Behind Closed Doors

IN A perverse sort of way, I was pleased to read a copy of the "Official Pi Eta Speakers Club Newsletter."

As a committed feminist, I have hashed and rehashed (now ardently, now reluctantly) the relative merits of a he she construction. Ms vs Miss, who should hold what doors, etc. Is it a)always, b)usually, c)sometimes, or d) never appropriate to use "girl" instead of "woman" when referring to a female college student? So in a sense, it was helpful to come across a crude stark reminder of just what sexism is.

The opening paragraph of the Pi Eta newsletter reads as follows.

Before we get in any discussion about the amazing pounding of private parts some poor suspecting fat load is going to take this Saturday night by your huge and erect penis, the officers would like to make some pertinent rules clears. After reminding Pi Eta members to get in those dues, the newsletter returns to a more detailed description of the upcoming "pigfest."

If I'd read such a passage in Hustler magazine, it probably would have merited only a mental wince. But coming across the paragraph in the publication of a Harvard undergraduate organization left me shocked and sickened I believe the Harvard campus is, by and large, a good place for women and have always felt comfortable here. So it was sharply disillusioning to discover that any Harvard club would woo its members to a party with the promise of a "bevy of slobbering bovines fresh for the slaughter," ensuring that all will have the chance to "slice into one of these meaty but grateful heifers."

Clearly the letters are intended strictly for club members--and it's obvious why. But the newsletter did accidentally find its way into the mailbox of a female Kirkland House resident, who was upset enough to bring the matter up with the House Master, who in turn, mentioned the issue to Dean of Students Archie C. Epps III.

Pi Eta President Timothy Keating explains that the newsletter is meant to be a private bulletin for club members, adding "I'm sorry it ended up in someone's mailbox." On the subject of the letter itself. Keating explains that it was intended as a parody of what are presumed to be Pi Eta attitudes. "It in no way reflects the attitude of the members of the club," he notes.

According to Keating, it is also unusual for the Pi Eta newsletter to contain any thing more than a straightforward listing of club news. The issue in question was a special edition, the first put out by the incoming officers. As tradition dictates, the issue typically contains a certain amount of "sexual innuendo." (Keating uses the term somewhat loosely, since the playful suggestion that one of the officers "bring a date that will have sex with all of us!" is hardly innuendo.)

Even if this contention is true--and several eyewitnesses suggest otherwise--Keating's explanation of the letter as "one of a kind" does not excuse it. The problem with the "private" document is that, almost by definition, it is not a one-shot parody; no one could conceive of, or be amused by, such a letter without accepting at least some of its premises.

More important, club members do not leave their crude "humor" (whether expressed in one issue, or dozens) at the doorsill of 45 Mt. Auburn. And while the offensive language of the newsletter is upsetting, it is far more troubling to consider the more subtle ways in which such sexism is manifested. If a man finds crude sexual imagery--even rape imagery--humorous, he is unlikely to be sensitive to the alienation many women feel when exposed to far more common--and far more accepted--forms of sexual teasing or stereotyping.

In society at large, some of the cruder forms of sexism can be sidestepped. Approaching a group of men gathered outside a strip joint or porno movie theater, a woman can simply cross the street. Vulgar sexism becomes far more threatening, however, within a close-knit campus, such as Harvard's, precisely because men and women are so closely intermingled--usually in an impressive display of peaceful coexistence. To realize that the same men who "joke" about pig feast may be the guys through the fire door, is to feel suddenly ill at case among what was thought to be a family of sorts. In a moment, it's Harvard as Freshman Mixer all over again.

I don't mean to imply that the Pi Eta Club is a hotbed of unreconstructed male chauvinists. I doubt all the club's members were amused by the newsletter, just as I doubt all those who would be do belong to the Pi Eta. But while it is disturbing enough to know that a Harvard undergraduate authored the letter, having it appear as the official publication of an established club is still more threatening since it implies an endorsement--indeed, an encouragement--of like minded thinking.

MOST SIGNIFICANTLY, the newsletter confirms a persistent fear on the part of many women that their acceptance as equals is only superficial. That when the doors close at the Pi Eta Club, in the locker room; or at any other all-male sanctuary, men stop talking equality, and start talking bra size.

Men are generally quick to deny these allegations, saying all-male clubs are simply a pleasant way of socializing and in no way threaten women. Keating contends that the Pi Eta newsletter was nothing more than a lighthearted parody of the stereotype he says his club has unjustly earned, as a bastion of beer swilling misogynists. Keating strongly objects to this image, which he claims is a "myth" that continues to be passed on from year to year.

But it's unfortunate that this sensitivity to stereotyping does not carry over into the club newsletter. Sexism consists largely of stereotyping at its extreme, looking on women as "grateful heifers" or "slobbering bovines"--one of the references Keating calls "jovial."

How jovial.