For centuries, Harvard has been viewed as a bastion of the old boys' network, an exclusive club where men could send their sons to learn how to smoke cigars and rule the world.

Twenty-five years ago, Harvard and Radcliffe merged with the aim of giving women the chance to live in and succeed in the same kind of society that their mothers were entering in the Real World.

The College has come a long way since that time, as the number of female presidents of organizations has grown to correspond with their representation in the College.

But problems with the "glass ceiling" in society seem to have been reflected in the largest and most prominent Harvard extracurriculars.

While women have made strides in the workplace and in Harvard activities, large gender gaps exist in the leadership of these activities.

Of the students over the past five years who have run 14 of the most influential organizations--including The Crimson, the Undergraduate Council and Phillips Brooks House--just 30 percent are female, according to a study compiled by Institute of Politics Student Advisory Committee Chair Avery W. Gardiner '97.

"That to me shows that we have a problem with women not achieving high leadership positions on campus," Gardiner says. "The causes are a little more difficult to get a handle on."

While some women believe that the problems are the result of coincidence or lack of interest, others blame an atmosphere that actively discourages women from taking leadership roles.

"When it comes to having intellectual, high-level conversations, women seem to be assumed to be less versed in these things than men," says Marina C. Santini'98, co-managing editor of Perspective. "I think I've spent a certain amount of time trying to prove myself because there were all these men and they were all brilliant and they weren't necessarily going to ask my opinion when it came to something intellectual or the computer or the layout of the magazine or something like that."

Faculty and Administration

Regardless of how active female students are in undergraduate organizations, they still come face-to-face with a male-dominated administration and Faculty.

In fact, more than three-quarters of Harvard's Faculty of Arts and Sciences is male. And top decision-makers--including the dean of students, the dean of the College, the deans of Harvard's nine faculties and the University's president and provost--are almost exclusively male.

Many women say the lack of women in high positions at the University leads to a less-than-optimal number of women pursuing leadership positions.

According to this argument, having women in higher levels affords female undergraduates valuable role models.

"I think having women in the administration is an important component of increasing the comfort of women undergraduates at Harvard," says Lamelle D. Rawlins '99, vice president of the Undergraduate Council.