PRIZEWINNER'S DAUGHTER FEELS A SPECIAL PRIDE
Author: By Robert Levey Globe Staff
Date: Friday, October 15, 1982
Page: ?????
Section: RUN OF PAPER
"Ever since I was little girl," Bok said yesterday, "people would say, Is
your father Gunnar Myrdal?' And I would always answer, Yes, and Alva Myrdal
is my mother.' They thought I meant it as a joke, but I didn't."
There was more than simple pride in Sissela Bok's voice as she spoke of
learning that her mother, Alva Myrdal of Sweden, has shared in the 1982 Nobel
Peace Prize.
Gunnar Myrdal is a world-famous economist and sociologist who shared in a
Nobel Prize in economic science in 1974. But Alva Myrdal had carved out her
own notable path, and Bok said she felt a special satisfaction that her 80-
year-old mother's lifelong work in the disarmament movement has culminated in
this Nobel Prize.
"Maybe it's because I'm her daughter," said Bok, an author and teacher of
medical ethics at Harvard who is married to Harvard president Derek Bok.
"My sister and I both feel it's liberating to have this sense that a woman
like her can be so active and continue to be active and speak out. She's very
fearless."
Bok said that her mother's courage manifested itself early. "When she had
finished school at age 13," she said, "my mother found out that the high
school was only open to boys." For the next four years her mother worked as a
cashier.
"They called her the little girl with the big machine," said Bok. "Not
until she was 17 did she manage to persuade the people in that gymnasium
(Swedish high school) to allow the teachers to give courses to a few girls."
She said the girls were taught in a separate place outside the school and
had to pay privately for the lessons. "My mother told me that the experience
did mark her for life."
Bok stressed that though her mother has long been active in disarmament
and peace movements, she is no Pollyanna on the nuclear issue. "She has been
very, very honest about all the obstacles confronting the peace movement. On
the other hand, she gives people this sense it's worth trying."
After hours of trying to reach her mother, Bok spoke to her in Stockholm
by telephone yesterday and found her "immensely happy and enormously
surprised."
Her mother told her that "the first person to come through the door after
announcement of the prize (Wednesday* was Swedish Prime Minister Olaf Palme."
Bok said that her parents recently founded a group in Stockholm called
"Peace Forum," devoted to education on disarmament and nuclear issues.
But for the moment, she added, their attention is diverted from these
grave matters and focused on the joy of being honored by the Nobel Committee.
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