Feminism and Apple Cider

Strains of Gilbert and Sullivan drifted up Agassiz's broad stairwell, along the hall, and up some narrow hidden steps in to the room where the legislature of the Radcliffe Union of Students was meeting last month. The 14 women, sitting cross-legged on the floor, were discussing a request from a group of cheerleaders for a grant of $100 with which to buy uniforms.

"We're here to give money for things that Radcliffe women want," one of them was saying.

"But we have to look at the impact it will have," another responded. "It has to somehow have relevance to women."

"They want money to cheer for the men's basketball team?" one woman asked, incredulous. "Forget it."

The debate began to heat up. "Women who want to cheer have paid just as much money as women who don't want them to cheer," said one. "You just can't write them off just because they don't fit our stereotype of a liberated woman."

Nothing was decided, the controversy ending in a decision to draw up applications forms and institute a system for evaluating requests from groups. Before moving on to committee reports, however, Barbara A. Norris '77, RUS president, told the legislators to "think about the effect of our grants on women's affairs versus giving money to things that women want."

RUS, Radcliffe's student government, is just beginning to rouse itself this fall after years of inactivity. Few Radcliffe women have ever known much about it, fewer have cared, and except for the fact that all Radcliffe students automatically pay $5 a year in RUS dues when they pay their term bills, the organization probably would have died long ago.

Instead, it has something like $11,000 to spend this year, with no constraints and virtually no one to account to. As stated in its constitution, RUS' purpose is to "represent, support and encourage the interest of undergraduate women." "Our greatest use is in doing things for women," says Norris; but RUS is having a hard time figuring out what women want, what to encourage.

It is easy enough to discern what some individual women and groups of women want--money. Even when the organization was for all practical purposes not functioning a couple of years ago, someone was administering a loan-grant program with RUS money. This function continues--last year RUS gave 17 Radcliffe students money to work on projects related to women, including a study of Appalachian-women and observation of the U.N. Women's Year Conference in Mexico City last summer. This year's budget sets aside about $3000 for loans and grants. It also allows for $2800 in grants to groups, and already this year RUS has given $2000 to the Women's Center and about $850 to the new Association of Black Radcliffe Women.

"RUS just divvies up money," says one former legislator who resigned after having gone to one meeting and who says she has heard nothing from the organization since.

But RUS officers insist the groups is doing more than just handing out money to other groups. "This year we set aside a smaller proportion of our money for loans and grants," Norris says, "We felt that giving out grants was good, but we also felt that RUS was not doing enough for the majority of women."

What should be done for the majority of women? Norris and vice-president Margaret Hunt '76, say they are relying on the results of a long questionnaire they distributed last spring. About 20 per cent of all Radcliffe students returned the questionnaire; of these about half the women who were involved in athletics felt that facilities were inadequate. So one of RUS' eight committees this year deals with athletics, keeping an eye on the Department to make sure it is providing the equal facilities for women that Title IX requires.

But Norris and Hunt, who are both on crew, say that actually only a minor part of RUS' energy is going into athletics. More important these days is the housing issue--last month RUS co-sponsored with the Quad Committee a petition against the 1:1:2 housing plan and now it is putting together a position paper on housing. RUS is one of the 13 groups making up the new student Affirmative Action Task Force. There is also a committee studying ways to increase the number of courses related to women, and there are plans for a speakers series.

"The things they do are just not that visible," says Amy E. Aldrich '78, a Mather House representative. "And the results are not all that tangible."

It is certainly true that few Radcliffe students know what RUS is doing, and that the legislature gets little if any input from the students it is supposed to be representing. Few of the elections for House representatives were contested last spring, and in some cases last year's president, Janet Collins '75, actually had to recruit candidates. Given these circumstances, some women question how RUS can possible do anything more than serve the interests of the 15 to 20 women who are still active in it.

Aggravating this situation is the feeling of some RUS legislators, former and current, that the organizations is dominated by a small clique. One legislator who doesn't want to be identified, says she has not been to any meeting since the first one in the early fall where she felt "like a token."

"The committees were already made up," she says. "There was a core of in-members."

"It's true that the leadership is very tight," says Aldrich. "The people at the top are all people who live at the Quad and are all very close." She speaks of RUS as "it" or "them," not "us."

Mary Ann Pesce '77, a Winthrop representative still active in RUS and vocal at the meetings, feels that organizations is dominated by a clique of women who are "too feminist-oriented."

But charges of militant feminism certainly seem misplaced, up there in that bare room on the fourth floor of Agassiz, when Norris extracts a jug of cider and packages of chocolate chip cookies from her knapsack before the meeting. She says that all those who have resigned--about a third of the 26 representatives--have done so because of lack of time and that the legislature represents Radcliffe women as well as any government can represent a group of people.

"People come in without looking at RUS' history and what we've had to do to get it organized," says Norris.

Indeed, organizations has been much more of an issue in RUS this semester than self-definition. The first thing the legislature did this year was formally amend the by-laws to take care of some bureaucratic hassles that had arisen. Norris has organized the files from a loose collection of papers and folders that for years lay forgotten at the bottom of somebody's drawer into an efficient orange file cabinet, one of the few pieces of furniture in the RUS room. The recording secretary takes impressive minutes, which are read aloud at the beginning of each biweekly meeting.

Some find all this administrative detail annoying. "It's all so mickey-mouse," complains a woman who resigned after one meeting. "I would have stuck with it and tried to change it but I just didn't have the time."

But for Norris and those committed to RUS this is the only way to get organization back into shape. They are convinced that RUS is not just a remnant of the old Radcliffe that seems to be fading out of existence, and that despite the all too evident lack of interest in it, RUS can be of use to women in the University. There is no question in their minds that RUS must survive. And maintaining it takes work.

"When you find yourself responsible for an organization like this and everybody's money, you have to get things done," says Norris. "And if other people aren't willing to help you, well, then, you just have to do it yourself."