Letters to the Editor

To the Editors of the CRIMSON:

I was infuriated to read Master von Stade's sexist letter. So he thinks that women don't become "important"! Does he ever consider why? The Harvard personnel office is part of the reason. When an intelligent, well-educated woman with a degree from one of the Seven Sisters interviews for a job at Harvard they ask her about her typing skills and may offer her a job as a secretary.

GRADUATE WOMEN RESPOND

To the Editors of the CRIMSON:

The Graduate Women's Organization has read the text of Dean F. Skiddy von Stade's letter to former Radcliffe Dean of Admissions David K. Smith. We are dismayed at the views he expressed, but we are not surprised. We have been trying to convince the Harvard community that a significant portion of the Harvard Administration shares Dean von Stade's view of educated women. That is to say, that we are "dull" and incapable of significant contributions to scholarship or to society, and that motherhood and intellectual functioning are mutually exclusive. On the basis of these beliefs the administration seems to conclude that Harvard should continue to maintain discriminatory practices against women. It is these very practices which have in the past excluded women from an active life outside the home.

We have maintained (Goodyear, Michelini and Tymo-czko, "What Ever Happened to the Radcliffe Merger," Harvard Bulletin, Oct. 26, 1970) that the public statements of high Harvard administrative officials with regard to the proposed merger of Harvard and Radcliffe reflect unspoken prejudices against women. The striking feature of Dean von Stade's letter is the ugly clarity with which he expresses his contempt for women. Yet the letter is important not as an expression of one man's personal views, but as a uniquely honest exposition of the opinions shared by high officials of the Harvard Administration. It is these men who formulate official Harvard policy. The implications should be clear for such current issues as merger, increasing the size of female enrollment and hiring more female Faculty members.