Sister Act

Last year, the Harvard College Women’s Center received an anonymous donation: dozens of yellowed back issues of Seventh Sister, a now-discontinued monthly publication formerly produced by Radcliffe College sudents.

According to its mission statement, the magazine “focus[ed] primarily on concerns of women in the [Harvard-Radcliffe] community.” The issues date back to the Seventh Sister’s founding in the spring of 1976.

The Seventh Sister’s etymology dates back to the 1879 founding of the Harvard Annex, developed as a compromise after Harvard officials refused to integrate women into the University itself. The institution was renamed Radcliffe College in 1894, and it quickly became a prominent member of an association of women’s liberal arts colleges colloquially termed the “Seven Sisters.” The Seven Sisters also included Barnard, Bryn Mawr, Wellesley, Smith, Mount Holyoke, and Vassar colleges.

The magazine set out to accomplish three main goals: to discuss events and issues of interest to women; to provide space for open and wide participation among the different student groups on campus; and to create a collaborative environment where women could learn the inner workings of running a newspaper. The magazine prided itself on its inclusivity, stating that, “Any member of the Radcliffe community is welcome to become a staff member—we have no comp.”

The magazine focused on fostering a sense of sisterhood among its members; the publication had no president. Instead, every choice was made collectively by the whole group.

In a statement for the December 1977 issue of the Radcliffe Quarterly, Susan Comstock ’78, one of the founders of the Seventh Sister, wrote “We wanted to do something collectively, to prove to ourselves that we didn’t have to run a newspaper in a hierarchical way.”

The magazine addressed many of the controversies of the 1970s and 1980s, with headlines like “Sex Role Straightjackets,” “Women Against Pornography,” “Beyond Guilt: A White Woman Confronts Racism,” “Senior Juggles Midterms and Motherhood at 21,” and “Over Educated and Underpaid: 7 Harvard Secretaries.”

The magazine also featured sports and movie review sections and frequently published poetry, photographs, and other submissions from its contributors. Its articles were direct and often passionate, openly criticizing the school’s administration and its treatment of minorities on campus.

Some women felt marginalized by the magazine’s unapologetic approach. As Elizabeth Owens ’80 wrote in the September 1980 issue of the Radcliffe Quarterly, “Many undergraduates feel that this publication speaks only to the feminist woman.” According to Owens, some Radcliffe students dismissed the magazine out of fear of being associated with “militant feminism.”

“Women who are more moderate feminists just do not seem to be affiliating themselves with such organizations,” Owens wrote. “We see the advantages of linking ourselves with the old-boy network, and we do this by associating ourselves with Harvard, not Radcliffe.”

Many writers for the Seventh Sister, however, felt differently. They believed that a strong, feminine environment fostered growth for its members. They believed that Radcliffe women needed solidarity to combat the presence of anti-feminist stereotypes like the “Cliffie Bitch,” described in a 1978 issue of The Independent as “myopic, cold and unemotional.”

“By any standards, to be called a Cliffie Bitch is insulting. But it’s also the most back-handed of compliments,” Tanya Luhrmann wrote in Seventh Sister in November of that year. “So-called bitchiness is a by-product of a woman’s intelligence and power; the equivalent of bitchiness in a man may be deplored, but would generally be overlooked.”

Harvard’s collection of Seventh Sister magazines ends abruptly with an issue from March 1984, roughly a decade and a half before Radcliffe formally merged with Harvard. Copies can be found in a yellow manila envelope in the basement of Canaday, at the Women’s Center.

You can also find the Seventh Sister online in the Schlesinger archives.