- Collection:
- Donna Novak Coles Georgia Women's Movement Archives
- Title:
- Simpson talks about her early involvement with the Women's Movement (4:59)
- Creator:
- Simpson, Polly Brooks, 1939-
- Contributor to Resource:
- Van Tilborg, Dana
- Publisher:
- Atlanta, Ga. : Georgia State University Library
- Date of Original:
- 1996-10-21
- Subject:
- Feminism
Social movements
Women's studies - Location:
- United States, Georgia, 32.75042, -83.50018
- Medium:
- audiocassettes
- Type:
- Sound
- Format:
- audio/mpeg
- Description:
- Polly Brooks Simpson, civic activist and businesswoman, was born in Atlanta, Georgia in 1939. After graduating from high school in Sparta, GA, she attended Agnes Scott College (1957-1958) and earned a psychology degree (B.A., 1962) from Georgia State University. She later received a masters degree in social work from Atlanta University (1978). Simpson has been involved in the Georgia Council on Child Abuse since 1979, serving as board president for two terms. In 1988, the Council named its Polly B. Simpson Distinguished Service Award after her, and she became its first recipient. She also organized and chaired Georgia Voices for Children (1989-1990), an advocacy group whose efforts resulted in the change of state child abuse laws. Other organizations that Simpson has been active with are the National Committee to Prevent Child Abuse (1989-1995), Georgians for Children (1991-), and the Fulton County Child Abuse Protocol Committee (1995-). In 1996, Simpson opened Vermillion, an Atlanta gallery. She married Charlie Simpson in 1960 and has two daughters. In 1980. Simpson and others developed A Woman's Place, a clearinghouse for women's resources as well as an organization for women. The organization began producing a newsletter, A Woman's Place, in 1981. In September 1983 the first issue of Femme was produced, which was issued as an insert to Atlanta's Creative Loafing newspaper. When A Woman's Place closed its offices on September 30, 1983, the Georgia Women's Consortium, a statewide alliance of 32 organizations, took over the clearinghouse concept of the older organization. Simpson continued to co-edit Femme, and when the name was changed to Atlanta Woman in December 1983, she remained as co-editor.
Simpson talks about her childhood around Georgia, and recounts that her grandmother, a classic steel magnolia, was a very important influence in her later work with the Women's Movement. Simpson believes that her active involvement in the Women's Movement began through her experiences at the Unitarian Church, which strongly emphasized the importance of human rights and human potential. She states that it was through one of her church's women's groups that plans for a women's fair were developed, and that A Women's Place was a natural progression from that fair. Simpson discusses the successes of A Women's Place -- most notably in bringing women and women's groups together, and in creating and editing the Creative Loafing insert, Femme (later Atlanta Woman). She also talks about the organization's problems, including lack of financial support, and the personal burden of time and energy that was required to keep A Woman's Place going. Simpson ends by discussing the Women's Movement and how it has benefited younger generations -- particularly in the field of sports. She also discusses the problems of the Women's Movement, citing its non-inclusiveness as a major fault, particularly in relation to lesbians and black women.
Transcript of this excerpt: DVT: How and when did you become interested in the actual [Women's] Movement and getting involved? PS: I think the way that I probably [did] first, is that my husband and I -- I grew up a Southern Baptist, which didn't really cut it for me as an adult, and my husband grew up the same way. And we investigated looking for different religions when we were married and living in Atlanta. We tried several places. Where we ended up was at the Unitarian Church which really felt like home to both of us, and something -- a place we really valued. And about the time of the Women's Movement -- the Unitarians are always very humanist-oriented and always speaking up for the rights of whomever the kind of "under-trodden" are. So, the Women's Movement was a logical place for a lot of people to -- I mean, you know that -- a lot of ideas and things out of the Women's Movement were very prevalent at this particular church. At the same time, going on with that was something that was called the -- I don't even know what they called it -- but it was kind of like the interpersonal movement. It was the beginning of people really being more introspective. And there were series of classes where, you know, you did a lot of interactions with each other in taking a look at yourself. It was just a human potential movement -- that's what they called it. There were -- Bell Laboratories had put out a whole series of classes. And so we did -- he [her husband] and I both did a lot of that through the Unitarian Church. Through that I met a psychologist. She and I became very good friends. She asked me if I would like do -- lay-lead some women's groups with her. I, of course, was very flattered since I had no training -- formal training at all, and thought -- wondered what this would be like. So kind of -- in the process of doing those groups and talking with her about how we were going to lead those groups, I just got more and more awareness of myself as a woman and of all of the issues that -- not all, just the issues that were unfolding for us all during that period of time. Then, doing the women's groups, there was all these various women who were doing the same kind of exploring that she and I were doing. It was just like, you know, just this huge geometric progression of things unfolding in terms of information and awarenesses about the Women's Movement and the issues confronting women at that time. That's really what got me interested. Then, the other thing -- obvious[ly], was that I had two daughters. We tried -- I tried so hard to do non-gender things with them. And bought them hammers and did all the things. I used to dress them in navy-blue dresses. I did all the non-traditional things that I could think of, along with all the others [more traditional things]. When one was about four years old -- Charlie, my husband tells this story because he remembers talking to her about what she was going to be when she grew up or something -- and she said a nurse. He said, "Why aren't you going to be a doctor?" She said, "Because women aren't doctors." He nearly flipped, because, he said, you know, "She's never heard either one of us say that sort of thing." But I think it made us both -- just hit us real hard about the environment out there. You can do all you can do inside your home, but they go to play in other people's houses, they go to school and they do all this [other things] and it just comes. So [we thought] we'd better do something to see if we couldn't change that. So that made me -- I think that they [the daughters] probably were my biggest incentive to really want to make a difference somehow. - Metadata URL:
- http://digitalcollections.library.gsu.edu/cdm/ref/collection/coles/id/2107
- IIIF manifest:
- https://digitalcollections.library.gsu.edu/iiif/2/coles:2107/manifest.json
- Language:
- eng
- Additional Rights Information:
- Copyright to this item is owned by Georgia State University Library. Georgia State University Library has made this item available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 International License. For more information, see https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
- Extent:
- 26 pages (two audio cassettes)
- Original Collection:
- Georgia Women's Movement Project Collection
Donna Novak Coles Georgia Women's Movement Archives - Holding Institution:
- Georgia State University. Special Collections
- Rights:
-
