Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, March 8, 1992 TAG: 9203080319
SECTION: HORIZON PAGE: F-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LISA SWIRSKY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
As a child during the 1950s, she would get ticked off by put-downs aimed at women. But she didn't have the vocabulary then to describe a feeling that came to her intuitively.
"I didn't know what the word feminism meant," she said.
It wasn't until she was in her late 30s that Lee began calling herself a feminist. That came 10 years ago, when Lee landed at Hollins College in a course about women that "changed my life."
Since then, Lee has more than learned about feminism; she has embraced it. So much so that at a time when feminist issues have re-emerged into the spotlight, she has taken on an active role in reactivating the Roanoke chapter of the National Organization for Women.
Founded in the late 1970s, the chapter has gone through periods of inactivity and renewal. It was active during the push for the Equal Rights Amendment in the early 1980s, when it organized programs such as ERA vigils and letter-writing campaigns to legislators.
The organization dissolved in the mid-'80s because many of its members experienced what former co-president Gayle Stoner calls "life changes" - new jobs, expanding families and the like.
The chapter stopped meeting monthly four years ago and tried unsuccessfully to regroup two years ago. The organization existed, essentially, in phone number only. It used the phone number of NOW officer Jan Barber to remain listed in the phone book. It served as a referral organization, sending women in need to the appropriate sources.
"Women are hesitant to take on the role of president of NOW," Stoner said in January. "The `followship' is there; the leadership is difficult to find."
The local chapter of NOW was so quiet that two Western Virginia congressmen - Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Abingdon, and Rep. Jim Olin, D-Roanoke - said they have had limited contact with or knowledge about NOW.
"I am aware of the organization and get literature from them on a national basis, but I have absolutely no direct contact with the [local] organization," Olin said.
While the chapter was in decline, Lucy Lee was expanding her role in women's issues. Four years ago, she became director of the Women's Center at Hollins College. The center serves as a link between the Hollins and the community, sponsoring personal-enrichment classes, career counseling and other programs for women.
Lee, 48, was a full-time homemaker until five years ago. She fell into the job as director of the women's center while working in another department there. When the position opened, it was in a temporary capacity. She liked it so much she stayed.
But she credits the courses she had taken five years earlier with changing her life. While getting her master's degree in literature, Lee discovered the works of Virginia Woolf, Alice Walker and other prominent female writers.
"It was the first time I heard women voicing the kind of thoughts I had had but had never heard before," she said.
But it was the events of last year that made Lee decide to get involved in NOW again. Like many women, Lee was energized by the Thomas-Hill hearings, the movie "Thelma and Louise" and the jeopardized status of the Roe v. Wade landmark abortion-rights case.
The impact of these events - and others - was so strong that two groups of women, working independently, began plans to reorganize the Roanoke chapter of NOW.
Lee was part of the group of local women - many of whom had been involved in the chapter during its active period - trying to reorganize the chapter.
While Lucy Lee was heading up that attempt, the state NOW office hired a local resident, Katherine Reed, to get the organization moving in Roanoke.
Reed is a freelance writer who has lived in Roanoke since 1989. Reed - who also works several days a month on the copy desk of the Roanoke Times & World-News - is a consultant to the National Victim Center based in Arlington. Advocacy is not new to Reed.
Reed admits that at the same time the Roanoke NOW chapter was dormant, she, too, had dozed a bit.
"I must have been asleep not to have noticed what happened to women's rights during the '80s," she said.
Both Reed and Lee mentioned the influence of a book by Susan Faludi called "Backlash: The Undeclared War against American Women." The book, on The New York Times bestseller list, blames an "anti-feminist backlash" from the media and the conservative right for an erosion of women's rights over the past decade.
"Faludi's book really woke me up to what was happening," Reed said, adding that it offered a "wake-up call" for other women as well.
It was in response to this awakening that Reed answered a newspaper ad seeking someone to reorganize the chapter. She was hired temporarily by Virginia NOW to help resurrect the group in Roanoke and to build local opposition to a state bill that would require that a parent be notified before an unmarried teen-ager could get an abortion.
NOW refers to that legislation as the "teen-endangerment bill," because of its belief that it will lead teens to seek unsafe abortions.
The House and Senate both passed parental notification bills - the only difference to be worked out was the age of the girl getting an abortion.
The status of abortion rights on a national and state level presents the most immediate concern for the organization, local NOW leaders have said.
Besides their ongoing efforts to oppose the parental-notification bill, the Roanoke NOW is organizing a trip to Washington on April 5 for an abortion-rights rally.
Beyond that advocacy role, both Reed and Lee hope to build programs around the needs of women in Roanoke.
A reorganizational meeting last month drew 35 women. During the meeting, women expressed anger about many of the issues facing women. Some of the women there were recent rape victims. Others were victims of job discrimination. Most were concerned about the status of abortion rights. Reed and Lee said they were pleased with the turnout.
Another long-range objective important to both women is changing the image of feminists, which has taken a beating during the past decade.
"We don't want to be characterized as just angry women," said Reed.
"I wear make-up and do my hair," said Lee. "I am not a radical woman . . . and I love men."
by CNB