Sex-Linked Centrifuge

ANYONE FOOL ENOUGH to mention Pine Manor in the company of Radcliffe women is liable to greeted with a scathing chorus of "imports," "prime mattress." "ring by spring or your money back." or other variations on the same theme. Chances are that the taunts will be laughed off because, after all, Radcliffe women are only protecting their first-come-first-serve privileges. But the cracks are not so simple or so harmless. They are spelled out by some kind of Ivy territorial instinct, a grabbiness for Harvard men. And along with this attraction for male booty comes a repulsion for female baggage. Spurning women in favor of men, many Radcliffe women not only isolate themselves from women from other colleges but from each other.

It seems that large groups of women representing a fair cross-section of Radcliffe that gather regularly for the sole purpose of being together are doomed to disintegration, as though some sex-linked centrifugal force at the core must hurl them apart. The first meeting of the Eliot House women's group last year blistered with hostility. Some women argued that the group should not meet during dinner because men in the house objected. The group soon degenerated into a couple of milk and cookie get-togethers and then faded away.

What was interesting were the terms of its demise. A gathering of women was not seen as something positive, that is, as being simply for women. It cold only be a threat to men. And given the toss-up, several women chose men.

The fragmentation of women here can't be explained away by sexuality--that men can be potential lovers and women cannot-because this primary loyalty to men includes friends as well as lovers. In fact, men alone complete the circle of friends of many Radcliffe women. Female competition not an adequate explanation either because one has to have female friends before one can compete with them. For many, the initial attraction to other women simply isn't there.

BUT CONSIDER THE image of the Harvard man--America's version of Michelangelo's David a rare treasure coyly shielded by a sprig of ivy, idling on an escalator headed for corporate influence, medical excellence or academic fame. In other words, power. And many Radcliffe women want that power, Spearheading achievement in their secondary schools, these women nosed in on Harvard, their springboard to success.

That was their first mistake. Harvard's primary commitment is not to women's education, but to replicating the male power structure. As F. Skiddy Von Stade Jr. '38 once explained, since "the world in the foreseeable future [is] going to be primarily run by men," the University should place a greater emphasis on the education of men than on that of women. It doesn't have to be so explicitly stated to come across. Power is in male hands and women looking for it won't find it in each other.

Then there's the problem of looking for power in oneself. Women here flounder in a well of insecurity when it comes to career prospects. They lack the role models to show them that what they want can be achieved. Radcliffe has produced only so many Elizabeth Holtzmans, More prominent is the spectre of swarms of their predecessors fading into the oblivion of housewifery. Take some fear of failure, and a dash of fear of success and you have a recipe for female sexism.

For there is a sure-fire, time-tested path to power for women-the old women-behind-the-man syndrome, the classic that-woman-must-be-something-special if so and so chose her. It might simply be the raw attraction to powerful men, or, in this case, potentially powerful men. Many Radcliffe women direct their energies exclusively toward Harvard men because it is only through men that they can identify themselves with power.

FEW WOMEN WOULD come right out and say that they just aren't interested in meeting other women. Instead, they use code words, usually inadvertantly like, "I can only talk about books and politics with men" or "I like the four-to-one ratio in the Harvard Houses." But the meaning is there; to these women, men are simply more impressive.

This is not to say that all Radcliffe women are afflicted with power sexism. Obviously many find great satisfaction in their relationships with other women. Sexism is probably more prevalent among women living in the Harvard Houses which attract more of these women in the first place. And it doesn't necessarily go so far as to estrange women from each other. It might merely dictate a woman's choice of mates; she might prefer higher-ups in the University power structure, or to t it euphemistically, men who are "doing things."

But the fact remains that there are enough sexist women here to render the phrase "Radcliffe community" totally meaningless. Instead, there are clumps of women dispersed among and dominated by a male edifice. And as long as Radcliffe women remain fragmented, as long as they do not stand together on the issue of women's rights at Harvard, much less care about them. Harvard will remain a male-dominated institution unhealthy for girls growing into women.