Why We Can't Afford to Lose Radcliffe

So I read in The Crimson this week that Harvard has been "wooing" its female students lately. I must say I hadn't noticed. Yes, I heard about the dedication of the women's gate on the 25th anniversary of permitting women to live in Harvard Yard. I saw the glossy booklet with pictures of smiling, "diverse" women (including, of course, the one tenured black female professor) against backgrounds of Harvard brick. I noticed the warm support of Dean of the College Harry R. Lewis '68 for the Undergraduate Council bill that would equalize men's and women's diplomas by removing references to Radcliffe. And I paid hopeful attention when the Dean declared that the time of using the existence of Radcliffe to excuse Harvard's putting women's needs aside was over.

Call me cynical, ungrateful or unfeminine, but despite all this I remain overwhelmingly un-wooed.

In fact, during the 25-Years-in-the-Yard celebration, when members of the Radcliffe Women's Action Coalition (RADWAC) wore T-shirts reading "Harvard Celebrates WHAT?" and put up posters decrying the dearth of tenured female professors, the pressure many women face in speaking up in class, the lack of financial and institutional support for the Women's Studies Committee, the absence of adequate resources for rape prevention and survivor support (an absence, we later learned, unique among Ivy League institutions) and the continued presence of elite, all-male final clubs where weekly efforts are made to attract and intoxicate a suitably large ratio of female to male undergrads, I cheered with pleasure and relief.

For me, these posters were a welcome reminder that I wasn't crazy. Even for the assertive, well-disciplined student I have learned to be, playing the role of a "Harvard woman"--disregarding the difficulties of being female at a University still geared toward men--can get tiring.

When I get too tired I can go to Radcliffe. There, when I talk about the TF who didn't seem to see my raised hand for an entire section, or the reluctance of Harvard administrators to deal openly with issues of rape or racism on campus, no one tells me I just need to try a little harder to be a "self-starter." No one asks if the boys are managing fine, why can't I? Problems that remain invisible and seem unbelievable at Harvard can be examined by sympathetic, incisive eyes.

Even when I am not tired, the history, tradition and incredible resources available at Radcliffe reassure me that I didn't make a mistake in choosing to come to school here.

I can wander up to Radcliffe's Education for Action office, for instance, with its 30 years of files on student human rights efforts, and feel genuinely proud to be part of this University. I head back to the dorms and libraries that 25 years ago permitted me entrance feeling better able to tackle the TF, the silence about sexual assault, the suave assumption from many of my male classmates that I'm not quite as intelligent as I might have thought I was.

Iam more than a little alarmed, therefore, at the prospect of Harvard taking over complete responsibility for female undergraduates' well-being. I cannot imagine how a task force devoted to improving sexual assault resources, for example, will succeed under the sole authority of an administration that does not seem to believe that rape is a serious and pervasive problem on this campus. And I wonder how Harvard will manage to attract and retain the kind of women I am proud to share my undergraduate degree with. Many of the female friends I most admire have told me flatly that if they had not found Radcliffe and its associated organizations, they certainly would have left Harvard after their first year.

At the dedication of the "women's" gate in October, Lewis spoke about having reached a pinnacle of co-educational equality. With the possibility of Radcliffe's eventual withdrawal from involvement in undergraduate life, I am gloomy about the view this "pinnacle" will offer to future generations of Harvard women.

But no matter how far removed from undergraduate life Radcliffe ends up after these (very inappropriately) "secret" negotiations, Harvard needs to be taking its responsibility to undergraduate women more seriously. Pleasant as it is, I certainly should not have to go to Radcliffe to feel that my voice is being heard and respected by an administrator. Until Harvard is willing to engage female students in a real dialogue about how to improve our experience here and commit more resources to addressing the needs of women on its campus, this "Harvard woman"'s dollars will find themselves in someone else's pocket.

Stephanie I. Greenwood '99 is a social studies concentrator in Quincy House.