WAC Holds First Social Event

Two hundred people crowded into a Cambridge bar Saturday night, dancing, drinking and trying to create an alternative to Harvard's nine all-male final clubs.

Saturday night's party was not officially sponsored by Women Appealing for Change, a newly formed group circulating petitions to boycott the final clubs in an effort to encourage the clubs to admit women.

But "it was definitely in the same spirit as WAC," said Sarah A. Bianchi '95, a member of the Leverett rooming group that held the party. "It came out of the whole movement."

The movement has already garnered 200 signatures on petitions supporting the boycott. The petitions will be sent to final clubs this week, WAC organizers said.

Along with the boycott, creating alternative social events for Harvard students is a major goal of WAC, organizer Megan E. Colligan '95 said.

"For a segment of the population, final clubs have become the structure under which their social lives run. For these women, we want to offer alternative social events so that signing the petition doesn't ruin their social life at Harvard," Colligan said.

"The second goal is to bring various types of women together. In the past that never seemed to happen. Women have stayed in splintered, cliquey social groups," she said.

For now, WAC will serve as a support for individuals wanting to sponsor their own social events, Colligan said. Saturday night's party was publicized in WAC's newsletter. Eventually, the group will sponsor its own events.

Colligan said the events will be open to everyone at Harvard, including "guys in final clubs, women who go to the clubs, women who have stopped going, or who never went."

WAC organizers hope to broaden their membership base by bringing together different types of women, saidColligan.

"The more active we've become, the more we'verealized there are not many ways on campus thatwomen can come together," she said.

"We want to give all these people a chance tocome together outside of the male-run socialstructure," she said.

The Fly Club's decision to ask its graduateboard to approve admitting women "is not reallygoing to change anything," WAC organizer FrancieWalton '94 said. "The boycott is still in effect.There are still eight other clubs."

Walton said she does not agree with theassessment of some final club members that theexternal pressure of the boycott will cause abacklash and have the reverse effect of making theclubs less likely to admit women.

"We are never saying that we're the cause," shesaid. "We want them to make the decisionthemselves."

WAC will no longer be tabling at theundergraduate houses, but will be targetingsmaller groups of women in an attempt to explainmisconceptions, Colligan said.

The main problem WAC is facing now, she said,is the perception that "the movement is so thatrich prep school girls can get into final clubs."

The group's present goal is to expandmembership to "get the support of many differenttypes of women with many different types ofconcerns," Colligan said

"The more active we've become, the more we'verealized there are not many ways on campus thatwomen can come together," she said.

"We want to give all these people a chance tocome together outside of the male-run socialstructure," she said.

The Fly Club's decision to ask its graduateboard to approve admitting women "is not reallygoing to change anything," WAC organizer FrancieWalton '94 said. "The boycott is still in effect.There are still eight other clubs."

Walton said she does not agree with theassessment of some final club members that theexternal pressure of the boycott will cause abacklash and have the reverse effect of making theclubs less likely to admit women.

"We are never saying that we're the cause," shesaid. "We want them to make the decisionthemselves."

WAC will no longer be tabling at theundergraduate houses, but will be targetingsmaller groups of women in an attempt to explainmisconceptions, Colligan said.

The main problem WAC is facing now, she said,is the perception that "the movement is so thatrich prep school girls can get into final clubs."

The group's present goal is to expandmembership to "get the support of many differenttypes of women with many different types ofconcerns," Colligan said