In a study of college women for the book In a Different Voice, Professor of Education Carol Gilligan found a "reticence about taking stands on 'controversial issues' is echoed repeatedly..." Her findings--about "a sense of vulnerability that impedes these women from taking a stand"--help explain why women don't talk in section or comp for the Crimson editorial board.
The structure of sections should become more respectful of individuals and spawn more cooperative positions rather than strident arguments. Sections could only improve with a heavy dose of feminine input.
But being cooperative need not come at the expense of being confident or assertive. After all, the qualities most favored in Harvard classrooms are valued in career leadership.
Another part of the problem is that key leadership posts have male titles--chairman of the department, chairman of the Undergraduate Council, chairman of the board. It is tough for a woman to strive to be chairman when she will never be what half of the title proclaims. Women should not have to take on anything male to take on top posts.
Of course, when women do attain leadership roles, they are accused of doing just that. "Admit it, you act just like a male in women's clothing," men have told ambitious friends of mine. Does that mean they are determined to attain positions traditionally held by men? Does that mean they assert themselves in the way that men are taught to do? Does that mean they are exceptionally good--and isn't that rare for a woman?!
WOMEN are accused of acting like men, only because men have been raised to see the world and act a certain way in it. Studies show that grade school boys are eight times as likely to call out in class and twice as likely to garner a teacher's praise than female classmates.
Gilligan found that boys viewed situations in terms of hierarchy and systemic power while girls saw the world through a network of human relations. Gilligan's studies of men note recurrent imageries of violence.
Government courses overwhelmingly emphasize systems, abstract balances of forces and state power, ignoring the impact on the individuals affected by these larger forces. Discussions in history and government classes are often mere studies in violence, as they examine past wars or prospects for nuclear war.
One required Government course and a popular Core, Historical Study A-12, "International Conflicts in the Modern World," is cited as intimidating by many women--for its male-dominated sections and its subject matter of power, wars and nuclear weaponry. Many male students, however, praise the course as one of their best at Harvard.
WOMEN do dominate some departments: those that study systems and power from a more human point of view.
Many of the Sociology Department's offerings focus on the study of women, minorities, families and human problems. Government courses often study these same problems but rarely consider a case study of a family or a minority or a woman who is actually affected by large-scale government programs. Here is a government policy, we learn in a typical class. Millions of people were affected; this is how the government reacted; the systems are still in control.
The hierarchies studied in government, economics and history courses are run by men. Women can more readily identify with the people affected by the power structure, but they have few ties to those who control it.
HARVARD could do a lot to boost women's confidence. If there are few female role models, women have little to strive for, little to emulate and no sense that being a Harvard professor is attainable. The obvious solution: tenure more women faculty and recruit more women graduate students. If, according to Krupnick's survey, women will only participate a lot in sections with a female majority and a female section leader, then certainly there should be more women teaching fellows--and maybe even the option of a majority female section.
The simple problem that undergraduate enrollment does not reflect the percentage of women in society needs to be solved: admit a fair share of women. But balancing the sexes will not alone solve the problem. Both men and women at Harvard need to meet each other halfway. Women must be willing to risk entering into the fray of public debate, and men must be willing to take a cue from the women classmates and listen.