A Community Confronts a Rape

A little over a year ago, on December 7, 1988, a woman was raped in her Science Center office. It was late afternoon.

The immediate response was anger. Women were angry that the campus--their campus--had been violated. They organized a rally in support of the woman. They protested, they demanded more security.

But there was fear, too. The fear that is more intangible than protest rallies or committees on security. The fear that comes with knowing, realizing, that women are not safe. Fear of knowing that even an office in the middle of the day in a building bustling with comings and goings is not safe.

Later, in the weeks and months that followed, the rape did not disappear. Its memory remained in the endless Undergraduate Council debates about how to improve security. It lived on in the faces of the uniformed security guards who arrived at the Science Center. And in the 2 a.m. phone calls to the escort service, made by women who would no longer walk alone.

When campus women's groups rallied in support of the rape survivor, they presented a list of demands, asking the University to improve security, insure a safe women's center and start a program of rape prevention.

But today, more than a year after the rape, those demands for a safer, more secure campus remain illusory, partially fulfilled at best.

There are still complaints that the escort services on campus are largely inaccessible, that much of campus is still poorly lit and that women are still afraid in a campus that is supposed to be their home.

And a survey conducted by the Radcliffe Union of Students (RUS) this fall showed that female undergraduates continue to list campus safety as their first concern.

A meeting this week provided yet another reminder of how intractable the security issues raised by the rape are. At a Committee on College Life (CCL) gathering Monday, the topic was campus security and its inadequacies. Representatives from the Women's Alliance, the student-run escort service SafeStreets, the Undergraduate Council ad hoc committee on campus security and the Harvard University Police Department debated the issue.

They agreed there was much to be done.

But things have happened, of course. The immediate aftershocks in the community were tangible, and the reactions, like the Science Center rally, were obvious. The community became something like a rape victim itself. It expended energy rebuilding its sense of security.

The biggest changes made, according to the leaders of campus women's groups, were the introduction last March of a student-run foot patrol escort service, SafeStreets, and the acquisition of another car this year for the administration-sponsored escort service.

The police, too, say the rape caused them to look more closely at whether the campus was safe for undergraduates.

"Since [the rape], there have been a lot of committees, a lot of introspection into security," says Harvard Deputy Police Chief Jack W. Morse.

The most immediate security changes took place in the Science Center. Student guards were replaced by uniformed University guards. These guards patrol the center 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. every weekday, all day during weekends, holidays and vacations, according to Assistant Director of the Science Center John B. Mathers. The guards also check for University identification, and access to the upper floors is limited.

Still, Mathers says, "Nothing is impenetrable. We're at a state of reasonable security."

Beyond the Science Center and the escort services, there have been other new policies, says Morse. The lights in the Yard have been repaired and new lights have been added; the police have been working with house committees, speaking in the houses about campus security.

"The most viable thing that came out of [the rape] was self-help among the students," says Morse. "People utilized services they had underutilized before."

Those who are closely involved with women who struggle to come to terms with rape say its impact on a whole community often takes the form of such demands about security.

"In the wake of a rape, many women feel unsafe. They realize Cambridge isn't the safe little college town they thought," says Nadja B. Gould, a clinical worker and rape counselor at University Health Services.

She speaks of the community consciousness that is formed after a well-publicized rape, that demands corrective measures like improved security and education.

"We started to do that here with [the escort service] SafeStreets, and by paying attention to some important groups like [the sexual concerns hotline] Response," Gould says. "Being proactive is one way for the community to heal itself."

An Immediate Response

The immediate, angry response of the rally was another.

The rally, says RUS Secretary Annabella C. Pitkin '90, was a strong way to quiet the community fears. Pitkin, who co-founded the Women's Alliance, an umbrella organization that addresses gender issues on campus, says today that the rally's purpose was three-fold: to demonstrate solidarity with the survivor; to give women an outlet for their fears; and to "reclaim" the Science Center.

"[We wanted to] say, "This space is ours and we have a right to be safe here,'" Pitkin says.

Holly R. Zellweger '90, co-president of RUS, says she thought the rape was such a strong rallying point because it took place in the middle of the day, and was so well-publicized.

"It was very obvious that the woman wasn't quote, 'asking for it,' and the man had a criminal record, and the wasn't a Harvard student--he was an outsider," Zellweger says.

And Lucy H. Deakins '92, a Radcliffe undergraduate who says she was particularly affected by the rape, remembers hearing the news and being "shocked" and "horrified." She says she thinks the rally played an important role in making women feel they could be safe in their community.

"I think a lot of the immediate reaction was good--it quieted a lot of fears," Deakins says.

Not Always Action

But much of the fear and anger generated by last year's rape did not translate to action, as Women's Alliance Co-Chair Ann E. Blais '91 notes. While the rape generated "a lot of motivational energy," it was more of a powerful emotional statement than a call to action, she says.

Morse says he thinks it is important that the rape raised that kind of consciousness in the community.

"Good, healthy fear doesn't hurt," Morse says.

But often, observers say, it is the hurt which remains after a rape, and the concrete changes which are slow in coming.

Blais says she thinks that Harvard has had problems reaching a consensus on what needs to be done because there is not yet a common set of assumptions about what the true state of security is. She says she hopes continued campus research and continued meetings with the CCL can merge students' fears with University action.

"If women feel unsafe, if women feel threatened, then something has to be done. We have a lot of the subjectivity--you're down at Mather, the shuttles have stopped running, you don't have money for a taxi, what do you do?" Blais asks. "The University isn't can't be, in touch with that kind of subjectivity."

Most often, that kind of subjectivity is what makes security a women's issue, according to some on campus. Fear of violence may be a universal undergraduate preoccupation, Zellweger says, but women's concerns about rape--about security in general--merit special attention.

"I think that fear of being raped is different than fear of being beaten up," Zellweger says. "You could look at rape as the systematic subjugation of women, to keep them in their place, keep them afraid, keep them running scared."

One manifestation of that is who uses the escort services and why, students say. Timothy P. McCormack '91, a member of the SafeStreets steering committee, says he believes more women use the escort service than men do, because women on campus have less of a feeling of "invincibility" than men do.

But there are women on campus who are reluctant to take the escort service, because they feel it connotes a kind of helplessness.

"I always feel guilty or silly taking [the escort service], when it shouldn't be that way," says Zellweger. "I took it once with a friend of mine, and the driver was essentially telling us how easy it would have been to walk home."

Walking home alone, however, is still a fearful thing, women undergraduates say. A year after the rape, security activism has still not--and possibly can never--undo the lessons of women's precarious status in a world of violence.

Deakins, who says she thinks there has not been a great deal of sensitization on campus to women's fear, recalls an incident that highlighted her uneasiness.

Deakins says her roommate, a sexton in Memorial Church, saw a strange man on the premises when she was closing up. She saw him again, later in the night, and grew nervous enough that she told a security guard about it.

"His whole attitude was, 'Oh, you're just a stupid little white girl who doesn't know anything.' I don't think there has been much [sensitization since the rape]," Deakins says.

Although the actual Science Center rape may have faded from memory, many women say, a lot of the consciousness of fear has not. And that consciousness results in habits like never travelling alone at night.

Pitkin says she thinks the most salient reaction to the rape was "self-protectedness"; she summons the image of women travelling in groups during the night from the Women's Center in Agassiz Hall.

And while she concedes that change is slow in coming at Harvard, Pitkin--after a year's worth of activism on security issues--is nonetheless optimistic that the demands of the rally will someday be met. "It takes a long time for a big organization like Harvard to get in motion," she says.

"I'm more impressed by things that are going to happen, than the things that have happened," Pitkin adds.

And for now, many women say they must continue to improvise their own solutions, and to seek out those that are already available.

"[The rape] kind of put the fear in me. I never walk home alone at night. If my roommates are out at night, I make them call SafeStreets," says Deakins.

For Blais, there is a strange sort of comfort in knowing that the Science Center, where the rape occurred, is also the home of the new student-run escort service.

"I go to the Science Center, I think about it," Blais says. "I like the fact that SafeStreets is in the Science Center. I think it's a nice statement."

Still, the rape last December is one that continues to affect the community, and mostly that effect is a negative one.

"I think the fear now is a lot more diffuse, but it's still there and it's not going to go away," says Serena Y. Volpp '92, a counselor at Response. "We wouldn't have anything to fear if there wasn't any violence against women, but that day is a long time coming."