can be 100, 000 others with their names on it, too, but that
doesn’t get you off the hook.
I spoke in small rooms fil ed with women, and afterward
someone would pass a hat. I remember a crowd of about fifty
in Woodstock, New York, that chipped in about $60. I slept
on the floor of whoever had asked me or organized the event,
and I ate whatever I was given - bad tabbouleh stands out
in my mind. I needed money to live on but didn’t believe in
asking for it from women, because women were poor. Women’s
centers in towns and on college campuses were poor.
Sometimes a woman would pass me a note that had a check
in it for $25 or some such sum; the highest I remember was
$150, and that was a fortune in my eyes.
I had to travel to wherever the speech was in the hope that
I'd be able to collect enough money to pay for my expenses.
Flo Kennedy often talked about how if you did not demand
money people would treat you badly. I did not believe that
could be true, but for the most part it was. I can remember
the gut-wrenching decision to ask for a fee up front, first $200,
then $500. A few years later I got a speaking agent, Phyllis
Langer, who had been an editor at Ms. She took a 25 percent
commission, whereas most speaking or lecture agents took a
full 33 percent. By the time I hired her, I was making in the
$ l, 500-$3, 000 range. She made sure that I got paid, that the
event was handled okay, with publicity, and that expenses were
reimbursed. She was kind and also provided perspective.
When she went to work at an agency that I didn’t particularly like, I decided to represent myself. By this time my nervousness about money had disappeared, a Darwinian adaptation, although my stage fright - which has run me ragged over the
years - never did.
I would cal whoever wanted me to speak on the phone. I'd
get an idea of how much money they could raise. I stil wanted
them to be comfortable, and it was a horror to me that anyone
would think I was ripping them off. By the time I took over
making al the ar angements myself, I had developed a fixed
set of necessities: a good hotel room in a good hotel, enough
money for meals and ground transportation (taxis, not buses
or subways). Eventually I graduated to the best hotel I could
find, and I'd also buy myself a first-class ticket.
Representing myself, I would fold an estimate of expenses
into a fee so that the sponsor had to pay me only one amount,
after I spoke on the night that I spoke. I had developed an
