Mansfield's Remarks Increase Hostility Toward Women

During my four years at Harvard-Radcliffe, I have in many ways found it a supportive community for women. But I made two discoveries last week that have left me rather more cynical.

The first thing I learned is that Thompson Professor of Government Harvey C. Mansfield believes that women will never be as successful as men in "the aggressive occupations--that is, the occupations which require one to leave the home" (Harvard Review of Philosophy, Spring 1993). I find it shocking that a Harvard faculty member, who certainly must have encountered many smart and ambitious women students in the course of his teaching, could hold such an opinion.

Women have fought over and over again in many arenas to prove their competence in the workplace, and it disappoints me deeply to realize that we must still fight for respect at one of the more liberal college campuses in the country.

Perhaps what angers me even more than Mansfield's original comments is the near-total silence with which they have been received. But aside from a short article containing a summary of Mansfield's remarks and brief critical responses from representatives of RUS and Lighthouse, there has been no coverage of the issue in The Crimson. Having discussed Mansfield's remarks with several friends, both male and female. I know I am not the only one outraged by the suggestions that I lack aggressiveness, that I will never succeeds in my chosen career, that I should gladly stay at home to cook dinner and make beds "without being too concerned with the credit [I] get," that I should find fulfillment in leisure time with which "to improve my mind."

Are these statements any less offensive to women than Mansfield's grade-inflation argument is to Black students have we decided that public sexism doesn't require a public response--or, worse, that Mansfield is right. The atmosphere of complacency and inertia surrounding this issue scares me it simply isn't safe to assume that everyone at Harvard is a feminist and will see Mansfield's comments as the predictable, tired, sexist statements they are. I am grateful to Mansfield, at any rate, for reminding me of the acute and persistent need for public and loud defense of women's rights and capabilities. Women at Harvard and else-where simply cannot afford to remain silent in the face of ignorant sexism, and I challenge them to speak out against it whenever they encounter it.

For I believe that the public silence surrounding this issue typifies a broader silence which has contributed to the perpetuation of a far more violent and pernicious form of oppression. The second thing I learned last week is this: One of my acquaintances, whom I used to describe as a casual friend, is a date rapist. Probably many of us could tell similar stories; I have no proof of it, since I learned of the incident second-hand and I do not know the victim's name.

The friend who told me swears that it is true, I have known the man in question for three years; having heard him speak disrespectfully of the many women he dates, I can readily believe that the story I heard is true. Now whenever I see him I feel anger, fear and frustration--anger at him for raping, and at a culture which has been unable to eliminate sexual violence toward women; fear for myself and the women he may attack in the future; and frustration that I cannot stop him.

It would be unethical, I know, to tell anyone else, since I don't know the whole story and can prove nothing. I will ask my friend to talk to the victim, to try to convince her to come forward and press charges; still, I know this is unlikely to work. Trapped at the end of a chain of whispers and secrets, I am speaking out as best I can. I want to beg any woman who has been raped to fight back publicly, to break out of the silence that frightens and oppresses all women. And I challenge every member of the Harvard community to fight to create an atmosphere that supports and strengthens women in all aspects of our lives.

Rape is far more violent and personally devastating than being told by Professor Mansfield that women belong in the home and not in the workplace; I certainly do not mean to draw a moral equation between the two. But both acts are oppressive and hostile to women, and both have been shrouded in silence for too long. We, both women and men, owe it to ourselves and to each other to denounce such oppression boldly and firmly. Laura M. Horton '93