Taking on the U.C. Penarchy

As I packed my bags to come to Harvard and Radcliffe for the first time three semesters ago, my mind was made up about where I would invest my extracurricular time. For me, the Undergraduate Council was the only stop on the extracurricular express, and it was not a question of whether to board the train but how. How would I win? What on earth would I do if I lost? These were the questions haunting me as I left my home.

While I knew the student council would be a different beast here at Harvard, I must admit that I never fully envisioned just how different. In particular, I never expected the ratio of women to men to plunge from four women for every male on my high school student council executive board to one woman for every seven males on the Undergraduate Council.

This astounding ratio, which began to improve in the fall of 1995 with two women included in the inaugural executive board, continues to be the ultimate riddle for many on this campus who are concerned about the council. However, as one of the women whose face has often been present at the executive board table the last three semesters, this riddle only mirrors the one I feel is present throughout society. To ask why there are only two women on the council's executive board is strikingly similar to inquiring why there are only eight women senators or why there are so few female CEOs. In the end, the answer lies not at the feet of the council but at the feet of our societal values as reflected in the council.

As one of the few female former executive board members on the council, I agree that the situation has improved for the average female on the council. Our voices are heard more often, and we do command a great share of the seats on the student-faculty committees. However, if it has improved for women overall, the situation for the female executives has not kept pace.

As in most other sectors of society, a double-paned, safety-reinforced glass ceiling exists for women on the Undergraduate Council. Women on the council are simply not expected to behave in the fashion the men do, and when they deviate from this unwritten rule, their gender is used as a weapon of punishment.

As the Student Affairs Committee chair in the fall, I felt this punishment in full force. Certain committee members and I were in continual political disagreement. For any male executive on the council, this disagreement would have stayed a heated, but solely political, disagreement. I expected the same treatment toward me as well. Yet those in conflict with me felt quite differently.

On Nov. 9, an e-mail was sent out to the members of my committee by one of the men with whom I was in conflict, "mak[ing] a special note that whether she would lik [sic] to announce it or not, Liz currently has a relationship with the [Select Committee on Undergraduate Requirements] leader and probable Core Committee appointee." My personal relationship with another Council member was, for him, a prime example of the "personality politics going on in the UC." But who was really playing those "personality politics?"

This revelation to the council of my personal life as an indictment of the trustworthiness of my opinions has not been applied to any of the male executive board members, many of whom are in similar situations. This absence of action only highlights the fact that this tactic was a gender-based weapon used for political reasons in a disagreement.

It is a weapon that strikes women first and most harshly, for men are not seen to be unduly influenced by those whom they date. Instead, men are allowed to draw on the knowledge and experience of the women they see; women, on the other hand, apparently become too overwhelmed to sort out what is their opinion and what is the opinion of their lovers. This weapon was aimed at me, and it struck. I still await its punishing effect to be aimed at any male on the council. My gender opened up a new and damaging avenue in this political disagreement, one that for the most part simply does not impact men.

The most disheartening piece of this whole episode for me, though, was the lack of female support I received. Not one message was publicly sent out over the e-mail list to refute the bias of the statement against me. This combination of gender-based weapons and silence so bothered me that my Undergraduate Council express train was thrown off track. For the first time, it became devastatingly apparent what the glass ceiling meant to me and, moreover, that I was dumbfounded as to what to do about it.

My reaction is probably not unique. I would suspect that the female who loses her bid for tenure for the first time, in spite of high student approval and a deep body of work, or the woman vice president who is passed up for corporate president, despite her years of company experience and loyalty, both share my sense of desolation. In the end, there is no easy answer to ridding our country of these glass ceilings, wherever they exist.

We should no longer solely blame the lack of women on the executive board on the inside politics of the council, on the inherent structure of the council or even on the dearth of other women sitting in Harvard Hall for each meeting. Instead, we must recognize that the council suffers from a problem from which we as a society suffer. That problem is one of gender's being used as a weapon, and the result is that fewer women put themselves in the line of fire.

For the Undergraduate Council, the crucial question regarding gender equality is no longer one of sheer numbers. There are motivated females on the council. In order to increase their numbers, though, we have to show potential candidates an environment that is open to their advancement. There are no easy solutions to getting women involved with or in power on the council, but using gender as a political weapon is one sure and consistent way to turn away the best this campus has to offer. Until we as a society come to grips with the problems we have with gender, the council cannot be expected to do it for us.

I am still excited about the council and what it has to offer, but what I feel it has to offer me as a woman has greatly changed in the past six months. I look forward to popular elections as a way to put my train back on the tracks because I see these elections as a way for women to run more successfully, both in terms of the outcome as well as the politics involved. Due to these elections, I feel confident that before I graduate, a woman will have broken through the first pane of the glass ceiling to become president.

Nonetheless, we must all continue to work on breaking the second pane--the one that deters women from taking up elected leadership positions on the council--and to do that will require that we all work on ourselves. The council cannot fix its glass ceiling problem all by itself; as a reflection of society, we must all work to shatter the glass ceiling by breaking within ourselves the traditional notions of gender. Until then, no matter how hard the council itself tries, it will consistently be off-track.

Elizabeth A. Haynes '98 is a former chair of the Undergraduate Council's Student Affairs Committee.