Women Seek to Carve Out a Niche

The class of 2005 will leave Cambridge with women’s issues catapulted to the forefront of campus and national awareness, following University President Lawrence H. Summers’ controversial remarks about women in science this past January.

But it was when the Class of 1980 attended Harvard and then-sister college Radcliffe that women’s issues came into the higher education spotlight.

This year’s freshmen—the Class of 2008—boasts admitting and enrolling more women than men for the first time in Harvard’s history.

This is all the more striking as only a generation earlier, students were witnessing the pioneering steps of integrating women into a campus dominated by men.

Even before they made Cambridge their new home, the students of the class of 1980 were the first group to be admitted by a joint Harvard-Radcliffe Admissions committee.

And in between grabbing meals in the Freshman Union and slaving over essays for Expository Writing, the class of 1980 finished up their first year just as Harvard and Radcliffe reached a new agreement in 1977. The collaboration granted the former primary control over the education of all undergraduate women­—giving Radcliffe students the same privileges, responsibilities, and rights as their Harvard counterparts.

As the class marched through their four years at Harvard, women were elected—for the first time ever—to lead influential undergraduate organizations, including the Harvard-Radcliffe Democratic Club, the Harvard Republican Club, and the Harvard Political Review.

FINDING A PLACE FOR WOMEN

As Radcliffe women became increasingly integrated into the academic and social life of Harvard, students and administrators faced a new struggle—that of defining a new role for women on a modernizing campus—a battle that still plagues Harvard 25 years later.

Then-President of Radcliffe Matina S. Horner complained and protested against the diminishment of services for women that accompanied the declining role of Radcliffe.

But then-Dean of Harvard College John B. Fox, Jr. concluded in his annual report that women no longer faced any obstacles standing in the way of an equal education—implying that Radcliffe as an independent institution no longer served a purpose.

But many women of the time did not see the situation quite the same way.

Susanna Rodell ’80, an undergraduate who balanced being a student and a mother while at Harvard, wrote that it was difficult for individual women to find a niche at Harvard because as the men’s college took on the responsibility for educating women, it was slower to accept the task of serving the unique needs of women.

“The confusion surrounding Radcliffe’s complicated and shifting position with Harvard have obscured many of the real issues,” Rodell wrote in a January 1979 article for The Crimson, “and made it extremely difficult for Radcliffe to function as an effective focus for a community of undergraduate women.”

For the women who were part of the first class admitted by a joint Harvard-Radcliffe committee, “Radcliffe didn’t have a real day-to-day presence for us,” says Marcia J. Hamelin ’80.

“I felt a lopsidedness of gender balance,” she says.

“I felt that if I said something stupid in my math class, I wasn’t just a bad student, but I was a stupid woman among male students and a male professor,” adds Hamelin, who was “briefly a math concentrator” during her time at Harvard.

Former President of the Radcliffe Union of Students (RUS) Jennifer L. Pensler ’80 says apprehension about participating in the classroom was a common sentiment among female students.

“Most women didn’t feel that there was any sex discrimination on the surface, but I think that women may have not been quite as comfortable participating in classes, asking questions, etc.,” Pensler says, citing courses taught by female professors as “the best ones.”

“I attributed it more to Harvard and undergraduate education than I did to sexism and gender, but I had a much easier time asking questions and developing rapport with female professors or instructors.”

Although female undergraduates had the option to take courses taught by women, according to Pensler, there was no department dedicated solely to the study of women or gender issues at the time.

“Women’s Studies was sort of marginalized then,” Hamelin says. “Those of us who took Women’s Studies courses felt we were studying something the majority of people didn’t think was legitimate.”

FINDING SPACE FOR WOMEN

While discussions over the role of women in an increasingly integrated campus penetrated student conversations, brewing tensions erupted in April 1980.

Despite student protest, the Radcliffe Board of Trustees voted to eliminate the Radcliffe Forum—which sponsored speeches, seminars and grants about women—as part of an effort to save almost $400,000 for Harvard and Radcliffe.

The elimination sparked many questions about Harvard’s commitment to Radcliffe and its women. Without a central agency dedicated to their needs, women worried they were becoming marginalized by the administration.

Rallying together in vehement reaction to the Forum’s elimination, students formed organizations they hoped would help coordinate events targeted at women.

The Feminist Alliance sought to “raise the awareness of the Harvard-Radcliffe population to women’s issues through events and actions,” organizer Gail M. Pendelton ’81 told The Crimson in 1980. A second group, The Coalition, was an umbrella organization that would include the Feminist Alliance and other women’s groups.

HERE TO STAY

It was not until October of 1999 that the two colleges officially merged, ending Radcliffe’s tenure as an independent college.

And today, that same frustration and protest over the absence of an official women’s center on campus has been revived. Students in the RUS note that Harvard is the only Ivy League school without a space specifically dedicated to women.

The Undergraduate Council (UC) has made an official call for the College to build such a space. In May 2004, the UC voiced major support for the construction of a women’s center to be housed in Hilles Library following its upcoming renovations.

This past December, the UC renewed these efforts, outlining a bill asking for, among other things, the creation of the Harvard-Radcliffe Women’s Center. The space would be set aside for meetings and gatherings of women’s groups and provide information about women’s issues.

Stemming from the efforts to elect women leaders that marked the late 1970s, female leaders of prominent undergraduate organizations are commonplace today. Last year Harvard Hillel elected its first female president, and there has been an increase in the number of female organizations.

Women are fighting new battles now as well: to increase the percentage of women in the ranks of the faculty and to encourage more women to study math and the sciences.

—Staff writer Bari M. Schwartz can be reached at bschwart@fas.harvard.edu.