These past few weeks have placed Harvard College in the spotlight again, a role to which it is no stranger, but instead of highlighting the College’s academics, the media is in a frenzy over the women’s hours at the Quadrangle Recreational Athletic Center (QRAC), one of the College’s gyms. Reporters from all over the country have been interviewing Muslim women affiliated with the Harvard Islamic Society about this new policy, which was instituted on January 28. Harvard College’s daily newspaper, The Harvard Crimson, has published articles and editorials about this issue. The Crimson’s readers have responded with bitter comments about a religion that is “hijacking” American liberalism for its own purposes and comparing Muslims to Nazis. Underlying all this discussion is not just a complaint about restrictions on male access to the gym but a xenophobia so potent that it alarms me.
The women’s hours at the QRAC are an inconvenience both to the women who requested the hours and to the men who live in the Quadrangle and wish to use the gym. Each of the twelve residential houses at Harvard has its own gym, and the women who requested the gym hours originally asked for hours in their residential house’s personal gym. That request was denied, and instead, the administration decided to allocate women’s hours in the QRAC, which is one of the least used Harvard gyms and is the farthest from where the women originally requested time. The time slots for women’s only access to the gym were also established by the administration with little student input, and some men argue that the specific timings of the women’s only hours cut into prime gym time. Yet now people are lambasting Muslim women for making unreasonable demands when the potential problems could have been eliminated had the administration initiated a college-wide discussion with the students. Unfortunately, it seems as if the university accepted the policy not for the interests of the students, but rather just for the sake of preserving the notion that Harvard respects religious diversity. While the administration’s intention—to accommodate students who made a reasonable request—was appreciated, their implementation of the request has only fomented criticism. Furthermore, blame has unfairly been dumped on “an antiquated segment of a particular religion” and an “anachronism” as one of the Crimson’s readers put it, referring to the Muslim students and Islam, respectively.
It is criticisms in this vein that make me question the liberalism and tolerance of American society. Why is requesting women’s only hours at a gym seen as Islam taking over? No one seems to have a problem with Curves, Slim and Tone, and the other 1, 250 fitness clubs that are only for women or offer women’s only hours across the U.S. Yet just because Muslim women happened to make the request, people panic about Islam’s encroachment upon America’s finest university and ridicule the women who are so oppressed that they cannot even work out in front of other men. Yet NOW, one of the earliest feminist organizations in the country, supports women’s only gyms and succeeded in lobbying to prevent the Massachusetts state legislature from banning them. The Muslim women who requested women’s hours requested them on behalf of all women at Harvard who would feel more comfortable working out only among women, and as is proven by the nation-wide popularity of these women’s gyms, thousands of women across the country—whether they are Muslim or not—appreciate these facilities. It is not a question of oppression; rather, their request is a symbol of how far women have come in asking for their rights.
Critics claim that Muslims should assimilate instead of making unreasonable demands. Yet when a separate, Kosher-only refrigerator is available in every dining hall at Harvard and Harvard’s Jewish students observing the Sabbath are allowed to take final exams on Sundays instead of Saturdays, no one shouts at them to assimilate. The Jewish students’ requests are just as valid as the Muslim students’, but no one calls their religion an anachronism, nor do they compare observant Jews to Nazis. The profound fear of Islam that has penetrated Western society gives rise to these comments. A woman in hijab is oppressed, even if she attends the most prestigious university in America, and Islam gives birth to extremists and suicide bombers: these are the messages that we have accepted. American culture is incredible in many ways that all members of this society should accept. Yet assimilation does not mean wholesale destruction of one’s own culture; rather, it implies integrating parts of one’s ethnic culture and adopted American culture. America has been famed as a melting pot for centuries, but lately, this melting pot has been distinctly unfriendly towards Muslims. Let us not forget that freedom of religion is the basis upon which this country was founded.
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