It seems that the graduate board president of one of Harvard University’s most exclusive, all-male final clubs has broken 225 years of silence to issue a statement about why they choose to remain all-male. They’re trying to protect women, you guys. Or something.
For those not down with the Ivy League lingo, a final club is a type of exclusive club at Harvard University — generally a social club where students can build friendships and networks, and sometimes the clubs have other missions, too, like advocacy on behalf of a specific cause. But mostly it’s about forging that secret handshake-having, subtle-nod-from-across-the-room type of network that serves its members beyond their time at Harvard.
Currently, there are six all-male final clubs, five all-female final clubs, and two that are co-ed. Of the two co-ed clubs, the Fox Club seems the most douchey, with women still holding “provisional” membership only.
The Porcellian Club, has been around since 1791 and is all-male, counting luminaries like President Theodore Roosevelt and Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes among its members. In fact, according to Joseph Karabel’s book The Chosen, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was so distraught at not being chosen for membership when he was at Harvard, that his wife Eleanor “went so far as to claim that the incident had given her husband an ‘inferiority complex,’ albeit one that ‘had helped him to identify with life’s outcasts.’”
However, with issues of feminism and college sexual assault being such hot topics, centuries-old all-male final clubs have been coming under fire not only for not admitting women, but for basically being hotbeds of “nonconsensual sexual contact.” According to The Harvard Crimson, a recent 20-page report released by the University’s Task Force on Sexual Assault Prevention said, among other things, that 47% of the women “participating in final clubs” at Harvard (not just members, but also women who attend male final club events) reported experiencing that nonconsensual contact since entering college. Meaning “that a Harvard College woman is half again more likely to experience sexual assault if she is involved with a Club than the average female Harvard College Senior.”
Obviously, final clubs are not entirely to blame for things like sexual assault, but the concern is that because they are 1) mostly all-male, 2) the all-male final clubs are centuries older, whereas the all-female clubs have only been around since the 1990s, meaning that the all-male networks are more entrenched and protective, and 3) these are completely private clubs that have been operating with zero oversight from Harvard, that they are an active threat to women, and according to Rakesh Khurana, Dean of the College, “remain at odds with the aspirations of the 21st century society to which the College hopes and expects our students will contribute.”
There’s a meeting happening today between Khurana and final clubs’ graduate board leadership to talk about what will be done next, which is what prompted graduate board president Charles M. Storey to release a statement to the Crimson yesterday via email.
In it, he writes, “To the best of my knowledge, this is the first time an officer of the [Porcellian Club] has granted an on the record statement to a newspaper since our founding in 1791. This reflects both the PC’s abiding interest in privacy and the importance of the situation.” He asserts that both he and the PC share Harvard’s desire to reduce sexual assault on campus, and that the PC has never had a sexual assault problem. He thinks that final clubs are being scapegoated in what is actually a much bigger problem, and that Harvard is conflating “the issues of sexual assault, gender equity, and exclusivity.”
Then gives us this gem, which is when I pretty much lost my shit:
Given our policies, we are mystified as to why the current administration feels that forcing our club to accept female members would reduce the incidence of sexual assault on campus. Forcing single gender organizations to accept members of the opposite sex could potentially increase, not decrease the potential for sexual misconduct.
This guy is basically saying “if we allow women into the club, there’s an increased chance that they’ll be raped.” This is after insisting that the PC doesn’t have a sexual assault problem, and that he and the club are all about reducing sexual assault on campus. He’s either saying that a) if women join, they’re asking for it, or admitting that b) men won’t be able to help themselves. Neither one of those things is something someone should believe to be true, let alone say out loud to a media outlet in 2016. And yet.
Here’s the thing. I don’t have any problem with single-gender clubs in theory. I believe that there’s value in men learning from and forging strong relationships with other men just as I believe there’s value in women doing the same with other women. The problem is that since we live in a sexist world, there is a danger that all-male environments become hotbeds of toxic masculinity. Since we haven’t yet achieved gender equality, it is the responsibility of the privileged gender to take the extra steps needed to ensure that their single-sex environment isn’t just a training ground for entitled, sexually violent misogynists.
The fact that the PC president of the graduate board can say something like “Forcing single gender organizations to accept members of the opposite sex could potentially increase, not decrease the potential for sexual misconduct” with a straight face and without impunity is indicative of the problems within these all-male groups. I mean, my God the cognitive dissonance required to believe both “we’re all about ending sexual assault on campus” and “you can’t expect women not to get raped in a co-ed club environment” is mind-boggling. It’s kind of appropriate that this particular club has a pig-themed name, and that its members are referred to as “Porkies.” Maybe that’s where the term “male chauvinist pig” came from?
However, the responsibility isn’t only on the final clubs themselves. After all, these are private organizations that Harvard University has allowed to thrive on campus without oversight for decades, probably because these clubs own property in town and are likely responsible for a large chunk of alumni donations to the University. Perhaps it’s time after 225 years for Harvard to cut ties with the Porcellian Club and all the other final clubs.
After all yes, these organizations are free to have whatever membership they like. Harvard is also free to discontinue their relationship with them. I’d be curious to see how desirous people would be of an “exclusive membership” to one of these clubs if the exclusive university from which its members are supposed to come no longer supports them. Suddenly, membership would seem a lot less shiny and awesome.
In the meantime, I think that Harvard might also consider paying more attention to the all-female final clubs on campus. All-male clubs have been established for so long that, thanks to well-to-do alumni and a strong network, they can buy their own space. Meanwhile, the all-female clubs are forced to rent their space from the male clubs, which doesn’t help matters. Perhaps if Harvard made leveling the playing field for all-female final clubs a priority, it would go a long way toward having them, and the women who are their members, be seen as equal. Or not. After all, it’s just as likely that the all-male clubs will start screaming about “preferential treatment.” *sigh*
What absolutely needs to happen is that the women of Harvard should totally start a final club called The Final Girls, in which they socialize over trading tips for how to protect themselves from slow-moving serial killers, zombies, and demonic entities. And perhaps even from the men on their campus.
(via The Washington Post, image via Dick den Bakker/Flickr)
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