Debutantes in Our Midst

I came out over Christmas Break," a first-year woman whispers to her friend over breakfast in the Union.

"I'm still kind of embarrassed about it." Two recent male acquaintances walk over, and the women quickly curtail their conversation.

Another first-year exploring her sexuality within the liberated confines of Harvard? Hardly. These two upper-upper-middle class young women, 18 or 19 years of age, were discussing their debutante balls.

Until about 30 years ago it was commonplace for young women to don a white dress, attend a ball and be presented to society as a debutante. Also known as the woman's "coming out," becoming a debutante let the world know one was now of appropriate marriageable age.

Times have changed, and when a first-year woman at Harvard starts talking about "coming out," people assume she is referring to her sexual orientation. But for a number of Harvard students, memories of their "coming out" continue to evoke white ball gowns, escorts and family snapshots.

These are the debutantes in our midst.

For many of these women (unlike their mothers) the decision to become a deb was a difficult one. As a sophomore from New York City who prefers to remain anonymous put it, "It was a really hard decision. It still is, sort of."

Her reservations had to do with what she perceived as the "archaic" nature of the event.

"Yeah, it was fun. Undeniably, it was a great party, but it's still a pretty stupid thing. I mean, coming out to society because you're now of marriageable age? First of all, I'm not going to get married for a long time," the sophomore said.

"And also, I mean, things like that don't exists in society anymore."

Lindsay H. Tomenson '96, a fellow debutante who was presented at the small ball (women are not presented alone) had a similar reaction. "I was reluctant, I guess because of your usual feeling about debutantes. I had a stereotype in mind.

"A couple of things changed my feelings," Tomenson explained. "My roommate freshman year, Elly Malone, who is a fantastic person, was doing her debut in Texas later that year, and it wasn't really a big issue for her, because everybody in Texas does it.

"And she had such a good attitude about it, and, you know, it was going to make my mother and grandmother happy."

"It was always sort of understood that I'd be one," the still-anonymous sophomore said. "I think I remember in the fifth grade three of my girlfriends and I sitting around and taking about it: like we'd all go to boarding school and then we'd all come out."

She pauses before continuing her list of justifications. "And my grandmother really wanted me to. I thought it would be a good chance to do something for her that was also something that would be fun for me."

Both girls came out through the Junior League in New York, a charity organization that requires its members to complete 18 hours of community service a month.

They liked the fact that the Junior League had one of the smallest number of debs, 18, in a year, and that it was a service-oriented group. "You know, Junior League is a good thing," the anonymous sophomore said. "I mean, I had to rationalize it."

New York is the largest center for debutante balls in the Northeast. Debutantes at Harvard, as elsewhere, seem to come either from New York or somewhere in the South, and come out of either through a charitable organization or a social club.

And while similarities abound (the tradition, the white dresses, the furtive glances over cocktails) there are regional differences.

In the south, women generally come out in their sophomore year or when they're 19, while in the Northeast it's the freshman year at college or age 18. The anonymous sophomore was an exception to this rule. "I was a year older than the other girls. I was supposed to do it the year before, but I was in Nepal, living in a monastery."

Representing Southern debutantes at Harvard are Elly Malone, who came out in Austin, Texas, Catherine Robe from Spartanburg, S.C. and Sarah Stevenson, a grad student who came out in 1988 in Jackson, Miss.

Stevenson's debutante-hood was pre-ordained. "I came out at the Jackson Debutante Club in Jackson, Mississippi. My mother came out there, my grandmother, my aunt and my sister. I never thought of not doing it."

Catherine Robe, whose debut was this past December, came out at one of Spartanburg's three deb clubs, The Assembly, a ladies' social club which was the scene of her mother's, grandmother's and great-grandmother's debuts.

"I guess it's sort of a family thing," Robe observed, adding, "My mom left it up to me; it was not a pressure thing." Robe's own personal history overruled her initial, being presented to society. It just doesn't seem useful now.

"But I remember being little and watching my mom get dressed up every year and go to the ball, and thinking someday I'll be 19 and I can be a debutante."

In an age when a woman questions whether acts as simple as putting on lipstick or shaving her legs are celebrations of her own femininity/sexuality or proof of her subservience to the dominant male paradigm, it is understandable that these women were torn about their decision.

This is particularly true considering that they are, white dresses aside, Harvard students, who are known to be among the most overly-analytical creatures in the galaxy. What was once a commonplace decision is now a rare choice, one which provokes almost as much worry as "coming out" in the modern sense. Many of the debs interviewed were a little reluctant to "come out" about having a coming-out party, or at least found it an odd subject for an article. "It seems like such a non-Harvard thing to do," one noted.

Angst aside, it was, after all, just a party. In the words of Malone, "It's not really a big thing. It's fun, but I don't feel my status has changed because of it or anything. It's just a family/friend party."

Between The Decision and The Party lies The Dress. From sea to shining sea, debutante dresses are always white (to convey a sense of chastity?). Or perhaps deb dresses remain white as a carry-over from the time when the deb dress was meant to lead directly to the wedding dress.

In some cases, the connection is still more of a direct line than in others. "A lot of girls get deb dresses to also wear at their weddings after altering them slightly. It makes sense, if you're going to spend that much on a dress," Robe opined, although she chose differently.

"I wanted something really simple. I didn't see any reason to spend a lot of money, since it was really something I'd only wear once. Actually, it got ripped because at one point we were doing the Electric Slide."

Malone, like her co-debts in Austin, went the wedding dress route. "It was a lot of fun to get dressed up. I mean, I had to go buy a weeding dress with my mom. It was a little weird; I was thinking about when I'm actually going to do it."

For Tomenson in New York, a wedding dress provided inspiration and incentive. "I love Laura Ashley dresses, so I looked in their wedding catalog and I saw this dress and I thought, 'Well, if I'm going to do it at least I'm going to get a nice dress out of it.' So I showed the dress to a dressmaker my mother knew, and I picked it up when I came home for Thanksgiving."

Anonymous went to a designer friend and tried to select something that didn't scream "DEB." "It's kind of silly but I made sure I chose one with a very straight skirt."

In addition to dresses, all deb balls share one other component: male escorts, a decision which requires only slightly less thought than the dress. Anonymous chose two old boyfriends, "It made the night really interesting." Tomenson was accompanied by her two older cousins who, "were joking the whole way through, so it was really fun.'

Stevenson was presented by her father and her brother escorted her, "which is sort of how it works in the South; if you have a brother of proper social age, he presents you." Similarly family-minded, Robe had her cousin be her escort and a high school friend be her 'marshal', saying "I wanted to keep it low-key, with friends from home." And in Austin, men receive equal time with women in the social whirl. Malone notes, "All 15 of us, our escorts were chosen for us; it's sort of an honor for them, too."

In fact the only problem anyone had regarding escorts was understanding their purpose at all. When she asked why she needed to have two escorts, the anonymous sophomore received "the most inane answer I've ever heard in my life. This lady said you needed to have a man on either side of you in case you faint." Mystified, FM wondered if this was a precaution in case a deb's dress was too tight. "No, it's in case you're too nervous," FM learned.

Suitably attired and squired, the debts anticipated the Main Event, and for all of them it was fun, fairly low-key and, oftentimes, far less painful than imagined. Tomenson recalls, "I only had two or three friends there, so basically it was all family, which made it really easy for me because it was sort of like my family was going out to dinner, except we were going to a really fancy dinner at the Plaza and I happened to be curtsying and everything."

All the women enjoyed themselves but none of them felt the sort of mystical, "You're woman now" glow one imagines debs of earlier years experiencing. As Malone states, "I didn't think it was the be-all, end-all." Stevenson adds, "It's just a big party where you get to invite lots of your friends and drink a lot."

With the mystique that surrounds debutantes, FM was expecting something more. Stories of trysts in the coat room with boys named Something-Something the Third, perhaps, or at least someone with a bouffant hairdo saying, "And as a present, my daddy gave a me a pink Cadillac with my name on the side in gold letters." The reality is much tamer, albeit much nicer.

If the Harvard debutantes profiled are any indication, coming-out parties are just like any other family event where your relatives want to take your picture. In their families, it was just another rite of passage that involved food, drink and relatives with popping flash bulbs, sort of like a bar mitzvah, only without the religious significance.

It is this lack of significance that gave these young women pause when considering whether or not to become a debutante, although their reservations were often overruled by the awareness of the familial significance the event held. Still, the question remains: are the recent debutantes the last of a dying breed, just so many Jurassic dinosaurs in white dresses?

These women could indeed be the last of the great white-clad debutantes, if their answer to the question, "Do you think your daughters will be debutantes?" are any indication. Anonymous's response is, "Definitely not. The only reason I did it was for my grandmother and it won't do a thing for my mom." She adds, however, "My sister's daughters probably will do it." For others the question is one of geography. Malone says, "It depends on where we lived and if they want to do it." And Stevenson answered, "Only if we live in Jackson, Mississippi. Which we won't."

These responses, as well as the women's stories indicate that being a deb does not mean what it once did. As anonymous says, "It's something that doesn't have its original connotations, but the emotional connection is still there." Clearly these women's debuts were not seminal events in their lives, just something fun that they once did, about which some of them had and have doubts.

Although Harvard does not have a "debutante association," debutantes are a small and shrinking minority which does exist. Just look for the long white dresses, hidden in dorm-room closets behind the pairs of jeans and Harvard sweatshirts.

In the South, women generally come out in their sophomore year or when they're 19.