Workers denounce Harvard president’s attacks on women

Childs is chief steward of UNITE HERE Local 26. The 500-member Boston local will be entering contract negotiations with Harvard University in June. This year's contract struggle is tied to the union's national campaign to win contracts throughout the country that end around the same time, which would increase union bargaining power. The Harvard Independent, the student newspaper, published Childs' letter as an opinion piece on Feb. 24.

I'm an organizer within Local 26 of the dining hall workers at Harvard. We've been having meetings about President Summers' statement on the "innate inferiority" of women. In our union here, and in the service industries, the majority of workers are women.

The dining hall workers look upon the president's statement as something that has been presented to them to terrorize them--as an idea from the past of colonialism. Most of our members are immigrants who come from countries and places that have been colonized.

The idea of the "innate superiority" of the colonizer was put forward to subjugate our members in their home countries. That is why a lot of our members are here in this country-to escape that oppression.

We look upon President Summers' statement as nothing but a continuation of this old theme that most of us thought had been put to bed by science and by anti-colonial struggles around the world. As far as science goes on this theory, many of us have read Stephen Jay Gould's "The Mis measure of Man," and understand that the president's position is put out not as a scientific position but as a political position.

For President Summers to raise this idea here and now is an intentional infliction of emotional distress on us as workers, bringing up nightmares from the past, and putting terror into our future. This can only create a hostile work environment--to go to work and have the boss tell you that you are inferior, to say, not in a cussing way, but in a high-browed superior way, that this is a fact.

And we see from the newspapers today that hate groups are on the rise, like the KKK. A statement like that of President Summers makes a direct connection to those who believe "innate inferiority." We all should remember when 20,000 members of the KKK marched in front of Woodrow Wilson as he stood as president in front of the White House. President Summers' statement gives such hate groups that kind of a green light, and gives them recruiting tools. This endangers our communities. Some of our workers have felt these hate groups personally, but all have feared them from a distance.

The president's statement also brings up a situation of unfair labor practice, as we are preparing to go for negotiation for a new contract for next year. A tactic of the employer is always to divide and conquer. We look upon his statement as a tool of division between men and women. We've seen that division played out in reality, in high schools, on campus, in the work place. In the service industries, employers have always tried to divide the men and the women.

This division is also a tactic by employers to lower the self-esteem of the workers, so they are disoriented at negotiations as they try to get a fair contract at a living standard that would be good for their families. This tactic also diminishes the status of the people who are targeted, which makes it more difficult for them to appeal to the broader community for justice and support in our struggles for better living standards.

For the so-called intelligentsia to say that a people are innately inferior lowers their status in society, and as individuals their confidence starts to erode. We feel that for President Summers to make this statement in a time of tension when Social Security is being threatened, when health insurance is threatened, when job security is being threatened--we feel that this is a reckless statement, and an abuse of power.

The dining hall workers have discussed the president's statement, and we've put it aside, like many other obstacles. We will not allow these divisions to be thrust upon us. We'll march together. We are more united now than ever.