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Students and Faculty Fight for Women’s Studies

“Some of the members of the committee were politically minded and had worked on many campaigns,” Suleiman said. “They knew that what really mattered in the end was the vote.”

At the packed November 1986 Faculty Meeting, Government Professor Harvey C. Mansfield ’53 stood to make a now infamous speech about the direction of academics at Harvard, questioning whether Women’s Studies should be a part of it.

“Harvey Mansfield gave this unbelievably embarrassing talk,” Spitzer said. “His judgment against it was so Neanderthal and so egregious that people didn’t want to be a part of that.”

THE EFFORT CONTINUES

Suleiman said that part of the energy of her committee’s work was that Women’s Studies in the 1980s was because it was a new and vibrant intellectual field.

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“There was the excitement of discovery and being pioneers,” she said. “You know, striking out in ways that seemed revolutionary at the time.”

Suleiman said her work with the Committee remains “the most communal experience” she’s had in her Harvard tenure.

“It was a real community effort, it was a real common effort—and that was extremely exciting and gratifying,” she said.

Still, the efforts to improve the new department’s standing did not end. Young recalled being disillusioned when very few departments actually put someone up for the newly created tenured position that allowed for a joint professorship in Women’s Studies and another department.

“It was shocking to me that there were departments that didn’t care, even with the opportunity for a free senior faculty position,” Young said.

It took advocates like Professor Marjorie Garber—already recognized as a serious Shakespeare scholar—to use their credentials to help legitimize the cause, according to Spitzer. Spitzer said that RUS formed a study group to read feminist books, put out a guide to courses that had Women’s Studies content, and worked with professors to incorporate more women’s studies content into their courses.

“We just wanted to be recognized,” Spitzer said.

—Staff writer Laura G. Mirviss can be reached at lmirviss@fas.harvard.edu.

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