Separation With Equality

THE INVITATION was for a tree-trimming party. With Christmas fast approaching, it conjured up images of spruce and holly, punch and sugar cookies, and strings of popcorn and berries. All of these were, in fact, present when I arrived at Radcliffe President Matina Horner's house, but without their usual emotional accompaniment--the exuberance and communality that tends to infuse holiday gatherings. And as I left the party, lacking my accustomed share of "Christmas spirit." I began to wonder what had created such a feeling of hesitancy on an occasion which differed from countless others I had attended in only one respect--its complete absence of men.

Although Harvard and Radcliffe were combined in 1977, leaving Harvard either full or shared responsibility for the admission, instruction, housing, athletics, and discipline of Radcliffe students, Radcliffe still seeks to provide a focal point for women who might at times feel understandably lost at this historically male university. To this end. Radcliffe offers an impressive array of programs designed to aid and interest women, from the academic or career-oriented to the extracurricular or purely social. Yet few undergraduates seem to know about these programs and even fewer take advantage of them. One wonders why.

Most Radcliffe women, simply by virtue of their attendance here, are intellectual, competitive, and highly motivated. The innate confidence they probably have may make them overlook the possible detrimental effects of living in a community that remains skewed towards men in everything from sheer-numbers to such separatist vestiges as finals clubs. Not that women should counteract this problem by becoming equally separatist, but they should not, either, yield to the habit that often prevails--studiously avoiding all activities lacking men or, at the very least, approaching them with severe apprehension.

To understand the apprehension one must look again to the history of the University. Radcliffe has only fully become a part of it in the last six years and therefore lacks the power of tradition which makes many Harvard programs so appealing. For students who entered after Harvard took over the dominant aspects of undergraduate life. Radcliffe and its services appear external, no matter how important and longstanding they may be in their own right. What does seem central is those activities associated with what most undergraduates too all around them--Harvard--which still curries with it the stamp of maleness. As it result, many women tend to just subtly excluded when involved in activities, especially social ones, which center only on other women.

THE RECENT Radcliffe Union of Students (RUS) presidential election provided an unusually clear example of the Radcliffe predicament. The two candidates ran on disparate platforms emphasizing the different roles RUS could possibly undertake. Former vice president Julia Rubin '84 wished to make the group a social and political focal point for all Radcliffe women, while winner Elizabeth Young '85 stressed the need to maintain RUS as a lobbying ground for feminist issues.

Certainly this latter role is crucial--especially as RUS is in the best position to undertake such a task--but the mistaken perception has grown up that the two aims are mutually exclusive. By centering so predominantly upon feminist issues. RUS and Radcliffe programs in general have attained a reputation for being too radical--an image reinforced by the fact that students strongly concerned with women's issues tend to need and use Radcliffe more often than do women pursuing other interests. Coupled with the general Harvard-induced apprehension of exclusively female activities, this image often serves as an excuse for less politically active women to pay attention to Radcliffe and RUS at all. Broadening that image would eliminate the excuse, and stronger support of RUS and other Radcliffe programs would probably result.

RUS stands at a unique juncture of all Radcliffe undergraduate activities by automatically including all undergraduate women. Above and beyond simply lobbying, it could use this position to attack more directly and openly the perceptual problem that discourages so many of its "members" from active involvement--the natural tendency to undervalue women's activities because of Harvard's overwhelming emphasis on men. By recognizing that it need not replace Harvard in importance, perhaps Radcliffe, through RUS, can turn its attention better to complementing it. And with than reassurance, perhaps women at Radcliffe will no longer allow confidence in their own abilities to bind them to the subtle negative influences inherent in a traditionally male university--influences which may inhibit the very qualities which have brought them so far already.