Local women’s rights advocate Jennet Robinson Alterman, who has helped expand CofC's Women's and Gender Studies Program, has worked tirelessly to advance women's rights locally and internationally. As one of the speakers of the second annual Women for Women summit sponsored by the College's School of Business, Alterman joins a group of remarkable women to inspire, offer insight and share stories about their paths to success.
Local women’s rights advocate Jennet Robinson Alterman, who has helped expand CofC's Women's and Gender Studies Program, has worked tirelessly to advance women's rights locally and internationally. As one of the speakers of the second annual Women for Women summit sponsored by the College's School of Business, Alterman joins a group of remarkable women to inspire, offer insight and share stories about their paths to success.
Hello and Welcome to Speaking of College of Charleston. I'm Erica LeGendre from the School of Business, and in this episode I'll speak with Janet Ultraman nonprofit consultant and women's rights advocate will talk about her time in the Peace Corps. As director of the Center for Women, and as an advocate for women's rights in South Carolina. Jeannet will also share stories about her father, Emmett Robinson, who was deeply invested in the arts and culture in Charleston. Hi, Jeanette. Welcome to the podcast.
Jennet Robinson Alterman:Hi, Erica, I'm delighted to be here.
Erika LeGendre:So your father, Emmett Robinson was a student and then a faculty member in the theater department at the college. He was described as a"present day reincarnation of a renaissance man" when he received an honorary degree from the College in 1971. How did having a renaissance man as a father shape your life?
Jennet Robinson Alterman:Oh, where to start on that one. I will tell you this, he was a lifelong learner. My mother wrote murder mysteries and plays. And I think he was the first person that I knew who got a word processor, which was the old fashioned version of a computer, he would type up her books. He also had an enormous frame of reference. He kept files in his study on every single period of history, costuming, paintings, art, geography, everything he he literally was a wealth of knowledge. And I think for me, the greatest impact he had was he told me very early on, he said, You can do anything you put your mind to. I never heard anything about, you know, when you get married, or when you have children, or, you know, any of the sort of traditional advice that one might give a child back in the late 60s, early 70s. And he set me on a very strong path as a result of that. And I'm also happy to say that almost 50 years later, from the time he received his honorary degree from the College, I also received one. And I found that a particularly nostalgic and sentimental thing to embrace at the time.
Erika LeGendre:Sounds like it runs in the family. Do you have memories of spending time on campus while your father was a faculty member?
Jennet Robinson Alterman:Vaguely. He was on the faculty on and off for many, many years. I do remember vividly though, when the college was literally just the cistern area and the yard and Randolph Hall. And the book basement was in one of the little buildings sort of across the way. I just remember the school being very, very small, although to me as a single digit child, it felt huge. But I also remember dad telling me that his graduating class only had something like 50 people in it. And he had to take Greek as well as Latin. But he so enjoyed his time at the college. And for many years, he would be remembered by so many people I would run into for production. He did have Romeo and Juliet in 1934. And he did it on the system. And he used the balcony, Randolph Hall for the balcony seats. The only wrinkle was it had to be done at night. And according to dad, he ran miles and miles of extension cords, from buildings nearby to be able to put the big spotlights up in the trees, you know, surrounding the system. And then people who saw it, never ever forgot it. It was a big deal.
Erika LeGendre:That's amazing. So you've achieved so much as a women's rights advocate locally and internationally. How did you get involved in this line of work? And looking back can you talk about a milestone that was particularly rewarding during your time as director of the Center for Women?
Jennet Robinson Alterman:Well, it took me a while to get the message is clear from the Goddesses about what I really was to do with my life. I I was certainly no groundbreaking feminist when I was in high school, although I did go to an all female high school which I think made a difference in my ability to develop leadership skills. And I guess it wasn't until college that I started to zone in on some of the discrimination and the prejudice against women and I want to say this right up front. As a white woman I had it far better than my sisters who were brown or black. Believe me I know that. I went to Davidson College which is the time was all male. They allowed 10 women from different colleges to come for one year to quote see if women could handle the academic load. Before I know it shock sheet. They didn't get away with saying that, before they decided whether or not to go co Ed and I had a great experience my issues were not with the students, but with the professors who honestly believed that women did not belong on that campus that we did not have the intellectual stamina to make it. The good news is at the end of the first semester, none of us made below a B, and the college decided to go coed the following year. So I was very proud of that. And since then, I know a lot of people, a lot of women who've gone to Davidson, yes, I do remind them that they wouldn't be there had nine, I try not, you know, trod before them. But it really was when I joined the Peace Corps in 1976. And I was sent to Afghanistan at a time when it was really the best of times there. And I'm sorry that people in your generation only have seen Afghanistan as a warzone, because it's a really magnificent country. But while I was there, I was assigned to work with traditional midwives, who were being trained into, in how to do a more hygienic birth, because these traditional midwives out in the villages didn't have a lot to work with. And the infant and maternal mortality rate in Afghanistan was shocking. So I started going out to these small villages working with the trained midwives. And you know, it hit me pretty hard when I saw an 11 year old child give birth, and realize that not only did she not have access to prenatal or postnatal care, but she wasn't going to get an education, she wasn't allowed to vote, she wouldn't be allowed to vote, she was allowed to have money in her own account, any man in her family could could take things away from her it was it really it did shock me to my core. And of course, a very wise man who was very involved with the College of Charleston, John Henry Dick, who left Dixie plantation to the college, had done a lot of traveling in the third world. And he told me before I left, he said, this was important. Never tell the poor, they're poor. That's your perception of them, you're gonna find that you meet many people who are poor by your standards, but who aren't by theirs. In other words, don't be the ugly American. So that really kicked me off into the the women's rights advocacy. And I came back to South Carolina after that experience, and went to Columbia and work for Nancy Stevenson, who was the first woman ever elected statewide, and South Carolina, she was lieutenant governor. So I got to watch how women were treated at that level by the legislature and state government. And it wasn't pretty, it was one of those things where we had to fight every day to be heard and taken seriously. And my career just sort of evolved from there into other areas of working with women's rights advocacy. And if I'm going to look back on the Center for Women, which was a wonderful 12 years, I have to say, and I will take responsibility for putting women's economic issues on the table in this community as a subject of discussion. Probably the highlight of my time, there was when Oprah Winfrey recognized us and gave us a rather substantial grant. And she came to do her, you know, live your best life workshop and gave us some tickets. And we got to meet her. And one of the side bars of that story was, I called her her granting organization, which was Oprah's Angel Network. After she had given us the grant. And I called I said, I want to know who to send the thank you note to because yes, I was raised in Charleston. And I do know the importance of the thank you note. And basically, and then I said, How did you find us? You know, did you have a lot of other organizations that you asked to submit a grant proposal? And she said, No, you were the only one. And I went, really? I mean, this was a nationwide kind of search. And I said, How did you conduct your search? Did you send someone to Charleston in a trench coat to sort of skulk around and see what different women's organizations were doing? And she said, No, we did our entire search online, you have a magnificent website. And we did. And as a nonprofit that was strapped for cash resources. We made the best use possible that we could of social media. So that was a great lesson to learn from that.
Erika LeGendre:Thank you for that. So you spoke about your time in the Peace Corps. Why do you think volunteering, especially as a young adult is worthwhile?
Jennet Robinson Alterman:Oh, I think it's critical. I think it's absolutely critical. It will change. It will change your perspective because so many of us were in the same town with the same group of people until we go to college and if we go to college somewhere else, we get a little bit of a break. But to go and live in another culture, and to live as someone who is there to provide a service, not to ask to get anything, is a wonderful lesson to learn, you know, in your early, late, you know, late teens, early 20s. And it certainly had that impact on me. I was a volunteer for two years in Afghanistan. And then I spent another eight years on senior staff of Peace Corps. And all I did was travel the third world. And one of the great lessons I learned were the commonalities in the way women were treated almost exclusively across the Third World. And unfortunately, it's still similar to the way a lot of women in this country are treated. But I do recommend the Peace Corps, or any kind of program that will get you out of your comfort zone, and put you in a situation where you learn about another culture.
Erika LeGendre:Yes, actually, many of our graduates, I know, they spend a lot of time in the Peace Corps too. So it's just great that our students can give back in that way. Definitely. So the Women's and Gender Studies program at the College explores the intersections of gender, class, race, ethnicity, age, religion, ability, and sexuality. Tell me about your involvement with this department.
Jennet Robinson Alterman:Oh, the Women and Gender Studies program? Well, you know, it really came into its own when the magnificent, Allison Piepmeier came to the College of Charleston, campus, and I hope she is still a legend because she, she truly was, and I was delighted to help Allison, really grow the program. And one of the more interesting stories from that period is, there were so many people who wanted to major in women and gender studies, but only a minor was being offered. So Alison went through, you know, the hoops and all the paperwork you have to do to apply to add a major to the college. And that had to go through the Commission on Higher Education. And so Alison went up there. And this is going to sound so old fashioned when I say it, but it just gives you an idea of some of the things we had to deal with Allison went up there to defend, you know, the reasoning for having a Women and Gender Studies Program and the fact that all these people were minors, and they really wanted to be majors. And the only thing that produced a stumble was the fact that the women and gender studies program had started producing the Vagina Monologues every February because Eve Ensler, the author of that play allowed colleges to produce it during February, as long as the proceeds from it went to a local nonprofit. And unfortunately, there was a woman on the Commission on Higher Education, who, excuse me, was not comfortable with that, not to mention the title. And so Allison had to do a quick and run and pull that out, and hand it over to the counseling center, who I believe still does it and save the major single handedly. So I like the story of Alison getting up there and standing up to the good ol boys and women. So gender studies is Women and Gender Studies is all about.
Erika LeGendre:Absolutely. So the theme of the second annual Women for Women Summit is great. Can you talk a bit about why you wanted to be involved, and what does grit mean to you?
Jennet Robinson Alterman:Oh, grit. It's not the singular for grits. Certainly. grit to me is is not giving up, it is going after something that you want and holding on to it like a dog with a bone. It is overcoming obstacles, it is standing up for yourself. A wonderful quote, I found recently is if standing up for yourself burns a bridge, I have matches and we ride at dawn. My most favorite quote recently and that's really what grit is about. And I think that the organizers for this conference really want to help jumpstart women who had been in for in many situations out of the workforce for the last two years due to COVID are working remotely. And it's time to get back into the groove. But also I think it's very important for the women who are attending this conference to understand that they have a responsibility now to push for changes in the workplace that benefit families, things like paid family leave, for example, there is nothing more important than paid family leave than pay equity. And that's going to be one of the messages that I hope to get across in conference.
Erika LeGendre:Do you have any advice for young women getting ready to graduate who are thinking about a career?
Jennet Robinson Alterman:Yes, I do. Number one, your career is a process of elimination. Okay? Gone are the days when you got a job out of college and 40 years later, you retired and they gave you a gold watch and all was well, in this world today, you're lucky if you stay in a job for two years. So look at it as a process of elimination. Now, one hard and true fact that I do want to stick with, if you're in a job, stay at least two years, not one year stay at least to tough it out. Okay? Because your potential managers and supervisors are going to look at your background in terms of how often you change jobs. The other thing is to take with you from one job to the next what you've learned on that first job, okay, and be able to weave that into your interview for the next job. I'll give you just a very quick example. It's too long a story to explain why, but somehow my first real job out of college was as a television news reporter at Channel Five WC SC TV. Okay, I was in that job for three years. But what I learned about the media what I learned about television, what I learned about editing, stayed with me throughout my whole career. And I'd like to think that one of the reasons I have a comfort level with doing this interview with you is because of the skills I developed at Channel 540, some years ago.
Erika LeGendre:Thank you very much. And thank you for speaking with us today.
Jennet Robinson Alterman:Happy to do it. Happy to do it. The college is near and dear to my heart.
Erika LeGendre:Thanks for listening to this episode of speaking of College of Charleston with Jeanette Ultraman. For more episodes and to read stories about our guest, visit the College of Charleston official news site, the college today@today.cfc.edu. You can also find this in past episodes on all major podcast platforms including Apple podcasts, Spotify and Stitcher. If you like what you hear, please subscribe and leave a review. This episode was produced by Amy Mercer from University Communications, recording and sound engineering by Jessie 10s From the Division of Information Technology