The Education of Girls

The country is at war. Your boyfriend is about to be taken for the draft. Sent far away to an unknown country, Vietnam. The government is heedless of protest.

I am seventeen years old. Newly arrived at smart Wellesley College. It is 1966, the eve of a convulsive time. Hillary Clinton lives across the hall. Henry Kissinger and John Kenneth Galbraith are teaching at nearby Harvard. I am in a crucible of clever young women, demure, conservative and gently-reared; a tiny and elite minority of girls. Back then a mere 7.4% of women went to university. We are coming of age in a place where birth control for single women is illegal.

This is the story of how the Vietnam war, racial strife and the birth of women's liberation fundamentally changed our lives, leading us to grow into very different women than the ones we were expected to become.

During the pandemic, I worked with three close friends to record this story, sharing letters, diaries, and memories. The result is vivid, detailed and true. now is the time for all good men to