You Know You're A Smithie When.... (encore)

SmithieandProud
Sun, 02 Oct 2011 01:24:33 +0000

R6L, I know that’s your opinion, but I still think you’re overestimating. As a common campus phrase went “sexuality is fluid,” so nailing down a hard number that encompassed all those categories you mentioned would be almost impossible when your considering that people’s feelings and their understanding of their own sexuality sometimes evolve. 13% was the number of Smith women who identified as lesbians. It was based on a broad campus survey, not just on one person’s experiences as a student, so I was simply citing it as a more objective answer. I think 30% is high, and I’m a recent graduate. But what I think may or may not be relevant to the actual picture. There’s over 2000 students at Smith, I couldn’t possibly give you an overall picture of them based on my own experience, and frankly neither can you. This survey was the only attempt that I know of to actually do that. It wasn’t an official college survey, it was actually just a psychology assignment where they used the whole campus as a sample, so its accuracy is not 100%, but it’s much better than guestimates that you or I could give.

I think the bigger picture though is not for us to be arguing over who has a greater sense of the number of gays at Smith (which seems pretty pointless to me…), but I think we should instead unite behind something. I think we both think that it’s pretty dumb that people are always so obsessed with quantifying the number of gay students at Smith. First of all, it’s none of their business. Secondly, it’s really, none of anyone’s business, except for the students themselves. For me, to be honest, one of the reasons I picked Smith was because it seemed to be a really accepting environment. I was worried that as a person of color, coming from the other side of the country, to attend an expensive, elite private college, I might be put off to the sidelines and ignored. But when I saw that at Smith all kinds of people were broadly accepted (not just people of different races or religions but also women who liked other women, women who saw capes as an acceptable form of outerwear, etc.), I knew it would be a place where I could really do well. And you know what, I was not disappointed.