Women at MSU in the 1970s:
Steps toward liberation 

by Corinne Edgerton

     “In almost every professional field, in business and in the arts and sciences, women are still treated as second-class citizens. It would be a great service to tell girls who plan to work in society to expect this subtle, uncomfortable discrimination--tell them not to be quiet, and hope it will go away, but fight it. A girl should not expect special privileges because of her sex, but neither should she adjust to prejudice and discrimination”  When Betty Friedan wrote these words in the early 1960s, the women taking classes at Moorhead State College made up just over half of the student body.  And it was taken as given that at least a third of them would quit school before graduating, because they would marry one of their classmates and soon become stay-at-home mothers.  When Friedan published her seminal book, The Feminist Mystique, in 1963, most of the women who did graduate at Moorhead State had majored in either elementary education, or in English, music or another humanities-related field.  Very few majored in one of the hard sciences or mathematics; almost none planned to seek post-graduate work in medicine (as doctors), law, engineering or business. 

     The women who came to the campus in 1963, were formally considered as “children,” because the tradition of in loco parentis was enshrined in decades of detailed regulations that “protected and sheltered” the “girls” in rigidly segregated dormitories -- a curfew set at 10:00 PM mandated that the women were locked in; male students were under no restrictions in such matters.  Not until 1967 did the college administration concede to allow female students 21 or older unrestricted hours.  It was not until several years later that college swimming classes were integrated to permit both men and women into the pool at the same time.

    Did this pattern of subordination grate on the women?  Certainly; scores of Moorhead State alumnae have attested how much they resented such restrictions – and how frequently they found ways to evade them.  The formal rules changed only slowly, but the pressure from women to change them was persistent.  In 1968, after a number of the female students threatened to transfer to another college, the college agreed that a women who was turning 20 could have unrestricted hours as long as her parents gave approval to the Dean of Women. This proved an unsatisfactory concession, and a year later the universal policy became that all non-freshmen, or freshmen older than 19, had unrestricted hours, and freshmen were exempt from restrictions with parental permission.

     In 1970 when the MSC campus, concerned about its recruitment (in light of the forthcoming changes in the military draft that would eliminate student deferments)  introduced a far-more provocative change -- co-ed dorms. A new “under the same roof ” policy was announced, which meant that, in selected dorms, men and women could live either on the same floor in alternating rooms or in separate wings of the same dormitory. 

     1970 was also the year that a campus Women’s Liberation student organization was formed.  The group held weekly meetings in the Student Senate Conference Room, raised funds with which to distribute information on birth control, and organized a protest against the Queen of Hearts contest, which had been held each year for Valentine’s Day.  To mark International Women’s Day that year, women on campus held workshops concerning the inequity of wages for American women and called for efforts “to gain civil rights for ourselves.”

     The reaction of the college toward this new activism was mixed.  Many male students either ignored the issues raised in these efforts or made fun of them.  The administration supported the women’s right to speak out, but also shied away from being involved in what was becoming the single most controversial issue – abortion.  The right of women to choose to have children was by the 70s a priority issue in the women’s rights movement. In February 1971, the Student Senate sent a telegram to Minnesota Governor Wendell Anderson and the state legislature.  The telegram voiced support for a pending legislative bill, the Minnesota Abortion Neutrality Act, which would make termination of a pregnancy a confidential decision made between a woman and her doctor.  State law in 1971 made abortion legal only when it was, in a physician’s opinion, “necessary” to save the woman’s life. After considerable debate the Abortion Neutrality bill was voted down. 

     But across the state, women still supported the right to choose.  At MSC, abortion rights, as well as birth control, venereal disease, and breast cancer, were discussed at workshops held at the college Health Center. The Health Center provided free pap tests by early 1972.  Tests for uterine cancer, syphilis and gonorrhea tests, and prescriptions for birth control pills came later.  In 1973, when the Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade made abortion a legal right, the Health Center began offering abortion counseling.

     A major landmark for women students was the development of the women's studies classes at the college, in 1971. After a women's studies class was offered by the Humanities Department, in response to student demand, two members of the faculty, Mildred Treumann and Sylvia Kruger,  developed the program as a minor.  The Women's Studies minor at Moorhead State was the first such program in the Upper Midwest. 

     Political equality proved harder to attain than sexual equality or educationally equality.  Prior to the 70s, women had held virtually no major offices in student government.  In September 1971, the Student Senate did appoint two women, Darby Arntson and Renee Wald, to the vacant posts for the arts departments and the representative at-large.  Then in February 1973, after a strenuous campaign, Deborah Zitzow was elected as the first women president of the Student Senate.  

     Women also gained ground in print journalism, with more positions as writers for the Moorhead Independent News and then the Advocate.   But it took longer for broadcast positions – the argument that women had “poor broadcasting voices” had held sway for many years, until May of 1973. KMSC manager, David Friend, accepted five women as announcers for spring programming. Cathi Legueri opened one of her first Saturday morning shows by saying, “I’m just like one of the boys at the station!”

     By the mid-70s, more women were majoring in mathematics and the hard sciences. When Diane Polman graduated in 1976 as the first woman from MSU with a major in manual arts therapy, she offered a remark that spoke for all those who had dared to enter a male dominated program, saying that by taking industrial education classes, she had “scared” male students because they “didn’t want to be out-done.”

The 1978 Women's Volleyball team were among the earliest beneficiaries of the Title IX funding from the legislature.

   The battles for equity in women’s athletics were just beginning in the 1970s.   In 1972, the Minn-Kota Women’s Conference became officially recognized by the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women. Moorhead State College, Bemidji State, Concordia, North Dakota State University, University of North Dakota, Valley City State, Mayville State, and the University of Minnesota-Morris composed the new conference schools. The sports available to women at that time were field hockey, volleyball, basketball, gymnastics, badminton, tennis, golf, and track and field.  It would take years before women’s sports received anything like equal attention in the newspapers of these colleges.

     In March 1974, MSC hosted the important North Central Intramural and Recreation Association Convention. Dr. Ellen Gerber, the keynote speaker, called for “sports for all,” that schools must provide not only sports but facilities, leadership, budget, and money for women. Dr. Gerber noted that thanks to the Federal Educational Amendment Act in 1972, women’s athletics finally had the law on its side.   But it was not until 1975 that the Minnesota Legislature put some real money on the table,  bowing to the regulations of the Federal law (popularly known as Title IX).  When the legislators voted special funding for the Women’s athletic departments of the Minnesota colleges and universities, Moorhead State received some $45,000 from these funds.  The amount served to lay the groundwork for serious recognition of women’s athletics.