Is Sex at Harvard Set in Stone?

If the admissions office conducted information sessions the way students really wanted, the primary question asked would not be: “What SAT scores do I need to get in?” but instead the far more important: “Is it true that there’s no sex at Harvard?”

One need only walk through the Yard to discover that there is indeed sex at the ancient center of academia. However, sex at Harvard has less to do with the foibles of first-years and far more to do with that damned tourist trap of the John Harvard statue.

Images of and memorials to men are omnipresent on the Harvard Campus; take a look around in Annenberg and discover three hundred years worth of dead white men staring down at the buffet line. As Harvard was an all-boys club until 1872, founded by Puritan white men, it is not surprising that the majority of visual representation honors the accomplishments of white males.

Yet, Harvard College is at an interesting point in its history. The class of 2008 is particularly significant; it is the first class ever that has more women than men. To the joy of the men of 2008, women make up 50.3%—828 of the 1646 students—of the class. That is a whopping difference of ten students.

The recent tenure disputes, discussion of lack of diversity among the Faculty and never-ending debate on finals clubs, reflect that there is still something missing in Harvard’s attempt to be a progressive institution. While those in the bubble of Harvard can feel this tension, what kind of equality does Harvard project to outsiders?

HARVARD’S MASCULINE HERITAGE

Without rewriting history, it is still important to question whether there is a sexual context to the public image of Harvard and whether it is possible to include a feminine representation in this picture. Do the architecture, art and statuary over campus, particularly in the Yard, reinforce ideas of traditionalism and masculine superiority? And the most pressing question about Harvard’s visual presentation: what is that weird phallic statue next to Boylston?

It is undeniable that Harvard Yard is a veritable Mecca for tourists to the New England area (particularly of the elderly and foreign persuasion), as well as any high school valedictorian-to-be looking to see what this esteemed institution is really like. Despite the frustration that comes from accidentally stepping into thousands of pictures of John Harvard, one can see how the beauty of the Yard floors visitors. Harvard College has a phenomenally pretty campus, groomed by millions of dollars of donations and maintained by an institutional philosophy of seeming perfect in the eyes of the outside world.

While colonial brick architecture is generally more warm and welcoming than the stone gothic of Yale and Princeton, there remains something distinctly aggressive and traditionalist about Harvard’s architecture. Phallic associations aside, the thrusting vertical columns and gothic spires still speak of forcefulness and imperialism. In a stroll down Garden Street to Radcliffe Yard, one will find a much lighter, gentler architecture with domestic qualities, such as the numerous chimneystacks of Byerly Hall.

It is hard to say if there is really a feminine or masculine in architecture. Laura Crescimano, leader of Women in Design, a Graduate School of Design organization dedicated to supporting the work of female designers, admits, “We cannot say that gender does not exist in architecture, but the differentiation of architects, or architecture, along gender lines is tricky, and sometimes dangerous.”

Much of the perception one receives from a building has to do with what goes on inside the walls. Mary McLeod, a professor of architecture Graduate School of Architecture Planning and Preservation at Columbia University, and previously the second tenured female Faculty member of Harvard’s School of Design, believes that “even in the early ’90s, it was almost in fashion to look at sex and architecture—not a very present issue right now for students. I think women in the field still feel it very strongly. Many of the Faculty feels like for the current generation of women students, even feminism isn’t an issue.”

Annabel Wharton of Duke University published an examination of Duke’s extremely sexualized architecture in 1991. West Campus, identified as the men’s campus until 1972, starkly contrasts with East Campus, the women’s campus. Wharton mentions a university-authorized publication describing the “restless,” intriguing gothic architecture of West Campus, which creates a “harmonious atmosphere for learning,” in comparison to the bland and stately Georgian architecture of East Campus, “an integral part of the tranquil dignity found there.”

Wharton asserts that the construction of Duke University reflects the cultural assumptions of the early twentieth century, of men’s space as a place of learning and women’s space as a place of respectability and etiquette. While Harvard and Radcliffe Yards are not nearly as polarized in design as Duke University, nearly every building in the College still archives the history of Harvard’s great alumni—male alumni.

An inscription on Emerson Hall prominently states: “What is man that thou art mindful of him.” It is impossible not be mindful of men when nearly every statue, building and piece of artwork on campus was either donated by or dedicated to the great men who have passed through Johnston Gate. Female donors commissioned two of the most prominent buildings on campus—Sever Hall and Widener Library. Mrs. Widener even had a profound influence over the design of the hulking imperial library.

Floyd’s Harvard: An Architectural History discusses President Lowell’s reluctant confession of the impact of Mrs. Widener on the architectural plans: “Mrs. Widener does not give the university the money to build the library, but has offered to build a library satisfactory in external appearance to herself. She accepted the plans of the former committee of architects as far as the size of the building and its interior…were concerned…but the exterior was her own choice, and she has decided architectural options.”

However, neither Mrs. Anne Sever nor Mrs. Widener left any self-memorializing artwork to remind future generations of their significant contributions. Furthermore, their donations commemorated men in their lives who had attended Harvard (Harry Elkins Widener died on board the Titanic).

The monuments and portraits scattered over the campus are striking reminders of the significant role Harvard College has played in educating the male leaders of America. Besides the frighteningly severe portraits in Annenberg and Lamont of deans and famous faculty, the very names of the River Houses and Yard dorms are testaments to male alums and presidents. First-years eagerly search databases of dorm rooms to discover if they have been privileged enough to sleep in the same room as Ralph Waldo Emerson (Hollis 5), John Fitzgerald Kennedy (Weld 32) or Bill Gates (Wigglesworth A-11).

One striking example of male representation is the statue outside of Boylston; the 20-ton sculpture was given as gift from Chinese alumni in 1936 for the tercentenary celebration. The notoriously phallic 13.5-ft. tablet is carved with snakes, dragons, flowers, mythological figures, while the rounded base represents a half-dragon, half-turtle beast.

Despite its immediate masculine visual connotations, the inscription on the giant slab is even more representative of Harvard’s masculine history than the lewd imaginations of 18-year-olds would believe. It speaks, in Chinese characters, of the leaders that Harvard has produced: “Their noble accomplishments are reflected in the worldwide reputation of our Alma Mater as a seat of learning of the highest standards, in the wealthy of valuable contributions in the wide influence its children have exerted in many lands, and in exalted position occupied by the nation in which it is situated. Our fervent hope is that in the coming centuries the sons of Harvard will continue to lead their communities and that through the merging of civilization of our countries intellectually progress and attainments may be further enhanced.”

It is easy to point out cultural ignorance in an archaic, gendered inscription, representative of the imperial attitude of Western civilization and exclusion of women in the early 20th century. It is considerably harder to render a modern counterpoint. The current generation of Harvard students stands in the shadow of 368 years of notable alumni; a university with this kind of history can become content to rest on its laurels rather than work towards improvement.

In an institution so literally and figuratively rich with resources, it is hard to believe that more could not be done to include women and minorities, the forgotten of Harvard’s history, in the very public image of the college. Moderate attempts to include women in the sphere of academia have included the recent addition of a portrait of Elizabeth Agassiz, the first president of Radcliffe College, in the Faculty Room of University Hall and a portrait of Helen Keller in the rededicated Barker Center.

Gwendolyn Du Bois Shaw, Assistant Professor of History of Art and Architecture and of African and African American Studies, says “that in a lot of ways the University is making progress. Overtures such as that are very good. The fact that it took until now is symbolic of the length of time to integrate Radcliffe into Harvard.”

SETTING THE STANDARD

Efforts have been made, independent of the college administration, to bring to light women’s visual history at Harvard. Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, Harvard College Professor and James Duncan Phillips Professor of Early American History is the author of Yards and Gates: Gender in Harvard and Radcliffe History. She was among the first to speak out against the lack of women’s representation in the collection of portraits at the Barker Center, as well as the confusing Bradstreet Gate.

A forgettable plaque was placed in 1997 on that gate behind Canaday to commemorate the 25th anniversary of Harvard’s integration of women into the college. Anne Dudley Bradstreet, the 17th-century poet after whom the gate is named, was completely unaffiliated with Harvard, and women certainly have had a relationship with Harvard extending long before 1972.

“I don’t know whether some kind of visual representation of women’s history at Harvard is what we need, or something entirely different and new,” Thatcher says. “There is a history and there is a lot of wonderful possibility. As we think about it, does it create a space of equality simply to replicate the old pattern of the University being represented in imposing portraits? Put one or two women up there, does that solve the problem? It probably doesn’t. It identifies the problem.”

Thatcher mentions the addition of a “A Self-Guided Walking Tour of Harvard Women’s History,” a well-constructed pamphlet available through the Harvard Information Office and sponsored by the Radcliffe Institute, the Schlesinger Library and the Harvard University History Department, as a good primary step towards the public recognition of women’s history. The Quad, previously Radcliffe housing and the only undergraduate housing named after female alumnae, is a place where much could be done to bring to life the vivid history of Radcliffe College through photographs and artwork from the archives.

The addition of female and minority artistic representation is not so much a question of balancing the scales and correcting the mistakes of history as it is an imperative measure for an institution that supposedly sets the tone for every other academic setting in the nation. The future of Harvard College will most definitely include women, minority students, international students and future leaders, but currently only shows a picture of the distant past.

If Harvard administration and alumni were serious about representing equal opportunities in the campus and being a progressive institution, they have considerable catching up to do with Yale. Yale’s “Women’s Table,” was constructed and donated by Maya Lin in 1993, a member of the Yale Corporation, who is also a Yale undergraduate and graduate school alumna. The sculpture is a fountain with water flowing out from the center, with a spiraling record of female numbers at Yale by year, from 1702 to 1992; the zeros do not end until 1873, when the art school first opened its doors to women.

The simple, but elegant structure has a profound effect on Yale undergrads, even from the first year. “The Women’s Table is a subtle, but truly significant symbol of women’s rise to equal opportunity.  Its location at the center of our campus, a leading institution, is a testament, not only to women’s tremendous gains in the world, but shows Yale’s progressive commitment to diversity and equality,” says Allyson M. Goldberg, ’08, of Yale College.

Harvard students used to gazing up the severe visage of John Harvard are looking for change in Cambridge. “I think it’s a problem when every statue of a hero or important person just happens to be male. Why can’t we get a statue of a historical woman, someone like Susan B. Anthony?” says Maya Frommer, ’07.

Harvard has ample space, ample funding and ample inspiration to create a structure of parallel or more profound significance. Whether the design and commissioning comes from within the administration, the corporation or collective alumni efforts, it is evident that something must be constructed to propel Harvard College into the 21st century, to remind students how far they have come and where they will go. Centuries-old architecture may look pretty on college propaganda, but students, Faculty and visitors alike deserve to see a full picture of Harvard’s history and future.