Elizabeth Lapovsky Kennedy (born December 3, 1939) was one of the founding feminists of the field of women's studies and is a lesbian historian whose book Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold: A History of the Lesbian Community (co-authored with Madeline Davis) documents the lesbian community of Buffalo, New York, in the decades before Stonewall.
Biography
Elizabeth "Liz" Lapovsky was born on December 3, 1939 in Brooklyn, New York. Liz was the second of three children to neurologist Arthur Joseph Lapovsky and Martha Schulman Lapovsky. She attended public schools, notably Erasmus Hall High School, where she excelled in mathematics. From 1956 to 1960, she attended Smith College, earning a BA in Philosophy in 1960. At Smith, she became aware of her talent and interest in understanding cultural difference by taking a course in classical literature. Deciding she wanted to be an anthropologist, Lapovsky enrolled in an Anthropology MA program at the University of New Mexico. After working on archaeological sites at Seattle, Albuquerque, and Jerusalem under the mentorship of professor Harry Basehart, she changed her focus to social anthropology. Basehart was fond of British social anthropology and encouraged Lapovky to study at Cambridge upon completing her MA. Before leaving for Cambridge, Lapovsky married Perry Kennedy, a beatnik and writer. Through her marriage to Perry Kennedy, who had more radical leanings developed in Putney work camp, Kennedy became involved with the anti Vietnam-war movement in England. Together, Liz and Perry developed a lifelong commitment to social activism.
Early work
Extensive research and fieldwork of the Waunan people in the Chocó provence, Colombia led to her 1972 Ph.D. in social anthropology from Cambridge University. While at Cambridge, Kennedy produced three documentary films on the indigenous peoples of South America allowing her to later consult with both the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) and ITV in Great Britain.
She began her teaching career as a Deganaweda Fellow in American Studies at SUNY Buffalo in 1969, where she remained on faculty until 1998. In 1971, she joined fellow anthropologist Charles Keil on the faculty of the American Studies Program there. This American Studies program differed from other American Studies programs of the time, because it did not draw primarily on literary and historical methodologies. At SUNY/Buffalo, American Studies, led by Yale philosopher, Larry Chisolm, emphasized then new insights from cultural anthropology; in addition, Chisolm encouraged faculty and students to look at American culture from the outside in and from the perspective of marginalized groups inside American society. In this highly stimulating intellectual environment, Kennedy began to adapt her intellectual training to current social issues and political movements.
Building the field of women's studies
In 1971, Kennedy helped found the Women's Studies College at SUNY Buffalo, one of the first Women's Studies institutions in the United States. Like many other American universities responding to the influence of student demands in the late nineteen sixties, SUNY/Buffalo developed a division to house – perhaps ghettoize – alternative educational enterprises. In 1971, within this framework, Kennedy participated in the founding of Women's Studies College (WSC). WSC defined itself as follows: "This college is not a place to make women a subject to be studied but a place to break down prejudice built by our socialization about what women are and what they are capable of doing." Within this division, the university allowed non-faculty to develop and offer courses. At this early stage in the growth of women's studies, when almost no university faculty had specialized knowledge focused on women, many of the initial courses of WSC – ranging from Auto Mechanics to something else – were offered by what were called "community" teachers, without university credentials but with hands-on knowledge of use to young women interested in alternative visions of women's possibilities in the future. Honored for her teaching skills, Kennedy developed many of the courses offered by WSC, including Women in Contemporary Society, New Research on Women, Cross-Cultural Study of Women, and the Family as an Institution.