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Originally published July 26, 2000 on studentadvantage.com. This is the first in a series of articles and columns on the lives of women in college today.
The typical female college student doesn't march around campus screaming for the violent downfall of the patriarchy, her chest unbridled and bra aflame in her defiant hand. She doesn't attend a $30,000+/year university in order to net a dreamy and potentially profitable husband. This doesn't mean the typical female college student likes everything she sees around her, though. The flippant and patronizing attitudes of some male professors toward their female students. The unmistakable favoritism shown by some schools toward their male athletes. The low number of female professors serving in the academic departments of elite colleges. The inevitable roll of the eyes she gets when she announces she's taking a women's studies class. The oft-mistaken definition of the word "no." And that underlying edge of fear that beats heavy in her chest when she walks across campus alone at night. But she knows that no one wants to hear her complain. After all, didn't women earn their way into the halls of academia back in the '60s? What does she have to bitch about now, in these overwhelmingly politically correct times? The typical female student has plenty to complain about — enough to justly warrant the attention of students, professors, administrators and parents everywhere. That feeling she has deep inside is an accurate one: that her experience is different from what guys experience. But few people seem to want to openly talk about it, or even listen. As much as the American public prides itself on the sexual revolution that rocked our social institution to its foundation in the '60s, it still obligingly supports the myth that there is little difference between female and male experiences in most areas of life. It's as if people feel that, if they admit there are differences between the sexes, they'll also have to admit that one must naturally be superior to the other. But the simple truth is that men and women are different, and their college experiences are different, too. Admitting to those differences doesn't have to yield absolute measurements of value, but can instead offer alternatives to the narrow, stale viewpoint people so often seem to take. Yes, all college students deal with tests and papers and stress-inducing professors, worry over finances and housing, and fret over finding an annoying part-time job to fund it all. But there are differences between a woman's college experience and a man's; some are subtle, some are blatantly obvious, but they need to be acknowledged. To admit that female students often deal with issues that most college men usually don't is not to say that guys have an easier go of it; it only means the experiences men and women have in college can be profoundly dissimilar. Face it: Most men and women don't stress about the future the same way. It's the women who have to worry about eventually negotiating their advancing career with plans to bear children. And it's the women who more keenly feel guilt when they choose one option over the other — or, even tougher, try to do both at the same time. Most college men don't worry for their safety when they study abroad alone, for fear they may become targets of some horribly disturbed sexual predator who sees American women as loose and easy. And most college men don't perform monthly breast self-examinations because their mothers, aunts and sisters all found lumps. These are the just some of the differences that directly affect the overall college experience. And this is a call to raise awareness of those differences, to shed some light on the under-examined phenomena of being a female college student in this new millennium. Never before have so many women flooded through the doors of colleges and universities. Never before have women simply been expected to have it all, want it all, pursue it all. Never before have women surfaced at the top of formerly male-dominated fields at such high rates. What is it like to be a member of what is now the majority sex on college campuses? Is it easy, painless and natural? Or is it still a bit confusing, with muddled expectations and mixed messages? Has the struggle for complete equality long since died, or do we all continue to fight for a little bit of it every day? Love this column? Hate it? Tell us all about it. The
copyright to this column is held by Student Advantage, Inc. The Women in College series: The Long Road
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