This article has been modified from its original version. Correction appended.

During the fall of my freshman year, I found a message scrawled across the stall at the Science Center bathroom: "I was raped at the Spee, Spring 2002." While it made me vaguely uncomfortable, the anonymous note didn’t stop me from continuing my weekend routine. Every Friday and Saturday night, I would slap on some eyeliner, shove my feet into stilettos, find my tightest jeans, and head out to Mt. Auburn Street. My freshman clique and I would shiver on the steps while a club member looked us up and down to see if we were hot enough to get in. Inside we’d be handed alcohol by someone we usually didn’t know, dance or play beer pong, and end up making out with a cute guy that we’d never actually see during the daylight hours. Wooooh, college!

Right?

But then one weekend at the Phoenix, my roommate stumbles upstairs with a guy who’s been handing her beers all night. When I ask where she went, I am told that the upper level is for members only and that I should stay downstairs. And during the spring of my first year, after hooking up with a guy in the back room of the Spee, I find out that his friend had been hiding and watching the whole time.

I’m sure a lot of guys reading this are thinking, “I would never do something like that.” And maybe that is true. But when a social venue is entirely run by men, where men control the space and the alcohol, even the best intentions can result in some pretty imbalanced situations.

By participating in this system, everyone in the clubs gives tacit approval to gender inequity. Just as it would be hard to justify joining a white-only club or a straight-only club, belonging to a club that reinforces power imbalances is problematic. “But my friends and I are nice guys” doesn’t cut it.

In the fall of my sophomore year, as my male friends were being punched by the clubs, I was still standing on doorsteps, waiting to be let in. I started to get tired of laughing at jokes that weren’t that funny and batting my eyelashes at the guy standing at the door. I would sit next to club members in section during the week and then have to perpetually be their “guests” at parties on the weekend. I ended my sophomore year still trying to wrap my mind around what exactly made me so angry about my experiences as a woman at Harvard (and in the world).

Last year, I came back to school ready to take action. During a drunken discussion of the lamer points of final clubs, a group of friends and I decided to start SASSI-WOOF Clubs (Students Against Super Sexist Institutions-We Oppose Oppressive Final Clubs). Our basic mission was to create a campus free of final clubs.

After sending out an e-mail for our intro meeting, even we were surprised by how many people were influenced by the club system. At one extreme, friends told me I was being called an ugly ho bitch on clubs lists. At the other extreme, girls were coming forward with stories about being drugged at parties.

During that fall, SASSI received a lot of support. We held campus-wide discussions, leafleted outside the clubs, contacted campus media, did research on the clubs at City Hall, met with club presidents, and spoke with the Office of Sexual Assault Prevention and Response. But as we faced the task of trying to deconstruct a system that has existed for over a century (including a time during which the clubs received financial support from the University), it became clear that, since we had no money of our own, the only way we to get rid of the clubs was to convince guys to stop joining and people to stop going.

That didn’t seem likely. It is never easy to give up power, and as the months went by, it became increasingly clear that those who had it weren’t looking to change. Over and over again, conversations came to an impasse. Members refused to frame the discussion in terms of gender inequities, and I refused to view the clubs as just a place to hang out with buddies.

After a frustrating fall, I grew tired of living so close to a system that revolved around gender discrimination, and I moved off campus. I haven’t looked back since.

Now, in my senior year at Harvard, I must say I’ve actually learned the most from the very clubs I want to deconstruct. Final clubs have taught me that simply because they are male, my friends and classmates deserve eight huge mansions in Harvard Square. Final clubs have taught me that no matter how hard I work, I will never have access to connections that my male friends do. They’ve taught me that I don’t deserve a social space of my own in which I can feel truly safe. They’ve taught me that if I want to get into someone else’s social space, I better give a good blowjob.

Finally, final clubs have taught me that those who have power get to keep it and that it is time for me to stop complaining.

What worries me most is that, by living in the midst of this discriminatory system, we’ve all implicitly been taught these lessons during our time here. In the end, this isn’t just about a place to party. This is about the fact that, because these clubs still exist, the leaders of the future are being taught that it is acceptable to deny women access to resources simply because they are women. And we all know that that just isn’t okay.

CORRECTION: The print and original online versions of the Nov. 9, 2005 magazine story "No Longer Knocking" contained an incorrect reference to the Delphic Club. The club's bathroom has a lock, and there is no evidence of an assault occurring there.

The Crimson regrets the error.