CLIMBING TOWARDS THE MILLENNIUM

As Radcliffe President Linda S. Wilson this month begins the "National Outreach Tour" and appears in Vanity Fair magazine with the presidents of the Seven Sister colleges, professors and students of women's studies say there is a profound need to analyze the state of women at the close of the millennium--both around the world and at Harvard.

The campus will host two programs this fall exploring the situation for women. With last week's reading by Alice Walker, the Committee on Degrees in Women's Studies committee kicked off an ambitious series titled "Gender at the Millennium," to inquire into the issues affecting women and men as the millennium approaches.

This series--along with a conference currently being organized by Phillips Professor of Early American History Laurel Thatcher Ulrich titled "Gender at the Gates"--shows an increased interest in the state of women in the world and at Harvard.

"Amidst the apocalyptic clamor surrounding the millennium, this six-week series represents a modest attempt to slow the pace of celebration and anxiety," said Ann Pellegrini '86, assistant professor of English. "En route to the 21st century, we ask how women and gender might help us to think and enact the future with a feminist critical difference."

According to Pellegrini, who is also director of studies in the women's studies department, the series will address a variety of topics including how to write history, welfare reform, gender and race politics of family values and the global resurgence of religion.

"We are addressing the history of gender issues at Harvard-Radcliffe," said Ulrich, who is also a professor of women's studies. "I think it is important because there is a tremendous amount of misinformation and the issue is hot and heavy at the moment."

"Gender at the Millennium" is co-sponsored by the Women in Public Policy program at the Kennedy School and by Radcliffe College, and funding for the events if being provided by a variety of organizations. Pellegrini says she sees this cooperation as an indication of progress.

"This suggests that there are now a range of sites, across the university, where women's issues and the study of gender have been institutionalized," she says. "This wonderful array of programs in women's and gender studies at Radcliffe College and Harvard University is a sign of how much has been accomplished in the decade since Women's Studies became an undergraduate program."

Yet she cautions that there is still much progress to be made.

"The series--ambitious in scope, organization and funding--is not a call to self-congratulation but to do more programming and reaching out across the University," she says.

Broad Range of Topics

Last week, Alice Walker, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Color Purple and several other novels, kicked-off the series with a call for fathers and daughters to reconnect. She also read from her latest novel, By the Light of My Father's Eyes.

"Fathers must teach us from birth," Walker told the crowd of 900 in Sanders Theatre. "There has to be discussion. There has to be solidarity, and it has to start really early. Fathers have to be friends to their daughters."

Walker also emphasized the need for female sexuality to be explored and expressed.

"We have to insist that sexuality is part of what makes us spiritual beings," she said.

Calling Walker "a real visionary--a person whose political and moral imagination is so much needed as the [21st] century looms," Pellegrini said the author's message was an important one to have at the beginning of the series.

Today's event, which is the next event in the series, will be a panel discussion titled "History's End: Historicizing the Millennium." Led by Katherine A. Park, Stone Radcliffe professor of history of science and professor of women's studies, it will include Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza of the Divinity School and Deborah Valenze, an associate professor of history at Barnard College. According to Park, the panelists will "look back in time to the ways in which men and women have imagined what they saw as their own impending millennial moments."

"We'll be thinking and talking with the audience both about the general nature and value of these kinds of utopian speculations, and about the role that women have played in such millennial movements--and why historians of these movements have been so slow to acknowledge the importance of female leadership in them," she said.

Looking Forward

Though the speakers and organizers of the event stressed the importance of opening a dialogue on all issues as the millennium approaches, they all said it is particularly vital to explore gender issues at this point in history.

"Instead of acceding to either `all good' or `all bad,' we wanted to slow the pace of celebration and panic and by identifying some issues we believe to be critical for the 21st century, offer more thoughtful and historically-minded--and feminist--perspectives," Pellegrini said.

"There has been so much conversation about the millennium and it seems an obvious introduction to be made of gender at the millennium," added Afsaneh Najmabadi, a professor of women's studies at Barnard College, who will address feminism in Islamic movements at the final panel. "Yet it is a reminder that we continue even at the millennium to bring gender as an after-thought into the discussion."

Calling the commencement of the 21st century a "crucial time to re-think," other professors echoed Pellegrini's and Najmabadi's call for the need to discuss these issues now.

"The millennium has traditionally been a time to reconsider what is happening socially," said Jakobsen, who will discuss gender and religion in the last panel. "[It] is a crucial time."

"In the U.S., it is the case that gender is one of the things most people regularly associate with religion," she said. "Gender and sexuality are assumed to be in the venue of religion. I want to point out that there are other ways to think about both gender and religion."

Park noted the need to bring about a change in the way the millennium is viewed as a central reason for discussing gender issues at the current historical moment.

"One of the central issues for me is how best to work to bring about change," she said. "Envisaging a new millenarian order involves identifying what is wrong with this world and imagining a better one. This is something that feminists and others working for a more just and social order think about all the time, and when feminists think about it, gender issues are often at the fore."

Pellegrini said the confusion of the millennial moment makes this both a frightening and exciting time.

"From weapons of unparalleled destructive capacities to biological reordering that touch down to the microlevels of organic substance to transnational capitalism and the international monetary fund: the last half of the century in particular has undone many old certainties," she said. "Some in the U.S. are nostalgic for a time before, a nostalgia epitomized in the cry for family values."

The cry for a return to the old ways makes this a time to "intervene in the fancy prognostications about life in the 21st century--predictions that are filled with celebratory notice or doomsday," she said.

Najmabadi said she hopes the series will spark a healthy, ongoing dialogue and "keep gender and issues of feminism alive and informing of whatever change we may envisage for future decades."

Other speakers agreed with her that more dialogue is better.

"I think it's important to discuss everything at a university--and I can't imagine anything much more central than the nature and direction of historical change," Park said.

One-Sided History?

While the "Gender at the Millennium" series has a broader focus on women's issues in the world, "Gender at the Gates" focuses more specifically on the history and the current status of women at Harvard.

The idea for the November 14th conference--which will engage students, faculty and alumnae in addressing gender at Harvard and Radcliffe--came from a research partnership on the history of women at Harvard offered by the Charles Warren Center.

Personal observations gave rise to the conference, Ulrich said, adding that at last fall's dedication of the Barker Center, she noticed that the walls only had "portraits of great men and some not so great men"--but no women.

"The assumption is that there are no portraits of women because there is nothing to say," she said. "The history of women at Harvard goes far back and I'm amazed that there is still the assumption that the arrival of women at Harvard is a recent thing."

Ulrich also said the 25th anniversarycelebration of women at Harvard last fallcompelled her to hold the conference.

"Some said it was the 25th anniversary ofco-education, but that is simply not true," shesaid. "This is a constricted vision of what isHarvard's past."

Harvard does not always acknowledge the pastand current contributions of women, in particularwomen in the humanities, she said.

"There is no acknowledgement of women'scontribution to the humanities in the presentationthat we see," Ulrich said. "I thought of Harvardas an institution very conscious of its history,but you wouldn't know about the exclusion orinclusion of women's history at Harvard."

Discussing Gender on Campus

Women's studies concentrators also said thereis a need for the series andconference--especially here at Harvard.

"It is crucial that we discuss these issuesnow, and especially here at Harvard-Radcliffe,because so many people think feminism is just somebra-burning thing that happened in the 70's," saidShauna L. Shames '01. "They don't realize that itrepresents a completely different way of viewingthe world in general and the relations between thesexes in particular."

Shames said that even at Harvard, students arenot necessarily well-informed about gender issues.

"Even here at one of the most famousinstitutions of higher learning, I see the generalmisconception that we have already achievedperfect equality between women and men," she said."This view becomes dangerous and downright harmfulwhen it prevents women from truly gainingequality."

Other women's studies concentrators said thatsince interaction with the opposite site sex issuch a fact of life, it is necessary to fullyexplore gender issues.

"College presents many new arenas for people.Men and women interact in a way that most peoplehave never been faced with before--such as livingwith the opposite sex. This raises many issues,"said Angela L. Peluse '01.

"Throughout our entire lives we will be facedwith the opposite sex. This means that we hadbetter fully understand ourselves as a gender andhow we relate to the other gender if we can figureout why our stereotypes have been created and howthey affect us, we will have a better chance ofmaking life better for all people," she said

Ulrich also said the 25th anniversarycelebration of women at Harvard last fallcompelled her to hold the conference.

"Some said it was the 25th anniversary ofco-education, but that is simply not true," shesaid. "This is a constricted vision of what isHarvard's past."

Harvard does not always acknowledge the pastand current contributions of women, in particularwomen in the humanities, she said.

"There is no acknowledgement of women'scontribution to the humanities in the presentationthat we see," Ulrich said. "I thought of Harvardas an institution very conscious of its history,but you wouldn't know about the exclusion orinclusion of women's history at Harvard."

Discussing Gender on Campus

Women's studies concentrators also said thereis a need for the series andconference--especially here at Harvard.

"It is crucial that we discuss these issuesnow, and especially here at Harvard-Radcliffe,because so many people think feminism is just somebra-burning thing that happened in the 70's," saidShauna L. Shames '01. "They don't realize that itrepresents a completely different way of viewingthe world in general and the relations between thesexes in particular."

Shames said that even at Harvard, students arenot necessarily well-informed about gender issues.

"Even here at one of the most famousinstitutions of higher learning, I see the generalmisconception that we have already achievedperfect equality between women and men," she said."This view becomes dangerous and downright harmfulwhen it prevents women from truly gainingequality."

Other women's studies concentrators said thatsince interaction with the opposite site sex issuch a fact of life, it is necessary to fullyexplore gender issues.

"College presents many new arenas for people.Men and women interact in a way that most peoplehave never been faced with before--such as livingwith the opposite sex. This raises many issues,"said Angela L. Peluse '01.

"Throughout our entire lives we will be facedwith the opposite sex. This means that we hadbetter fully understand ourselves as a gender andhow we relate to the other gender if we can figureout why our stereotypes have been created and howthey affect us, we will have a better chance ofmaking life better for all people," she said