Chira says she sought to make The Crimson "a little less rough-and-tumble" for everyone during her tenure.

"I'm uncomfortable saying there was a difference, although certainly it was obvious that there were a lot of women," she says. "It was probably very encouraging for other women."

One year later, Chira's class chose Susan C. Faludi '81 as managing editor, who says even after two female presidents, she felt her gender made a difference in her conduct as an executive.

"I wasn't pioneering new ground, but it affected the way I assigned stories as a managing editor," Faludi says.

"I was interested in a wider array of stories than some young undergraduate whose thinking about women didn't extend beyond whether he was going to have a date with [one]," she says.

But when Holly A. Idelson '85 arrived at The Crimson the spring of her first year, she says the newspaper had already "swung back into a male-dominated mode."

"There were women around--it certainly wasn't a frat house," says Idelson, who served as the 1984 editorial chair. "There were female executives, but when you were dealing with figures of authority, you were generally dealing with men."

Jessica A. Dorman '88, who entered the building as a sports camper in 1984, has similar memories of The Crimson.

"When I got there, it was a big male macho place. I tried to make The Crimson more comfortable and inclusive," says Dorman, who, in 1987, became the first female president in eight years.

She says her presidency was aimed primarily at improving The Crimson overall, with goals including better relationships between the newsroom and other boards.

"I did help [women] by just being there," she says. "I wasn't just there for the women."

Out in the Open

At times, gender relations at The Crimson played out in direct confrontations.

The women's bathroom at The Crimson became the center of attention in 1989 when the business manager painted over staffer-written graffiti. The graffiti had begun in protest to male dominance at The Crimson and had been accumulating since before Seidman's time.

"I mobilized all the women that were there. We went out and bought colored markers," says then-Managing Editor Susan B. Glasser '90 of the drive to restore the graffiti. "That was the biggest gender mobilization when I was there. There were 10 to 15 women in the bathroom the whole day."