Attracted to Apathy

Thank God I go to Harvard. A recent study conducted at Duke University found that its female students believe intellectual assertiveness and leadership make them unattractive in the eyes of their male peers. Many felt they received more attention from Duke men when they “dumbed down” their ambition and personalities—acting needy and hiding their real intelligence. “Being ‘cute’ trumps being smart for women in the social environment,” the report concluded.

It’s a disturbing finding, and as Harvard students—walking exemplars of egalitarian political correctness—it is tempting to write it off as a social dynamic exclusive to Duke. But before we accuse the Blue Devils of being trapped in a different era, perhaps we ought to examine the environment on our own campus.

Take the Undergraduate Council, where females make up less than a quarter of the representatives. “There is definitely a lack of female representation on the UC rep level, and it’s a problem,” said council President Rohit Chopra ’04. The disparity was so noticeable that Chopra actually made a personal push to encourage more females to run for positions this year. Council Vice-President Jessica R. Stannard-Friel ’04, one of only 13 females on the council and the only female on the executive board, admitted to me that the council is very aware of the problem and is concerned that so few female students are involved. “There are times when the UC deals with gender-related issues and because men and women sometimes have different perspectives on these issues, the lack of female representation can have an effect.”

Take the Harvard Political Union (HPU), a group that holds weekly debates on current events and government policy. The lack of female participation at the discussions “has always been an issue for HPU and is something we are constantly concerned with,” Chair Daniel A. Dunay ’06 told me. “We have always experienced a situation in which our male-female ratio has been extremely high.”

Take the Harvard College Democrats, where all 11 members on the board are male. Or the Harvard College Republicans, where among its seven officers, only one is female. And if you read the columns regularly on this page, you may have noticed an acute scarcity of female voices.

Sure, there are exceptions. When it comes to helping others, Harvard women are all but too eager to volunteer. According to Ayirini M. Fonseca-Sabune ’04, the president of the Phillips Brooks House Association, there is a strong tradition of female leadership in community service organizations. Additionally, women are very vocal about their views in the Radcliffe Union of Students and Harvard Students for Choice. While all these organizations are important, this trend suggests that assertive women at Harvard are only flourishing in groups that are female-friendly by nature. In politically charged, gender-neutral organizations, there is a noticeable absence of the fairer sex.

The problem is apparently not that women are being overlooked for these positions—they are simply not running. According to council Election Commission Chair David I. Monteiro ’04, during this last election over twice as many males ran for council representative positions than females, but their election success rates were about the same. And even after the HPU deliberately picked topics they felt would make the group more inviting to females, the turnout was still very low.

Given this trend, it’s not surprising that a 2000 Women’s Leadership Project survey reported 44 percent of Harvard women felt their male peers spoke up more in class. “Oh it’s a classic issue,” said Lee A. Warren, Associate Director of the Derek Bok Center for Teaching and Learning—the institution that trains Harvard teaching fellows. “This topic comes up very often at Harvard and it has been going on for a long, long time…I think some women are not as willing to assert their opinions in class and the problem is very noticeable.” Warren did acknowledge this varies depending on course and concentration, but it is a large enough issue that the center actually trains teaching fellows how to encourage more female undergraduates to participate in class discussions.

Female students undoubtedly had the same kinds of credentials as their male counterparts when they applied to Harvard, yet once here, many seem to choose apathy over engagement. Could it be that Harvard females feel subjected to similar social pressures as our peers at Duke? While I’d like to believe that Harvard would have a better record, the lack of female presence in these influential groups does suggest we are at least not immune to the problem.

While many women at Harvard are clearly not shy about their views, the noticeable absence of females in these groups and intellectual circles is too significant to be ignored. These seemingly muted Harvard women are either deliberately hiding their opinions, or they are just plain apathetic.

For a school that boasts fostering the world leaders of tomorrow, this gender imbalance does not bode well for the realities beyond the Ivory Tower. We are supposed to be the generation that breaks the glass ceiling. If we cannot assert ourselves on this campus, where does that leave us?

Lia C. Larson ’05 is an economics concentrator in Adams House. Her column appears on alternate Fridays.