At weekend parties, she says, ’Cliffies often felt stiff romantic competition from the droves of Wellesley women who would flood the campus.

“You could immediately tell who was Radcliffe and who was Wellesley because the Wellesley girls dressed up,” McDonald says.

Susan Oliver ’78 also recalls a visible difference between ’Cliffies and women from other campuses.

“It had a lot to do with makeup perfume and clothing,” Oliver says. “It was really a world where the joke used to be dressing up was putting a bra on.”

Oliver says that the weekends were particularly desolate times in the Square.

“There was a very big weekend presence of women from other campuses coming to Harvard,” Oliver says. “And there seemed to be a very large exodus of men to other campuses.”

Leader of the Pack

At the time, Radcliffe had its own president, Matina Horner, a young former assistant professor of psychology. Horner’s signature work was a study showing that women had a fear of success—work that resonated with but alarmed many ’77 women.

Gibb says she found the theory which brought Horner fame “crippling” and “limiting.”

But on a personal level, Horner was generally well-loved.

“She was wonderful—we really loved her. She was warm and sort of like a mother figure at that time,” McDonald says.

And simply having a female president on campus gave them a role model, some ’Cliffies say.

“It was important for me and for many of us to have some sort of identifiable female leader of that environment,” says Susan Oliver ’78.

Many alums recall Radcliffe-arranged social events and panels.

“There were a few times when president Matina Horner had special presentations for the women,” Oliver says. “It was a message—everything from hand wringing to actual how-tos about managing a combination of work and families.” Ever After