Women's Committee Will Start Program on Feminist Research

A committee of Radcliffe students working for the establishment of a women's studies concentration at Harvard will this week begin a program designed to educate undergraduates about research on women done at the College, members of the group said yesterday.

Dena B. Grossier '78, a member of the Women's Studies Committee, said yesterday the program will consist of a series of 14 dinners held at the Houses during the next three weeks. At each dinner one Radcliffe student will discuss a women's studies paper she has done recently.

"It's a traveling colloquium," Sarah Rabkin '79, a committee member organizing the events, said yesterday. "The object is to get people aware of what kinds of resources there are, and what kinds of questions women's studies deals with."

"We want to establish the mood that we'd like to see in a women's studies concentration--a spirit of students teaching each other and sharing their work. There's not enough sharing of ideas at Harvard," Rabkin added.

Presto!

Groisser said, "We're bringing this work out of invisibility."

The women who will lead the dinner discussions, most of whom have not been previously involved in the committee, will discuss a variety of areas, ranging from "Male fantasy and feminine reality: Women's role in 15th century England," to a paper about childbirth.

Misconceptions

Robin L. Leidner '79, who will discuss a paper about the beginning of the birth control movement, said she had chosen to participate in the program partly to help combat the idea that women's issues aren't acceptable subjects to research.

"At Harvard it's rare for anyone to talk about work they're doing. I want to do this because I think it's good to share that," Leidner added.

Emily M. Schneider '80, who will speak on the work of a Puerto Rican poet, Julia de Borgos, said she had become involved because "there's a paucity of things about women going on here."

Rabkin said the project was making use of the "individual interest of a lot of people who don't normally get involved in activism."