Marguerite Guzman Bouvard, a researcher of the Scholar’s Program at the Women’s Studies Research Center, spoke at her event, “Memoir of a Rebel: A Woman Before the Women’s Movement,” in the Liberman-Miller Lecture Hall this past Tuesday.

The mission of the Scholar’s Program at the Women’s Studies Research Center is “to be an innovative and mutually supportive community of scholars engaged in research and artistic activity,” according to the Brandeis University website. These scholars research topics in the humanities, arts, sciences and social sciences in relation to women’s lives and gender.

Bouvard began her lecture discussing her childhood and her rebellion against the Catholic Church. She began by talking about the instance when one of the nuns at her church asked Bouvard her name. At the young age of five, Bouvard replied, “Gita,” a nickname for her full name, Marguerite. The nun told Marguerite that “Gita” is not a Catholic name and therefore could not use the nickname. Bouvard stated that she did not care and was going to continue using the nickname, despite the nun’s comments.

When she was attending Catholic school, the girls were told to have their hair braided. However, Bouvard stated that she was not going to braid it and instead curled her hair because she wanted to. Bouvard indicated that it was events like these that made her a strong, independent woman before the women’s movement.

Bouvard completed graduate school at Harvard University, where she faced difficulties because of her gender. Bouvard attended Harvard when female students were treated with much disrespect compared to their male counterparts. Bouvard discussed one instance when one of her male professors offered her wine and then sexually harassed her. Bouvard stated that although her thesis was published, many of her female classmates had trouble getting their theses published.

For the duration of the lecture, Bouvard read excerpts from her book, “Revolutionizing Motherhood: The Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo,” which focused on her time with the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo in Argentina. The Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo is an organization of mothers whose children “disappeared” during and after the coup d’état of the Argentinian government in 1976. After the coup, the junta, a military group, ruled Argentina and many “disappearances” began occurring. The Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo were rebelling against the junta because their sons and other citizens were “disappearing” and being tortured.