Solidarity Builds in Center

Despite cold weather and the threat of a bust, the commitment of the women occupying 888 Memorial Drive to the new women's center is growing.

"Part of the reason," said one woman, "is that this takeover has a very different quality from past occupations. Even while a women's center is being demanded, it is being created."

A spray-painted wall proclaims "Welcome, Sisters!" as one enters the building. Someone has painted murals in the day-care center. The ceiling has suns on it; the walls, stripes; the windows, stars. The floors are swept frequently. The playround has been "liberated." In a former classroom. "I am a lesbian and I am beautiful" appears on a wall. In the main room, "Power to the Imagination!" looms out at the viewer.

'A Whole World'

In a meeting Friday night, a black woman from the Riverside Community said, "What I've seen here today and what my children have seen ... it's like a whole women's world ... It's the kind of thing you can't tell people. They'll have to experience it for themselves, like I have." There was a silence, then the women, visibly moved, clapped.

A Radcliffe woman came back to her dorm from the center Thursday night and said, "I walked by one woman singing to another. I just hung around, listening. When I ran into the one who had been singing later. I said 'That was really beautiful.' She said, 'You're beautiful.'"

Watercolors

Early in the afternoon, one woman sits by herself in the middle of the floor painting with watercolors. Later, there are two children, quietly painting each other's face. Music is playing, the tering women hug their friends, the talk is of the future of the Center rather than about the bust.

Many women sense that the relationships inside the center are improving. "It looks as it the group is coming together very well," said one, "... Things are being talked about very openly." "There's more of a spirit of community," another added.

Isolation and Intimidation

Small discussion groups have met in an attempt to eliminate the feelings of isolation and intimidation among women who have either just arrived at

the Center or not in any women's groups.

Whatever tensions might have existed between gay and straight women earlier in the week now seem to be relaxing. Certainly much of the women's determination to keep the Center stems from the fact that it is the first time gay and bi-sexual women have had a place to gather.

One Radcliffe student echoed the feelings of many straight women when she said, "Just about the most important thing for me is that I can meet gay women. I feel like it's a whole new kind of growth for me, and I feel that they are not people separate from myself."

While morale at the Center is high and Tuesday's rally drew several hundred people, the action has drawn some sharp criticism.

"I really feel that this whole thing is manipulative." one student said. "It's like a group of people went in there, then thought up their demands and said 'now you have to support us.' I feel that Radcliffe women don't have anything at stake in this because they didn't have any part in it." Another woman said she felt "depressed and angry" because the takeover "incorporated all the things that have been wrong with the left all along. They're trying to recreate the feelings that were present at University Hall, and it's simply a charade."

Radcliffe women seem troubled by their feeling that "the women are defending the action on a completely emotional basis." All in all, according to a South House resident, "most people here have enough doubts about one aspect of it or another-either gay relationships or the tactic, or the question of whether Harvard should provide a center-so that not many people can support it completely."

Class Distance

Another student cited the "psychological and class distance" between students and non-Radcliffe women." Radcliffe women have isolated themselves, she said. "If they really wanted to, they could reach out to all the women in Boston."

Most of the women at the Center are honest about conflicts that do exist. Still, the overall view, according to one former Radcliffe student, is that "It's the first occupation that has a chance of achieving something. Harvard in busting that building will be denying a lot of people the experience of a social set-up that's much freer than those we're usually in."

One occupier responded to the objection that the action was being defended in a purely emotional way: "The women's movement has made emotions legitimate. Emotions are the outgrowth of definite political circumstances and political actions are the outgrowth of personal experience.

"When women tell you that they're there because they love it, they're telling you that they're there because they're tired of doctors looking at their bodies like TV repairmen, tired of not having the skills they need, tired of not being able to touch other women," one woman said.

"A lot of political movements have failed because people have said, well maybe this is something people will fight for, or maybe that is something people will fight for. They put out leaflets on every possible issue, hoping one of them will involve people. What they should be doing is building the relationship between the personal and the political."