Off to Wellesley

Maybe the Harvard final clubs should charter weekend buses for overnights to Barnard. Too far? Perhaps you final club guys could arrange a package deal with the Delta Shuttle so as to spend less time on travel and more time on "business." Why limit your options to the pool of all women's colleges in Massachusetts? Oh, I almost forgot--while your free mileage may not include stops to co-ed schools, you nevertheless extend visiting privileges to their women.

That Harvard charm lures girls from Boston University, Boston College and Northeastern to the hospitable weekend open houses of the final clubs. It is so noble of you men to patronize some of the local schoolgirls and lay the groundwork for a real Boston collegiate community. Mingling with some of your fellow male classmates is one thing--shipping in girls from afar, quite another.

And yet, I do not wish to dwell on the reasons why the women at these other schools find you final club men so appealing, more appealing than the men on their own campuses. This is no great puzzle. Bringing home a Harvard guy to mom and dad has the same ring now as it did in 1950. For the guys here, the Harvard name carries more than just the expected academic and professional weight; it is a social resume builder as well. The rare combination of intelligence and "having a life" makes Harvard men most desirable dating options.

The real question, therefore, is not why Harvard men are chosen by others, but why they choose others. I do not mean to suggest we Harvard women are any more superior in character or ability to the women of other schools than are the men to their male counterparts. My point is merely that we women also list Harvard on our social resume, and yet ours is not an asset, but a drawback. While Harvard has been so kind as to extend its academic prestige to include our gender, it has not transformed this social stereotype.

Why this double standard? Why is the actively social male contingency both recruiting all these "foreigners" to their own events and venturing out as they did last Saturday to attend a party sponsored by TZE, one of Wellesley's societies? Certainly, the final clubs are not to blame for the fact that the Harvard name does women a disservice. And yet, while they have not caused it per se, they have undoubtedly contributed to its perpetuation. The final clubs are the framework within which the Harvard social label as a male privilege and a female blemish is not only manifested but magnified. Understanding the aversion to Harvard women therefore requires a close look at the structure of these clubs.

The degradation of all women in general and of those at Harvard in particular pervades many aspects of final club life. There are many among these men who defend their membership with arguments of male bonding and the like. Others try to belittle the role this affiliation plays in their lives. There is undoubtedly a spectrum of final club members, ranging from the gung-ho to the apathetic. This article is bound to offend many, although I am sure that any of you readers in final clubs feel yourselves to be an exception to these accusatory generalizations. You think to yourselves: I do not frequent the club. My purpose is not merely to pick up girls, but to hang out with the guys. There are so few social outlets at this school; I have no choice but to partake. I am clearly not her targeted audience.

Oh yes, you are. Let me state for the record that I am not speaking to those who thrive on the clubs. I am not speaking to those for whom membership poses no question of integrity. I will let the ignorant continue in their bliss. Rather, I am specifically talking to you who pretend to be so innocent. I am speaking to you who think nobility is merely having moral qualms about club membership, but drink away such a dilemma in the company of female hordes. I am speaking to you who passively participate in what is to your female friends a sexually offensive atrocity. I am speaking to you who are a bit embarrassed about the female baiting and fishing trips to Wellesley.

The club is the "fishing" vehicle in which we women (from numerous cities across the map) constitute the invite list. It is the stadium in which the men always enjoy home court advantage. We are playing on their turf and by their rules. we are always the guests, and they are always the hosts. The etiquette expected of a guest differs from the comfort enjoyed by the host. We are to look and act presentable, while they are to look at what is presented. We are comparable to a sea of fish who swim straight to the door and hope that maybe, if competition is low tonight, we will get caught in some fisherman's net. This is the unfortunate position for women during these large parties in which there are about 50 applicants for each lucky net, most of whom do not even go here.

Then there is the final club as the dating instructor. I don't understand. Are you guys unable to ask a girl on a date without having your club assign you this task? It is utterly pathetic that this is the only context in which guys feel comfortable asking a girl out. The club is the means by which even the socially malfunctional have their opportunity to date. Club night at the Pudding show--an expression of support for the arts or an excuse to get a date? I will let you make the call.

There are so many date functions. You men must have a very high turnover rate in your dating record. So many events, so many girls. It would be a shame to give out seconds before everyone has had firsts. This is the irony--the supposed male-bonding institutions are in actuality so centered on date functions, so dependent on females. Women and tuxedos are the two prerequisites for participating in club events, with the latter probably serving as the excuse to see the former in little black dresses.

And yet the story of the final clubs is not a typical "men are slime" scenario in which innocent women are debased. As usually happens with events at Harvard, ours is a unique case. Ours is one which reveals a most unfortunate reality for women in general and the progress they have made, or have failed to make thus far. The truth is that this system of female treatment would be just as appalling if we Harvard women were the sole patrons. We are not some upper class of women who should transcend male domination any more than should girls of other schools. The impropriety of the final clubs therefore is an affront to all women.

But on a second level, it is particularly targeted to belittle Harvard women. The fact is that Harvard men feel their fellow Harvard men feel their fellow Harvard women are insufficient and ill-equipped even for these demeaning roles. What is so socially unappealing about the women here? It is not as if the women have exhibited a reluctance to attend these degrading events. Although it is unfortunate, Harvard women do seem willing to play on these unfair, male-biased terms. And yet, they are still thrown into a heterogeneous solution of women from various schools. "We do not want you" is the implicit message. The social appeal enjoyed by Harvard men does not extend to Harvard's women. A Harvard woman is not, shall we say, a guy magnet.

This is not about Wellesley bashing--there are some exceptional women there too, I am sure. This is not to say that visiting another school once in a while is problematic. I am not suggesting that it is a crime to choose a non-Harvard female over a Harvard woman. I am suggesting that the insistence on the presence of female contingencies from other campuses is indicative of an underlying tension. There is something disturbing about why the men avoid the 50-50 Harvard male-female ratio in favor of great disparity. It is as if we are less intimidating when engulfed by large crowds.

The female Harvardesqueness is denied expression in so multi-collegiate and diverse a setting. The Harvard woman, usually so unique, usually so assertive and usually so individualistic is in this social context merely one of many. While the men actively choose the groups of women with which they wish to mingle, we must passively cross our fingers, hoping that we get chosen. The final clubs' walls echo the sounds of the an unforgotten past--male assertion and domination against female weakness and submission.

It is in this sense that the system promotes a vicious circle. The men begin with some nervousness or hesitation about Harvard women--too aggressive, too serious, but most probably and unfortunately too smart. It is 1996, and intelligence still is not a social asset for a woman. Harvard men are not looking for their wives to be discovering the cure for cancer, nor to be handling a significant merger and acquisition, nor to be serving on the Supreme Court. The final club system provides the opportunity to return the women to their "proper" place. The Harvard men surround themselves with flocks of women, not only Harvard women, but women from all over the Boston area. In one fell swoop, the individuality we have struggled so hard to attain is enveloped in a great migration of Bostonian women.

So we arrive at a dead end. We have two choices--either to assert ourselves as independent, self-respecting, intelligent women or to strip ourselves of this integrity with the hope of attaining social appeal to men. It used to seem we were heading toward an era in which these two elements could be fused, in which we would not have to make a choice. If our intellectual abilities are not desirable to Harvard men, then we can assume they are equally if not more disadvantageous elsewhere. If at Harvard we are not surrounded by men who attribute great value to female intelligence, we will most likely fail to find such approval at other schools. We seem to have reached the limits of change.

And yet we must push harder. This unfortunate reality for us women is not one which will soon disappear, but one which presents itself as a choice with which we will grapple for some time. Our future will constantly be a battle between these two forces, between academic ambition and the desire for social acceptance, between career aspirations and spousal responsibilities, between professional commitments and maternal obligations. Let us not be discouraged by the challenge of finding the right formula, but let us look forward instead to the fulfilling rewards we will reap when this balance is struck.