Shaping My Feminist Life

A native New Yorker, the twenty-year-old Ridder arrived in Duluth in 1943 as a new member of a socially prominent family of newspaper publishers. In consciously seeking to be her own person, Ridder found over the following decades numerous outlets for her considerable energies and interests: Minnesota Independent-Republican politics, the Urban League and the emerging civil rights movement, alternative education, Twin Cities regional government, feminist organizations, and the women's athletic program at the University of Minnesota. She interweaves these public details with the more private ones of her marriage of fifty-plus years, her enjoyment in raising four children, and her ongoing nurturance of her spiritual life.

Unifying Ridder's narrative are her natural feminism, her innate sense of fair-mindedness, and her conviction that privilege and position bring with them the obligation to work toward the social good of the community.

Nascut in New York, Ridder, in varsta de douazeci de ani, a sosit in Duluth in 1943 ca membru al unei familii de editori de ziare proeminenti social. In cautarea constienta de a fi propria ei persoana, Ridder a gasit in deceniile urmatoare numeroase puncte de interes pentru energiile si interesele sale considerabile: politica independenta-republicana din Minnesota, Liga urbana si miscarea emergenta pentru drepturile civile, educatia alternativa, guvernul regional al Oraselor Gemene, organizatiile feministe si programul atletic feminin de la Universitatea din Minnesota.