Misrepresented Motives

In the staff's blind wish to do away with final clubs altogether, it harshly condemns Women Appealing for Change and the reforms the group proposes because those reforms would leave the clubs in place. The staff mistakenly unleashes its moral outrage against "elitism" at the same level that it does against sexism.

The only group of people explicitly discriminated against in final clubs is women. If Women Appealing for Change can change that fact, the staff should applaud the group's effort--whether or not the staff personally likes what the clubs represent.

The staff makes stereotypical assumptions about both the clubs and the women involved in the boycott. The club members are "rich, prep-schooled and well-connected," the clubs represent "oppression" because the clubs "exist so that their members don't have to deal with people unlike themselves," and the women pushing for reform want only "their `right' to exclude working-class students, poor students, and non-connected students from [the clubs]". These are misrepresentations of both the clubs and the motives of the women.

The clubs are more diverse than the staff portrays them, even if they do represent an "old-boy network," and we fail to see how the clubs are oppressive to students other than women. At least some of the women who want the clubs to change disagree with the clubs' policies and would like to be members for reasons other than discriminating against working-class, poor students. The staff does not have to like the "elitism" that it thinks the clubs represent, but that elitism is not a reason to call for the banishment of the clubs in the same way that sexism provides reasons for calling for reform.