On Her Terms
February 14, 2010
by Kathryn Ciano
|The opinions expressed herein are those of the author, and not necessarily those of The New Agenda.
This week fans – and alumi – of higher ed are fixated on gendered education. A Monday New York Times article describes the academic and social implications of a gender shift on college campuses, painting college women as hapless creatures subject to social subjugation by their outnumbered male peers. Candid quotes from UNC students make college women seem like victims of circumstance, helpless to resist the whims of the boys they want to date.
While it’s tempting to accept the NYT perspective as a frightening step backwards for strong femininity, we should focus on the facts: Dominating college campuses presents a trade-off. Academically it’s easier now for women to assimilate into peer groups. Social lives become more complicated though, presenting a steeper curve as young women must learn to enforce boundaries that would until recently have been the responsibility of male colleagues.
Academically, the article goes so far as to intimate that universities have begun a cautious trend towards “affirmative action for boys.” This seems ridiculous for a split second until you hear how the NYT quotes 18-22 year old co-eds describing the social scene:
“A lot of my friends will meet someone and go home for the night and just hope for the best the next morning,” Ms. Lynch said. “They’ll text them and say: ‘I had a great time. Want to hang out next week?’ And they don’t respond.”
Even worse, “Girls feel pressured to do more than they’re comfortable with, to lock it down,” Ms. Lynch said.
Wow. So – according to the Times – who are these boys worth adopting this helpless attitude? Well, the ones with the Y chromosomes, of course.
As for a man’s cheating, “that’s a thing that girls let slide, because you have to,” said Emily Kennard, a junior at North Carolina. “If you don’t let it slide, you don’t have a boyfriend.
Resist the temptation, upon reading some of these painful quotes, to ask: What are these women thinking? Ask instead: What does New York Times accomplish in choosing this angle?
We’ve come full circle, it seems.
Only a generation ago the oaf Homer Simpson replaced John Wayne figures as the archetypal American male. Where in the ‘80’s popular media still touted a “real man” head of a household, Homer Simpson illustrates an urge to poke fun at that idea in light of women’s more universally-celebrated position of household dominance.
Finally women have established a public position so secure that the notoriously-progressive New York Times is comfortable applying that “Homer Simpson” urge to college ladies. Mainstream media simply doesn’t kick down. If they make you sound helpless, it means you’re on top. And never have women sounded more Homer-helpless than this plaintive “on men’s terms” cry that parallels Homer’s “d’oh!”
Don’t panic paternally on behalf of what the NYT paints as hapless young things living — as one UNC student put it — “on men’s terms.” Instead, celebrate women’s presence on college campuses. Statistics no longer protect young ladies from the elements. There are worse things than exposure to strengthening (if painful) opportunities to build both female friendships and confidence-building decisive ability in those critical college years. Indeed, tapping these strengths may well raise salaries and lower divorce rates later on.
Indeed, just last month the Times ran an article indicating that men prefer better educated women. Heaven forbid, ladies, we’re living our lives “on men’s terms” after all! Evidently even educating ourselves may prove a mere mating tactic:
An analysis of census data to be released Tuesday by the Pew Research Center found that she and countless women like her are victims of a role reversal that is profoundly affecting the pool of potential marriage partners.
“Men now are increasingly likely to marry wives with more education and income than they have, and the reverse is true for women,” said Paul Fucito, spokesman for the Pew Center. “In recent decades, with the rise of well-paid working wives, the economic gains of marriage have been a greater benefit for men.”
The analysis examines Americans 30 to 44 years old, the first generation in which more women than men have college degrees. Women’s earnings have been increasing faster than men’s since the 1970s.
In other words, women have worked hard and earned a position where it makes sense to keep working. We can invest at once in our ability to stay independent later on, while simultaneously gaining traction with potential mates.
Yet this week’s article paints those increasingly-attractive college ladies as painfully insecure:
Rachel Sasser, a senior history major at the table, said that before she and her boyfriend started dating, he had “hooked up with a least five of my friends in my sorority — that I know of.”
The article’s author frames this last quote as an example of “storied relationship histories.” Well sure, but what about trusting your boyfriend to give the whole story? What about trusting your friends?
In fact, all of this perpetuates the NYT’s own buried lede, which is: Why not sell papers the old-fashioned way, by playing up the insecurities in empowerment, rather than focusing on the positive?
Indeed, even the author admits that not all women fall into these marginal categories broadly represented for the sake of creating controversy:
Many women eagerly hit the library on Saturday night. And most would prefer to go out with friends, rather than date a campus brute.
There’s an enormous gap between your average frat boy and a “campus brute.” But even this line suggests less about the reality college women face and more about the stylized slant the NYT prefers, implying that we should be concerned about the lengths to which these poor young things must go to score a date.
In fact, for all of this talk about progress it seems that those old brutish gender roles remain entirely intact. According to a recent article in the Journal of Human Capital, if men didn’t have the burden of impressing women in this brave new world (ostensibly by proving sustainable earning capability), their choices would tend much more towards the “blue collar”:
This paper examines the extent to which human capital and career decisions are affected by their potential returns in the marriage market. Although schooling and career decisions often are made before getting married, these decisions are likely to affect the future chances of receiving a marriage offer, the type of offer, and the probability of getting divorced. Therefore, I estimate a forward?looking model of the marriage and career decisions of young men between the ages of 16 and 39. The results show that if there were no returns to career choices in the marriage market, men would tend to work less, study less, and choose blue?collar jobs over white?collar jobs. These findings suggest that the existing literature underestimates the true returns to human capital investments by ignoring their returns in the marriage market.
There you have it, folks. Young women would rather indulge intellectual curiosity – or establish human capital – by attending college, even at the expense of their love lives. And men? Men just want to play with trucks, and would prefer to marry high-earning wives who permit that.
We’ve come to dominate, ladies! Congrats. And yet — I’d thought somehow it would be sweeter than this.
Wow Kat – how times have changed in the decades since I went to school.
Women beat 50% getting into undergrad – but once we enter the workforce and start up the corporate ladder, the trajectory is dramatically different. That is our work together here.
Thanks for writing – and love the KD pic!
It really all depends upon whether or not the women want to get married. Marriage isn’t for everyone. Personally, I wouldn’t mind a marriage-of-convenience. I’ve seen what happens to people who marry for love, and that type of marriage can be hell.
Look at it this way: humanity is the only species capable of choosing its own evolutionary path. The design of human psychology is a mix of biology, personal experience, and culture.
Men whose self-esteem declines as a result of women’s empowerment will not marry and will not have children. Men who are open to embracing equality with women will marry and have children. Thus, succeeding generations will naturally live within feminism and gender equality, possibly unhindered by culture.
And over the generations, this will have a profound impact upon evolution!
Karen, I have often thought a similar thing but been too afraid of saying it. Regarding pornography…there are a certain percentage of men that women just don’t like maybe as high as 25%, you aren’t going to date them and I am not going to date them no matter what they do and the more they fail with women the angrier they get (Keith Olbermann). So I think it is a long range benifit to society that they sit home and um, have a monogamous reltionship with their computer screen which means they will not be reproducing or influencing children with their undesirable traits. Not that I am supporting pornography.
Women need to leave men alone….for about five years, maybe ten. We need to retrain the female population, starting at day one. And if you think I’m joking you would be wrong.
But think about it this way–they have NO ROLE MODELS. Susan Sarandon, of the THELMA AND LOUISE pack, said a few years back that women have to accept cheating to keep a man and she did the same with her beau (I believe at the the time it was Tom Robbins); note that they are recently separated.
If you have a girl child, the most important thing to teach her is to leave boys alone. LEAVE THEM ALONE. She should focus on school, personal achievements, and her dreams. When she is in her late 20′s maybe she can start looking for a decent one….but 30 might be even better.
SEX IN THE CITY wasn’t just a a dumb book and then a stupid television show, it was the death knell, the final nail in the coffin, of the collective female decent self esteem. DUMB and DUMBER might have been a much better title….
You want to get sexual pleasure, buy a vibrator. You want companionship, get some good friends or adopt animals from rescue groups. You want STDS, unwanted pregnancies, your dreams to die, and a lifetime of propping up his ego and paying his bills…get a boyfriend.
I got to thinking about this article today. I learned that a former co-worker of mine from Wendy’s broke up with her boyfriend. While I was still working there, I noticed how upset she looked at times. She called her boyfriend “an ass.”
She is still at Wendy’s, and I am worried she is going to remain at a dead-end job. Anyway, I also began thinking that if she went to college, she would also improve her chances at finding a wonderful man who would truly love her and appreciate her.
So… women who want to have a loving and fulfilling marriage… go to college! Find yourselves a college sweetheart!
Karen,
No. Women should go to college and get a career and a life. Or go to a trade school. Or get a GED.
I help women by helping them help themselves–and a job vs. tedium that is underpaid is the first step.
Jennifer… that is what I meant. The article talked about college and the opportunities for marriage, so I was making my comment relevant to the article. Women have a much better chance at finding the right man when they strive for higher education. I certainly do NOT want my friend to remain at Wendy’s, and I want her to attend college for other reasons as well; she is very intelligent.
Karen,
I got it….the words just hit me wrong. But you know I am a strong anti-male-in-her-life-type-of-gal anyway:)
The way I see it is if each of us helps just one woman become powerful (i.e. have a career, be self-sufficient, have good self esteem, see men for what they really are) then we will, in time, change the world. For many women this means simply moving from a $5.50 job to a $10.00 an hour job and getting rid of the boyfriend. Community colleges, trade schools, etc., are fantastic ways for women to rock their world.
I am proud to say that I have helped a lot of women become self empowered. Try it, it is addictive.
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