The chapel, when Greer and Zee arrived that night, was only two-thirds filled. The weather was unusually bad for fall, flurries spiraling widely, and the place had the smell and feel of a children’s coatroom, with slick, streaked floors, and people trying to find a place to stow their damp outerwear, only to end up bunching it up and holding it awkwardly against their bodies. Many of the students had come because their professors had made the lecture mandatory. “She’s been very important to a lot of people, myself included. Be there,” one sociology professor had said in a mildly threatening tone.
The event was supposed to start at seven, but apparently Faith’s driver had gotten lost. The sign at the entrance of Ryland was so modest that it might have advertised a small-town pediatric practice. At 7:25 there came a squall of activity from over on the other side of the chapel, and then a raw front of incoming damp night air as the double doors were pushed open and several people powered in. First came the college president, and then the dean, followed by a couple of others, all excited in their coats and unflattering hats. Then, hatless and shockingly recognizable, Faith Frank entered with a few people, including the provost, and stood unspooling a blood-colored scarf from her throat. Greer watched as the scarf unwound and unwound, a trick scarf as long as a river. Faith’s cheeks were so bright they looked freshly slapped. Her hair was the same dark brown mass of curls it had always been in pictures, and when she shook it out, snowflakes sprang off it as delicately as atoms scattering.
As in the photos of her from over the decades, she had a striking and sympathetic face with a very strong, elegant nose. The effect was one of glamour and importance and gravitas and friendly curiosity as she looked around at the medium-sized crowd, and Greer supposed that she might have perceived the chapel as half-empty or half-full, depending on her perspective.
The incoming party quickly got seated up front, and then the college president, stuffed thickly into the upholstery of a flowered dress, stood at the podium and gave a worshipful introduction, her hand on her heart. Finally Faith Frank rose. She was sixty-three years old and a forceful presence in a dark wool dress that hewed to her long, rangy middle; of course, she wore her suede boots. These particular ones were smoke gray, though she still owned a whole color spectrum of boots, which let everyone know she had once been a knockout, a sexual powerhouse, and maybe still was. She wore several rings on the fingers of both hands: chunky, arty bursts of gemstone and silver. She looked completely composed, not at all rattled, though she had been late to her own speech.
The first thing she did up there was to smile down at everyone and say, “Thanks for braving the snow. Extra credit for that.” Her speaking voice was specific, appealingly throaty. Then she went quiet for a few seconds, and it seemed as if she was only just now coming up with what she might tell them. She held no notes. Apparently she was going to wing it, which was unimaginable to Greer, whose intense academic life up until now had been spent making full, reassuring use of binders and color-coded dividers and highlighter pens that lent her reading material the colors of two different kinds of lemonade—a wash of yellow or pink.
Greer had never known anyone in Macopee who was at all like Faith Frank. Certainly not her ragged and ineffectual parents. Cory, even in his short time at Princeton, was surrounded by people who had traveled widely and lived lives in which they had often been in the presence of worldly, formidable figures. But Greer hadn’t been exposed to anyone like that. In truth, she didn’t even realize it was a possibility. “My head was cracking open,” she told Cory the next day.
At the podium Faith said, “Whenever I give a talk at colleges I meet young women who say, ‘I’m not a feminist, but . . .’ By which they mean, ‘I don’t call myself a feminist, but I want equal pay, and I want to have equal relationships with men, and of course I want to have an equal right to sexual pleasure. I want to have a fair and good life. I don’t want to be held back because I’m a woman.’”
Later, Greer understood that what Faith had actually said in her speech was only one part of the whole effect; really, it was about more than her words. What also mattered was that it was her speaking them, meaning them, conveying them with such feeling to everyone in this room. “And I always want to reply,” said Faith, “‘What do you think feminism is, other than that? How do you think you’re going to get those things if you deny the political movement that is all about obtaining that life that you want?’” She stopped for a moment, and they all thought about this, some of them surely thinking about themselves. They watched her take a slow and deliberate drink of water, which was somehow, Greer realized, highly interesting.
“To me,” Faith continued, “there are two aspects to feminism. The first is individualism, which is that I get to shape my own life. That I don’t have to fit into a stereotype, doing what my mother tells me, conforming to someone else’s idea of what a woman is. But there’s a second aspect too, and here I want to use the old-fashioned word ‘sisterhood,’ which may make you groan a little and head for the exits in a stampede, but I’ll just have to take that chance.” There was laughter; they were all listening, they were all with her now, and they wanted her to know it. “Sisterhood,” she said, “is about being together with other women in a cause that allows all women to make the individual choices they want. Because as long as women are separate from one another, organized around competition—like in a children’s game where only one person gets to be the princess—then it will be the rare woman who is not in the end narrowed and limited by our society’s idea of what a woman should be.
“I’m here to tell you,” said Faith, “that while college is the most formative experience you will ever have as an individual—a moment when you can read and explore and make friends and make mistakes—it’s also a moment when you can think about how you can play a social and political role in the great cause of women’s equality. Now, when you graduate, you probably don’t want to do what I did, which is to go off to Las Vegas to be a cocktail waitress in order to get away from my parents, Sylvia and Martin Frank. You wouldn’t like the little ruffled uniform I had to wear. Or maybe you would.”
There was more laughter, indulgent, approving. “Me in Las Vegas—this is a true story. I was desperate to get away because my parents had made me live at home during college. They wanted to make sure I would stay a virgin. God, that was no fun.” More laughter. “And I’m happy to say things have changed since then. It’s so wonderful that all of you have so much more freedom than I did. But along with that freedom can sometimes come a sense that you don’t need other women. And that isn’t true.”
She stopped again and looked out over the whole room, sweeping her gaze across them. “So the next time you say, ‘I’m not a feminist,’ remember all of this. And do what you can to join the fight, which is ongoing.” She paused. “Oh, and here’s a final thought. Along the way, as you’re fighting for what matters, you will definitely come up against resistance, and that can sometimes be upsetting and even throw you off course. The truth is that not everyone is going to agree with you. Not everyone is going to like you. Or love you. That’s right, some people will be really mad at you, and maybe even hate you, and that is going to be hard to accept. But my feeling is that if you’re out there doing what matters—if it’s any consolation at all, I love you.”