Camping for a cause
Ilana J. Sichel ’05 is a thorn in the side of the establishment. The literature concentrator affiliated with the Dudley Co-op is co-chair of the Radcliffe Union of Students (RUS). She has actively rallied for an array of causes, from the pro-choice to the anti-snow-penis variety. Sichel is now taking on a perhaps more formidable opponent.
Over the weekend, Sichel pitched a demonstration in front of the science center aimed at shaming the administration into building a women’s center, something every other Ivy League campus boasts. To drive home their point, Sichel and her RUS cohorts erected a small tent, as if building the only safe space for women at Harvard. FM caught up with her to see how the weekend went.
1. Your protest consisted of a lone tent with some books inside on the lawn outside the science center. Why the non-verbal demonstration?
The Women’s Center demonstration was actually both non-verbal and verbal. The strictly non-verbal component was the tent itself but everything else—from the “Welcome to the Harvard-Radcliffe Women’s Center” to the music, from the copious flyers and articles to the books—was highly verbal. We were also highly verbal with visitors; we had many words.
2. What books were in the tent?
Well, at one point a visitor must have been interested in Judith Halberstam’s Female Masculinity because it was prominently displayed when a toddler and her daddy climbed in to take a look. He was unruffled, and she clearly felt liberated. Other than that, they included the excellent Women’s Guide to Harvard, Ntozake Shange’s For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow is Enuf and many magazines, poetry volumes and dozens of theory books like any good Harvard locale.
3. Given the high-traffic location of your demonstration, it is likely that a lot of people saw your tent. What was the general reaction from passersby?
Most people were extremely supportive, very excited and eager to help. Dozens of strangers snapped pictures; we think they wanted to capture heartwarming scenes of Harvard activists. We met a couple skeptics, but we came out stronger because of it.
4. Will you use the world “phallocracy” in a sentence?
As soon as we win this war, said Rosie the Riveter, the phallocracy’s going to send me right back to my Donna Reed suburb to make sure there’s a job waiting for every returning GI.
5. Was the demonstration strategically timed to coincide with prefrosh weekend?
Yes. On some level, we wanted to hold Harvard accountable for being the only Ivy League school without a women’s center in front of the very prefrosh who they’re hoping to woo away from Yale, Brown, and Princeton. We certainly weren’t out to scare off women in the class of 2008—we emphasized that progress was in the air and that they should show up in September to further it. In the words of the Harvard Social Forum: So you got into this place. Now change it.
6. What, exactly is a women’s center?
A women’s center would be both an informal social/hang out space as well as a resource center to centralize services for women at Harvard, provide space for organizations involved with issues concerning women, facilitate networking among such groups and, crucially, recognize and honor the history of women at Harvard and Radcliffe.
7. The phrase “women’s center” seems to imply a space specifically not for men. Have any men been offended by this?
Actually, men were some of the most responsive to the flyers we handed out, and the leaders of the current campaign are not just women. Many male visitors asked if they would be excluded from the space, and the answer of course is no.
8. Would your efforts be more useful in places like, say, Afghanistan, where women are more systematically oppressed?
Like any issue, feminist issues exist in all places and contexts, not just those that Westerners deem “oppressive” such as veiled women in Afghanistan. A women’s center would be extremely useful to women at Harvard considering the splintered and disappearing history of Radcliffe College, the still nascent sexual assault policy and the hundreds of portraits and buildings commemorating men’s achievements.
9. Should every minority group get its own permanent space?
We would love to see Harvard pay more attention to the needs and demands of all minority groups. Hundreds of colleges have African-American student centers and multi-cultural centers that are devoted specifically to the advancement of groups that have been historically and systematically oppressed. Gender and racial markers, however, are not to be conflated—all these groups experience oppression in unique ways and you’ve probably noticed that women, as a particular “minority,” exist across all lines of race and culture.
10. Harvard’s official stance on the women’s center is that it violates the school’s anti-discrimination policy. If the center were established, would you object to the simultaneous establishment of a “men’s center?”
Harvard already has nine men’s centers: the Porcellian, the Fly, the Spee, the AD, the Phoenix, the Fox, the Owl and the Delphic. The hundreds of universities with Women’s Centers, including all the other Ivies, have firm non-discrimination policies. There is no contradiction.
11. Would there be a men’s restroom in the center?
No. But if they really havta they can use our gender-neutral bathroom.
12. The Seneca and other female groups dedicate a lot of their time and money to raising the money they need to purchase property. Do you support their efforts?
The Seneca is one of fifteen student organizations (of all genders) that have formally endorsed the Women’s Center proposal currently sitting on the desk of Dean Gross. Individuals within the coalition have a range of opinions about exclusive social organizations, but that diversity of opinion does not prevent us from acting in solidarity on this issue.
13. Where will this center be? (If in Hilles, what are the chances that undergrads will make the trip out to the quad?)
The proposal calls for two adjoining rooms in a post-renovation Hilles Library. Just because Riverfolk currently balk at the idea of trekking up to the Quad does not mean that this will always be so, especially when those at the helm of the renovation are committed to making Hilles a vibrant, appealing destination for students.
14. What is your preferred protest strategy: day of silence, a sit-in, or hunger strike?
A live concert by Le Tigre outside of President Summers’ house. At 3 a.m.
15. Now that this demonstration is over, what is your next plan of attack?
We’re asking House masters, faculty members and most of all students to e-mail the wonderful Dean Gross