Word: signout
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...voted yesterday to permit juniors and seniors to stay out after the time to which they have signed out. Freshmen and sophomores will continue under the present system, which requires them to return before their signout time...
Although Cliffies, unlike Yardlings, still had to account for their whereabouts, the RGA (which, it must be remembered, is strongly influenced by the Administration) justified this continued signout requirement as a safety precaution that did not contain any moral overtones. According to this theory, female undergraduates, due to certain physiological characteristics, confronted a more hazardous existence than their male counterparts. The signout system would, therefore, make it easier for housemothers, deans, and police officers to come to the aid of the damsels in distress...
Because physical protection was the only reason for the junior and senior signout requirement, accuracy of both time and destination in signouts was crucial. The new social rules, present a basic contradiction to anyone trying to enforce them. For a Cliffie to take advantage of the protection the sign-out system supposedly offered her, she would have to designate a realistic time of return. But because the rules required that she be back by the time she designated, the wrath of the dorm committee would descend if she were late. The logical way of avoiding any chance of punishment...
...effect Mrs. Bunting's proposal has destroyed the myth of the signout as a safety precaution. Indeed, statistical evidence destroyed it long before she did. Not once in the history of Radcliffe has signout information led to any kind of rescue. The Cambridge police have always found out about a Cliffie mishap before the College Administration...
There are very good reasons for a person of any sex to let someone else know where he is going for the evening. And it is certainly convenient for a Cliffie to have the dorm signout book to use for this purpose. But if for some reason she prefers not to do so, why should she have to? Society considers women just out of high school who have gone to work grown up enough to look after themselves...