At an Undergraduate Council meeting this spring. Vice Chair David L. Hanselman '94 awarded Marc D. McKay '94 a pair of pantyhose for having a "good time" at an intercollegiate conference, according to a female council member.

"Everyone laughed--at least the men laughed," says Danielle D. Do '94, a council member. "But I didn't really understand. I could guess at what it meant, but I didn't really want to think about it. Is this a forum for that sort of thing?"

Although Hanselman has said the gesture was meant as an innocent joke, Do says the incident illustrates the overtly male-dominated environment in the College's student government. She and other female members say the institutional bias against women obstructs their entry into the leadership of the council.

In the council's 11-year history, no woman has served as chair, and only a few women have served on the council's executive board.

Twenty-two years after Harvard and Radcliffe agreed to merge, the question remains: Are women still second-class citizens on a campus which for almost three centuries was the bastion of a patriarchal society? Or do women now have the same opportunity to succeed and lead their classmates?

Although many organizations seem to have escaped the problems of "gender dynamics" which the council recently discussed, some women in positions of leadership say the cards seem to be stacked against them when they compete against men in undergraduate extracurriculars.

Their problems appear to be twofold: some organizations remain male-dominated and once women join these organizations, deciding to make a bid for leadership can often be laden

Women face bias in some campus groups. with gender-based worries.

The College itself has only slowly been moving towards parity in the ratio of males to females: the class of 1997 will be 44 percent female, the highest percentage of women ever.

But even such numerical equalityis not always found in campus organizations. Twenty-one of the 88 members of the council are female. At The Crimson, roughly half the reporting staff is female, but only 11 of this year's 40 executives are women. In the Unofficial Guide to Life at Harvard, roughly two-thirds of the listed contacts for campus organizations, often the group's presidents or board members, are male.

The example of the council, which conducts most of its business in open, public sessions, may provide an insight into how other campus groups function.

"The way people get elected on the U.C. is first by having a person in a position of authority take you under their wing," Hillary K. Anger '93-94 says. "A lot of the guys in the council are not as likely to take a woman under their wing as a protege. If that's not happening a woman is not going to get elected."

Female council members like Do and Anger say that in addition to being excluded from a network of men that help each other get elected, they are not given as much respect as men when they speak in front of the entire council.

McKay, who says Hanselman's public gift to him "wasn't appropriate," says men on the council may feel more comfortable expressing disagreement with women than with other men.

"Just because a woman is speaking a guy won't necessarily disagree, but [if he does] he may make more a show of it," says McKay, who agrees that the council has a male-dominated atmosphere.

Hanselman, however, says he does not believe women are treated differently in the council because of their gender.