Diane Eileen Scola’s oral history is an example of autonomy and feminist conviction despite gender discrimination. She begins her interview discussing her Italian-American family background, applying to college, academics at Pembroke, and commuting to school.

In Part 2, Scola focuses on gender expectations in academia and the professional world, and the lack of women role models at Pembroke College. She considers the expectation for women to get married, have children, and stay at home in suburbia, blaming society for placing limits on women. Also in Part 2, she touches on traditions of Pembroke and her feelings about the merger. Scola transitions to considering her life after graduation. She began dating a pharmaceutical representative from New York, whom she had met through Brown’s graduate center, and became pregnant. While her father told her she didn’t have to marry him, and that she had options (including abortion) regarding her pregnancy, she married him in 1960 and had her first daughter. Scola discusses her decision to get married and have a child, and her consequent unhappiness with domesticity. Scola reflects on this time, and her decision to divorce her husband.

In Part 3, Scola talks about her life after her divorce, starting a career in teaching, and fighting gender wage discrimination. She considers the limits she faced in teaching, where as a woman she could not aspire to leadership roles, and her transition to the business world. Scola concludes her interview by reflecting on her two daughters and the sacrifices inherent in being a single mother and a career woman in her time.