Too Few Women Leaders

Last Thursday night, members of the Undergraduate Council were invited to the Lyman Common Room before the Radcliffe Union of Students (RUS) weekly meeting, in order to discuss the lack of strong female representation on the Council. One council member, a female first year student, attended the event and fielded questions from members of RUS. The conversation explored ways in which both groups could become more responsive to the needs of the student body as a whole, particularly in their common work as funding organizations for student groups on campus.

Both the council and RUS have been accused of not representing the interests of the whole student body. At the heart of many of these questions have been debates about ways in which women are able to lead and be represented in the Harvard-Radcliffe community. In order to solve these dilemmas, both groups agreed to come together to find ways in which they may better serve the interests of campus women together.

The problem of the lack of overreaching support for projects benefiting women can be illustrated by "Take Back the Night" week, which occurred this year in mid-April. One of the central events planned by RUS, the project intended to raise awareness about domestic violence ultimately had a weak impact on campus. Workshops and speakers had sparse attendance; the rally, supposedly the cornerstone of the week, was merely a candlelight vigil which quietly went unnoticed to many.

After nearly two hours, the participants at the rally set off on a march throughout campus, shouting "People unite--Take back the night." This march was perhaps the most visible part of the week, yet was greeted by some jeers and little participation. While the evening did not have as much of the anger as in years past, it also lacked the visibility and energy which the support of more students on campus could have lent.

One of the co-coordinators of "Take Back the Night" commented that she wished that there had been a core group of people on the council, as well as in other student groups on campus, who were aware of the year-long planning for this event, and could offer ideas in order to help the all of the different parts of the week be more attended by students from all over campus.

Similar arguments have been made about a number of programs which come about through the support of Radcliffe. The Committee for Women and Minority Faculty Hiring met a number of times in the fall with Radcliffe Alumnae in order to come up with a mission for having an impact on hiring practices. It is in the process of contacting all of the student organizations on campus who may have an interest in this issue. However, it, too, suffers from lack of support from a wider campus network.

Assorted other conferences, events, and committees have been spearheaded by active Radcliffe students throughout the year. However, in spite of the many important ideas, then, that come out of the work of RUS, painfully little support or regard is given to the organization on campus, even though it stands as one of the traditional beacons for discussing and promoting women's interests.

Certainly, possibilities still remain for activism outside of the Radcliffe umbrella. Lighthouse magazine, long-established on campus as a forum for both men and women to discuss women's issues, continues to succeed in disseminating balanced debate on campus. This debate will be widened by the long-awaited launching of The Sponge this spring, the magazine for radical, lesbian, and working class women. Students for Equality Feminism, whose founder is a graduating senior, faces the need for young energy to continue its mission to stimulate discussion about different types of ways students may respond to feminism. The Girl Spot, a new organization for "women-oriented women" will meet for weekly discussions about sexual identity.

Activities to promote women have also become more visible in the academic arenas. Women in Science have had extraordinary sales of their "estrogen" shirts, depicting the molecular makeup of that essential hormone; Women in Economics and Government have hosted a series of dinners to promote relations between students and faculty.

Certainly, the place for women as leaders on campus should not be primarily within single sex organizations. BSA and AAA are two of the many groups which are led by women and serve the needs of both genders. Fortunately, the crucial need for women to act as leaders throughout campus is beginning to be addressed in a number of different forums, including Saturday's Leadership Conference, hosted by the Institute of Politics. The preliminary meeting between council and RUS leaders to discuss gender issues is not the only such forum from which new ideas are emerging.

The fact remains, though, that the organization which is most symbolic of leadership on campus, the Undergraduate Council, continues to have far greater representation by men, leaving groups such as RUS to fill in the gap by promoting the interests of programs and events targeted at women. As the feeble outcome of "Take Back the Night" has shown, though, an event which impacts the whole campus can not be planned simply by a small group of women active at Radcliffe.

Radcliffe has, of course, taken on the challenge of improving leadership by women on campus in many ways. It continues to support RUS as well as countless other programs which approach the Dean's office for funding. The school also co-sponsors the women's leadership conference every fall, and offers programs for research partnerships and mentoring.

Still, it lacks the visibility that could let it be a driving force in promoting a greater impact by women in the governing bodies of the school. While it appears at registration each year, offering calendars and assorted gifts, it nonetheless fails to be a constant in the minds of many undergraduates. The now-infamous tee shirts passed out in September at the activities fair now appear more often on the chests of students who are nearing laundry day, or who are nearing laundry day, or who believe that the slogan offers a bitter irony about the women they have encountered here, than on students who are proud of the resources which Radcliffe has to offer.

It is imperative that this campus become a place about which a registration tee-shirt could read: "Harvard: A Tradition of Remarkable Women." This half of the student body does important things in their academic and campus lives, but has gone too long underrepresented as visible student leaders, most clearly in the council. As long as the countless projects and groups on campus devoted to the advancement of women do not have an equal voice in the Council, the council will be able to have far less than its potential impact on promoting the interests of the student body.

Until that point, then, inspired undergraduates, attempting to voice women's concerns which affect all people on campus, will remain disconnected from the resources the student body has to offer. If women on campus can not even look to their own student government for examples of women leaders on equal footing with men, then there is little inspiration to mobilize for projects on a smaller scale.