Intrepid Churls

To the Editors of The Crimson:

Despite the modest disclaimers of certain of the principals involved, the publicity and disputation generated by the Currier House seminar has not been overblown to the point of absurdity. In point of fact, it may be concluded that the entire concatenation of events is far more indicative of the "unspoken" than many of our very intelligent, illustrious colleagues, male and female, would care to allow. A number of very important issues have been raised by this "peculiar and very petty squabble"--issues which in no way have been resolved, and which, paradoxically enough, have yet to be recognized and articulated.

We are told by Ursula Goodenough that it is patently ridiculous that this should be the first Title IX case at Harvard--particularly when there's been so much discrimination from "the other side." Does this mean that "the other side" is to be denied the same rights as women for an unspecified period of time until some authority, presumably matriarchal, determines that Women, as a separate race, have been properly compensated for centuries of discrimination? Or is the whole episode but a timely reminder that male chauvinism--so petty, so desperately entrenched--is still very much alive and kicking amongst the Harvard male elite? Is not an apology forthcoming from those three intrepid churls who had the boorish temerity to intrude where Minerva and her daughters oppressed sought sanctuary from the Circean male?

Obviously these three intruders should have had the simple sense to know they were intruding in the first place. Until the balance of dominance has been completely redressed (and given the intransigence of the Harvard male that will be ages hence) men are in fact committing an act of "forceful penetration" whenever they wilfully barge in where women are discussing their own delicate, personal affairs. Oafish Harvard males need not apply in this or any similar colloquy where women are privately formulating the structure of reality.

Now, in the case of men barring women from those traditional bastions of male privilege--be it the Porcellian Club or certain "male-only" biology courses-- that clearly is a different species of problem altogether. As we all know, when men prohibit women from clubs or activities that are exclusively male, it is not only a case of chauvinistic stupidity (after all who but a blind, misogynistic male would prefer the company of gruff, hoary men to the enlightened grace of Minerva's daughters?), it is also a case of overt hostility, nothing short of predatory masculine regression. We have seen the results of this barbaric intransigence--four thousand years of patriarchal domination, constant war, social oppression, genocidal atrocities too numerous to mention. Therefore it is the height of masculine imbecility, if not worse, to even compare the exclusively feminine 'Vestal' with the barbaric regression of male-only chauvinism. Anyone with the slightest background in anthropology knows that if not for the civilizing influence of the prehistoric agrarian matriarchies, men would still be a race of rock-eating troglodytes. Women did not have to take men along with them on their evolutionary journey--they just as easily could have left them behind in their squalid caves with nary two flints to strike together.

So let us lay this "petty squabble" to rest once and for all without any further whining any further whining from the masculine quarter. In the future, obtuse sons of Harvard should be well advised: although you shall be allowed the privilege of attending classes with the more intelligent sex, do not for one moment assume, with an obnoxious panting so pathetically eager, that you shall be allowed to intrude where, to Harvard's daughters and daughters only, the esoteric reality of the Sisterhood is being formulated and revealed. S.W.R. Trumpington Jr. '79