Scorned but Not Defeated
Butler, Francelia
THE LAST WORD 'Francelia Butler Scorned but Not Defeated At one time or another, I have been deeply involved with four causes: cancer prevention, children's literature, the rights of the elderly,...
...We have a rule here: 'fair, fat, fifty, female, finished'—and you qualify in all respects...
...Francelia Butler is a professor of English at the University of Connecticut...
...Money that should have been going for research was going to padded and vague programs of "public education" and "professional education...
...I wrote a number of articles about the history of the disease and eventually collected them into a small book, Cancer Through the Ages: The Evolution of Hope...
...There is likely to be a war...
...the executive secretary exclaimed...
...Many of our members approve of what Hitler is doing...
...It has no scholarly journal comparable to those in other fields of literature," said another...
...For instance, I was the only one in my English department of about fifty to receive an invitation to attend a lecture on euthanasia...
...There is active hostility to elderly people who "make it" in spite of all deterrents...
...Financial reports were cleverly camouflaged to conceal the fact that very little of the collected funds was going into research...
...I am concerned with the lack of a unified program of peace education in the United States...
...In my work for older people's rights, I received no help from those professionally involved with the problems of aging...
...I have established a tax-exempt Foundation for Contributed Thought on Peace, Inc., and have applied for funds to launch this peace-education project as a pilot program in Connecticut—the site of Electric Boat, Pratt & Whitney, United Technologies, and Colt...
...In all of these endeavors, I have found working with established campaigns to be ineffective or impractical...
...I was so incensed that I wrote up the situation and took it to the managing editor of a local paper...
...My last cause has nothing to do with my own needs, so far as I can ascertain...
...But I believed that things scorned are worth looking into, so I made a survey of my colleagues to find out why they looked down on children's literature...
...In the private sector, it still persists...
...Oh, my no...
...You are a woman...
...In fact, when I asked Yale University for a teaching position, I was informed in writing that though my course plan seemed exciting, I could not be hired because of my age...
...Maybe they were trying to tell me something...
...But still some of my colleagues look down on the field...
...In fact, though I contacted directors of various centers on aging and administrators of programs for the elderly, I was actively discouraged...
...I came to the conclusion that many of those professionally concerned with the elderly are chiefly concerned with those they can patronize—the physically ill, the senile, those in nursing homes...
...But," I protested, "this is too general...
...Her latest book, "Skipping Around the World: The Ritual Nature of Folk Rhymes," recently published by Library Professional Publications, will be reissued by Ballantine next January...
...I haven't succeeded yet, though I do have two small foundations behind the project...
...My second cause was children's literature, which I was forced to teach in 1965 at the University of Connecticut...
...The Renaissance is a field for young men...
...We have a course here that the men look down on," I was told...
...I proceeded one by one to meet all these objections and fill the credentials gap...
...Too much supposed peace education is passive and ineffectual...
...THE LAST WORD 'Francelia Butler Scorned but Not Defeated At one time or another, I have been deeply involved with four causes: cancer prevention, children's literature, the rights of the elderly, and peace education...
...The National Endowment for the Humanities has never sponsored an Institute in the field," noted a fifth...
...Like many women, I got my degree late, after my family was gone, so I was past fifty when I applied for a position...
...I understand there is a man—Hitler—in Germany, and that he has a lot of cruel ideas and is very ambitious...
...After my husband died from cancer, I soon discovered that some of the leaders in the anti-cancer movement were not as interested in finding a cure as they were in collecting funds for their own comfort...
...He called my boss to check details, and I was summarily fired...
...The first two causes I espoused were connected with my own life problems, and so was the third...
...I am reminded of an experience I had in Washington, D.C., in 1934.1 was hired by a national education organization to write a pamphlet on the Brotherhood of Man...
...It has no professional organization which is humanities-oriented," explained a third...
...For many organizations, however, peace is a pejorative term, associated with communism and weakness...
...It has no textbook for classes in the humanities," said a fourth...
...Why don't you instead have me get out a pamphlet urging members to write their Congressmen to cut off the sale of arms and military supplies to Nazi Germany...
...But I don't know anything about it," I said...
...Since I was nearing seventy, and there was compulsory retirement at seventy, I began to work to change the law...
...For several years now, students in my upper classes have been making peace games as part of my course in children's literature...
...Those with cancer don't want to read about it, and neither do those without it...
...My field is the Renaissance...
...I founded the Connecticut League against Age Discrimination, Inc., and with the help of a sympathetic Congressman, Jonathan Pelto, the law was changed in Connecticut for professors in the public sector...
...It is not enough for children to hold hands, sing songs, light candles...
...For this reason, I am working to establish peace-game projects, first in the Connecticut schools and then nationwide...
...It's not even recognized as a legitimate field by the Modern Language Association," one said...
...The education department has dumped it on English because it is unpopular, but the Legislature wants it taught...
...Aside from that, there has never been a history of cancer, the nearest being a list of titles published in Germany around 1906...
...I had no choice but to take the job...
...We would lose our nationalistic membership...
...Especially in the intermediate grades, children should learn the techniques of conflict resolution and mediation...
Vol. 53 • June 1989 • No. 6
