Audio Interview, Maria Scipione, May 17, 2012

EVELYN BAILEY: So we're here with Maria Scipione, who

was a part of the Women's Collective

that put the New Women's Times together and got it out.

Well, it was a newspaper here in the community for ten years,

but you didn't-- you weren't at the beginning.

MARIA SCIPIONE: I was.

I came in about two years in, but was there until the end.

EVELYN BAILEY: And can you share with us

why was the newspaper the New Women's Times begun?

Why did it become--

MARIA SCIPIONE: Well, it was 1975, and it was a groundswell.

It was the height of the second wave of the feminist movement.

And there was the term "woman-identified woman."

There was a real sense of looking

at the world from a woman's perspective.

It was very different than all of the newspapers

and all of the history.

And while that was considered neutral,

we realized that really that was a man's perspective.

And that everything could be looked at differently

from a woman's perspective.

That the default was not from a patriarchal position,

but that there were people who were not powerful in society,

who could in fact talk about the very same events

that the newspaper did, and saw it differently.

Because we were the people who didn't have the power.

It's like history from below versus history from above.

The victors write one version of history,

and the people who suffer through the crap

write a different perspective of the history.

So it was our time to decide to take hold of the presses

and redefine.

And there was a groundswell of feminist and gay reporting

that was going on at that time.

Lots of people were--

it was an empowerment, you know.

It was all of a sudden we controlled the press,

we got to define ourselves, other people

couldn't define us.

If we were going to do something,

we were going to put it out there in our media,

and we got to control our image.

We got to control our voice, which

was really very powerful, and very provocative early on.

And while we were Rochester, we were in all fifty states.

And the only other paper at the time

that kind of took that national range was a paper

called Off Our Backs, which was in Washington D.C.

And I think they still do a monthly issue.

I think they're only electronic now.

And if they don't still do it, they've

only very recently stopped.

EVELYN BAILEY: Who were the driving forces behind--

MARIA SCIPIONE: It was Maxine Sobol, Karen Hackenberg,

who still lives here in town and teaches piano lessons,

and Martha Brown, who's passed away a couple years ago.

EVELYN BAILEY: So they were the three women

who really began this effort?

MARIA SCIPIONE: Yeah.

And they were very connected with lots

of the literary voices that were coming about.

Adrian Rich, who just passed away, Gloria Steinem.

There's names that I'm embarrassed that I can't--

they're not spilling off the tip of my tongue.

But there was just an explosion of feminist writing,

and books that were being ignored by The New York Times.

And so a few years in, New Women's Times

started every other issue.

We also had what was called a feminist review,

that Susan, who's the editor of The Empty Closet,

was one of the people who started that.

And it was very much about getting recognition

for books written by women.

It was, you know, breaking the ceiling

in a lot of ways for that.

And also, for the first time, giving serious legitimacy

to a lesbian voice, you know.

Even in what used to be, you know, ladies magazines

and stuff like that, where you were getting

feminist stuff infiltrating about, you know,

workplace issues, day care, very important

stuff, but they would not cross the line on lesbian gay issues.

And that was a real problem.

And, so we also-- that was part of our mission as well.

Sure.

Yeah.

(Interposing voices)

KEVIN INDOVINO: OK.

Because I have two questions but I'll just ask one.

MARIA SCIPIONE: Sure.

KEVIN INDOVINO: How did you get involved?

MARIA SCIPIONE: I moved here from Buffalo

where I had worked on a community press.

So actually, I came more from a production--

not so much of a writer.

Very much an activist, but much more on the kind of production

art end of it, but became a writer

while I was working at the paper.

And it was funny because when you approached me about this,

I just looked through some back issues that I had.

And some of them were totally dated, you know.

It's like you could just see the time period that it was in.

But I found one editorial that I had written about--

there was a woman in town named Alicia McCuller, who

was the daughter of the guy who used to run ABC.

And she was shot by the police.

I could have written that editorial today.

EVELYN BAILEY: Why?

MARIA SCIPIONE: Because nothing's

changed around issue for people of color, women of color,

and the power of relationship in terms of poverty,

and the police, and things like that.

For me, my agenda, in terms of ever expanding the paper

being for all women, was to make sure

that all voices were included.

So women of color's voices were another voice

that those ladies' magazines kind of didn't get in there.

And it was Alice Walker, and Toni Morrison,

and I'm going to be embarrassed because I can't

remember some of the other--

Audre Lorde.

All those names they just busted right up.

So we were part of that.

We were part of breaking the door down.

But some of it hasn't changed.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Let's go back a little bit

because you touched upon--

you said, giving all women a voice, particularly

lesbian women.

I want to kind of get a sense of how closely aligned the New

Women's Times was with the gay and lesbian movement

at the time.

And I guess, to my understanding,

the New Women's Times wasn't began as a gay and lesbian

magazine.

It's a women's magazine, a feminist magazine.

MARIA SCIPIONE: Right.

KEVIN INDOVINO: But if you were to weigh out

in a ratio scenario, how much did the gay and lesbian

movement incorporate itself into that magazine?

MARIA SCIPIONE: Right, right.

Well, the other reality was is that the three women who

started it were all lesbians.

So, you know,-- and again, that's

a time where gay leadership comes in

not just to a gay movement, but to the feminist movement

as well.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Excellent example.

MARIA SCIPIONE: You know, that was also a part of it.

Yeah.

It's important.

I think there were times where there was friction

between the communities.

And a lot of the time that came up around issues of--

not so much about violence against women, but about

the issues of pornography.

Because there's always the tension about--

where is freedom of speech?

What is appropriate sexually explicit material

that's sex positive?

We can call it sex positive now.

We didn't have that term quite back then.

But back then it was, what's the difference between erotica

and pornography?

And we all kind of knew the difference,

but who could exactly say where the line was?

But there was a definite analysis

of looking at mainstream pornography.

And you could do an analysis of the images

and it was misogynous.

It was absolutely misogynist.

Women were objects.

Women weren't people.

They weren't, you know, equals engaged in really

fun, sexual stuff.

They were things to be consumed.

And so there were times when there was

tension around those issues.

KEVIN INDOVINO: That's all?

MARIA SCIPIONE: Yeah.

EVELYN BAILEY: I want to go back to your life.

You were born in Buffalo.

MARIA SCIPIONE: No.

I was born in Liberty, New York.

Podunk, Liberty, New York.

KEVIN INDOVINO: And where is that?

MARIA SCIPIONE: It's halfway between Binghamton in New York

City and the Catskills.

KEVIN INDOVINO: That's not really a bad area

MARIA SCIPIONE: No, no, no.

Actually, it was a great place to grow up because it was

rural, but it had the hotels.

It was the--

(Interposing voices)

Yes.

And my father's family, who were the immigrants,

they came out of New York.

So New York has always been this home magnet.

It's still a home magnet in odd ways.

So I came from there, and then I went to college in Buffalo.

And then I moved here.

And when I was in Buffalo, I had worked

with Emma, the Buffalo Women's Bookstore, which existed

for maybe five or six years.

Didn't make it.

And then when I moved here, I found the New Women's Times.

And I was also involved with lots

of community political stuff.

Part of what came after New Women's Times for me,

was doing lots of solidarity work

around international issues.

I had gone to Nicaragua on a coffee picking brigade

after the revolution there, where you

kind of did human shield stuff.

We went to--

KEVIN INDOVINO: You're lucky you're alive (laughter).

MARIA SCIPIONE: Yes.

I think back now and it's like, aah!

And then from there, I progressed into--

I was a community organizer for a while with Metro Act, which

is now Metro Justice.

So all of that politics stuff was very intertwined with that.

And I never left my feminism behind.

And I never was unclear about who I was sexually.

Now I have to say, my partners have changed over time.

And I would say I would kind of technically

have to call myself bisexual.

There are times where I was much more lesbian-identified.

I ended up in a relationship with a man and had a child.

And now I'm older, and single, and thinking,

who am I going to go out with?

And I kind of think, I could choose from anybody.

(laughter)

I kind of look around, and I have really come to--

for me, plumbing isn't what it's about (Bailey laughs).

It's about finding people who--

which makes me kind of queer in the queer community.

I guess.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Well, yes and no.

EVELYN BAILEY: There are people who

are very similar in their desire to have a relationship that

goes beyond the physical, who want the connection, who want

to feel not only they're a part of,

but they're individual and free within.

KEVIN INDOVINO: I have to say it just depends on what age group

you're socializing with at the moment.

MARIA SCIPIONE: Yes.

Right.

Right.

EVELYN BAILEY: True.

MARIA SCIPIONE: Yes.

Right.

EVELYN BAILEY: That's true.

MARIA SCIPIONE: Absolutely.

EVELYN BAILEY: But let me take you back again.

Let me ask, can you identify in your own life when you became,

or when you began to identify yourself as a feminist?

MARIA SCIPIONE: It's a really good question.

I think it was--

I've always been somebody who, if you told me I couldn't, I

said, fuck you.

I can.

You know, like a little bit of that chip on my shoulder.

But I think the feminist part really came with a dress code

in high school.

This sounds crazy, but this was 1972,

and we were told we couldn't wear pants to school.

And that was ridiculous.

I lived in a cold--

it was cold.

Hell with fashion.

It was cold (Indovino laughs).

And there were four of us who decided

we would put pants in our bags when we left home

in our skirts.

And we'd put our pants on on our way to school,

and we went to school in pants.

And we broke the dress code, and we fought about it,

and the dress code changed.

So I think that may have been one of the--

that for me, I think it was the beginning of that feminism.

But I think more what it was about

was learning that if you thought something was right,

and you had the courage to stand up for it,

that you could make things change.

That you could make things change.

And this is 1972, so the anti-war movement

is all over the place.

People were having the courage, daring to make things change.

So it was a wonderful time.

A wonderful time to feel that.

Yeah.

Right.

To actually go, that's not right, and I can fix that.

I can do that. you know.

I was, you know, those Kennedy kids that said, not ask--

what was it?

Don't ask what your country can do for you,

but ask what you can do for your country.

The idea of service.

I get what the context of that now politically is.

But the idea of service and responsibility to a community,

and that if you didn't like the way things were,

that not only did you have the right to change it,

but you had a responsibility to change it.

And I grew up Catholic.

And part of deny--

there's two Catholic churches.

There's the great daddy with the--

talk about drag queens, right?

There's a big daddy with a really pretty hat.

You know?

But then there was also those Catholics who

were liberation theologists.

I didn't know that word then, but, you know,

that's what they were.

How do you create heaven on earth?

How do you make social justice?

And I was very affected by them.

I rejected all of that other Catholic part.

Not that I don't fight.

I always call myself a recovered Catholic.

The guilt. When something really good happens,

I'm always looking over my shoulder

to see how I'm going to pay.

That kind of stuff (laughter).

Do you know what I mean?

KEVIN INDOVINO: Yeah.

EVELYN BAILEY: Yes.

MARIA SCIPIONE: So I think I definitely

came out of a historical time.

And I wasn't the only one.

So that sense of both empowerment and responsibility

was something that informed me about feminism.

It informed me about, you know, gender rights

in general, the bigger picture.

It informed me about social justice, and class,

and race, environmental issues.

You know, it opened my world up to having

the planet be my home.

That's the world that I live in.

I don't live in some very tiny little place.

I really do live in a big, interconnected thing.

And, you know, I can't fix it all,

but I sure have a responsibility to kind of at least

affect what I can.

And I try to do that with my art now.

Because as an activist, as a organizer, I burnt out.

I totally burnt out.

And I went back to school for what

I loved to do in the first place, which was theater.

MARIA SCIPIONE: Yeah.

I was going to eventually get around to that, but OK.

With everything you did with the activist movement,

and the magazine, and writing, and editing,

and all that stuff, how did you get in the theater, though?

A lot of people just kind of fall into it.

MARIA SCIPIONE: No.

Well, when I graduated from high school,

the big question was-- was I going

to be Anne Bancroft or Anne Sullivan?

You know, who was I going to be?

Was I going to be the person who was going to change the world?

Or was I going to be the actor who played the person who

changed the world?

And what I learned in--

it was in my thirties, was that I had better

find a way to do meaningful work,

but work that fed me back.

That didn't just use me up and leave me burnt out.

And the theater is what I found to do that.

And I try to do meaningful work in the theater, you know.

I work with two friends of mine and we do the Fringe Play

Reading Series.

And we pick edgy stuff.

You know, we try and do stuff that's probably not

going to get a full show any place else,

but it's material that people just really need to hear.

EVELYN BAILEY: Can you remember the first action

you were involved with as a feminist?

You were an activist--

gosh, gosh, gosh, gosh.

In Buffalo or in Rochester?

MARIA SCIPIONE: Oh, yeah.

In Buffalo.

In Buffalo.

It might have been a really early Take

Back the Night March.

And I'm a rape survivor, so for a long time

that that didn't kind of raise to the surface in terms

of connecting.

Because quite frankly, I have a very hard time

dealing with my-- or seeing myself as a victim.

It kind of doesn't fit into my perception of myself,

so I had to struggle with that for a really long time.

But when people started talking about putting it

into a bigger context where people weren't alone,

that you're not alone in the isolation of that experience,

you know, the powerlessness that you feel,

and that, in fact, you can join with people who also think

it's a terrible idea and make ruckus in the street about it,

is pretty damn healing.

So I'm going to think early Take Back the Night stuff.

And I was involved here--

(Side conversation)

MARIA SCIPIONE: OK.

I did it earlier.

There was a lot of work that I'd done with Rochester Women

Against Violence Against Women.

EVELYN BAILEY: Now were you one--

MARIA SCIPIONE: The snuff film?

The glass breakers with the case?

EVELYN BAILEY: Yeah.

MARIA SCIPIONE: No, I wasn't.

I actually moved here while the trial was going on.

So I was part of the defense committee a little bit.

And that was Martha Gever, Mark Hall, Sylvia Gazoy,

and a young woman named Leah, and I

don't remember her last name.

But there is a video, a documentary video that Martha

Gever made about that.

That if you don't have a copy of that,

I will help find a copy for you.

KEVIN INDOVINO: And how do you spell Gever?

MARIA SCIPIONE: G-E-V-E-R.

KEVIN INDOVINO: G-E-V-E-R.

MARIA SCIPIONE: And she's a really big--

she lives in LA now.

She used to work for--

where are we?

Over at visual studies.

And she's a nationally--

she's a media analyst, media studies,

kind of big-deal stuff.

EVELYN BAILEY: Now I know what that was about, but--

KEVIN INDOVINO: I don't.

MARIA SCIPIONE: Snuff films are where people are actually

murdered in a film that depicts their murder.

So that's why it's called snuff.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Right, OK.

MARIA SCIPIONE: OK.

And a woman was murdered, and a film was supposedly

made in Argentina.

And on the bottom, the kicker of the poster

it says, "where life is cheap."

And a guy named Cesar D'agostino ran a porn theater

where the Holiday Inn is now--

KEVIN INDOVINO: This is all kind of coming to light now.

Yes.

MARIA SCIPIONE: And these four women--

and this group, there was lots of wheatpasting and spray

painting.

We don't have money for billboards,

but if you do a black velvet, feel the velvet one--

KEVIN INDOVINO: That's because they--

MARIA SCIPIONE: Yes.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Went on trial for vandalism.

MARIA SCIPIONE: Yes.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Right.

MARIA SCIPIONE: Right.

They went on trial for vandalism.

KEVIN INDOVINO: I remember it now.

MARIA SCIPIONE: And it was a huge deal.

And a lot of those writers that I talked about earlier

would come here and do fundraisers.

And it got national attention.

And they were fined, and I believe

they never paid the fine.

And nobody ever came after and paying the fine.

And Cesar D'agostino sold the theater.

And then it was Rochester Community Players

for a little while--

KEVIN INDOVINO: [INAUDIBLE],, yeah.

And now it's just the Holiday Inn.

I don't know what the hell they--

KEVIN INDOVINO: Not even that.

Radisson or--

MARIA SCIPIONE: Radisson or one of those.

Yeah.

And that was around--

after that, then the softer versions of that

came out like Dressed to Kill, the Brian de Palma.

Really not just murder, but really eroticized murder.

And here's a climate where--

I mean, we still--

all of Eve Ensler's statistics are right there.

One in three women in the world are

victims of some sort of sexual violence.

So in a climate like that, what does it

mean that you make films that eroticize

the murdering of women?

So there was a lot of that.

EVELYN BAILEY: Were you a part of the Black Velvet action

flick?

MARIA SCIPIONE: Can you tell by the smile on my face?

Oh, there was wonderful--

we were like great guerrilla artists.

We devised ways to put spray paint on sticks,

and spray paint where we couldn't reach, and climb.

And, you know, after Christmas we

would buy ornaments because they were really cheap,

and you could fill them up with paint

and then drip wax over the top.

And then you could really hurl them, you know.

Just great stuff like that.

Wheatpasting.

There was some wonderful wheatpasting that we did.

And there was a particular string

of rapes that happened in the city, I think in the early 80s.

And basically the police weren't doing anything about it.

And we made up a self-defense poster, and what we did was

we just flopped the usual images.

And there was a fully-clothed woman and a naked man.

And it identified where if you were going to--

but where you could hit, gouge, punch, da da da da da da da.

That wasn't what was offensive.

What was offensive is that the man's penis was evident.

OK.

And we wheatpasted them all over town.

Everywhere.

And the uproar was that this penis was on there.

But we never got more coverage than doing that.

Yet you can put naked women just about everywhere.

And nobody blinks an eye.

So always, for me, a really good test

about whether something is sexist, or homophobic,

or racist, is always to just reverse it.

And you can tell right away.

It's just the greatest litmus test.

And people get really upset about it.

Really upset about it.

And you know.

And it was a little bit like Pat?

KEVIN INDOVINO: Pam.

EVELYN BAILEY: Pam.

MARIA SCIPIONE: What she was saying about women can

cross-dress because that's--

but to do that with men, in some ways that gets at patriarchy

much more than our freedoms to look like men.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Plus, it's a different perception to it.

A woman dressing up more masculine

gives that woman strength.

MARIA SCIPIONE: Yes.

KEVIN INDOVINO: A man dressing up more feminine weakens him.

MARIA SCIPIONE: Right.

Well, and what it also does, is if someone does

that voluntarily, it changes.

It makes it not weak.

You know what I mean?

It takes the paradigm of masculine is strong

and feminine is weak, to saying, oh,

well that could be strong, too.

And that freaks them right out.

So I love that stuff.

Gender bending is very fun.

But that was kind of what we would do.

And we tried to not, as activists,

not keep that discussion in a theoretical sense.

We tried to make it extremely concrete.

If something happened in there-- like Park Avenue, I remember.

There was a series of rapes there.

And I remember going out at night with spray paint cans

and making X's on the sidewalks where women had been raped.

One side of that that I always felt squeamish about,

is I don't want to make women uncomfortable in the world,

but it's important to know that that happened there.

And, you know, a lot of the self-defense stuff

around rape issues is limiting women's freedom.

And the problem isn't that women are anywhere.

The problem is that there are men who rape.

That's the problem.

So why do you limit where the victims go?

It's looking at the people who perpetrate that kind of crime.

And then you look at that philosophy--

and Eve Ensler talks about this a lot now.

And doing Vagina Monologues, which is my theater,

really helps this.

And I've done it about three or four times,

and I will do it whenever I can.

But it's that whole idea of looking

at that way of thinking, of it's there, and if I want it

I'll take it.

I don't care.

If you really look at the way the world

works in a bigger way, that goes on all the time.

If you look at an environmental issues,

it's a paradigm of rape, you know.

I don't mean to minimize actual rape by using it

as a big metaphor, but it really is a mindset

where, I take whatever the fuck I want and I

don't care what you say, because it's mine and I can.

And who's going to stop me?

So, you know, I feel like a lot of the second wave of feminism,

now with the younger generation coming up, this kind of next--

kind of, I don't know what wave it is, but it's kind of a wave.

It's like you were saying.

Throw the book away.

But, you know, it's a lot of young women and men looking

at that way of thinking, and really challenging the world.

I think, you know, a lot of that conversation

has occurred in the Occupy Movement.

You see it where people go around to the g-20 things.

And they really say, look, you can't just take what you want.

There are people here that have real lives.

That not everything is a commodity.

EVELYN BAILEY: Has there been a cost to you,

personally, for your involvement?

MARIA SCIPIONE: I think there are

some jobs that I haven't gotten because I don't hide who I am

or what I am.

My relationship with my father.

I think we never got to be as close because he didn't get it.

And I think about that, but--

KEVIN INDOVINO: You said it.

He just didn't get it.

MARIA SCIPIONE: He didn't get it.

He didn't get it.

And it's not that he didn't love me.

It's not that I didn't love him.

It's just we couldn't quite figure that out.

No.

There has been costs.

Yeah.

There's been costs.

But I wouldn't do it any other way.

There's also a richness to my life, you know.

I'm not going to ever be big, and wealthy, and any of that.

But I sleep really well at night.

I have friends back from those days

that are still my friends now.

I work with young people and I feel really confident walking

into a room.

I think because of my activism and seeing the world

bigger as an artist, I have such a rich well to pull from.

I kind of pretend I'm other people.

That's what I do.

Or I help other people pretend how to be other people.

And sort of this affinity with people

is a really rich thing to have.

And I think for people who don't engage

in this kind of community, they don't ever have that.

EVELYN BAILEY: What would you say was the--

what contribution did the New Women's Times

make to the Rochester community?

MARIA SCIPIONE: I think it forged--

it became-- what's the word I want?

It became a framework, a structure for a community

to grow, become empowered, meet, and to make action.

And sometimes turn in on itself.

It wasn't always lovely.

There were problems.

Like any group that works intensely together,

after a while there's that relationship change,

and then it gets all wonky a little bit.

But then everybody finds their corner,

and something happens and we all come back together because we

remember what we're about.

But there was that.

So I think for ten years there, it

was a real way for people to come together and make change.

And to keep a dialogue going, both internally and externally.

That there really was this ability for us

to learn from each other, to challenge,

to think about things.

It spanned all the way through to the Women's Peace Encampment

in Romulus, dealing with everything

from those very local issues of Alicia McCuller getting killed,

and no daycare, and rapes in the neighborhood, to,

you know, nuclear weapons nationally,

to looking at what was the political platforms

of different parties.

And how that affected people.

Looking at government policies both international and

national, and the effects on that.

And understanding in terms of budget stuff, when

you don't have money for health care,

and child care, and things like that.

Well, why don't you have that money?

Where else is the money in the budget?

And you see, particularly, the military stuff.

And kind of understanding that there were a wealth of people

who came out of those ten years equipped with that information,

and have gone off in lots of different ways

and took that with it.

And I think, nationally, I think the really big contribution

particularly early on was that voice.

All of a sudden there was a visible voice.

And I think one of the things that people

like you have done--

like last year when you got it all digitalized,

is that it's there.

It's in a bunch of different libraries now.

And so it won't disappear.

It won't go away like pre- Stonewall or pre Susan B.

Anthony.

It can't disappear anymore.

EVELYN BAILEY: What brought the New Women's Times to being

over, being ended, being--

MARIA SCIPIONE: I think of it a little bit like breathing,

and it was exhale time.

The economy changed, discretionary income

wasn't there.

I also think print medium was on its way out.

Also people started having lives.

Being an activist is like being in the theater sometimes.

It's like it eats your entire life.

And people wanted families, had families.

Felt like they'd gotten to a point in their life

where they needed to make money.

And there wasn't really the influx

to come in and kind of take it over.

But NOW still functions--

they're much more centrist than New Women's Times was.

But there's still people working on those issues.

I think there's a lot of people who came over.

I mean, Susan was one of the editors of Feminist Review,

and now she's the editor of The Empty Closet.

So I think we all kind of found our different places.

People grew, changed.

EVELYN BAILEY: Now when it was begun,

you incorporated, or it became incorporated.

MARIA SCIPIONE: Yeah, I think it was.

Yeah.

I'm not real good on all of that business information,

but they had a little office on Monroe Avenue

just over the Brighton line.

I drive past it from time to time, and it was just--

EVELYN BAILEY: But in the end, was there a corporation

that you had to disassemble?

MARIA SCIPIONE: There was.

And I don't remember exactly--

my name was never on the corporation papers.

I know that we sold everything off because we had debts.

And we paid those debts off.

And then what we did was we got as many pieces of the paper,

to get bundles of the paper together,

and sent them off to libraries.

And then we kind of just dissolved it.

We didn't have any debt so nobody

was going to come after us.

EVELYN BAILEY: Right.

And you mailed the New Women's Times to people

all over the country.

MARIA SCIPIONE: Yeah, and we'd lost--

the last three years we had continually lost subscribers.

KEVIN INDOVINO: What year you did it at?

MARIA SCIPIONE: I think it was '86 or '87.

Because we had a big ten-year, which would have been-- it

was '85.

KEVIN INDOVINO: It would have been ten years.

OK.

MARIA SCIPIONE: Yeah.

EVELYN BAILEY: So '76 to--

MARIA SCIPIONE: '75.

EVELYN BAILEY: '75 to '85.

MARIA SCIPIONE: Yeah, and I think

we folded in either '86 or '87.

And it was a whimper.

It was not pretty.

It was one of those laborious, depressing--

yeah.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Kind of like what Codex went through,

on a much bigger scale.

MARIA SCIPIONE: But we didn't leave any toxic waste

or nuclear reactors.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Right.

(Laughing)

I don't have any more questions, actually.

I think she really kind of summed it

up, the whole mission behind the New Women's magazine.

EVELYN BAILEY: Yeah.

The feminist movement here in Rochester over the past 30,

40 years--

would you say it peaked at that time?

Or--

MARIA SCIPIONE: I don't know if I'm being

nostalgic from my wild youth.

I would say it was partic--

it may have peaked, but I wouldn't

say now it's like low-level.

I almost feel like there's a certain amount that's

been integrated.

And also, one of the reasons why I think that fed our boldness,

and also to a certain degree why we couldn't be totally

pooh-poohed, is that we are in the hometown of Susan B.

Anthony.

And the powers that be tout that.

So it's a little hard, you know, to totally dismiss

all feminist things, when on everything you

put out to publicize and bring people

to the city has to do with Susan B. Anthony.

Though, when the Susan B. Anthony house became a park

at first, it was run by some pretty Republican

conservative women.

And there was a point where we tried to take it over,

and we failed.

But they were doing things like making sure

that the curtains were beautiful,

but the photographs and documents of Lucretia Mott

were rotting upstairs.

So there was that, you know--

it's like, wait wait wait wait wait.

What's important?

OK.

I get that you want the house to look fabulous,

but not at the cost of that.

So there was some of that went on.

And the Susan B. Anthony coin came out, which was a disaster.

I mean nobody used it.

And I remember that it was my early street theater days

and we did this whole thing that said,

we will not be bought off with a coin.

You know?

And poor Elizabeth Holtzman, who's wonderful.

She's a great--

I mean in terms of politicians, she's one of us.

She's on our side.

She came thinking she was doing this wonderful thing,

and had no idea that she had walked into this hornet's nest.

You know, and

the museum in Seneca Falls has come since then,

so there's a lot of stuff that's been mainstream.

I teach in a high school where they have a gender studies

class.

High school, that has a gender studies class.

You know?

KEVIN INDOVINO: Connie can't even imagine.

MARIA SCIPIONE: Yeah.

Right.

Exactly.

They do a day of silence in a lot of high schools now.

So I got to do Laramie project this past fall with my kids.

You know that Catholic thing about the shoe dropping?

I was for sure somebody who was going

to jump my ass on that one.

None.

I got thank you letters from parents.

So was there more activism then?

Yeah.

But does it mean that there isn't anything going on now?

No.

It's--

KEVIN INDOVINO: It's evolved.

MARIA SCIPIONE: Yeah.

Exactly.

And I think-- again, I think a lot

about that metaphor of breathing.

I think social movements do that.

You can't sustain that exact level.

So you come back, and then there's

another generation that comes up and looks at you and says,

why are you sitting on your ass when this, and this, and this

is wrong?

And you go, well, we kind of did that, you know.

And they go, well, it wasn't enough.

And they go out and do it.

And that's exactly how it should be.

And they're furious.

Good, good.

I got your back, kid.

But it's just, you know, I've had

to figure out how to be in it for the long haul.

And I think that's what a lot of people have done.

They've figured out how to do it for the long haul.

But they haven't gone away.

KEVIN INDOVINO: No, they haven't.

But also our ways of communicating with each other

have changed.

MARIA SCIPIONE: Yes.

KEVIN INDOVINO: Drastically.

So, you know, it's activism texting now.

MARIA SCIPIONE: Right.

Right.

KEVIN INDOVINO: It's not marching in the streets

because you can reach more people by doing this.