She lived in a time where more than a quarter of female students at the University of Idaho were dropping out. She lived in a time where she couldn’t get a loan without a husband or male relative present. She lived in a time where unequal pay was common for women and harassment was expected.
But in response to it all, Virginia Wolf would say, “Sue the bastards.”
“She was fearless,” said Wolf’s long-time friend and colleague, Kay Keskinen. “She was not intimidated by anyone or anything. Everyone on campus knew her back then.”
Keskinen said many students mistakenly believe the Virginia Wolf Distinguished Service Awards are named after well-known English writer Virginia Woolf. But they don’t know the true history behind the awards, and the woman who inspired them.
“People do get confused when they hear about the awards,” Keskinen said. “But Ginny was everyone’s feminist role model in the ‘70s. I was lucky enough to call her my feminist mother, and she taught me everything about activism.”
Wolf was a physical education professor and social activist at UI from 1964 to 1982. She worked to address issues affecting women on campus at the time. The Virginia Wolf Awards are named in her honor, recognizing members of the UI campus and Moscow community for their contributions and commitment to gender justice.
Bekah MillerMacPhee, the assistant director for programs at the Women’s Center, said Wolf’s actions helped make the creation of a permanent center for women on campus possible, and the awards were made in remembrance of those actions.
“These awards represent and honor the history of the Women’s Center,” MillerMacPhee said. “Many students who come in and work with us are not aware of the history and the people who made it happen, like Ginny.”
In 1972, Lysa Salsbury, the director of the Women’s Center, said UI’s president Ernest Hartung appointed a committee to investigate the drop-out rate of female students. After the committee found out the rate was between 25 percent and 30 percent, Salsbury said they widened their scope to figure out why the rate was so high, uncovering hidden issues including harassment, promotion barriers and unequal pay.
Keskinen was a graduate student studying mathematics and physics at the time, and was the first to graduate with a minor in physics at UI. She said there were few women in administrative positions, and she would often be the only woman in her classes.
There were instances where male professors would show pictures of semi-nude women during their meetings, Keskinen said. She said she remembered a certain professor dropping a piece of chalk down a fellow female student’s blouse on purpose.
“It was difficult being a woman on campus,” Keskinen said. “I had some professors who were supportive, and a few who weren’t. It was a very rich time to be a feminist.”
Salsbury said a group of people became interested in the committee’s findings, and formed a group called the Women’s Caucus. She said a few individuals in that group felt inspired to advocate for the rights of professional women on campus, and formed the Women’s Caucus Core Group. Salsbury said Wolf was a leader of the group, convening meetings and setting forth different initiatives.
In May 1973, Salsbury said the group filed a formal complaint against the university with the Idaho Human Rights Commission and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Keskinen said only nine members were willing to sign the complaint. Wolf was one of them.
Rather than go to court, Keskinen said Hartung and the group signed a “Conciliation Agreement” that detailed how the university would address those issues.
“This may be just a small piece of history, a small piece of Moscow’s history,” Keskinen said. “But for those whom the Women’s Center supports and for those who are protected by the Conciliation Agreement, Ginny was at the forefront of making those changes happen.”
Salsbury said some of those actions included the hiring of an Affirmative Action Officer, a High School Relations Program to recruit female students and permanent funding for a director of the Women’s Center. She said she owes her career to the women who made the sacrifice to create the Conciliation Agreement.
“These women created the center at significant risk to themselves and their livelihood,” Salsbury said. “It was during a time where it was not safe for women to subvert the system, when women could be harassed and fired for standing up for themselves. Creating the Women’s Center on campus was a courageous act.”
Keskinen said she met Wolf in 1974, which set off the beginning of a 30-year friendship. In 1975, Keskinen was a single woman buying a house, just after it became legal in Idaho for women to purchase credit in their own name without a husband or male relative present.
Keskinen said her real estate agent wouldn’t give her the time of day. When she told Wolf about it, she said Wolf told her to come into the bank if she had any trouble.
Later in October 1975, Wolf paid for Keskinen to go to a conference in Philadelphia with Moscow’s chapter of the National Organization for women, at a time when Keskinen was struggling financially.
“That was just the kind of person she was,” Keskinen said. “Ginny was always challenging you to do more, always encouraging you to be more.”
Keskinen said she gained her own “feminist daughters” in the early 2000s — Emily Sly and Lori VanBuggenum. Sly and VanBuggenum formed a feminist group still on campus today called Feminist Led Activist Movement to Empower (FLAME), and helped bring “The Vagina Monologues” to Moscow.
When she found out the two women were graduating, Keskinen said she wanted them to be recognized for their efforts on campus. Working with the Women’s Center, she and the center’s director wanted to name the awards after Wolf.
When she asked for Wolf’s permission, she said Wolf only had one condition — there needed to be a plaque hung in the Women’s Center with the names of each recipient.
“And the plaque just got bigger and bigger,” Keskinen said. “We’ve got a huge plaque now.”
Though Wolf died two years later, the yearly awards have been given to one community member, one UI faculty or staff member and one student since 2002. A panel of past recipients select the year’s winners from the submissions.
“Whoever nominates someone needs to show that their candidate has a long history of fighting for gender justice,” MillerMacPhee said. “They must demonstrate a level of commitment and action in making our community a more equitable place for any gender.”
MillerMacPhee said recognizing gender justice activists is important because their work is often “invisible,” done in “subtle, almost unrecognizable” ways.
“These awards show how important it is to be connected in this movement,” MillerMacPhee said. “It’s a way to make their work visible, to show the aspiring activists people in our community who make this work go farther.”
The Virginia Wolf Distinguished Service Awards will be held at 5 p.m. March 29 in the Summit Conference Center in the Idaho Commons.
Keskinen said while many of the protections Wolf fought for have passed, there is still work to be done, especially in regard to services offered to women in the Palouse.
“Today’s activists are taking action to further the work Ginny help set in motion, doubling, tripling those actions, like creating ripples across a lake,” Keskinen said. “Activism lives on. It’s still here.”
Taryn Hadfield can be reached at [email protected]