Reflections on Elizabeth "Betsy" Moen

Betsy was my colleague and friend, someone whom I shall always remember because the moral commitment she brought to her professional and personal relations set an example for us all. She arrived in 1976 to the University of Colorado, and slowly, as the years went by, we became close friends. Our areas of professional interest overlapped considerably: we were both concerned with population issues, feminism, reproductive freedom and women's rights, and the effects of economic development on the lives of women. We also had considerable theoretical disagreements. Betsy was a firm supporter and believer of theories of patriarchy and attributed the subordinate status of women to men's intentional control over all institutions and over women's lives. Unlike Betsy, I viewed men just as socially determined as women; I did not consider that they had intentionally set out to oppress women but that gender inequality was an effect of the institutional arrangements of all class societies. Regardless of those differences, we became good friends, the kind of friend one knows one can call at any time of the day or night and will be there to support us. Betsy was not, however, the kind of friend that would overlook one's own selfdestructive patterns. On the contrary, she would help me see them for what they were and would help me struggle to overcome them. She had enormous inner struggles of her own for life for her in this country, after her first visit to India, had become painfully problematic because of the vast contrast between our wasteful affluence and the dismal situation in which most people Indians live. Despite that, she had openness and receptivity to my small concerns and pains; she listened and offered support in such a way that I still benefit from her clarity of mind and her wisdom. She was not an easy person to be close to, however. She also had a kind of righteousness about her that I would sometimes find infuriating. But that was part of who she was, not the biggest or the most important part and today, thinking retrospectively about her, I realize that perhaps I reacted as I did because of my own inability to live up to the austere standards she had set for herself.

As a colleague, her contributions to faculty dialogue were always sensitive and insightful and often contributed not just to clarify issues but to avert open conflict. She was kind and considerate with everyone, more concerned with other people's needs than with their own. She did a great deal of volunteer work, helping elderly women in the community in tasks such as dressing and shopping. As the years went by, she became more and more of an activist and left behind purely scholarly concerns to focus on writing and research with policy implications that could benefit women and would further progressive social change such as, for example, the INVEST program.

While I respect her work and her contributions to the department as a teacher and colleague, it is as a personal friend that I feel most keenly her loss. She helped me to get to know myself a little better and now that she is no longer with us in person, her insights and humor are still with me. I am sure she had a similar impact on many of her colleagues, students and friends. Withis home page I want to help maintain alive her kind committed scholarchip, one that successfully brought together scholarly rigor, compassion, and an unflinching search for social justice.