Perhaps the best synthesis of the thoughts and actions of Sarah S. Song '96 can be found in her writing on the issues she cares about.

The daughter of a Korean pastor from Derry, New Hampshire and a resident of Pforzheimer House, Song has devoted her Harvard career to writing and thinking about issues of social justice.

As president and senior editor of Perspective, Harvard-Radcliffe's liberal monthly, Song was an unrelenting critic of racial and gender inequality. And her senior thesis on the growth of a women's movement in Korea reinforced her interest in women, politics and writing.

A Social Studies concentrator, Song says she likes to focus her writing and studies on women's issues and on the ongoing effects of race and power in society.

In a November 1995 Perspective introspective, for example, Song wrote about how difficult she thinks it is for women, even at Harvard, to gain the same level of respect as men.

"Public women in America are wedged between two choices: present yourself in a gender-neutral or slightly 'masculine' way to be taken seriously ('substance'), or deploy your sexuality and charm ('the cunning of woman') to get ahead, but at the cost of not being taken seriously," Song wrote in that introspective piece.

Reflecting on that double bind, Song says now:

"[At Harvard] if you're networking or something, often [the attitude is that] if men get hired to do a job or they're in leadership positions, it's because they deserve it or they merit it," Song says sarcastically. "Whereas women, they used their arts and their wiles."

Faculty Mentors

In her fight against gender inequality, Song says she has found mentoring and advice from female professors at Harvard invaluable.

"One of the professors who has most influenced me," Song explains over lunch in the Winthrop courtyard, "is [Professor of Government] Seyla Benhabib."

Benhabib, with whom Song took a seminar on "Political Theory and the Public Sphere," inspired Song with lessons about the theory and practice of deliberative democracy.

"She's the most brilliant female scholar I've ever met, and when I first heard her lecture...I was shocked," Song confesses. "And then afterward I was shocked that I was shocked, because I had never met such a brilliant woman, and the fact that she was a woman was really significant to me."

Song, who will spend next year on a Rotary Scholarship studying political theory at Oxford University in the Department of Politics, plans to go into academia. She will apply this fall to joint J.D./Ph.D. programs in government and political science.

Undoubtedly, her decision to do so is influenced by experiences and relationships developed at Harvard.