Unholy Matrimony: A Case Against Merger

TWO WEEKS AGO, a member of the Radcliffe Admissions Office remarked to me in passing that she was concerned about the kind of women the Harvard Admissions Office would accept as undergraduates, if women's admissions were Harvard's responsibility. Now that it's been said, this worries me, too. It hints at a whole can of worms that has barely been opened in the discussion surrounding the possible merger of Harvard and Radcliffe.

There are really two underlying issues in the proposed merger--the quantity and the quality of Harvard's commitment to educating women. As to the quantity of that commitment, there is nothing more to be said. The fact that in 1974, equal admissions is still a matter of debate rather than policy ought to make Harvard hide its face in shame. And as to Alberta Arthur's statement that equal access "will not change dramatically the number of women in the class"--that's simply not the case. Within two years of the start of sex-blind admissions, if the number of female applicants does not increase proportional to their increased chances of acceptance, it simply means that the Radcliffe Admissions Office has not done its homework.

But the quality of Harvard's commitment to women's education is a complicated issue--and one that needs far more serious consideration than it is getting. Last week's Crimson quotes Dean Rosovsky as saying, "The separation between Harvard and Radcliffe is artificial and causes administrative complications. I don't see any reason why men and women are separated." Rosovsky is not alone in his perplexity. A lot of us have been vainly seeking the reason for years. But the fact remains that men and women are separated. Maybe someday gender will be a rather incidental fact in our daily lives--but today it is central to everything we think and do. Yes, men and women are separate--and some of us are more equal than others. And while the existence of Radcliffe is symptomatic of that separation, it is also part of the cure for our Orwellian equality. Radcliffe's is symptomatic of that separation, it is also part of the cure for our Orwellian equality. Radcliffe's autonomy has helped to legitimize the education of women in its own right. So, in its most innocent interpretation, it is ironic that just when women are taking on a more than nominal autonomy in society, Harvard finally offers to make an honest woman of us all, provided we assume our proper married name, and relinguish our property rights and custody of our children.

WHAT THE MERGER essentially means is that we will all live under the generic name of Harvard. Now "Harvard" has a neatness of form that "Harvard-Radcliffe" undeniably lacks. It makes better copy, and far be it from me to deny the importance of that. Nor do I doubt that the corresponding "administrative complications" of hyphenation to which Rosovsky refers are many and awkward. But these are awkward times in which we live, and they call for more profound redress than a civil ceremony can provide.

As someone who has lived uneasily under the names of "mankind," "man," "he," and for a brief time in a former life, "Yale coed," I am less than eager to become a Harvard woman. There is something very reassuring about the cumbersome "Harvard-Radcliffe" prefacing the names of undergraduate organizations, doggedly insisting that we think of both sexes if we think of one at all. And with the death of Radcliffe, we shall lose the Harvard Crew and the Radcliffe Crew to the Harvard Crew and the Harvard Women's Crew--for you can be damn sure that the two teams won't be called the Harvard Crew and the Harvard Men's Crew. I think that is a loss we can ill afford right now. There is, roses notwithstanding, a great deal in a name.

BUT I DON'T mean to make this a symbolic issue--I think the symbolism only serves to underscore a very real, substantive problem. Women enter Harvard University with a different set of emotional and psychological baggage than do men; while they are here, they will wrestle with a different set of personal problems; and when they leave, they leave to face a world with very different expectations and obstacles.

Yes, the existence of Radcliffe as a distinct entity serves to underscore that difference. But that difference exists, whether we choose to name it or not. And Radcliffe has done far more than name it; it has tried, however imperfectly, to address the particular needs of women created by that difference. The Radcliffe administration is our voice in the University--and preserving that voice is vitally important, more because of the uncertainty of what may come to pass in the next decade, than in response to any real and present danger.

I do take this matter of admissions procedure mentioned at the outset very seriously--perhaps particularly so because I was a student at Yale in its first years of coeducation. I watched the Yale administration, after a stormy first year of marriage, refashion its female student body in the perfect image of a wife. It is inevitable that whoever sits in judgment will select students according to those qualities he or she most esteems. But at present, I think that female applicants will fare better if the eyes of the beholder belong to someone likewise born female.

This is a time of difficult re-evaluation for many women. Sending in Harvard College to superintend that growth seems to me a little too much like sending the fox to tend the chicken coop. Not that I have the slightest doubt that Harvard foxes are honorable men, who would selflessly and unflaggingly dedicate themselves to our best interests--but I would rather not give them the opportunity right now to prove my faith unwarranted. I sleep better when my watchguard's solicitude is motivated by mutual self-interest, rather than benevolence.

RADCLIFFE'S EXISTENCE has given women a place to regroup mentally--a place that affords women the almost unheard-of luxury to take for granted their right to be present. It gives us a legitimacy with a geneology that extends further back than first generation. It is unfortunate that at the same time women are working to unearth our unsung heritage from the musty archives of the past, we would move to bury Radcliffe in that same vault. I fervently hope there will come a time when historians will look back on the separation of Harvard and Radcliffe with bemused curiosity--pondering the mystery of an era which associated so many wildly irrelevent activities to a person's genitals. But that time has not yet come. And until it does, it is tragically premature for women at Harvard to abandon their one established channel of power in the University.

So I propose that Harvard and Radcliffe continue for the present in their common-law marriage. Perhaps the distance and distrust engendered by that bond is not such a bad thing. And if Harvard is interested in demonstrating that its intentions are honorable, let it do so by providing long-overdue equality at all levels of the University. It can save the icing on the wedding cake for happier times.