A Week for Women

You might call yourself an ally. I certainly do. It’s powerful, and it sends the message that you support a given community. Many say allyship stops there, that speaking up crowds out the voices coming from within that community itself. But can you really be an ally without participating in empowerment?

Harvard Women’s Week 2015 begins today, and I encourage Harvard men to take part in at least one of the many events next week. Calling yourself an ally is commendable, and requires courage. The same goes for calling yourself a feminist. But I hope that the men at this campus will go further, and demonstrate their commitment to equality of the sexes, rather than to simply say it. Show, don’t tell.

To those that believe allyship is about shutting up and listening, I understand where you come from. I, too, believe allies should listen before they speak.  The theme of Women’s Week this year is “I Am Telling My Own Story,” and I wholeheartedly believe men should take this as an opportunity to listen to the stories of the women around them. Effective allyship requires an understanding of the community an ally seeks to support. But to read allyship as just sitting back and listening lets allies off easy. Why should allies be passive, when their action does more for the communities they support?

Men systematically benefit from unconscious and conscious factors in our world. Male voices are heard. Male voices that speak to the virtues of feminism are heard too. Yes, there is always a danger that male voice could overshadow the voices coming from women themselves. But there is also the possibility that the power of an ally’s voice is what it takes to convince another man to see women as equals; men can use power of their voices to break down the very structure that give their voices that power.

For a long time, I didn’t know where the Harvard College Women’s Center was (it’s in the basement of Canaday B entryway). Once I stumbled into it, however, I realized how the center functions not as a space to exclude men, but rather as an environment to celebrate women. All people can join in that celebration. Allies should celebrate women too.

Allyship starts with listening, but it also includes celebration and advocacy. Allies to women can drop by the Women’s Center or participate in a Women’s Week event, of course. Allies of people of color have the Harvard Foundation to look to. Allies of the LGBT community are welcome at the Office of BLGTQ Student Life. But what exactly does celebration and advocacy look like?

It looks like meetings of Harvard Men Against Rape. It looks like attendance of Kuumba and Ghungroo concerts, as well as performance in them. Celebration is when an ally decides to pick up an influential work of black literature. Advocacy is when an ally tells a friend about how many spaces at Harvard are simply inaccessible to disabled students. Allies read and educate themselves to understand how to be the best advocate they can be. And sometimes they even write melodramatic op-eds in their student newspaper.

Women’s Week kicked off on Sunday, and I’m proud to say I will be in attendance. I am excited to hear women at Harvard talk about their experiences, their identities, and their stories. I’ll take note of the challenges they face, the goals they achieved, and the impact they leave. As an ally, I am grateful for the opportunity to learn a little bit more, to listen, and ultimately to take an active role as an advocate of women. Hopefully, I won’t be the only guy in the room.

Samir H. Durrani '17, a Crimson editorial writer, lives in Currier.