Oral history interview with Melissa S. Fisher, 2015

Biographical Note

Melissa Fisher is a Visiting Assistant Professor in the Department of Social and Cultural Analysis at New York University. Her book, Wall Street Women takes a groundbreaking in-depth look at the first generation of women who began working in Wall Street finance in the late 1960s. Fisher traces their careers and their professional and political associations as they took leading positions in their companies in the 1990s and looks at how their late careers and retirement activities were affected by the 2008 financial collapse. Fisher argues that these women produced a "market feminism" that shaped their success in financial careers as well as their broader political and economic outlooks. Her current research takes a global and urban approach to examining the rise of the "shared economy" after the 2008 financial crisis. Fisher received her BA from Barnard College in 1985, and she went on to study anthropology at Columbia University, receiving her PhD in 2003. She first came to Columbia as a graduate student in 1989, and she was involved with IRWAG throughout her graduate studies in the 1990s. Fisher's first job was in the anthropology department at Georgetown University, and she now teaches at NYU. She is also a visiting fellow at the Center for the Study of Social Difference at Columbia, where she has been involved with the Women Creating Change project in the "Social Rights after the Welfare State" group led by Alice Kessler-Harris

Scope and Contents

Born in an academic family located on the Upper West Side, Fisher spent her early years around the campus of Columbia University, later moving to an affluent Westchester suburb. Fisher attributes early awareness of feminist concerns to her mother, grandmother, and grandfather. Fisher also recalls attending student protests with her father in 1968. Fisher then describes her experience as a Barnard College student in the 1980s and the benefits of attending a women's college. Fisher describes her informal exposure to feminism at Barnard, tensions between Barnard and Columbia, and the early years of Columbia College as a co-ed institution. Fisher discusses her undergraduate internship at Performance Space 122 in the East Village, which became a major influence on her work. Having first attained her master's degree at Wesleyan University, Fisher decided to pursue a PhD in anthropology with an integration of women's studies and dance at Columbia. Fisher describes the early development of IRWGS under Martha Howell and the generational differences in IRWGS. Fisher cites professors Jean Howard and Elaine Combs-Schilling as sources of support and as female scholars who paved the way for future feminist scholarship at Columbia. Following a more general discussion of IRWGS, Fisher describes the development of her graduate research and how it evolved and transformed over time. Fisher describes her interest in issues of gender, work and inequality. She discusses women and finance at length, citing IRWGS training as a tool used to anticipate the advent of corporate feminism. The interview concludes with a discussion of Fisher's teaching experiences and a summation of her continued presence within IRWGS. Fisher describes her time teaching anthropology at Georgetown University and her position at the time of the interview at New York University's Department of Social and Cultural Analysis. Fisher remarks on her continued participation in IRWGS and the Center for the Study of Social Difference (CSSD) through a group entitled "Social Rights After the Welfare State" with Alice Kessler-Harris

Subjects

• Barnard College.
• Businesswomen--United States--History--20th century.
• College teachers--Interviews.
• Columbia University--Strike.
• Columbia University. Institute for Research on Women and Gender.
• Feminism and higher education--United States.
• Feminist theory.
• Fisher, Melissa S. (Melissa Suzanne), 1962---Interviews.
• Freeman, Mary T., interviewer.
• Interviews.
• Oral histories (literary works)

Access Conditions

Copyright by the Trustees of Columbia University in the City of New York, 2015