Old school feminist to head our oldest university, like it or not

If “fellow” Harvard University academic Dan Kindlon’s surveys are accurate (he goes out of his way in his latest book, Alpha Girls: Understanding the New American Girl and How She is Changing the World—more than an overstatement-- to promote the thoroughness of his research), Drew Gilpin Faust, just-named president of the country’s oldest and most prestigious institution of higher learning, is an irrelevant anachronism, with both a CV and personal history his next-generationers of women disown as an embarrassment to their sex.

Dr. Faust is a historian, having devoted much of her academic life to teaching and chronicling women’s history as well as her own struggles for equality, not just for women, but for African Americans as well. Her biographies note that she grew up as a white southerner with priviledge, but who, early on and much to the consternation of her mother, began to question women’s role in southern society and who, when 9 years old, wrote a letter to President Eisenhower, asking him to end segregation.

The alpha girls of Dr. Kindlon’s book, aged 13 to 22, will be unimpressed, grousing that the struggle for equality of women, in the home, at school, in the workplace, is old hat; they’re tired of hearing their mothers’ “You don’t know what it was like out there when I was coming up,” and boast that their equality with, even superiority to, males is a no-brainer.

In an early Times news story, Dr. Faust’s “collaborative style and considerable people skills” were praised. At the same time, some male faculty members grumbled that this more feminine, if we may, management style was too feeble for the tough job of managing tough issues involving tough contenders. Kindlon’s alpha girls would agree. Their role models tend more to Hillary Clinton and Margaret Thatcher, advocating for a pro-active, tough-guy, take-no-prisoners approach to getting on in the world.

Stay tuned to the Women’s Village pages for a frontal lobotomy (wasn’t too difficult, as there wasn’t much grey matter to excise) on Coach Kindlon’s Warriors. Meanwhile, my hat’s (without the veil) off to Drew Gilpin Faust. You go, girl!