Word: einaudi
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Einaudi, who is from Bethesda, Md., has a mother in law school and a father who works for the State Department. It's not surprising that she's spent her time here involved in the politics of women's rights. Though Einaudi says she arrived "very open to new things, with no defined goals," she was attracted to Harvard by the implication of a female support network through Radcliffe that was important...
Once here, however, Einaudi discovered that though there was a "supportive niche for women" there was "no Radcliffe presence at all and a lot to be done." Alarmed by the frightening statistics on violence against women in the area, she created Students Organized for Security, a program to provide volunteer escorts for students wary of walking from libraries to dorms late at night. She also helped lead the first "Take Back the Night" march, an annual demonstration calling for better protection for women in general. Through SOS and the marches, Einaudi and other students put the issue of student security...
With the security issue in competent hands, Einaudi found herself being pressured as a sophomore to run for the presidency of the Radcliffe Union of Students. Preferring to work behind the scenes, Einaudi decided to run for the vice-presidency. She won that office but became chief executive only a few days later when the newly-elected president decided to take a leave of absence. She immediately found herself in the midst of an angry controversy about whether or not RUS had a right to exist. The issue had been raised in 1979, when the now-defunct Committee on Housing...
...Einaudi points out that in a campus-wide poll at that time, female undergraduates indicated overwhelmingly that they wanted to keep RUS. The organization survived and remains an important symbol and resource for many women at Harvard. Under Einaudi's leadership, RUS began to take a more active role in promoting women's issues and did much to dispel the two negative images which had plagued the group for some years. As Einaudi puts it, "We were neither radical lesbians nor preppy tea-party girls. We were serious about real issues...
Women's studies, hiring practices, sexual harassment--all have been addressed by RUS during Einaudi's tenure. Yet she feels that too much emphasis has been put on two recent publicized instances of harassment. "What about sexist language in course descriptions and materials? What about inappropriate slides being shown in certain classes? What about an attitude, in general, which makes the women in a class uncomfortable?" she asks...