An Institution With Much to Offer

. Radcliffe guarantees resources for women at Harvard.

Being a devoted daughter of Mother Radcliffe, I see no evil, and much good, in the continued existence of Radcliffe in its present form, and I find myself quite incapable of combating some of the sillier arguments against it. In order to read what I have to say, therefore, you may have to try thinking on my terms.

For example, can we try to do without those meaningless comparisons between Radcliffe and the final clubs for once? From where I am standing, the two issues do not appear to be similar: where final clubs perpetuate and exaggerate society's sexism and misogyny, Radcliffe's goal has always been to provide facilities for a group that has been historically underprivileged. Never having frequented final clubs, however, I do not feel qualified to expound on them at length.

How unfortunate it is, then, that those who have never made the effort to get to know Radcliffe do not practice a similar restraint. The men who tend to whine about Radcliffe's singlesex status apparently know nothing about the case. The majority of Radcliffe-sponsored programs are open to men as well: the Office for the Arts, Education for Action and the Radcliffe Dance Program, for example. What a coincidence the Radcliffe's offerings to the community should tend to cover areas that Harvard has tended to ignore. It has been argued that the existence of Radcliffe helps Harvard to ignore its responsibility to these issues. It is just as well that it exists, then: it would be naive to imagine that dissolving Radcliffe would suddenly make Harvard aware of the performing arts, dance, culinary history, women's history...So Radcliffe is only "adamantly single sex," (to quote E.L. Patullo's Feb. 3 letter in The Crimson) for those of us who believe that all of these contributions are applicable only to women.

Despite the fact that Radcliffe benefits both men and women, it is important for it to remain independent of Harvard in some sense. Jesse M. Furman '94 of The Perspective suggested, at the Institute or Politics' debate on Radcliffe last year, that Radcliffe would only exist until the alumnae who attended the college in the old days "died off" or stopped giving money. But Radcliffe certainly has a significance beyond filthy lucre: as long as it remains even slightly independent of Harvard, Radcliffe Yard can and should continue to be a space oriented around women instead of men, where everyone who walks through it is made aware of women's issue.

Radcliffe was formed initially in an attempt to give women a Harvard education. Along the way, it grew and adapted to provide women with seminars, programs and externships that Harvard could not, or would not provide. Allowing it to be absorbed into the massive bulk to Harvard would destroy what it symbolizes, and would serve only to reinforce the notion that women, in order to succeed at Harvard/Radcliffe, must learn to be "one of the boys."

Anyone who believes that the symbolic meaning of Radcliffe has vanished has probably never been to meetings of the Radcliffe Union of Students. You tend to hear women--no longer entirely starry-eyed about the magic of being here--express feelings such as: "I came to see what Radcliffe could offer me because I felt so disillusioned with Harvard." For reasons like this, Radcliffe must continue to exist, both as a concept and as a specific women's space which allows women to meet each other, to organize (for example, Safety Walk was a product of the Radcliffe Union of Students) and to reach out to other women.

Let us not underestimate Radcliffe's contribution to the academic sphere either. The existence of a separate institution such as Radcliffe helps validate and give credibility to studies of what are seen as "women's issues." The commentary by Douglas V. McLellan '94 Feb. 2, 1994 in The Independent is an example of the thinly veiled sexist arguments used to belittle Women's Studies as a less "serious, respectable, challenging" concentration. How deplorable it is that a physics concentrator should fashion the over-facile equation "Many magnas and summas awarded in Women's Studies=Women's Studies is an easy concentration." Since McLellan appears to have culled his knowledge of the Women's Studies Department entirely from the course catalog, I can only envy his ability to write on an issue about which he knows nothing. As it happens, Women's Studies 10b is often described as one of the most emotionally and intellectually difficult classes offered here.

The existence of Radcliffe as a center devoted to women researchers and research on women should help people like McLellan realize that students might pick a concentration not only because of the importance of the field, but because they feel an identification with what they study.

Radcliffe plays a role in encouraging women's participation in all areas of study. By providing mentorships and research partnerships with women scientists, Radcliffe helps female undergraduates see that the sciences are not a "masculine" field where women need to "think like men" to excel. And it also shows that it is just as much of an achievement to excel in the study of music or literature--two of the fields McLellan ridicules.

Does this make Radcliffe sexist and discriminatory? Frankly, such a claim is an exercise in over-simplification. Have men ever applied specifically to Radcliffe College? It they were to do so, if they were to step out of their masculine mainstream into a context where the focus is women, I for one would support them. I believe it would be a positive experience for male undergraduates to deal with the sense of being outnumbered, over whelmed and out of their natural habitat. But it should be the men who make the effort to adapt to Radcliffe, rather than the other way around. The question is, how many would be willing to make such a sacrifice?

Ashwini Sukthankar '95 is secretary of the Radcliffe Union of Students.