Stephanie Geddes, who was a part of the first graduating class of UTSC in 1968, here speaks about her experience as a woman student at Hart House, a popular student centre at the St. George campus.
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One thing was, it was just the beginning of women’s lib. For instance at Hart House, women were not allowed in Hart House unless it was after hours and it was some formal event like a dance. But during the day women were not allowed in there, it was men only. And in the pool and men would swim and I hear in the, in the flesh, in their birthday suits ’cause that was the way it was done. It was very, from that way, it was very male-oriented.
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I talked about how we all wore skirts and dresses. I remember getting issues of The Varsity and there’d be reports of women burning their bras and stuff. And at first I thought, “Now, why would women do that?” Because there was no understanding of what women’s liberation was all about and so part of
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being in the university at that time was discovering what women’s liberation was all about, ’cause it was just in its infancy. We hadn’t even, we didn’t even realize we had to be liberated but it was, it was — talk about the glass ceiling. I think the glass ceiling was a mile thick in those days. And so, that was one basic difference that affected us I think because a lot of
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women started protesting that they wanted Hart House to be open. And I remember we used to go to dances at Hart House and they were fabulous like they’d have different rooms and in each room they’d have different music and so you could dance to all different eras eras of music and it was so wonderful. And I’d go in that building and I think “This building is so beautiful, you know? But I can’t go in by myself.”
