Gender Scrutiny Misconstrued IRC

At first, I thought it was odd that in Jal Mehta's critical expose of women's involvement in student groups at Harvard (News, Jan. 29) there was no mention of the International Relations Council, one of Harvard's largest student-run organizations. Then, I recalled the conversation I had with Jal before the piece was published. He demanded that I explain why a majority of the 400 members of the IRC were male. Only when I took out a calculator did Jal admit that the IRC's gender ratio was in line with the college as a whole (roughly 55% to 45%). Jal didn't give up, and asked why we had so few women leaders. Never mind the fact that last year's IRC President was female, the heads of three of our six programs are female and two of our top corporate officers are female.

Jal later acknowledged to IRC Treasurer Gopal Garuda '98 that the IRC had an excellent record on gender issues, but then noted that because these facts weren't "interesting," they wouldn't make it to the Crimson. So, I guess I shouldn't have been surprised--heaven forbid the Crimson should run a balanced, fair piece of reporting highlighting student groups with positive accomplishments as well as exposing problems in other organizations. That would ruin its track record.

This is particularly problematic because the Crimson's focus on the problems of a few large student organizations suggests that gender disparities are systematic across extracurricular organizations. However, the case of the IRC (and presumably, of other large student groups whose situations weren't considered) seems to argue that each organization's situation is unique.

Hopefully, future articles will take a more balanced and open-minded approach to important issues like this. Documenting injustices and iniquities on campus is vitally important--so much so that presenting an unbalanced picture of the issue is disturbing indeed. --Howard Steyn '97,   President,   International Relations Council