Penn graduate talks long fight for gender equality, recent "conservative backlash" at lecture

The Penn Forum for Women Faculty hosted Penn alumna Drew Faust — who warned against a "determined, conservative backlash” that has followed advances for female equality — at its annual Phoebe S. Leboy Lecture. 

Faust, who is also a Harvard President Emerita, delivered a talk titled “Remembering Not to Forget: Reflections on the Last Half Century of Women at Penn” at Hill Pavilion on Oct. 25. During the lecture, she recalled memories of Phoebe Leboy — a professor of biochemistry at the School of Dental Medicine — and discussed the “transformational” early 1970s fight for women's equality.

Over time, Faust said, women have pushed for influential public policies such as affirmative action and Title IX to confront issues like gender discrimination in faculty tenure and sexual violence at Penn, culminating in significant progress for women in higher education.

As a personal example, Faust said that immediately after she received her Ph.D. in 1975, affirmative action hiring policies opened a role for female faculty in what was then known as the Department of American Civilization, giving her an open door to a career in academia. 

“I owe a great deal to Phoebe Leboy and all the other founding mothers,” she said.

The PFWF leaders and organizers echoed her sentiments. Leboy — an advocate for women in science and technology fields during her 39 years at Penn — changed the feminist movement for women faculty at the national level, according to Dental School Professor Emeritus Sherrill L Adams. 

In 1969, after discovering that only 7% of Penn faculty members were women, Leboy and other female leaders formed Women for Equal Opportunity at the University of Pennsylvania to advocate for women and promote equality in campus life, Adams said. 

Many spaces currently on Penn's campus, like the Penn Women's Center, have increased security measures and self-defense classes, and the Gender, Sexuality, and Women's Studies Program can be traced back to the 1973 anti-rape sit-in in College Hall. The sit-in was organized by students and the faculty-led WEOUP, under Leboy’s leadership.

PFWF — the Leboy Lecture’s organizer — is a successor of WEOUP. Across the University’s 12 schools, PFWF aims to foster community and represent and advocate for the interests of female faculty. When Leboy passed away in 2012, the Phoebe S. Leboy Memorial Lecture was created in her honor, awarded annually to “an outstanding scholar who catalyzes opportunities for women in academia.” 

Since its inception, the Leboy Lecture has featured distinguished female scholars and leaders, including Penn President Emerita Judith Rodin, former Vice Provost for Faculty Anita Allen, former President of Barnard College Debora Spar, and former Dean of Princeton University’s School of Public and International Affairs Anne-Marie Slaughter. 

Professor of Informatics Blanca Himes, who attended the event, said that she was amazed by the way that what used to be tolerated as normal has shifted in just a few decades.

“I remember talking to older women, back when it was like, they were groped, and that was it. Nobody would even think to complain about it. And now that would seem preposterous, right? If somebody actually crossed one of those lines, we would have action immediately,” Himes said.

Amy Hillier, a former associate professor at the School of Social Policy & Practice and the previous chair of PFWF, said that she felt a sense of gratitude and inheritance. After adopting two children, she was able to receive adoption benefits from the University.

In order for her to receive this support, many of the women from the time of Leboy had to advocate and establish policies around giving birth and adoption, according to Hillier. Hoping to honor their legacy, Hillier is now in the process of creating a media project on the history of the women's faculty movement at Penn.

“It felt like a really important continuity to see the advances that women have made and also to know how much our experience is still gendered and how much you still have to fight for,” said Hillier.

Faust agreed that challenges persist and the struggle needs to be continued. Referencing the recent overturning of Roe v. Wade and the ongoing affirmative action case in the U.S. Supreme Court involving Harvard University, she reminded the audience of the backlash that is reversing the progress of equity.

“We've been forcefully reminded in recent months that we cannot take equality or justice for granted. To quote an anthem of the civil rights movement, freedom is always a constant struggle.”