Women's Studies

To the Editors of The Crimson:

I am writing to express my grave disappointment with the opinion Professor Harvey Mansfield expressed in the October 23 Crimson article, "Faculty Vote Nears on Plan to Create a Concentration in Women's Studies." Though previously apathetic towards this proposition, I was none the less appalled by this senior faculty member's insensitivity and apparent lack of consideration over this important issue.

Specifically, Mansfield made two statements with which I take exception: (1) that "women don't constitute a community like Blacks do;" and (2) that "courses defined as 'Women's Studies' are non-scholarly, partisan and more often than not, guts." Are members of the "intellectually enlightened" Harvard community expected to condone such beliefs that border on the sexist?

Perhaps the biases are so sublimated that we don't even recognize them until someone says something casually, something provocative. I experienced this phenomenon merely six hours after reading the aforementioned Crimson article. It happened while I was watching the movie 9 1/2 Weeks with six male friends. As anyone who has seen the movie remembers, there is a certain scene where the main actor (Michael Rourke) forces himself sexually upon his girlfriend (Kim Basinger).

At the end of this scene, one of the guys in the theater said, "Oh, just another sex scene"--a comment to which I replied, "What? That was rape." My friend then responded, "What do you mean? They'd already slept together and everything...." Woah. Consciousness-raising seminars like the one on "Date Rape" have apparently done very little to change certain stigmas. Further, what is all the more frightening in this particular case is that I consider this friend to be a fairly enlightened and intelligent person. He is not some sort of neanderthal and has never shown himself to be sexist or racist or prejudiced in any way before. Our interpretive difference was subtle, yet very important.

So, maybe we don't talk about it, and in fact, maybe most people at Harvard don't perceive that a problem exists--"No, not at Harvard"--but as both the remarks of my friend--whose attitude is sadly not at all that atypical--and the uproar a Women's Studies proposal has generated demonstrate, we are living in a community of dangerous subliminal bias. This conclusion, then, is my motivation for supporting a women's studies concentration. Contrary to what Mansfield has implied, I believe that there does exist a separate discipline encompassing the history, psychology, literature, etc. of women that current courses do not adequately cover. Women are, in fact, a community--if an illdefined one--and the equality Mansfield presupposes does not necessarily exist beyond the surface, as we would all, I hope, like to believe.

Second to the intellectual opportunity a women's studies concentration would provide and the lack in the curriculum which necessitates such a program, there is the symbolic importance in approving such a plan. By furnishing a women's studies concentration, Harvard would send a very strong message that says the University recognizes the legitimacy of women as a bonafide community; not inflating their status, but rather bringing it level. The counter-argument is, of course, that this reasoning only politicizes what is an academic issue. I feel, however, that those who are so adamantly opposed to this proposition are really the ones making a socio-political statement.

Perhaps a great many students would opt not to pursue a women's studies concentration--I would fall into that category. This is still not a viable argument, though, for many also will opt not to concentrate or even take courses in English or anthropology or any of a dozen other majors. The bottom line is finally that, for those who would like to pursue a women's studies concentration, the option should exist as it does at every other Ivy League school, and Harvard--administration and students alike--should wake up and recognize the dangers of latent sexism beneath the intellectual rhetoric. Kelly M. Dermody '89