Mrs. Bok Meets Women Writers, Says She 'Never Had Any Doubts'

When Sisscla Bok-wife of Harvard's President-elect and a Ph. D. in philosophy-met the press yesterday morning, the press wanted to know what she thought of the mini-skirt. She thinks it's fine, but says she doesn't know much about fashion.

In a specially arranged conference for women of the press, Mrs. Bok (in orange suede suit and short brown boots) fielded questions of decorating, entertaining, and hobbies, and posed in the Boks' Belmont home with her two-year old son, Thomas.

She said she was "relieved and happy" when the news finally came that her husband, Derek C. Bok, now dean of the Law School, was to become Harvard's next President. "I never had any doubts," she added. "It was entirely his decision."

The Boks met at the Sorbonne, and were married in 1955 by Pierre Mendes-France, former French prime minister. Mrs. Bok is the daughter of Gunner and Alva Myrdal, both well-known Swedish social scientists.

"I am very interested in Harvard, and very fond of it as an institution," she said, but declined to discuss Harvard's role as a university. "I think I'll let my husband make the policy," she smiled. "If I had been offered the job I might have some ideas."

Right now Mrs. Bok is not working, but said she hopes to begin part-time teaching somewhere in the area. She is presently busy rewriting her dissertation on the moral and social problems involved in voluntary euthanasia.

"I would hope that when the children no longer need my attention I will work full time," she said. "Teaching is a good field because I can be home when the children come home from school."

Asked if she felt it important that mothers be home, she said, "I have no feelings about other mothers, but I myself want to be home when the children come home." Besides Thomas, the Boks have two daughters, Hilary, 11, and Victoria, 9.

As a woman immersed in the academic world-she studied at the International School in Geneva and the Sonbonne before coming to this country, then at George Washington University and Harvard-Mrs. Bok feels "the role of women in academic life is problematic everywhere, although I think it is changing fast. As to the larger question, the role of women in general, there are other countries where the problem is easier than in this country."

In Sweden, she said, "Most young girls take it for granted that they willwork, even if married and with children Women are more aware of the problems, but less angry-perhaps because the problems are not as great."

Asked if she approved of day-care, she answered, "Oh, yes, I think day-care is a very important thing for women who have to go out."

She would not comment, however, on Harvard's role regarding women, saying again that policy was her husband's province. At a press conference Monday, Bok-asked a similar question-deferred his answer, explaining, "I hope that everyone I work with in the University will feel in the last analysis they would rather have someone take the time to listen to all sides and inform himself as fully as he can before he takes a position, than to have someone who shoots from the hip."

Mrs. Bok-who became and American citizen just after the birth of her first child-said she has "come to feel that Cambridge is my home now." She hopes to build rapport with undergraduates, as the Boks did at the Law School. "We did get to know the students, especially my husband," she said. "That's one of the things he enjoys most."