THE VFA PIONEER HISTORIES PROJECT
Dr. Ida Fisher Davidoff
The Hon. Nancy Johnson of CT honors Ida Davidoff at the Veteran Feminists of America event, “Salute to Pioneer Feminists,” May 1994, Sewall Belmont House in Washington, DC, home of the National Women’s Party.
Nancy Johnson: It is indeed my extraordinary pleasure to present this medal to an awe-inspiring woman. Not only has she raised four children and been professionally active all of those years, but she was professionally active, held her own, made her way as the wife of a very prestigious neurosurgeon [and] was internationally known as the wife of a doctor. I appreciate the uphill battle – being introduced as wife of Dr. Johnson.
So to have accomplished real professional standing on her own, to have completed her doctorate at Columbia University at age 57; real determination to serve ten years on the faculty of Albert Einstein College of Medicine; to have founded the Women’s Place in Darian, Connecticut.
You have to not only understand the need – have the vision – but as a family therapist, as a counselor and as a professional woman leader in 20th century America…I thank you for all you’ve given to all of us.
Ida Davidoff: When I was a little girl, my mother used to sing a song, Rosie O’Grady and the Colonel’s Lady are Sisters. In fact, we all are sisters under the skin. One of the best things about the woman’s movement, which Betty Friedan started, was that we no longer have to be fighting for the terrain that was possessed by the men. But then we had to fight each other. And now we have our own terrain. We now have the Veteran Feminists of America.
I would like to share with you just for a few moments the fact that I’m 90 is really I’m the new girl on the block. Because those of you who worked in politics – and I’m very impressed – and in corporations and in the large world were really doing murals. And I feel that what we did in Fairfield County, Connecticut, was almost like doing a miniature, but a damn good one. And what has happened was that I was so aware of all the women being inspired by the Feminine Mystique.
Everybody was doing little bits and pieces, and I like to pull things together. So on March 28, 1973 or 1974, I wrote personally a letter. And you have that letter, inviting 80 women’s organizations to combine our efforts. 175 women came. And I have a temerity to call it the Seneca Falls of Fairfield County. And out of that grew Woman’s Place, and it is still serving as an inspiration.
So thank you. Thank you all. I don’t know what we’re going to do about the men. As a marriage counselor, I’m really very sorry for so many men who are being displaced. When I was first in practice, we used to talk about men being brains on stilts. And then I said, well, women are hearts on stilts. I think what I’m pleading for is joining the two, so we can be whole people, men or women.