I think I am ok with NOT living in a one size fits all world.
Ahem. As a Wellesley alum, I have to disagree with Oregon2016, and in fact have found her response overblown from the start. If I were TatinG or Sylvan I would have been furious at her over-the-top accusation of “mean spiritedness.” I think I understand what she is reacting to, but it has not been present in this thread IMHO.
Wellesley women are not cowering on their campus, afraid to engage with men. Yes, they live in an environment where their education is not and never has been an afterthought, and it is the MALE exchange students who are (or at least were in the 70s)–with an extra large scoop of irony–called “coeds.”
I think that Wellesley women have proven that they are fully capable of engaging in public life toe-to-toe with men. How much of that is that a certain part of their lives was in an environment where no one was worrying about whether “the boys would like them” if they spoke forcefully in class, or out of it? Or ran for office? How much was that large numbers of that sort of young women self-selected to go there in the first place, and then had their aspirations reinforced by an environment that actively believed in and supported women’s potential?
And people who went to coed schools, please spare me the protestations that they were equally supportive. I’ve been to both. There is a difference, believe me. Or at least there was in the 70s/80s.
Re the student lounge: I like @Hanna 's proposal very much. It honors a tradition and puts unspoken expectations on behavior. And if MSU has a tremendous problem finding places for people to study undisturbed, maybe they should open some MYOB study lounges where socializing was strongly frowned upon.
I think many of us would agree with you, mom3. But,
And the University apparently concurs:
Perhaps not, but the University used T9 as one of its reasons for changing policy (see above).
http://www.mlive.com/news/index.ssf/2016/07/msu_students_push_to_keep_wome.html
@Oregon2016: Thank you for the honorary membership to FedSoc, but I didn’t join them in law school and see no reason to do so now. I am curious why you think there is no title IX/14th amendment violation here. I note your hand-waving explanation that several factors don’t make this “clear cut.” I’m not sure how in the same breath you say it isn’t clear but also say it is clearly your way. How does that work?
Yes, I really had no disagreement with MSU closing the lounge, another tradition shuttered which can be a sad moment without being a political moment… more with the push back from female students that it was a “safe” environment…there are many safe environments on college campuses as has been pointed out. I think it’s just a shame that it has become so politically incorrect to have special interests around anything including gender. I went to college and lived in an all-girl house, …the black student organizations were springing up and they had a lounge and space on campus, and there were others…the townies had a townie lounge, the Young Republicans had a space…probably more I can’t think of off the top of my head.
@usualhopeful, in the past few years women’s colleges have considered and adopted policies regarding transgender students. It has been discussed here. I think you should just google it, since they tend to vary in some nuances.
BTW, @pizzagirl, doesn’t Wellesley still have Harambee House? A white friend of mine was innocently taken there by her black roommate, who was from Surinam, at the start of freshman year. They were not greeted warmly, shall we say. Ooops.
I believe they do, but I don’t really know anything about it.
“Is that actually true? My alma mater (state flagship) has two women only dorms, and one men only dorm. There are multiple private single sex dorms as well. There are also still single sex dorms at DH’s alma mater as well.”
NU definitely has a female-only residential college. It’s very small, though, and not terribly popular. Of course there is also single sex housing on campus in the form of the Greek houses (which are on campus and owned by the university but leased by the various orgs).
I googled several state schools and private schools in my state. All of them had at least one women only dorm, as well as men only dorms. They were certainly outnumbered by the coed dorms, of course.
MIT eliminated its escort service in 1995. http://tech.mit.edu/V115/N45/safewalk.45n.html
That was the top result that I got by Googling MIT walking escort service for students.
Perhaps they have reinstated it.
Several schools that we visited while looking at colleges mentioned their safety phones located about every 40 feet at some schools, but none of them mentioned the escort service while we were touring. They might have had them, not not mentioned them. It has been some years since we were looking at colleges, so perhaps they instituted them in the meantime.
In my day, the Naval ROTCs ran the escort service; now the university does.
I have a D who graduated from a co-ed college a few years ago and never felt the need to huddle solely with other females when studying. I myself graduated from a co-ed college back in the Seventies and never felt that need. Who are these women who can’t tell a guy to get lost? The thought that any woman attending college in 2016 can’t handle unwanted attention from some idiot in a study lounge is pathetic. What do these poor, powerless flowers do in the library, cafeteria, or bookstore, or on the path to class when, gasp, MEN talk to them? What will they do in a year or so when they have to ride public transportation, shop in stores, spend all day in a workplace, with MEN everywhere?? It appears the vast majority of MSU’s female students felt no need to segregate themselves while studying, so the entire premise for the separate lounge is nonsensical. I suspect most who used the lounge did so because it was conveniently located to their dorm.
Perhaps women who are so easily shaken by the presence of men should attend women-only schools, or at least avoid frat-heavy institutions like MSU with their higher than average percentage of Neanderthal males. Or just obtain an online degree and never, ever have to deal with anyone at all.
Actually the frat and sorority scene at MSU is pretty small, only about 7%, pretty evenly split between frats and sororities, of the 42,000+ students attending. You might be thinking of UofM where it’s closer to 20%. Nonetheless, it’s a big campus with plenty of places to hunker down and study undisturbed. Even at 20%, neither of the flagships are “dominated” by Greek.
Please, MommaJ, do NOT send them to women’s colleges!
I remember a conversation I had many years ago at the annual retreat of CT NARAL, of which I was on the board. A (very nice) lesbian rep from the national organization in DC was telling us about how they liked to take visiting state board members to lesbian bars, and how some of them felt uneasy “in their pearl necklaces.” I said, well why would a straight woman particularly want to go to a lesbian bar? She said, well they were nice spaces, where you didn’t have to worry about men hitting on you. I and another straight person said, yeah, but straight women often go to bars deliberately to socialize with friends but also possibly meet guys. Maybe they wouldn’t feel comfortable with a woman hitting on them?!?
This idea that women don’t want to talk to guys and sex is something men do to them rather than something they enjoy and even initiate really annoys me. If I guy approaches you civilly, either talk to him or civilly indicate your lack of interest. If a guy is a jerk, sure, that’s annoying. But the vast majority are not. Frankly, in my time of studying in coeducational spaces, I did not see female students besieged by a constant stream of men who would not leave them alone. Where does this happen?
Oh please… You know good and well people would throw a fit if there were a male-only lounge, or a whites-only lounge for that matter.
The hypocrisy needs to stop. If women want to be equal to men, then so be it. Equal means equal, no exceptions.
@NJres wrote
Oh, that’s what we’re teaching young women today? Carry a weapon, attack if one polite request is ignored? That assumes a pretty high level of helplessness from us. Oh, and thanks for inferring that I’m brain-dead. I love it when people have to stoop to personal insults to try and make their point.
I maintain that it makes a lot more sense to have activity-oriented rooms, rather than gender oriented rooms.
Deal with people who behave badly in those rooms on an individual basis, rather that legislating rules at a gender level.
Here’s an article on the Huff Post about an off-duty Swedish police officer who took down a crook. In her bikini!
You go, girl. We need more of this and less about “safe spaces”.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/mikaela-kellner-bikini-arrest_us_579a8655e4b0693164c098d0
Yes, well, you know when South Park does a skit on “safe spaces” that the concept has jumped the shark.
There are very often ethnic- or religious-themed study spaces on or near campus; they just aren’t exclusive. No Hillel that I’m aware of would tell a non-Jewish student to get out of their library. (Yes, Hillels are private, but since they are recognized student organizations, they are typically subject to non-discrimination rules.)
No such inferrence intended, sorry I dashed off the comment without thinking about how it might be taken. Putting aside the name of the show, there was a very memorable scene in which a woman dealt with unwelcome advances from her date.