NO MORE TREATS

To the Editors of the CRIMSON:

This Friday East House will raffle off seven of its finest as "Valentine treats" to seven lucky men. While this raffle is meant as a cute gimmick to raise money for East House it reflects the reality of male-female relations in the Harvard "community" and in society at large. Is this our functional value--to be merely another raffle item--like a puppy dog or a television set? Or, for that matter, is it the role of men to purchase women as they would any other commodity?

As Radcliffe students we would like to eliminate the existing dichotomy between our intellectual and sexual identity. Women tend to accept false standards of femininity which pervade all aspects of our life. Women are seen as marketable items on the basis of their sexual attractiveness. Women's economic function often consists of menial tasks and almost always for lower wages than men. Further they are expected to give unquestioning emotional support to the male ego.

If black people were to raffle themselves off to whites to raise money, such a flagrant reinforcement of their oppression would not be tolerated by anybody. But women, in raffling themselves off to men, are perpetuating their own second class status--and this is accepted by both men, and women. Women are not objects to be bought and sold--even in jest. Donna E. Lieberman '70 of the Committee of Women

(A reply from East House's president will appear in tomorrow's 'Crimson'.)