Harvard-Radcliffe Prisoners of Sex

SEX ROLES at Harvard and Radcliffe comprise as confounded and uncertain a subject as race relations. But while students treat the latter with a certain delicacy and seriousness (if not always with an appropriate understanding) their approach to sex -- particularly its political and psychological aspects -- has of late been characterized by fear and contempt masked in frivolity.

Last Wednesday, six male residents of Holmes Hall came in drag to an informal women's dinner-discussion that was being held in the dining hall. On Friday night, the Freshman Union witnessed a dinner for male-chauvinist pigs. In the Fall, a group of men living at Radcliffe circulated a leaflet charging "Sexism at Radcliffe" after males were asked to leave a meeting with Matina Horner sponsored by the Women's Center.

The perpetrators of these "pranks" claim that their actions were intended to be taken in jest. But after the "ha-ha" is over, it is impossible to ignore both the flippancy of their approach to difficult sexual issues, and the symbolism in their jokes. "Mostly, the males felt surprised that the women had to act with such solidarity to secure their identity," said one of the men involved in Wednesday night's transvestiture. "We wanted to poke some fun at the idea of feminism so that it wouldn't be taken too seriously."

Such an attitude, when put in either the present or the historical context of the status of women at the University and in society at large, resounds with naivete and immaturity. Is it a joke that women have been discriminated against in education and in many meaningful and important occupations? Is it funny that many intellectually gifted women fail to manifest their talents because they (rightly) fear social rejection? Or that the University perpetuates the inequalities of society by a lopsided admissions policy? Or that until recently the law would not allow women control over their own bodies? Or that primitive taboos and male ego-centricism have inhibited even the development of proper medical care for women?

HOW CAN IT come as a surprise that women feel a need to "secure their identity?" From the time they are born, society treats them essentially the same way wealthy Victorians treated their children: as people who should be seen and not heard. Women are to be charming but obsequious, interesting but not intellectual, involved -- but only with the children. And now, as women become more conscious of their status as a sexual class, it is no wonder that they seek the understanding and support of other women as an essential base from which to confront a society which would just as soon they stayed pregnant and in the home.

And how ironic it is that the same males who are amazed that women feel the need to meet together as women in order to secure (not to mention affirm) their female identities should come to such a meeting in drag. "It was a little bit strange -- a transvestite table. But I guess we were really unconscious about that," admits one of last week's many 'queens.' "If we were not dressed up, it would have been more of a political act. But the way we did it, we were trying to say that we meant it but not really."

"We meant it but not really." Meant what? That it's fine for women to mouth complaints about their position in society as long as they don't do anything serious about it? That one or two or three of them sitting together is all right, but any more than that means conspiracy is afoot? Or were these one-night transvestites unconsciously trying to tell us that they're not too sure about their own self-images? "They said they wanted to talk about all-female problems. We thought that those were problems you wouldn't talk about at the table anyway," one Holmes Hall man explained. "Secondly, we didn't see why they had to do it so formally: they can talk to each other at dinner anyway."

So it becomes a matter of table-manners and unnecessary ritual. "You just don't talk about those things at the table" -- I know because they've never talked about those things at any table I've been at. "They don't need to meet that formally anyway" -- I know because I can talk to my friends at dinner or any time. "Sure, women are outratioed and over-pressured, but this thing can get blown up out of all proportion. Maybe a women's table is O.K., but taking over a whole dining hall is a little bit too much."

AND SO the male rationalizations run. But the pranksters of the last few weeks have not been exclusively men. "A lot of women realized that if the men came dressed up like that, other women had to give them the clothes, and that those women -- for one reason or another -- thought that it was an appropriate thing to do," said a woman who was at the Holmes Hall dinner. "A lot of discussion revolved around what women supported them and why they would have done it and how alienated they must feel."

But most of the women who supplied the skirts and dresses for the Holmes Hall affair were reluctant to talk about their collaboration, though one said that she thought what the men did was "hilarious." "I wasn't at dinner though," she added. "I went to Pier 4."

And all of these sex-role shenanigans are as much a product of reactions to the external environment as they are a consequence of unfortunate preconceptions. As a Holmes Hall woman who was somewhat sympathetic to the pranksters said last week, "You have to expect something like this to happen when they stick women all over the place. If you look at things I think you realize that sometimes you have to bring women together artificially. A lot of women wouldn't leave a table to sit with other women because they think it might hurt their friends. That's why a lot of women from Holmes didn't join the dinner."

"How many times do you get to meet other women around here and get to know who they are?" asked a woman from South House. "That's why the women's dinner was started -- so women would have a chance to get together. Those were very social reasons. When the people came in in drag, some of the women were saying, "When you think that the men in your own house don't understand, you wonder how we're ever going to convince a whole university of men like them.'"

SO INSTEAD of understanding, women at Harvard and Radcliffe are mocked and receive "good natured" abuse when they attempt to make best of a situation which is stacked against them from the moment of unequal admissions. It is against the rules to exclude people from dining halls, but when the women who organized the Holmes Hall dinner circulated a letter asking for support, they were answered by the appearance of men in drag. When a meeting with Matina Horner sponsored by the Women's Center asked the males present to leave, they were answered by charges of reverse sexism -- but all in fun, of course.

It's time for the kidding to stop. Women don't meet together for the purpose of excluding men: they meet for the purpose of talking to other women. And male presence -- which often results in male dominance -- can inhibit discussion or even consideration of sensitive issues. Women at this University deserve the same kind of respect that should be paid to blacks, Jews, Chicanos, or any other group that decides it must draw inward to gather strength to resist those who abuse it. But when confronted with the analogy to blacks, one of the Holmes Hall males chimed, "It's a good analogy as an indication of what we think we can get away with. The danger in going into a black dinner is getting punched up. Women wouldn't punch us up."

Women face enough problems from a phalaux of male Harvard administrators and lopsided ratios in the college, the graduate schools, and the Faculty. It is a sad state of affairs when they cannot depend upon their own male classmates for support.