RUS Redefines Face of Feminism

The newly-elected board of the Radcliffe Union of Students (RUS) met with its members last week to discuss the future of the organization for the first time this semester.

The meeting ran as it always has—members shuffled into Adams Small Dining Hall with their trays and talked about diversifying RUS’s constituency and a possible annual publication over their plates of salad and pasta.

But among the twenty students throwing out ideas, sat the first male officer in RUS’s 30-year-old history.

Earlier this month, RUS elected Oussama Zahr ’04 political co-chair, making him the first and only male board member of the student group that was established in 1969 as the student government of the all-women Radcliffe College.

Since the 1999 Harvard-Radcliffe merger, RUS has had to redefine itself as a student group devoted to promoting women’s issues in the community.

And while men have been allowed to run for positions since 1999—as required by the College’s gender equality rules—Zahr’s leadership role reflects the recent push within RUS to incorporate different feminist perspectives.

RUS members say they hope that the election of Zahr will not just be a symbol, but will help the group to reinvigorate its political activist presence on campus.

“It signals a shift RUS has been undergoing over the last few years,” says RUS Co-President Jessica M. Rosenberg ’04. “On our posters it used to say ‘for women,’ but now they say ‘for feminism.’”

For Feminism

Zahr is not a new face in the political scene at Harvard.

Last semester, Zahr spearheaded the campaign of the Bisexual, Gay, Lesbian, Transgender and Supporters’ Alliance (BGLTSA) to heighten campus awareness of transgender issues.

As BGLTSA’s political chair, Zahr orchestrated the plastering of black-and-white posters around campus last November that featured a name and the blunt account of how the person violently died—without any explanation of the motivation behind the posters.

BGLTSA later held a demonstration in front of the Science Center, explaining the posters were part of a campaign to raise awareness of transgender issues for National Transgender Day of Remembrance.

“Those [posters] were put up the day before the awareness to get people to think of the human rights aspect of transgenderism,” says Zahr. “It got people thinking.”

All of the people featured in the posters were transgendered—and died because of discrimination against them.

“Sadly, I feel like transgender issues get sidelined in queer organizations and feminist organizations,” he says. ”What I find particularly poignant about their struggle is that people are so stubbornly resistant to recognize the rights of transgendered people to live.”

Zahr says he wants to continue his campaign for transgender rights—and perhaps get RUS involved in the act.

“There just needs to be consistency to keep it in the campus consciousness,” he says.

A ‘Natural Progression’

While Zahr’s bid to become the only male member of an all-female board might seem strange, he says his involvement is a “natural progression” of his struggle to promote awareness of transgender issues—and draw men into feminist activism.

Zahr, an Arab-American from New Jersey, started attending RUS meetings after studying gender, feminist and queer theories. He also devoted two summers to researching the politics of the body and Middle Eastern sexuality.

“It got me into thinking of alternative ways of conceiving of sexuality and identity,” he says. “It’s really important to destabilize any strict concept of gender.”

Zahr says the concept of men being concerned about feminism should not be so alien to people.

“People question why men are involved, but not why men aren’t involved,” he says.

Before he decided to run for political chair, Zahr approached then-current officers and members of RUS about the possibility.

“I was somewhat aware that I would be, if not the first, one of the first [males] to be on the board,” he says. “[The officers] were also enthusiastic about my membership. If I could inspire others with my own passion for the group, then it seems to me mutually constituting.”

Jennifer L. Flores Sternad ’04, the other newly-elected political co-chair, says Zahr’s running for a board position was not a surprise.

She says he cautiously approached her about running for the position in an historically female group—and she immediately encouraged him.

Marcel A.Q. Laflamme ’04, the only other man who regularly attends RUS meetings, says he discussed Zahr’s candidacy with him and they concluded a male presence on the board could only strengthen the group.

Laflamme says he would like to see even more men at RUS meetings—and more men realizing that feminist issues affect them as well.

Laflamme admits that he was nervous about being in the minority at his first RUS meetings, but that men should overcome this initial trepidation.

“I feel like that sense of trepidation is one that RUS should be invested in dispelling,” he says.

The Next Step

Zahr says he wants to bring RUS more into the campus spotlight, just as he has done for transgender issues as part of BGLTSA.

“A lot of people on campus don’t know what RUS is—not only the acronym, which is easily corrected,” he says. “But they don’t know it’s the feminist organization on campus.”

Zahr and Flores Sternad say one of their first projects will be to raise awareness about abortion rights by joining up with the liberal political group, Students for Choice.

RUS will try to initiate a program where members volunteer to escort women to and from abortion clinics on Saturday mornings, Zahr says.

Shaking up the gender mix of the RUS leadership may only be the beginning of change for the group this semester.

Rosenberg says the group is ready to reevaluate how it operates—and recommit itself to its political mission.

“We need to be much more active about being extrovertedly political,” Rosenberg says. “We aren’t afraid to take a critical stance about what RUS has done in the past or hasn’t done in the past.”

—Staff writer Nalina Sombuntham can be reached at sombunth@fas.harvard.edu