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Womenetics: What does it mean to you to be the first recipient of the Anna Julia Cooper Professorship, the namesake of a woman born into slavery who became a distinguished scholar and arguably the earliest African-American feminist voice?
Beverly Guy-Sheftall: This was particularly meaningful for me since it was the first endowed professorship at a historically black college. It was meaningful because the professorship was funded by the Cosby family.
Camille Cosby chose the name from a group of distinguished African Americans that then-President Johnnetta Cole provided for her (the list was compiled by the two of us); and finally, it was especially meaningful because Anna Julia Cooper is the woman who has had the most impact on my own intellectual development around feminist ideas.
I "discovered" Cooper while pursuing a Ph.D. in American Studies at Emory University in the 80s, and at one point wanted to write a biography about her. I taught her work in the first black feminist theory course I later taught at Emory, and the assignments had a tremendous impact on students, many of whom had not ever heard of her. One of my students, Vivian May (now associate professor of women's studies at Emory University) wrote a book about Cooper and wrote the text for the U.S. stamp that bears her image, so I am very happy about that.
Womenetics: How do you see academic feminist works affecting the population at large?
Guy-Sheftall: The women's movement and academic feminism have had a tremendous impact on the broader public: That's why we notice misogyny in popular culture. That's why there's outrage about Rush Limbaugh's recent woman-hating remarks about the Georgetown law student. That's why we're talking about electing more women to public office, including presidents. Academic feminist works illuminated the consequences of sexual harassment in the workforce, gender-specific violence around the globe, the ravages of incest, differential pay for men and women, differential pay for women of color... The list is endless.
Womenetics: You mentioned Rush Limbaugh. Do you think that the recent outrage against him will have lasting repercussions or that this will blow over, and we'll be back to publicly calling women “sluts”?
Guy-Sheftall: I would like to believe that it will have more lasting repercussions because of the mobilization through the Feminist Majority Foundation – the backlash was organized. In other words, it wasn't just that people got on their emails. So, I think it will be more lasting because it has gathered such national coverage and because the advertisers have pulled their ads. I think that people in public spaces, like Rush, will maybe be more careful about what they say publicly because they sense that there are some consequences that are real and even economic – not just “people are saying bad things about me.”
I think that the Rush Limbaugh controversy - I would like to believe - has also outraged women in ways that they haven't been outraged in a while. Even women who don't necessarily associate themselves with feminism or the women's movement. I think lots of fathers, just regular fathers out there, were outraged when they would think about their daughter doing something fairly innocuous and then being in that situation. And I think even Barack Obama's explanation for why he called [the Georgetown student after the incident] when he thought about his own daughters might be helpful.
I think it will blow over, but it definitely won't blow over as quickly. Men in public spaces will think more quickly about using that horrible language and sexual references in ways that they might not have before.
Womenetics: How or did your upbringing foster your career path?
Guy-Sheftall: I came from a family of teachers. I think that I didn't necessarily realize this except in retrospect, but I grew up on college campuses because my mother worked on a college campus, and my uncle was president of a university. My father and grandmother were public school teachers, and I was a bookworm growing up. So, I think being around teachers, being on college campuses, being a little bookworm probably had something to do with my finally deciding to be a college professor.
Womenetics: Who do you consider to be your greatest mentor?
Guy-Sheftall: My goodness. I think I don't have one person. Well, I've written about my mother the most just in terms of her courage and her resilience and trying to raise three daughters who would be independent and principled and who would not allow anyone to kick them around. I think my mother was probably my first mentor because she was so involved in our upbringing – rather intrusive in many ways.
She was the one, for example, who chose Spelman for me to go to college. I would not have chosen Spelman. I wanted to go to Howard... I didn't necessarily want to go to a women's college. She chose Spelman because I was actually only 15 when I graduated from high school and 16 when I was going to college, so she felt a women's college and a small college would be better for me. She probably was right.
She was the one, when I was married and my husband at that point was in his doctoral program, who kept insisting and asking, “When are you going to start the Ph.D.?” I would say that she was very influential in my journey, particularly in my professional life... Unfortunately, my mother died in 1981 and didn't get a chance to see what I've been doing over the past 30 years.
Womenetics: You've influenced countless students during your teaching career. How do you view your role as a mentor?
Guy-Sheftall: I take my role as mentor very seriously - not just students but junior faculty, at Spelman and at many other institutions. I remain accessible; I review manuscripts. I write many letters of recommendations, and I give lots of job advice, for example.
Womenetics: What accomplishment are you most proud of?
Guy-Sheftall: Establishing the women's studies program at Spelman College and founding the Women's Center there.
Womenetics: What strikes you as being the biggest difference from teaching women's studies classes 25 years ago and teaching them now?
Guy-Sheftall: When I first started teaching women's studies at Spelman my classes were small and many students were suspicious of feminism; they did not associate the women's movement and women's studies with black women. Now my classes are full of enthusiastic students, many of whom had already embraced the subject matter before enrolling in the class.
Womenetics: What are the most important gender issues women should be examining right now in our society?
Guy-Sheftall: Still poverty, violence against women, racism.
Womenetics: How do you hope to see feminism in academia evolve in the future?
Guy-Sheftall: I would like to see more feminist leaders in higher education behave in ways that would make visible their feminist politics. I would like to see women's studies become more institutionalized in more marginal locations: black colleges, community colleges, tribal colleges. This is very important, and we just need to be strategic in our efforts.
Womenetics: What projects are you currently working on?
Guy-Sheftall: I am working on an intellectual memoir; I want to explore how I came to have the ideas I have as a southern African American woman who identifies as a feminist scholar activist and what the consequences of having those ideas have been in both my personal and professional life.
Womenetics: Your work is generally serious in nature. What do you do when you want to have some fun?
Guy-Sheftall: I shop, I read magazines, I visit with friends (in person and on long telephone calls), I explore different restaurants, I go to Santa Fe.
Womenetics: What do you think people would be most surprised to learn about you?
Guy-Sheftall: I think people would be surprised to know how much time I spend alone, very quiet with myself, sort of meditating.
Here are some more academic perspectives on the status of women:
Paula King is tired of talking about what women need to change to excel in the workplace. She says it's time for the corporations to adjust to women, not the other way around.
An expert on language and how it relates to gender, Harvard faculty member Fatima Sadiqi shares her insights on the recent progress of the women's movement in her native Morocco.
Stephanie Proft is the editorial assistant at Womenetics and a recent graduate of Georgia State University, majoring in print journalism and minoring in anthropology. She was born in Lichtenfels, Germany to a native mother and an American soldier. She has since lived happily in a variety of settings, including the Northwest and the Southeast. She is generally fascinated by culture, and the way it shapes our experiences.
