Marilyn Harper wrote:

>
>
>      It seems to me that while the young preservation people are VERY
>      disproportionally female, the old guys are much more likely to be
>      guys.  Of course the old generation for me is probably a lot older
>      than it is for John!  It seems like in the sixties, there were a lot
>      more male movers and shakers at the National Trust and in the
>      government, though I don't know about the architects and/or craftsmen.
>       My vague impression is that most of the people carrying placards,
>      tying themselves to trees, and lying down in front of bulldozers were
>      women, but I'm not sure about that.  I think a lot of academic
>      preservation programs are almost entirely female now.
>
>      I have always wondered why that should be true.
>
>      Marilyn

I don't know the relative difference in our views of who are the old
guys...but, I remember the sixties and I'm pretty sure that lying down in
front of bulldozers was the kind of thing we saw after the sixties had become
romanticized.  (Somehow I get all puffed up and beligerant when people make
the sixties sound like a time of peace and love and safe sex and fun.  And I
worry about people not understanding the dangers of civil disobedience.)  But
then most of the sixties happened in the seventies.

BUT!  I've also always claimed that the most effective war protests were not
the ones on campuses and in the big cities, but the quiet ones in little
suburban communities, by decent ,upper middle class, tax paying, veteran,
republican, parents of them highly draft eligible long-haired hippy weirdo
freaks.  So, maybe it was the ladies of the National Trust who stopped the
bulldozers.  I have new and profound respect.  And why wouldn't the same drive
to stop the bulldozers and save the best of a community's built heritage in
one generation lead to engagement in the technical preservation arena in the
next?

-jc (too early in the morning)