, actually even in my life as a feminist, I'm not used to working for money. I've volunteered for twenty-five years in the community. That's what I do. So, it's an interesting twist, you know, being a feminist arts group because you need money for some things, but it's absolutely a pleasure now to not have to be paying someone, to not charge dues to each other, to feel that, you know like, you're coming on your Monday night and you do your part, and if you don't sound great, well then, maybe it's a different group that you should be in, you know what I mean. But it's a different kind of pressure, it's kind of nice. Yet on the other hand, you know, you see how people in the arts just are getting their money cut left and right and then left again, it's just unreal. There's no money around. You know, and too many people, there's a lot of talented people around earning their living, trying to earn their living through music.

AL: When the chorus began, was the feminist theatre still. . .

JG: Yes

AL: in operation. Was there ever any collaboration?

JG: Yes. Yeah. Not a whole lot, cause they were kind of ending as we were gelling. But um, I'm trying to. . . we never did like a big thing together. It's funny because I happened to talk to Sherry recently from the theatre. I hadn't seen her in many years, but I was wanting to represent them correctly, so I asked her a little bit of history, and I said to her, "Wouldn't it be great if we could get together the, you know, some voices from the old chorus and some from the old theatre?" It would be wonderful. I would love to do something like that. Yeah. But you know, in music there were a lot of women locally who influenced us. Like Kate Katzberg, who was then, Cathy Katzberg, actually she was called then. And she sang in a group called Katzberg and Snyder, who was her then partner, Steve Snyder, who's really, gone on beautifully, and I think he's in Boston, but Kate's local now. And so we would watch these women sing these great political things and her sister Joyce Katzberg who is still here, and she's a musician in Warren. But she would come sing at "Take Back the Night". Aubrey Atwater. There's some really, really wonderful women who would love to label themselves feminists, you know, but don't promote themselves as feminists. We promoted ourselves as, you know, if you want a feminist music, then you come to us, which was great.

AL: Have you ever heard feminist music before? Did you create the genre?

JG: That's a good question. Um, I guess it was around at the right time, because right around the seventies, when the, what I feel was the guts of the women's movement was really happening, you know. I'm from New York, so I would...I understand how to follow music and that kind of thing and Chris Williamson was the woman who we were listening to all the time and Meg Christian and Holly Near of course, who then came to Brown several times, and did a couple workshops with us. So we were following their music, you know, and, as a matter of fact, we've now been able to write to and deal with these folks closely because we needed permission to sing their songs on our cd and that kind of thing, so we followed right along with what was going on with feminist music, and then I would start going into the music stores, and say, it's not even, they would call it "Women's Music", you know, but it's "Feminist Music", it's really different, you know, and then Lady Slipper, which is a big catalogue of feminist music started coming out. Holly Near started, I think it's "Redwood", it's the name of her label. So labels started and we would start following that kind of thing and you know, and Sweet Honey, I mean those groups, they're just so important historically because they just tell so much about what was going on at the time, "Take Back the Night" as a movement. I started Take Back the Night in Rhode Island. Now that had to start from somewhere else, and that's an international movement, but it all started around the same time, even the music was starting around that time. The song "Take Back the Night" was written by someone, a woman in Connecticut, who actually came to hear us sing it a couple times. So I think a lot of our movement is really written up in music, you know, singing about violence against women, and so of the things that are just so difficult, and about choice even. There's a couple of songs that are actually downright funny about choice, one in particular called the IPD. It's very funny. It's about the new contraceptive plan for men. But it's really neat, it's fun. So, we were part of this, there's also a whole network called Sister Singers, and that's a group of, you would not believe how many feminist choruses all through the country. There's actually a really neat one that I've been in touch with a lot now in Connecticut called Another Octave, if they don't get snowed out of their big concert tonight they have one. There's another group in Boston called Libana, and they're phenomenal. But they were early influences for us. They're really, really skilled. Very close to like, Sweet Honey kind of caliber.

AL: So did you feel a sense of community between women's groups all over?

JG: Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. If it was another part. for me, it was again, keeping it like a whole person, like there's music, there's you know, you deal with rape crisis, you deal with this, you deal with Take Back the Night, and music is another piece of who you are. So, absolutely formed community. Yeah. Yeah, you get to meet people who you probably wouldn't be talking feminism with necessarily, you know, but we're singing together because that feels really great. Urn, yeah, I wish I brought you the cd.

AL: That's okay. It's amazing to hear about it. Really inspiring, too.

JG: Yeah.

AL: Do you see, now, or other instances where arts and activism are effectively integrated in the area?

JG: Um, yeah. Uh, and actually, do you know the "Clothesline Project"?

AL: Yes. They do it here, on campus.

JG: Yes. And I brought that to Rhode Island, the Clothesline Project. It was started on the Cape, um, in 1990, and it was started by a group of women artists who said, you know, these numbers are unbelievable, and we need to pictorially show this, how many women are abused or killed or raped or hurt because they are women. And that's where the Clothesline Project came from, And I brought it to Rhode Island in 1992, and we, since then, we have about 400 shirts. But I absolutely see it as an artistic display, and the interesting thing is, that I, I really have done a lot in the Women's Movement in my life, and there is not one thing that is more powerful to me, even more so to me than the Chorus and the Clothesline Project. Every single time a put a display up, every time, and I cannot count how many times I've put one up, at least one person discloses to me, sometimes for the first time ever. So I think that arts, and while I do see everything I do as a political statement, I do see arts as absolutely integral to community, and in the women's movement, it is absolutely amazing to me - the Clothesline Project. I guess you didn't realize I would talk about the Clothesline Project also, but it's art. It's art.

AL: No, I would love to talk about it. It is.

JG: When I bring that into the prison, the Women's prison, it is uncanny to me how, you don't have to say a thing, you really don't, you just bring it in, and these stories that are told on shirts, if they're artistic or not, artistic in your typical way, they are art. It is unreal. Um. So it's really...it's poetry, it's drawing, it's just raw emotion. Beautiful. So, yeah, I can't see how people can separate, that's what gets me, when they want to cut arts and gym and music in schools, and in our government. I don't understand how a community can exist without arts. I just don't see that. Certainly not any quality of life. I saw a friend of mine yesterday who just got back to Israel. This was her twelfth trip to Israel, and she must be close to sixty now, and she said, you know, it's just, it's chaotic over there of course, you know, and it's wild. But the arts never stop. Never stopped. Because people there understand that this is what makes community, you know, it's just part of community. You can't have community without one kind of arts or another. It just has to be there. So, yeah.

AL: And you saw the Clothesline Project for the first-time in the Cape, and how did you go about bringing it to life here?

JG: Uh, I had my Godmother make. . .1 made a shirt for her. She had been abused, and she's eighty-five now, and she had been abused in her marriage very, very. . . about seventy years ago now, and I said, "If you could make a shirt." You know, she didn't understand the concept too well, but I said. "If you can make a shirt, what would you want it to say~" and I wrote it on there, and I, you know I'm an activist, so I organize. So I made the shirt and then I got other people to make shirts and then I put the line up in places. It's funny, a lot of people always ask me, "Well how did you just do that?"" And 1 just, you just do it. You just go places and you say, you know... You know what you're talking about, you've got the literature from the good folks on the Cape. The Cape, they're great, because, while again all internal groups have their little things in and out, they're really wonderful because it's an international thing, just like Take Back the Night. It's a worldwide. . .all over the world, they're doing Clothesline Projects, and nobody wants you to have to reinvent the wheel, so they give you their literature with the research and all these numbers, and you go, you know, enforced with this information, and I've had. . . I would say the only time I've been turned down to do a display is in a store, and that's because people are going there to buy things and to feel good, and it wasn't, it didn't make sense monetarily, that kind of thing, or in the restaurant people didn't want the display up, it was quote, "too sad". Interestingly enough, it makes me feel proud to say this here on the East Side, because the store on Thayer Street called Oop. The first year they opened, I went to them, and their owners David and Jennifer, you know, they're younger, and I guess this was about eight years ago or so, and I told them about the project, and they had it up in their front window for over three weeks. Not only did they have it up, but they encouraged people to come in. They had quiet space where you could sign something, and those people are trying to make money, I mean, that's their business. And I think that's a perfect example, because that's people who are there as business people, but they care so much about community, and I didn't know them as people, you know, before. I just had a feeling these were good folks, and they thought that it was their responsibility to, as a community business, to talk about this, but to do it through art was really the way that made it for them, so . . .

AL: Because they're an art store. . .

JG: Right. It's like a gallery - their place. So, you know, it was so in keeping. It was a beautiful way of speaking about something, and the thing about the Clothesline Project, one of my nieces looked at it and said, "Wow, they're so sad, but they're so strong." And it's really true, you know, if you think about that the shirts are pretty, but then when you read it, it's not so pretty, you know. And it's sad, but you realize somebody got to the other side to write that. It's really amazing.

AL: And the influence for, why did the artists originally decide on shirts and a Clothesline?

JG: They were very strongly influenced by the AIDS quilt and also the Memorial Wall for the Vietnamese War in DC. So that was their immediate oomph. But being artists, they wanted something physical and visual, and the shirts were just symbolic. You know, a lot of people have made some weird parallels around dirty laundry, and women have to do laundry and shirts kind-of-thing. Sometime I'd be happy to show you some pictures of displays and the way they were done, very, very inventively. But it was purely because of the symbolism of hanging stuff out to dry, and just moving on, and getting your message out. It's a great display.

AL: I remember seeing it on the Main Green.

JG: You know, it's crazy not to have a line up here all the time in Sarah Doyle. I'm gonna see if I can work with you after this on something like that. Because I think that, for me I think that every place should have a shirt or two. Cause to me, yeah we have over four hundred shirts, but one shirt is as strong as four hundred shirts. One voice should be loud enough, so we should have one shirt up in the Women's Center downstairs, just with information. Somebody's gonna need to make one, you know, or just want to see someone else who's gotten through it.

AL: This is such an incredible thing. It's like a testimony on a T-shirt.

JG: It is, right? It really is. It's interesting because, with the women in prison particularly, they say to me, "Where is this gonna be shown later?" and I tell them, and I say I'm just curious why you wanna know this. "It's because I need for so and so to hear my story", and they send them over to read their shirt, and that's the way they tell their story. So, I actually had a mother call me many years ago who said, "My daughter called me, she's in college and she told me that you have her shirt and I need to know that story." And she came over to the office and you know, well actually, I was in a place where we hadn't opened an office then, and she read the shirt. It's the only way she knew about her daughter's experience. So (pause). . . But you feel stronger when you're one up. Just like the symbolism of Take Back the Night, and being able to walk with a group. You feel stronger when you're with others.

AL: I went to it last year, they had it, and people just spoke for hours, really would go up to the microphone, then there'd be these silences and these pauses, but people would stay and sit and wait for someone stand, I mean, it was really powerful.

JG: Isn't it? It's a great thing. It's a great thing. Yeah. Take Back the Night's wonderful. We just had our twenty-fifth annual in September downtown. It's a lot different, a lot different than it used to be. Twenty-five years ago at our first Take Back the Night, we had a lawsuit against the police because they were so brutal to us, they were, we felt threatened, you know the police in Providence were not at all familiar with watching hundreds of women walk through the streets yelling, "Just say no" you know "No means no. yes means yes" just all those kind of things. Now, when I call the police up for my police permit every year, "Oh hi Jodi, it must be October" or whatever it is ya know, and "It must be time for Take Back the Night" and they say "We're gonna try and get women officers on for detail that night."

AL: Oh wow.

JG: Such a difference. And that came from years of relationship, and working together, and now we have women drummers there, you know, we bring music in. We always have the chorus, and it makes a big difference, you know. Perseverance pays off.

AL: Mmhmm. And what are your memories from that first time that it happened?

JG: For Take Back the Night?

AL: Mmhmm.

JG: My memories were. . . (softly) Oh God it was so wonderful. You know, the women's movement really is different now. It was so fresh and really raw and it was the first one. Nobody did. . .we didn't do that before. The only real, big march I was in before was, I mean, big one, was in Manhattan. The year before, I had organized a bus to go down and walk against pornography as a form of violence against women, so that was phenomenal, So, this though, you know, these were people now that I knew well, and all ages, and we had so much coverage, I mean probably for the first ten years we had lots and lots of coverage. It is uncanny to me now the lack of coverage we get. Now, you get media if God forbid there's a sensationalized attack, and for me, any attack is sensational. No attack should be happening. And Take Back the Night is there to say, every day this is happening, you just may not hear it. And so it's pretty disgusting to me that, that they don't cover it, but they don't cover it anymore, And they used to say to me, now they ask me, they used to say me "Why are you still doing this?" you know. When we don't have to be doing this, we're not gonna be doing this. I'd rather not be walking in the street also. But people still come back, Annie, after twenty-five years and they love it, they feel like they just got a shot of adrenaline, you know, and it's a short walk. It's really short now.

AL: What's the course of it?

JG: Right now it's, this is the first time in my history of doing this for twenty-five years that I have ever felt safe to do it at City Hall, because there's a wonderful, decent mayor now, and as soon as David Cicilline got voted in, I called the City Hall to say, can we be on the steps of City Hall, and they said absolutely. Not only did I feel good about that, but I've been able to be a part of what has kept Take Back the Night to be women only, men being there supportive. And the mayor attended the entire march, and when the media came up to him and said, could you say a few words, and he said, "Absolutely not, this is a night for women's voices only," which is exactly what twenty-five years worth of the work is all about. And that same week, I wish I could remember this officer's name, but he called me the week of the march saying, 'I'd like to attend, I want to introduce myself." He's the new head of the domestic violence unit in Providence, and I said that'd be great, and he . . .after I hung up I said, jeez, I hope he realizes not to march, and I called him back just because I didn't want to have an issue, and he said, "Oh, I would never think of marching. Of course I absolutely understand, I wanna stand there and be supportive." So I mean, there's so much more of that, yet there are still men who still are, I can't even figure the word to say but, pompous enough to put themselves in that march because they believe that's where they should be. But it's not a march for men. It's to empower women. (Pause) But we still have to say that after twenty-five years. People don't get that, so . . .

AL: Do you think that the movement has made progress in other ways over twenty-five years, and where does it need to make more progress now?

JG: I think what needs to be more of, is, the excitement, and I think people need to network together. Networking has always been my major, number one thing. People need to talk to each other and respect each other for what they're doing. I think we've made unbelievable gains. When I first moved to Rhode Island, and probably most states, if people look at it, the law says, just as an example, it's legal to rape your wife.

AL: Really?

JG: Oh yeah. We had to work many. . . imagine with a four person staff at rape crisis center, we had to work many hours to propose legislation and actually lobby so that's changed. Now, it is changed, and it probably has been changed in many places, but just an example. I mean, so major things have happened, and I mean, the Rape Crisis Sexual Assault Trauma Resource Center and Coalition Against Domestic Violence speaks specifically to the changes in the law, but such great things have happened, and there's much more money. There was no money around, there's more money around, but as a community activist, I think that we're actually probably in more trouble now, because we don't have that zeal. The zeal is what got us to get funding, and get the groups together. Now, I think that people have gotten too businessy, and things are kind of jobs versus like a way of life, urn, and I think that's always a dangerous thing, so that scares me a little bit. You know, Take Back the Night's not paid, the Clothesline Project's not paid. Probably we suffer from it a lot. The YWCA of Northern Rhode Island, Woonsocket, has been a godsend. They host the Clothesline and they've worked really, really hard with us trying to raise some money and get it shown and some really great women over there who've done that. But you know, other changes is, you know, when I moved here, I'm trying to think when it was when I would be coming to Sarah Doyle Center and some of the students didn't realize that abortion at one time wasn't legal. That was amazing to me because I lived through watching it get legal, and I was working when Title 9 wasn't, and then Title 9 became an entity. And so I think that some of those things that have changed, I guess getting older, I watch it and say, "Folks, do you realize we worked for this?" I think as Americans we don't really look at our history. We have such a young history we tend to forget things really fast. So I think that's really a problem in the feminist community. (Pause) But we'll get there. We will get there.

AL: I believe it. When do you think that the height of the zeal and energy was?

JG: Um, I'd say, late seventies, early eighties, you know, I hesitate saying that though because I really... I really did, I just turned fifty, but you know, I truly, I'm thrilled and zealed about everything, so I can't really say that for me, because I believe that we need to just keep going, we need to push that excitement together. People get tired, you know, things change, people move on. I guess I feel really loyal to the zealousness of all these issues, but yeah, I think a lot of. . . do you see that? Do you see that, like, here at school even? I think it's a different thing, it's much different. It's really, it's not at all life or death.

AL: It's definitely not.

JG: You know, and we used to feel it.

AL: A lot more complacency.

JG: Exactly, that's it. And there's no place for complacency, almost in anything, you know, so especially in a movement. That's exactly it, Annie. That's the word.

AL: Yeah, I think it's interesting. I was at a conference in New York. It was a Jewish Women's Feminist Conference, and most of the women there were older, older than you I would say, and um, the majority, maybe there were a couple women my age, like three or four, but it was mostly an older population, so that's interesting to me, if it's going to be passed on.

JG: Did you feel that they came from a zeal, a you know, an exciting place?

AL: Absolutely

JG: Yeah

AL: Because you could tell that they, um, were nervous about our generation also because it's so easy to take things for granted.

JG: Absolutely.

AL: I mean, my mother was a feminist,

JG: Sure.

AL: I grew up being able to, in terms of Jewish life, participate fully, and I really always took that for granted, it was just handed to me,

JG: Exactly.

AL: And I think that there still are so many things to fight for.

JG: Oh absolutely. It's interesting, cause you know, as you're saying this. I'm thinking that, when I did first move here and Sarah Doyle was over on Meeting Street, I'll never forget going to a conference really early and I remember this woman. Her name is Ann Bowen, I don't know where she is now, but this was 1978 probably, and it was a beautiful, beautiful day and she was from New York and she had just spoken, I don't even remember exactly what she was talking about. And I said, this is so great, this is so wonderful, what do I do next or, you know, where do I go next and she looked at me so seriously and she said, "You need to not burn-out, you need to really, like almost chill. Just be careful and don't burn out." And obviously I've never forgotten that because I see people burn out so quick I don't get it. But I will never burn out. I will not allow burn out. It just, there's just no place for it. I just don't. . . you know, I can see, okay if a project ends. That's okay, but you know, you gotta keep going if you're. . .otherwise we're doomed to this complacency thing. I think it's dangerous. It's interesting cause as I was getting older, I found, I didn't feel real comfortable coming back to Brown. Not back, I was never here at Brown. But when I moved to Rhode Island. I also come from a Jewish family. I come from, you know, a lot of safety and love. I always have a lot of love in my family, and I know how blessed I've been to have that, and when I came here, I worked with women in the community like myself, but they weren't like myself, Most of the women I met, and actually know, didn't have the luxury I've had growing up. And I was very, very struck. I was extremely comfortable coming to Brown. My brothers all went to college, I went to college, you know, and I never thought of not going to college, and getting my graduate degree or a doctorate, or whatever. But most of the women I was working with in the community were very, very much put off by doing anything at Brown. I would always suggest Sarah Doyle Center. The only reason I stopped coming to Sarah Doyle was cause it wasn't wheelchair accessible and I didn't feel that was inclusive. But, I loved it, and everybody said, "I will not. . . I don't wanna be at Brown." They felt very put-off by it. So I always kind of felt in-between, because I loved working with students and I was closer in age to students, but these women were real people you know. Who knew? (She laughs)

AL: Right, right. Sure.

JG: And actually it was from them, it was Women's Liberation Union way back then, um, Joanne Rongo, who's one of the founders of the Women's Center which is the first shelter here on the East Side for women who've been battered. She's the one who said to me, "You wanna do something kid? Go ahead and start, do a Take Back the Night march. There's an international thing. You don't have to reinvent anything." And so it's from people like that, that said. . .and I do respect history, so I said, yeah, why should you start something new, which is why it always made me crazy at Brown when they would do Take Back the Night and the Clothesline Project and not call the women who started it, you know, to say let's see what we can learn, the way you did, with the Chorus for instance. So. . .

AL: This is thrilling for me. It's really, really. . .

JG: Yeah. well, you're a historian. That's so great.

AL: I'm trying to think of other things to ask you, and I definitely do. Um

JG: I'm sorry I get in tangents, but I do.

AL: No. It's great, I mean that's what it's about. I'm not supposed to. . .I'm talking too much, I'm not supposed to be talking too much.

JG: That's okay.

AL: Um, what do you think makes Providence and Rhode Island different in terms of feminism and or the arts, and their interaction?

JG: Yeah. That's a good question. I think it's the size. Are you from New York also?

AL: I'm from New Jersey

JG: Oh, from Jersey. Okay. Um. I think that it is so small, and that networking is really, I think the key in almost anything. That if we work in isolation and think only I have the answer, forget it. You're not gonna grow. You're not gonna have any enrichment. So I believe that it's the size of Rhode Island and this really neighborhood atmosphere that people have towards um, each other. That's what I think can make or break us. When we network, and actually there's a new network going up on the Internet in a couple of weeks called Rhode Island Feminist Resources Network, and the purpose of that is to give back. I also worked with a newspaper, it wasn't necessarily arts although we had arts in it, called the Third Wave, which we started from Feminist Resources Unlimited, which is a group that I had started when I moved here.

AL: Okay

JG: The purpose of that was to network all the groups. Feminist Theatre was a member of that list of groups, like NOW, Women's Liberation Union, The Women's Center. Believe it or not, there was a group called the Displaced Homemakers Center, which shows how long ago this was. Rape Crisis, Rhode Island Working Women. These groups have now gone belly-up, some of them. There was a Rhode Island Women's Health Collective, things like that. Those things have changed and that's different, but 'now the networking is going to beef up again because of the e-community and that whole bit. But I think because of the size, that's the difference. People know each other. It's not hard to get from one place to the other, although peopJe don't seem to like to drive too much.

AL: Mmhmm.

JG: That's the difference for me in Rhode Island. I tend to look at the good part of it. I mean, everybody says our politics are crooked, and I think they are, but I think they probably are in most places. I'm not excusing that in any way, I'm just saying I think that's what politics are. But in Rhode Island you can know people, like you know your congress people, you know your representatives, and if you don't, then you're just not doing something right, you know what I mean, like everybody's accessible if you really want it to be, and, I think that's because of the size. It's just an attitude, you know.

AL: So it's easier to get legislation passed?

JG: Oh yeah, yeah, or to get a picture of the state, you know. I worked, like I said. I set up the hate crime trainings for every police department in the state. It's unbelievable how different everybody is from one community to the other, but it's not that hard to communicate with them all. I mean, there's thirty-nine cities and towns in Rhode Island. That's not very much. That's just thirty-nine little governments. I mean, yes, they're all complicated and they all have their stuff, but there's ways of getting to know them. So that's not like New York. New York is not like that at all. There's like three groups doing a similar thing [in Rhode Island], not seventeen you know, so you should be able to network, and do these things together. You really should, and if you don't, you're doing something wrong I think, at least from my point of view, so . . .

AL: And, in terms of the theatre, I'm just curious, cause I'm, I'm looking for some other links to dig deeper into these other arts organizations.

JG: Sure.

AL: What do you remember about the theatre and the types of things that it did?

JG: Uh, they did, you know, I remember, I remember one of. . . oh, you know what, I'm thinking now of something we did with them. There was a Take Back the Night march, and after the march we went to the play. I wish I could remember it. I can't remember the name of all their plays. But they did a play the night that Three Mile Island had their meltdown.

AL: Oh, wow.

JG: And I remember that, because that was happening, but that because of where we were we all stopped after and had like a group discussion around the whole what this means for our lives and our community and that whole bit. I guess the reason I bring it up is just that I feel like the theatre and the chorus would take local things and express about them, but through arts and through music, and just a really neat thing to do. We would, we'll change the words to some of our songs sometimes so that we can pick up on local names and you know, just local events, and there's always so much going on in Rhode Island so it's pretty easy to find things to sing about. But it is funny after all these years how people really understand and recognize Rhode Island Feminist Chorus and, love to hear us sing about getting older, and then about having kids, you know, like and watching us as we get older, um, the different stages that we all go through.

AL: Oh, wow.

JG: Yeah, and some of the people from the Rhode Island Feminist Chorus and Feminist Voices are grandparents now, and there are new generations coming in, which is really great. That's been, I think, for me. . .Now in Feminist Voices, we have somebody who's twenty-three years old, so it's a whole different thing. I mean I could be her mom, so that's kind of neat, because she sees feminism, and she's a lesbian also, so we were able to bring in. . . That's another thing I didn't even bring up about the chorus, is that everybody assumed that everybody. . . the community assumed that the Rhode Island Feminist Chorus was all lesbian. Simply because people don't understand what the word "feminism" is and the word "lesbian" is. But, now, it just so happened that many of us were lesbians, but many were not. I think one of the stronger things that a lot of straight women do by being in the Rhode Island Feminist Chorus is not declare their sexuality or sexual orientation simply because somebody wants to label them one way or another. So it's funny, because still, to this day, actually, the other day, somebody said, "Jodi, I'm gonna have the Lesbian Chorus. Could you guys come sing for us and..." But there isn't a lesbian chorus, you know. I mean, and if we wanted to identify as a lesbian chorus that would be different.

AL: Right

JG: But, you know, it's very interesting how people will just label you the way they want...they see you.

AL: Did you see interaction at all between the feminist movement and the gay and lesbian movements in Providence?

JG: Yeah. Oh yeah. Oh absolutely. No question about it. All those women that I can think of, and I'm seeing myself sitting in the basement of 655 Hope Street, which was the Church of the Redeemer, where Women's Liberation Union used to meet, and I can see maybe five women in there, and maybe everyone of them was a lesbian, and everyone of those women were responsible for starting the shelters, NOW chapters, and every piece of what was strong in the women's movement, no question about it. So I feel very strongly, that it's lesbians who've had the, this is a generalization obviously, an overgeneralization, but in my own experience it's been lesbians who are not only responsible for the strength and the well-being of the feminist movement, but also for the AIDS movement. I was on the first AIDS board in Rhode Island. It was then called Rhode Island Project AIDS, and I was on the board because I said, you know, I really ought to do some other work with men, cause I worked very rarely with men. I was in a group that worked with men who were court mandated because of abuse, so they, we did confrontational groups with them. We were the first group in Rhode Island to have women's voices in those groups. But I'm very interested in medicine anyway, and interested in the gay community, and so I worked with Rhode Island Project AIDS. Unbelievable to me how many lesbians were responsible for the strength of that group. Also gay men. But unbelievable amount of lesbians. I think that lesbians, especially lesbian feminists are the least respected, I should probably add on people of color in there, in that category, but I think that lesbian feminists are the least respected and given the least credit for their historical import. It's just amazing. And I really think that, in my life it's nice as I get older to see people be feeling safe to come out, and safe to be recognized for who they are. But I know they were the roots of all that hard work. I saw it, you know, so I know they were there. And they're never given the credit for that. So, it's a very close interaction. When I was here, when I first got here, before AIDS, there were maybe fifty of us who would march in the march, maybe, and some of us were, you know, were considered heterosexual, consider ourselves heterosexual at that point, and felt safe, because we would be walking with our male or partner or whatever. And it wasn't until AIDS that those marches became what they are now. It just wasn't. It used to be a very shameful situation. A really terribly frightening, terribly frightening...People used to walk with bags over their heads because they were terrified about being identified.

AL: Wow.

JG: Today people are afraid to be identified cause they don't want to be labeled. But there's a lot more strength because there are corporations walking there. There's thousands of people, thank God. But it was all lesbians and gay men walking, all by themselves, lonely, and you know, brave, really brave. And I think, you know, they've been pretty respectful of each other. It's interesting, Feminist Voices sang recently for Youth Pride. I kind of feel a little bit funny about saying this, but I will say it. We were not well received, at all. And I'm not sure why, I love Youth Pride, I think they're a phenomenal group, but I think that sometimes, in some settings, pushing politics is a difficult thing, even though Youth Pride is all about politics really, in one way or another. Um, but it's funny. It's funny to watch the different communities get along, not get along, work together, not work together. And if they don't work together, there's just no movement, you know, there's just little pieces of efforts, no general movement together. So, I went off on a tangent on that one, too.

AL: No, tangents are great. I like tangents. Why do you think all of the groups began to disband, and has it been recently, or, the organizations that you talked about being in the Feminist Network originally?

JG: Yep

AL: And, one more question, I know that you're working now on rejuvenating the feminist network, and how's that going?

JG: I think things disbanded because in the very beginning, there was like, NOW, okay, and NOW would be you know from a...

[The side of the tape runs out, flip tape]

There was NOW and there was the Women's Liberation Union, and NOW was considered more of a, um, conservative feminist group, and Women's Liberation was a much more radical feminist, leftist type group. From those groups in Rhode Island, all these little splinter interests would happen, like choice and needfully, because there wasn't a place, there wasn't an agency around choice. But I think as we were struggling with all these issues and these ideas, we didn't really know, what are we gonna do, form a. . .we didn't want to form a group, you know. You make committees, and so there'd be a committee on choice, but what grew from that was very good things like, Coalition to Preserve Choice, Two to Ones, things like that. And then working closely with Planned Parenthood, and then shelters. I mean, that's where these shelters came from, all these grass roots thinking. There wasn't a coalition against domestic violence. That came after shelters came. That was just a way to network the shelters. Um, but let me think some other groups, other groups that happened through that was like, the Women's Health Collective, Rhode Island Working Women, dealing very specifically with working ethics and women's rights. And still, women make less money than men. So those kind of Issues. And I think that a lot of those groups stopped because there was no more funding. Some groups got funding and others did not. I think that most of the money for women right now is in Violence Against Women Act so Sexual Assault and Trauma Resource Center and Coalition Against Domestic Violence has a bulk of money. They need that money and all, but there's a lot of other things going on also. So I think that things stopped when people just got exhausted, and split, like this shelter then became a business. I'm not saying that the intention isn't still there, but things start running as businesses. That's my personal feeling on it, is that I feel that while money is a real good thing, money can be a real bad thing. It can take some certain things away. As long as people are getting services, I feel great about money. So that's my bottom line. But as far as the zeal for, we've gotta do this, we've gotta get this done, you don't see that as much anymore. And, you know, I feel responsible so when I did first move here, the first thing I did before any of these other things I'm saying is to form this Feminist Resources Unlimited, which is an outgrowth of Women's Liberation Union. Those folks were exhausted, and they were tired, and instead of letting that die, I asked their permission, can I just rename it to be Feminist Resources Unlimited, so that we network all the groups, and they said, "Please, with our blessing, do that," and so I then, literally, took the thirty groups or so that existed then, and would write a newsletter on the old mimeo thing that you used to have to run your hands, you know like this, to get it printed. Just so that the purple writing, and just handwrite, and just write a newsletter, and I would get a blurb of information from each of the thirty groups and send it out to everybody. Then we would meet once a month. That would be great. It was absolutely wonderful, but we were exhausted. So then we just refined the newsletter, and then eventually made something called a Feminist Yellow Pages, which I wish Sarah Doyle had right on their table at all times, but it's older now, but uh, that, again, networked the groups and got people who didn't consider themselves part of a movement or the community could at least feel access to the community, or if they needed something they would have a place to go. We had a house in South Providence that we took over. We rented, it was the first office, for. well about the second office for Rape Crisis Center, a group then called Brother to Brother, which was the first group to do work with men who were abusive. Um, a couple of feminist lawyers, and Women Against Violence Against Women, which is another outgrowth of again, Violence Against Women Movement. We all had rooms in this house. So there were offices there. So it was a center. [Interruption when my cell plume rings] Oops.

AL: I should've turned that off, I apologize.

JG: That's okay. And from there, then we made a newspaper called the Third Wave, which was called Third Wave of Voice for Rhode Island Feminist Women. It was a monthly newspaper on newspaper print. We used to drop a thousand here to Sarah Doyle and all over the state, and it was great. Every issue had either poetry, art, talking about what music was happening, and then, articles from each different group, basically, about big things that were happening at that time, and every single issue had a listing of all the groups. That stopped about 1992, and again it stopped, you know, we didn't have any money for this, so it was all through advertising. And it stopped because we got tired of trying to raise money, but now, in the last, I guess about four or five years, I never wanted it to stop because it's just wonderful. But now with so much technology, we can really do this online, and at least what... it's for the folks who don't have access to online, to the Internet, we could print what's online and make it available. So, we're getting together now. There's more a spirit of cooperation. I think people have either changed, gotten older or more mature, less ownership, you know, like, it doesn't have to be a project that I run, or that lawn kind-of-thing, and they're willing to network. So we're going to be back up, online, probably in a month. It's great. No money there.

AL: It's really, really great.

JG: It is. There's no money for it. But it will happen. That's great. The Internet is cheap, thank God, (She laughs) so we can do it. And it's really great, actually, it's kind of a nice way to culminate this whole discussion with you because this group of networkers is made up of people from NOW, from the YWCA Woonsocket, myself, so coming from a viewpoint of working against violence against women, and this wonderful group called Hive, I don't know if you know them.

AL: Mmhmm.

JG: These great young women, who bring in a completely new generation, are totally different from where they're coming from, from where I am, and I've never felt more comfortable because I just feel like I am, you know, you were saying before how the other conference you were at, you know, they look at that generation and they get scared. When I look at the generation when I'm looking at Hive, I go, "Oh Thank God". You know, like, we work in totally different ways, and that's fine. But I just feel so safe with their intentions and where they want to go, and we're doing it together, so it feels like a movement across generations. So it' s really neat.

AL: It is.

JG: It is. It's great. It's great. And what they're doing with their house is just what we tried to do with Feminist Resources, so it, it feels very nice. And you know what, they actually respect it. They listen and they want to hear about the herstory of what happened before and that is just so empowering to those of us who have been tired for a while, you know. It's great.

AL: You've put so much into it.

JG: Oh yeah. But then to see it, not only that people want to keep doing, but that "Oh wow you did that, that's great" That's really neat. That's nice. Cause I'm not saying we did everything right, cause we didn't. But we did things, and so, you know the stuff that's not in the news every day, it's nice that people can respect it and look back to it and learn from it and say "Oh that's great, we would've done it differently", or "That's fine." That's what I love about working with Hive and other people, is like, "Okay, I hear what you're saying, I think it's ridiculous, let's do it this way." You know, that's fine. It's great. It's really nice. So there's definitely hope. (We laugh)

AL: I think so. It's definitely really inspiring to hear. . .to hear the herstory of it, like you said.

JG: It's a nice herstory, it really is. It's really good. People don't know it and they get too wrapped up in what's happening right now. But I think it's really important to go back and listen. So...

AL: Thank you so much.

JG: Oh, my pleasure.

AL: Just, is there anything else that you'd want to include.

JG: No, I mean I think the only thing I would say is that I would never be able to do all of these great, wonderful things if it wasn't for every feminist that I haven't mentioned who came before me. In Rhode Island, I think names that are really important in arts and feminism are names like the Rhode Island Feminist Theatre, and um, Barbara Tannenbaum is right here at Brown. Professor Tannenbaum, I think she's a great person also to talk to about how women have been seen in the feminist community. Um, Barbara Colt is a woman in the Rhode Island Community that should be respected and looked up to, as far as, you know, how, where these groups came from. But as far the arts, there's also, there's a great dance group that now has folded called Cadence, which was organized by Doctor Colleen Cavanagh. She's a gynecologist, and she was their choreographer.

AL: Oh wow.

JG: Yep. But it was an all women's dance group. She'd be a great person for you to speak to as far as what arts are going on. And then Dorothy Jungels over at the Everett Dance Theatre is just fascinating, and maybe not consider herself you know, "feminist". I couldn't speak for her and all, but she's got lots of daughters and there've been a lot of women in the group, and so...But Colleen I think would, Doctor Cavanaugh would be a great person to talk to and the Feminist Theatre, and keep listening to us cause we'll keep singing. Look into that...

AL: Let me know when you'll be performing

JG: Absolutely

AL: I would love to hear it. I'm going away kind of soon

JG: Oh, that's right

AL: But do you have anything else happening in the winter?

JG: Uh, we're trying to take December off actually, so you'll be away by then. Yeah. Oh. How exciting.

AL: Maybe next year when I come back.

JG: Absolutely. When you come back, you should say, okay I will organize a little, let's just do a house concert for you guys at Sarah Doyle or something, we would love something like that.

AL: That would be great. I'm sure. That would be so much fun.

JG: So that would be nice. And then we can do kind of a sing along together. We can sing for you guys, or whatever. You can show us your slides from Cape Town, and that would be great. That would be neat.

AL: Great

JG: Yeah. Okay

AL: Thank you so much.

JG: Oh, my pleasure.

AL: Thank you.

JG: My pleasure. (Sigh)