THE VFA PIONEER HISTORIES PROJECT
Hon. Emily Jane Goodman
“The Fight Goes On.”
Interviewed by Judy Waxman, Oral Historian, September 2024
EJG: I’m Emily Jane Goodman, and I’m speaking to you from New York City. I was born in New York City, but specifically Brooklyn. The year was 1940.
JW: Briefly, if you could tell us about your childhood. What do you think led you on the path that you went on? Your parents, your siblings, your religion? What do you think?
EJG: Well, I had a very ordinary Brooklyn childhood. My parents were not political. They were what they would call Roosevelt Democrats. That is, they voted. But my father was a Union worker, so I was very aware of that. And we lived in a very ordinary Jewish neighborhood, or two different neighborhoods. We moved once from one neighborhood to another, but they weren’t very different.
Everything was basically ordinary, traditional, not in a religious way, but girls were girls and boys were boys. My mother almost always worked outside the home, and so I understood that to be normal, even though most other mothers didn’t. The one thing that she always stressed was, “Always have your own money.” In other words, you should be married, but always have your own financial independence. So that I took as a very feminist message.
JW: I assume you went to college after high school?
EJG: Well, I did, but I went at night, and worked, because that was the thing. I mean, college was not part of our culture, which was distinctly working class. Everyone we knew was very working class. Relatives, neighbors, my parents’ friends were I don’t know, truck drivers, construction workers, things like that. So, they never really even mentioned college to me. And in high school, I was in the commercial division because I was going to always have to work. So, this message from my mother was sort of a dual thing, because I was always going to be preparing to work. That came before college. So, I always had jobs, and I went to Brooklyn College at night.
JW: Explain what commercial is. I know what it is, but our audience may not.
EJG: In other words, I was not being prepared for college. My main courses were shorthand and typing, which were very useful in those days. I could always get a job. Now, of course, there are no secretaries, no one does stenography. Everything’s electronic. I graduated from high school, which was Midwood High School, I walked across the street to Brooklyn College and signed up. But I was going to be taking classes only at night and working during the day. Although I went to summer sessions during the day at Brooklyn College, at NYU, at Hofstra, at Delphi, everywhere.
In one summer, I could pack in enough credits that would be almost a semester. So therefore, even going at night, it took five and a half years. And then I had no real plans after that. I did not go right to law school. In fact, I didn’t go to law school for five more years because it took me that amount of time to realize that I was never going to get to do anything interesting, or that I considered meaningful without some other degree or education or a piece of paper, diploma. That, of course, was life-changing.
JW: Is that what got you to law school? You decided, “I want something more interesting, I’ll go to law school?” Because even then, that was highly unusual. What year was that?
EJG: That was 1964.
JW: Not very many women decided, Oh, I think I’ll go to law school.
EJG: No, there were very few women, and so, it was kind of weird. My family thought it was weird. What girl has to go to law school? Better to marry a dentist, was the idea. But I couldn’t really imagine myself for the rest of my life in that posture. It wouldn’t be meaningful, not only to me, but I wouldn’t be making any kind of contribution to the world, to the society. Anyway, so that’s what I did. I graduated in ’68, and that was quite a year, 1968. And so, bursting out on the scene as a young woman lawyer; and I looked like 12 years old at the time, was a very big deal for me.
It meant a lot, because it was a moment when so much was happening. Whether it was around the war in Vietnam, or the women’s movement, or the many things that were going on, suddenly being a woman lawyer meant something. And women were so eager to have help with their issues from another woman, which was mostly divorces, abuse, child custody, those kinds of things. And so, I got seriously into that, but not only that. I was kind of a freelancer. I didn’t really work for a law firm or anything. As it was a life-changing moment for the world, it was a life-changing moment for me as well.
JW: Were you involved in any feminist issues? I mean, as specifically in New York when stuff was going on then.
EJG: Yes. Well, not really in the organized institutional way, but starting the Women’s Law Center came around at that time. We were giving out information, which was largely because this is what women were looking for. Their rights. What are their rights? Well, they had no rights, really. You could make a list very quickly. We were doing things like teaching women how to do their own divorces.
There were women who were coming out, married women, mothers, who for the first time were coming out as lesbians and dealing with the fact that they’d been telling their husbands every Tuesday night, they played Mahjong or whatever. There were certain bars that apparently were magnets. So, how are they going to deal with this in the context of divorce and child custody? There was, at that time, only fault divorce. No such thing as no-fault divorce. Going to a woman lawyer was, I think, much easier. The sensibility was easy. There were some other women lawyers, I was certainly not the only one, but we were very few. I don’t think necessarily, as I remember, that others took the position that I took. Which was not representing men at all, period, against their wives. I would represent the man if he was being evicted from his apartment, but that had nothing to do with the marriage or the family.
JW: In the divorce situation, you wouldn’t represent them?
EJG: Yes, because I felt then that it was a conflict of interest because I wanted to give support to women. Even now, when I see that, especially very rich men are represented by women lawyers; now there’s no-fault divorce, but it’s all about economics. And you have to pretty much destroy the woman. I was also doing criminal defense. There too, I would not be able to represent a man charged with rape, even though he had every right to be represented by the best possible lawyer. But I felt there, too, you have to destroy the woman complainant. I would not be able to do that, I would not want to do that.
So, there were all these issues that I was involved with. And when you asked, “How was I involved?” It was largely through legal issues. But it was also, and this became controversial, the progressive left. In other words, women like Angela Davis. At that time, Robin Morgan wrote her great essay, Goodbye to All That, which was a break from the male dominated left. You had feminism on one hand, and, shall I say, progressive politics on the other, which was very patriarchal.
JW: Did you make a sufficient living when you were doing all this? It sounds almost like catch-as-catch-can, and so people would refer you. It would take a while.
EJG: Yes. Well, I did have jobs also. But at the beginning, when I was just going to do this kind of out of my apartment, and there was this women’s center; you couldn’t imagine anything like this happening now, but then, I could say, Well, I’ll represent you in court, but in exchange, you’ll do the typing. So, there could be a barter system. I wouldn’t say that that was wildly successful, but you could get a lot done. But I did have jobs. My first job was at Legal Aid Society and then I left that to work for Grove Press. I don’t know if you know the history of what happened at Grove Press, but it’s very worth telling.
I was hired as the lawyer for Grove Press, and Grove Press was of course known, then, and now to a certain extent, as a very avant-garde publisher. And Grove Press had had some of the leading cases in the Supreme Court of challenging obscenity laws. Very, very important battles. When I was there, there was a national fight going on about a Scandinavian film called I Am Curious. It was so mild, but people were being arrested all around the country for showing the movie. It was quite a thing.
Well, just at that time, the women at Grove Press who were the lesser workers; that is, the lower paid editors were women, and they were on a two-fold campaign. One, was for more money and recognition for themselves, but the other, was against porn. And there was a tremendous schism in the women’s movement then about porn. You had the free thinkers, so to speak, and the others whose position was, pornography destroys women, hurts women, exploits women, and so on. There were very well-known people on both sides. For example, Susan Brownmiller strongly opposed to porn and was a leader in that fight, and Robin Morgan. On the other hand, Ellen Willis and Alix Schulman were, can I say, pro-sex and took very different positions.
So, in the meantime, what happened was that the women organized a takeover of Grove Press. Now, I was the lawyer for Grove Press, but that ended that because the meeting was held and it was decided that on, I think, a Monday morning, the staff was going to go into the building in the village early in the morning and take over Barney Rosset, the publisher’s office. And that’s what happened.
I didn’t go in. I stayed outside in case there were problems, and there were problems. Because what happened, is that to everybody’s shock, Barney Rosset being this well-known progressive person, a leader in avant-garde literature and politics, called the police. And only the week, or the month before, there had been a sit-in at Ladies Home Journal and that was very peaceful. The publisher or editor came in and said, Well, what can we do? What is it you’re asking us to do? And that was a, shall I say, housewives magazine at the time, whereas Grove Press was international literature.
And so, everybody was arrested. They were held in jail. I was the lawyer, and then a couple of other lawyers learned what was going on and showed up. Flo Kennedy showed up, and she was a great mentor of mine and some other people. Anyway, then they didn’t want to leave jail because there were prostitutes in jail. So, they wanted to organize the prostitutes. Women who were regularly in and out of jail. That was a very significant moment. It was very radical, and it involved some well-known people. Later on, Barney Rossett, in, I think, his memoir, said that “The Grove Press women ruined his life.”
JW: Did he continue after that?
EJG: Yes. I mean, he was still a known figure. Oh, yes, but I don’t think it did his reputation any good. I mean, it was almost laughable to think that because a group of women employees who sat in at his office doing no damage, hurting no one, would be arrested. It was shocking, and yet productive in a way, because it illustrated what women were up against. These were all highly educated women, and writers, editors, et cetera. That was 1970, so that was kind of an organizing thing. People got very excited about that. In fact, publishing was a place which was largely women. Not the top jobs of course, but the low-end jobs, until things started to change and they became writers themselves.
I remember Jackie Sabias in court one time; because Phyllis Chesler had written Women and Madness, an important book that had recently been reviewed by Adrienne Rich from the New York Times. It was a very big deal. I will say, a revolutionary approach analysis to women, and psychology, and psychotherapy, and so on. Anyway, when the paperback edition came out, probably nine months or ten months after the hardcover, some publishing era screwed up the pagination of the book, so it didn’t make sense. Chapters were in the wrong place and so on. And so, I was her lawyer, and we sued the publisher.
A lot of women came to court knowing that that case was going to be argued, that day, that time, that building. And the judge, who was a very nice guy, but not used to seeing women in court, said to me, “Well, what shall I call you?” And I said, “What do you mean?” And he said, “Well, like Miss or Mrs.? He was sincere. He was confused. I mean, this is like an elephant walking into the room. So, I said, “Well, why don’t you call me counselor like you call the male lawyers?” So, I remember Jackie writing something about little Emily. I don’t want to call myself childlike, but I wasn’t like other lawyers, let me say that. She somehow always remembered that and I think wrote about it. I wrote to her recently and her daughter told me she read the remarks to her.
But also, I was very interested in the gay community. If you’re going to ask me, was I a member of NOW or any of the other organized groups? No. I represented the Gay Activists Alliance. That was basically gay men, but they were beaten up by the Firefighters Union people. That was a very important event, and of course, abortion. In 1970, all of these things were happening, ’68, ’69, ’70, came the abortion lawsuit challenging the New York State abortion laws.
The team that really was primarily responsible, which included Rhonda, who has since died, and Nancy Stearns, who is very much alive, was, can I say, the brains behind it. And recently, she’s been quoted a lot. She was quoted by Ruth Bader Ginsburg as the great thinker on the abortion case. There was an additional team, Flo Kennedy, Diane Shoulder, myself, I’m sure, there are other people. That was three years before Roe v Wade, and of course the New York legislature, which was primarily all men, took the credit for the result which overturned the New York law.
So, these are things that really stood out, along with what Flo called the One ass out of a ringer-at-a-time method, like one divorce after another. But then there were these huge fights that affected everybody. So, I was very much part of that. And I was writing also. I wrote the first op-ed piece that was in the Times about what is now called domestic violence. Someone from the Times had interviewed me in general about the subject, and he said to me, “But you don’t mean just like a slap across the face?” “Yes.” I said, “Well, yes, I do.” So, that appeared in the Times. And then I wrote an op-ed piece in the Times. In fact, they might have invited me after the other article. I don’t really remember that. So, I felt very much involved in these big-ticket issues, if you will. Therefore, I thought, “Well, what was the point of going to law school if I’m not going to make a difference in any way?” and so, I felt I was making a difference.
I kept doing that, but I was also doing things that were not necessarily feminist. I was one of the defense lawyers in the Attica uprising in 1971. That was life-changing, too. Because, in many ways – I’m sure you know about the deaths and murders – but as baby lawyers, we were sort of thinking about following the law. I mean, when I say, “follow the law,” we thought that we could find justice somehow in the courts. Maybe. We didn’t know for sure. But the day of the Attica Massacre, I was there. I wasn’t at Attica when the massacre happened, but I, and a bunch of other lawyers were called and told, “If this place is going to blow up” that was Bill Kunstler that called, and a bunch of us went there on the next plane and we managed to get a judge there to sign an order allowing us into the prison because we knew people were being killed, and we said we wanted to see our clients and so on.
The judge did give us that order, but when we got near the prison, there were roadblocks and they searched cars and so on. I said to a police officer, or a state trooper, or National Guard, I don’t know what he was but we were not getting past him. I said, “But we have a court order.” He laughed and he said, “Oh, you have a court order, and I have a Bayonet.” It was like saying, Oh, we’ve been thinking we can fight in courts and we can find justice in the courts, and you can always go to the Supreme Court. Well, of course, that was over 50 years ago. No one wants to go to the Supreme Court now, as you well know.
JW: I’m going to interrupt you a little because you’ve mentioned so many people you’d worked closely with. For example, tell me about Flo Kennedy. You said she was your mentor.
EJG: She was. I met Flo Kennedy at a party in late 1968. I was recently out of law school, and this was that winter. People had mentioned her, but I didn’t know who she was. And then she arrived at this party, which was a fundraiser for the Welfare Rights Organization, Leroy Jones – who was still Leroy Jones, I think, before he became a married baraka – was the speaker. And then Flo arrived, and she was dressed in not traditional clothing that we were used to seeing. I got close to her, and then she said to me, “We’re having a meeting. It’s going to be Wednesday at my place at 1:00, you must come.”
So, I thought, “Yes, I’ve got to be there.” I’m going to be there on time and so on, and this is going to be a big planning of something very important. Well, then I got there, and there were a couple of people, and then I realized that this is how Flo organizes. As she meets people along the way, the taxi driver or anybody, she invites them to something. Like, Come to my house Wednesday at one o’clock. We’re having a meeting. Well, the meeting is being created as she meets people. And she usually says, and there’ll be food. There’ll be chili on the stove. So that was my first contact with her.
But then, I must say, I became one of her groupies. I would do anything that she was organizing, and she was very happy to pass the work on to us. If you told her about a certain situation, whatever it might be, she’d say, Use my letterhead, write anything you want. People like myself, Harro Lefcourt, who has also died, and a few of us baby lawyers. She was teaching us about organizing, and that we’re going to have a demonstration at the New York Times and pick up people as we go along.
But the best one was at Fire Island, because at Fire Island, there’s a community, purely White, no Blacks, no Browns, no Jews. I don’t even think Catholic. It’s an Episcopalian, waspy, community. And the year before, Nat Hentoff, the journalist at the Village Voice, had not been allowed to go in there to mail a letter in the United States post office box. So, something was brewing. Of course, he later went pro-life, anti-abortion, so he was not on the same team. Although the new book about the Village Voice, The Freaks Come Out at Night, I think probably talks about that.
But anyway, somebody we knew, you’ll be shocked when I mention who, because this is a person who has changed 380 degrees, Alan Dershowitz. He and his then wife also had a rented place at Fire Island. Flo was the principal person and then she would invite other people. Alan Dershowitz had a house not far away, and he called the club at Point of Woods, which is the old White community. He called and said he’d like to make a dinner reservation and he was told, “Well, you have to be a member of the club.” So, he said, “I’ll join the club.” “You have to be recommended by 20 people whose ancestors came over on the Mayflower,” et cetera. So, he got the picture, and they got the picture. And he said, “Well, you’ll be hearing from my lawyer.”
EJG: Meantime, he was already then, I think, a professor at Harvard or an assistant professor. So, the person he was speaking to, the manager, said, “And who is your lawyer?” And he said, “Florynce Kennedy.” And the guy stopped and he said, “Florynce Kennedy, isn’t she a colored lady?” Then he came to our house, Flo Kennedy’s house, and told this story and said, “Well, we have to bring a civil rights action in federal court.” Flo Kennedy said, “Lawsuit? No, we have to have a demonstration.” Because she was always about organizing demonstrations. She said, “Next Sunday, we have to have a demonstration.”
The Panthers 21 trial was going on in New York then. Jerry Lefcourt and Carol Lefcourt were lawyers on that case, but were also part of this house. So, it was decided that they would bring the Panthers, who were not in jail but were on trial, to Fire Island, and there would be a demonstration on the beach. Of course, it would start with chili at our house, and there would be signs, and we marched on the beach and picked up other people along the way to walk to Point of Woods. It was on the front page of the New York Times. The reporter walked along with us in a suit and tie and regular shoes. This was like the highlight of the summer and more. I hope you find these things interesting and relevant to what you’re doing. That was a great, great day.
So, when I say Flo Kennedy was a mentor, I learned so much from her because she taught us really not to be afraid. We were nice, mostly Jewish girls, who had been brave enough to go to law school, but we were still nice girls. If you had an idea about something, she would say, “Oh, you have to write a book about it.” Well, who ever thought about that? She gave me the idea, and I did write a book about housing, because people were complaining about their landlords and so on, and I was representing such people in housing court.
Then she said, “Well, you have to write a book about it.” Well, I did write the book about it, called The Tenant Survival Book. Some people still talk about it. Some people still ask me how to get it. Emily Sokolov, whose mother was the famous Judith Copeland, wrote to me just this week saying, “I found a copy of the first edition. Do you want it?” But I wouldn’t have done that without Flo giving me the idea and telling me, “Of course you can do it.”
Later, I did go to Columbia Graduate School of Journalism, but she opened so many paths. She could make you feel so good. If you came and told her that somebody was mean to you, your boss was so mean to you and fired you, she would say, “Really? Well, we’re having a dinner next Saturday night, and we are going to give out an award. What’s your boss’s name?” Okay, the boss’s name is John Smith; “We are going to give you the John Smith Toilet Paper Award.” It was crazy. But then you would feel so good.
JW: You got a lot of empathy there for sure.
EJG: Absolutely. Or she’d say, “Honey, we are going to the Plaza for lunch, and we are going to have sandwiches and tea, and you’re going to tell them about this.” And then it would just change the dynamic. She was the greatest person I ever knew. So, you said, “Tell me about Flo Kennedy.”
JW: Oh, wow. That’s amazing. It’s personal, intimate conversations and so forth. Okay, I’m going to ask you about somebody else because you mentioned you wrote with Phyllis Chesler.
EJG: Yes, we wrote a book called Women, Money, and Power in about 1976, which was an important book, but it didn’t turn out well. Our relationship did not work well, and collaborations are very difficult. So, that ended our working together, and maybe our contact with each other.
JW: Yes, that happens. We’re still in the ’70s, but I’m sure you did stuff after that.
EJG: Yes. I became aware of judicial politics, and almost all the judges were men. In the whole United States, I think 2% of judges were women. I got active in that, eventually becoming a judge myself. You probably know that. Because there’s an area where who the players are makes a very big difference. You can see that now as far as the Supreme Court. What can I say? But I did play a role in changing the profile of the judges in New York before becoming a judge myself.
JW: When did you become a judge yourself?
EJG: In 1983. Even that was strange because I was pregnant, and you have to campaign for a judgeship to be elected in New York. Certain judgeships are appointed, but the others are elected. I was running for an elected judicial position, and I was very pregnant. Some people could not get over that. I was very widely supported, but some people would say, “Well, how could you be pregnant and have a baby and be a judge? This is impossible.” Well, men have been judges for centuries, and they have had children, too.
But the idea that I could campaign for judgeship, or anything, really, no one was campaigning for anything pregnant. Then I realized I had to deal with this. I would go around to different organizations and political clubs and so on, to get support to be elected. I would start my talk with, “Hello, good evening. By the way, there’s a rumor going around that I’m pregnant,” and I was quite pregnant. I mean, there was no hiding this.
So, then I was elected, and at my induction, I had an infant, and all the women politicians, Ruth Messinger, Roni Eldridge, Barbara Fife were competing to hold the baby for a couple of seconds. And then when I spoke and I said, “The baby, she’s now x-weeks old,” well, she was born in August, and I was elected in November. And I said, “She’s named Justine, which is for justice.”
And by the way, that day in November, election day, I took her with me to the voting place, and the people working there said, “You can’t bring anyone else into the voting booth with you.” And so, I said, “Well, she’s not going to tell me who to vote for.” And they said, “No. No one else is allowed. You have to go in alone.” I said, “Well, where is the childcare center here?” And of course, there are no childcare centers. We know that that’s another big issue. Well, they didn’t know what to do, and I said, “Well, send over the supervisor or whoever is in charge.”
Anyway, I voted, and I have a nice picture of my daughter, my baby, with me at the polling booth. She, as she grew, understood that her mother was a judge. I remember, and a lot of people have heard this, she was about three years old, and she went someplace and we ran into one of my colleagues, and I introduced her, and I said, “Justine, Judge Smith is a judge in the same court as your mommy.” And she looked at him and she said, “What? A judge without earrings?” Wasn’t that fabulous? In other words, her concept was a judge would look like her mother. Would be a woman.
JW: Fabulous. What made you want to become a judge in the first place?
EJG: Well, because I realized that was the place where you could make a difference. I was tired of practicing law. I had already finished a year at Columbia, because I did this master’s in journalism and I was active in so many things. As a judge, you can’t be active in many things, but I felt that I would make a big difference. I think I did in certain ways. Things that were important not only to me, but to society. I had certain principles, and I’ve written about them. What it’s like to be a judge, what goes on, and the controversies, of which there are many.
When I became Supreme Court Judge, then you have another big induction. And the then mayor, who was David Dinkin, swore me in. One of the main speakers was Gloria Steinem. I think she did that because Flo asked her to. I asked her myself, but I think she did it because it was important to Flo. She was great, as always, as a speaker. Her opening line was, “Well, this is the most fun I’ve ever had in a courtroom.”
That was great. Being a judge, I felt like an ordinary person. I didn’t feel like some of the judges who go to the laundry and they tell the guy, “Call me Judge from now on.” Things like that. But I feel that I saw things from different angles. I thought it was important that I had grown up, as I told you, very working class. I felt that I understood people in court. I don’t mean corporations. If AT&T fights with Google, that’s a whole different thing. But regular people in court, it’s an alien environment. People don’t understand the vocabulary. People know more now because there’s so much on television about what happens in courts. Although young people who get arrested, it could be civil or criminal, young people who get arrested, I wonder, don’t they watch Law and Order? Why do they make confessions and think the police are going to be on their side?
It was just a good time. I had already been practicing law. In New York you have to practice law or have a license at least for 10 years to become a judge. By the time I was elected, I had 13 years, including one year at Columbia, where I was hardly working at law. I felt that I brought something to it and that it would give something back to me. Steady employment. And this was good with having a baby at home. I did have to be there every day, and naturally I had to deal with the issues of childcare, sick child, and the things that everybody else has to deal with, night court, all the things that go into the job. It’s tough. I know that many people think being a judge, you just sit there and tell other people what to do.
You can be that kind of a judge, but if you really care what happens to people, it’s very stressful because you have to function within the law, but you have to find what the law is. This is why a computer can’t be a judge, even though I suppose they’ll be going for that, too. But no, because everyone reads the same law differently. It’s how you see it. What might be the law for one person will be seen in an entirely different way by another person. I wrote the first decision about gay people being roommates in a housing case, because until then, you had to be married, a couple. There was no such thing as a gay couple.
JW: Two individual people couldn’t move in together?
EJG: Well, they might be roommates, but they couldn’t succeed to the apartment. The case that came before me was a case where a person, two guys, and one died, the other one wanted to keep the apartment, but they weren’t married. The second one, the survivor, was going to lose the apartment. I tell you, an apartment in New York is quite an asset. And so, I wrote the first decision that these two people are a couple, and they share their lives. I think it was a little more poetic than that, but the thing is that he has as much right to stay as a husband or a wife would have. But of course, gay marriage was not recognized. And so that was the first case.
And then when it went to the Court of Appeals, which is the highest Court, that’s above the Supreme Court, even though the Supreme Court seems to be the highest Court.
JW: In New York State law, you mean?
EJG: Yes. And they not only agreed, they cited my case, which was very unusual for the highest court to cite a lower court. But that’s what I mean when I say, “Who the judge is can make a difference.” Because my interpretation would be different than somebody else’s interpretation. That’s where it was among the kinds of reasons why it would be important. Also was the idea that there should be more women judges, which in New York, now there are a lot of women judges. I think it is at least half and probably more. I have not done an analysis of how much of a difference that has made in substantive law. But of course, there are more legislators on the state level and the city level who are women, and there will be a woman governor, and maybe there will be a woman president-elect. Maybe. It’s only about five weeks away.
JW: You’re retired now. Is that right?
EJG: Yes. Well, I’m still a lawyer. But I’m retired from the bench.
JW: I see. So, you are still taking cases?
EJG: Yes, I do. A variety. I don’t go to court so much. Litigation is really tough. So, for that, I need to be working with someone else. But the main reason is that I am so behind in technology. There’s no such thing as books now, so nobody does research with books. Everything is online. But I counsel at a law firm. I have several things in play, but I don’t have to be on the bench at 9:30 in the morning.
JW: I’m trying to think of how to phrase this, but it does seem like your mother’s teaching of you, your mother’s thoughts, really made you who you became. She thought, women can be and should be independent, is how I took that.
EJG: Well, still, my mother thought the traditional way was the way to go, though. I mean, yes, you should have a job and you should have your own money, but you need to have a husband, preferably a dentist. You might think my mother was proud of me, but no, my mother did not approve of me going to law school. My mother would say things like, “Oh, you think you’re going to get Mother’s Day cards from the law books?”
JW: Oh, my.
EJG: She did not groom me for that, except in the sense that I always understood that a wife, and I was a wife, should work and should have her own money, but not in the global sense of achieving more. Yes, she was happy when I visited her and her friends would say, “Oh, that’s your daughter, the Judge.” She liked that. But she didn’t really get my priorities or my lifestyle. She was ecstatic when I finally did decide I would like to have a child. That was great. I’m very, very glad that I made that decision, even though it had not been high on my list of priorities.
Even the women I know that I’m still friends with, not all have children. I’m close with Vivian Gornick. I’ll see her tonight for dinner. She never had children and look how productive she is. She has a new book out almost every year, and so on. So that’s fine. I’m glad I made the decision that I did, and I have a fabulous daughter. I didn’t really do that for my mother, but I came to a time where I said, “Yes, that is another thing I’d like to do.”
JW: Is there anything you’d like to add before we close off?
EJG: Well, I would say that I think I’ve had a great run, and the timing was perfect. Now, I don’t know what’s next, not just for me, but for women. I know many of the younger women don’t want to identify with feminism, the word, and they may feel that, as you said, we already pushed open the doors for them. I used to say that to my daughter, like when she was high school age, and she would say, “Well, you and your friends already did everything for us.” And I said, “Really?” I said, “Well, keep your eye on abortion. We had that fight, and now it looks like anyone who wants to get an abortion can get an abortion. But that is not going to last.” And she and her friends said, “Oh, well, it’s already done.” As if they could take something like that for granted. Now look at the mess that we’re all in. And they still have to fight for equal pay and jobs. The fight goes on. Now the law schools have more women than men. Of course, a lot of women who in the past didn’t see that they had options, they could be a teacher, they could be a nurse, they could be a secretary. But now they say, “Well, I could go to law school.”