D will start at MHC this fall. She was thrilled when she joined the MoHo Facebook group that everyone was asking about preferred pronouns (D prefers “she, her, hers” but was happy no one was making assumptions.) She is also finding that the conversations that pop up are often the same things she would come up with (generally nerdy liberal feminist stuff). She can’t wait to start school. We have a close family friend who is a rising junior this year. She has chosen to major in a very male dominated STEM field that she thinks she never would have chosen at a coed school.
Oh, so that kind of thing made my D roll her eyes. You’re at a women’s college, you’re supposed to be a woman. Don’t deliberately join a women’s college and then get huffy that people use female pronouns. You couldn’t even say on FB “hey ladies, come join us tonight at 8 pm to see what the XYZ club has to offer” without angry messages that “we aren’t all women here.” BTW I’m totally cool with the idea of transwomen at W and I think it’s fine that if someone transitions to male during their time there, they can be grandfathered (ha ha) in and stay. So don’t paint me as some red-state redneck who is afeard of LGBT, as I’m not.
More and more people use gender neutral pronouns now. D thinks it’s just a matter of being polite to ask. I agree that at a women’s college it should be fine to default to female pronouns, so, I think we agree, that should be “grandmothered!”
@Pizzagirl actually, not necessarily. Many to most women’s colleges accept non binary/genderqueer students- Mount Holyoke actually has the loosest policy.
Yes, I know. I followed it closely. I was pleased by how W ultimately handled the whole thing.
There was a mother who posted here on CC that her daughter’s experience was not what she expected at Smith, and after reading her post, I really felt that my daughter’s experience would have been the same. Her daughter felt stifled, unable to express an opinion because her opinion might have been a little more conservative, a little less of the majority view. My daughter would have had no issues with the academics, but I don’t think she would have fit in socially. She doesn’t care if people use him or her and thinks it rather silly for others to make a big deal of it. She just doesn’t care that much for feminist issues or politics, and if she does have an opinion, it is usually a little more on the conservative side. I felt after my visit and research that more conservative views are not respected.
Now this is certainly the case at other LACs too, not just at the women’s colleges and what we decided was that LACs just weren’t the right place for my daughter. The many wonderful things at Smith like working with senators or traveling to study politics in different countries or having leadership opportunities just weren’t things my daughter was interested in.
A little dated, but my daughter is 2010 graduate of Barnard. When she was in high school she felt she preferred a co-ed environment, but she wanted NY above all else, and simply couldn’t ignore the opportunities that Barnard offered. She did not apply to any other women’s colleges.
She had her ups and downs in her early years there, but in the end she was very glad and grateful that she had chosen Barnard. She felt that it offered an unparalleled education; she felt that as a student she was better off than her peers across the street at Columbia --and she formed wonderful relation with faculty.
She still lives in NY & her closest friends are fellow graduates of Barnard & Columbia.
I’ve sent a lot of students over the years to Wellesley, Barnard, and Smith, and a few to Bryn Mawr and Mt. Holyoke, and though several of them went because they didn’t get into their “dream” schools, they all–to a woman–fell in love with their schools. Two of them even ended up heading student government. I’m a huge fan of women’s colleges for women who are interested in them. They might not be for everyone, but they’re pretty awesome–and very admirable.
NO WAY!
My husband studied in the men’s college (OK, it was not a strictly men’s college, just a college, where your have 100 male / 1 female ratio). It does affect person’s perception of the opposite sex. No, not misogyny. Opposite. Too romantic + under-developed dating skills. Not a good combination. I like these traits in my husband. But not for my DDs !!! They need to learn to flirt, date, have healthy relationship with the opposite sex, etc. It takes many, many years to undo the harm, installed by a single-sex college.
LOL.
I think you have a distorted view of the prevailing environment at women’s colleges. Plenty of opportunity to engage with the opposite sex.
Maybe there are some smaller, lesser known religious colleges that would fit your stereotype, but most of the better known academic women’s colleges are either in urban environments or have partnerships/consortium arrangements with other nearby colleges which means that there are plenty of opportunities to meet and socialize with men on campus and nearby.
Whelp. A men’s college may have a different impact than a women’s college. And I for one did not send my kids to college to learn to date. My niece went to Mount Holyoke, and is an extremely well adjusted and happily married woman in her 30s now. I think that is an extreme view.
californiaaa - There is a distinction between a women’s college and a convent. Women who attend women’s colleges have plenty of opportunities to date. They also have plenty of opportunities to be taken seriously in the classroom.
The idea attending a women’s college leaves someone with a “too romantic” view of men makes me laugh. Gloria Steinem, Betty Freidan, Hillary Clinton, Madeleine Albright, Nancy Pelosi, Kathleen Sebelius…every last one of them just horribly damaged by their overly romantic view of men. Such a shame. If only they had attended co-ed schools, they might have been able to deal with men as equals.
@californiaaa - the question is about current experiences with women’s colleges, not half-cocked assumptions.
@californiaaa - Wow. Just wow. 
OP -
My D is at Scripps She didn’t actively seek out a woman’s college, but discovered and fell in love with Scripps. I think @IlamBehini said it well:
Thanks everyone. Anyone familiar with Salem college?
Having now read the comments above, I have to say that some of the questions about pronoun preferences are now part of the work place, I say as someone who works in what some would consider a fairly conservative environment. We have transgender people, lots of them, as it turns out. The organization is fairly conservative but the location is not and now that transgender people are more accepted, and don’t have to hide, we need to learn to use different pronouns.
It’s not that hard. He, she, they, whatever. We all need to work together after all.
That being said! DD fell in love with Smith, then toured BMC and fell in love again, with the honor system and the intellectualism, and the free laundry, the fact that the bus comes along and drops off Haverford guys every half hour!
A friend of mine was accepted to MHC and strongly debated going – was about to deposit – but then was swept off of her feet by Mills.
Another heads up for Agnes Scott for those who are less politically leaning but who want a great education. It seems like an undervalued stock right now.
^I work in a large technology company and questions about pronoun preference are not out of the ordinary here, either. It’s just the polite thing to do.
I went to a women’s college, and I just want to chime that I feel like far-left stereotypes dominate the conversation about women’s colleges - mostly driven by Smith and Wellesley, I think - but every women’s college is different. I went to one that I would characterize as socially moderate to liberal (I graduated in 2008). Places that are as radical as Smith are in the minority even amongst women’s colleges. Southern women’s colleges tend to be more moderate than Northeastern and West Coast ones, and I think Salem College probably falls into that group as well.
And yes, women’s colleges probably do spend more time talking about gender, sexuality, and feminist politics than your average educational institution. That’s because those are central issues in the lives of women, and women’s colleges were established to be places where women could go and learn and think. But there are different ways to talk about that and treat that. I didn’t learn about gender performativity or preferred pronouns, for example, until I studied abroad my junior year with some students who were NOT from my college (and in fact almost all went to other pretty liberal LACs, like Reed, Vassar, and Skidmore).
Also, the under-developed dating skills made me laugh. My women’s college was across the street from a men’s college and a coed university, and in a city with 20 other universities and colleges, almost all of them coed. Salem also has cross-registration with Wake Forest, which is in the same small city, and there is probably a lot of social interaction between the schools.
I second the recommendation for checking out Agnes Scott College - they offer excellent financial aid and have a similar cross-registration agreement with Emory.
Thanks all
Just read this and wanted to add re: pronouns -that personal gender pronouns have caught on at most US colleges these days; not just woman only schools… definitely at Ivy league schools and LACs and many work places …
Roll your eyes all you want, but these are people’s lived experiences and isn’t college supposed to be about learning and expanding your knowledge rather than rolling your eyes in distain? Just my opinion, and rolling your eyes isn’t going to keep you from having to learn pronoun preferences these days … might as well seek to understand and expand your empathy …
Also some go by “they and theirs” and “ze and zir” which are gender neutral …