Martha Gardner, class of 1988
Martha Gardner graduated from Brown University in 1988 with an A.B. in women's studies. She completed her Ph.D. in U.S. History at Brandeis University in 2002 with a dissertation entitled "Midwife, Doctor, or Doctress? The New England Female Medical College and Women's Place in the Nineteenth Century Medical Profession," and teaches history and social sciences at the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences.
In Part 1 of this interview, Martha Gardner discusses the women's march and speakout held in the spring of 1985. She describes fraternity activities and campus conditions that prompted female students to plan a day of events that addressed sexual violence, gender discrimination, and homophobia at Brown.
In Part 2, Gardner focuses on the aftermath of the 1985 women's march and speakout. She discusses her involvement with the Sarah Doyle Women's Center, gay and lesbian outreach and activism on campus, and her work as a Woman's Peer Counselor.
In Part 3, she describes fraternity activities that precipitated and followed the speakout, and the women's peer counselor program. Gardner concludes by sharing her experience coming out as a lesbian at Brown, and remembering the citizens' arrest organized by Brown students in response to a campus recruitment visit from the CIA.