Seven Sisters question, asked a different way

Parents Forum
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<p>The strange thing is (and this is entirely anecdotal and subjective), my Wellesley alumnae friends and I have found ourselves in rooms of decision makers (mostly male) and we feel completely comfortable, despite the fact (or maybe because of the fact) that we went to a women’s college. Wellesley teaches students how to behave in these settings, what to say, and how to act. I don’t know just how, but it seems to work.</p>

<p>Not worrying about whether your male classmates think you’re hot or whether you will be in class with someone with whom you had a drunken hookup last semester may actually be a huge advantage in learning to deal with the opposite sex in a business setting.</p>

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<p>I can see that. My problem is that I had a seriously abusive mother so all female settings are equally challenging to me. Having said that, it’s a fact that in my graduate and teaching academic career women have been my boosters.</p>

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<p>No college is right for everyone. I fully understand that the women’s college experience is not for all women, for a variety of reasons.</p>

<p>There is always a certain amount of self-selection at work. Girls who choose women’s colleges are not as likely to be seeking male social affirmation (otherwise they would not be interested in attending such a school from the outset), or may be willing to compartmentalize their relationships with the opposite sex to a greater degree (this is certainly something that successful men have always done, so it shouldn’t be shocking that successful women do it also). As a student, I loved living in my clean, quiet and beautiful dorm. It was a haven. I was fine with a weekend social life. I still am. I don’t think living with men in college dorms and partying with them necessarily teaches a young woman to deal better with men in all situations, particularly in work situations.</p>

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<p>I’m so old my very public u did not have cord dorms. No schools did at that point. We couldn’t wear pants in high school either. Ordinary public on Long Island.</p>

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<p>I think dorms started going co-ed in a big way in the mid 80s. I was surprised at the number of schools we visited (seems like hundreds but it was only about 20) that had not only co-ed dorms, but co-ed floors. Conservative Fordham had single-sex floors with the men on the ground floor. My D laughter at my naivet</p>

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<p>That really is an inaccurate stereotype of college life on a co-ed campus. I can see someone in a single-sex environment indulging that fantasy, but in real life college guys don’t generally attend class with the intent of checking out the girls, and the majority of college women aren’t engaging in “drunken hookups”, and in any case, the odds of unexpectedly being in the same class are fairly slim. </p>

<p>I mean, for the most part college social life is separate from the classroom, and women are more likely to get to know their male classmates in study groups than as dating partners. Dorm life is another thing entirely… I think my daughter would have preferred co-ed dorms, but my observation is that she had less housekeeping issues when living with female roommates. In any case, she had plenty of experience sharing living arrangements with guys during her summers.</p>

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<p>My goodness. I’m indulging in a fantasy now? Sounds fun.</p>

<p>Actually, I am an associate professor at a largish co-ed university in the Northeast, so I don’t think my impressions are entirely based on fantasy. I never said that college men go to class with the intent of checking out the girls (although I don’t think that this is unheard of). I said that girls worry about their appearance and how they are perceived as attractive by their male peers. And I think boys worry about the same thing. And I see plenty of flirting going on in and around the classroom among students.</p>

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<p>Actually, I think women dress for other women more than they do for men. I mean, the guys don’t even notice a change in hairstyle or a new pair of shoes.</p>

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<p>“Not worrying about whether your male classmates think you’re hot or whether you will be in class with someone with whom you had a drunken hookup last semester …”</p>

<p>Lots of students at all-female colleges do indeed run into their drunken hookups (and ex-girlfriends) in class. At Bryn Mawr or Smith nowadays, they’d point out that this is a heteronormative viewpoint. Women’s colleges may be filled with romantic opportunities/land mines.</p>

<p>mini, in any alumni magazine, you’ll deal with the reality that a substantial number of the female graduates stayed at home for a number of years, and some of them never go back. An infinitesmal, though growing, number of male grads do that. There’s no question that this is going to impact the kind of achievements that people send to alumni magazines (publishing books, becoming partner, getting tenure, etc.). Harvard’s magazine doesn’t put the class notes section online, but Cornell’s does…I’m sure you can find a few more for a comparison if you like.</p>

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<p>Fair point.</p>

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<p>That certainly applies in my case. </p>

<p>I do have several male friends who would notice. They’re also the types to obsess about how well they dress and jokingly tease friends like me for our lack of interest in fashion matters. </p>

<p>In turn, I and other friends in our social circle would tease them for being “fashion models” or “GQ wannabes”. :D</p>

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<p>With respect to the accomplishments of college graduates, I think that there is a fair amount of confirmation bias at work. If you are a “Seven Sisters” fan, you take notice of prominent women who are graduates of Smith or Wellesley, gloss past the others. </p>

<p>There are 17 women in the US Senate right now. Not a single one is a Sister’s graduates. Two went to colleges that were all-female at the time they were there (Randolph-Macon and the former Mount Saint Agnes) – the other 15 are graduates of co-ed colleges, including Ivies (Dartmouth, Yale), public universities (Michigan State, Univ. of Texas), and a range of college in between. My state is represented by two women, one a graduate of Brooklyn College, another from Stanford.</p>

<p>I’m sure I could look at any other group of prominent women and come up with similar results. I chose to look at the US Senate because it was an easy list to find, provided a broad geographic sample, but was short enough so that I could look them all up within 10 minutes. Also, Senators tend to have easy to find wikipedia bios.</p>

<p>There are currently 3 women on the Supreme Court; two graduated from Princeton, one from Cornell. It seems to help tremendously to attend an Ivy if you want to end up on the Supreme Court, though Sandra Day O’Connor did fine with a Stanford education. Again, all co-ed environments. </p>

<p>I do think my daughter had an excellent education at Barnard and I do think that there is value to the women’s college experience. But again, I think we should respect the virtues without overstating them. I think it is something of an insult to the many intelligent and capable women who attend these colleges to suggest that they would be overshadowed or intimidated in a mixed-sex environment.</p>

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<p>I think it’s noteworthy the only woman mentioned by name was Albright. That’s both restraint and the awareness that many remarkable women are not in a public spotlight. I can see it as an affirmation. </p>

<p>NJ Sue said found ourselves in rooms of decision makers (mostly male) and we feel completely comfortable… I agree. Not only comfortable but empowered and proud of the contributions. Has anyone else, nonetheless, found that the traditional male structure of many corporations requires an ability to work the system in ways that are different than the single-sex academic experience honed?</p>

<p>This isn’t about confidence or the ability to work at high levels. It’s not suggesting [these women]would be overshadowed or intimidated in a mixed-sex environment. My point is about the men in corporate life and their sense of how things should work. Not about leering, but the fact that many corporations are still evolving, the effects of historical male ways of operating still linger.</p>

<p>In the largest firm I worked for, a Fortune 100, client personal relationships are still built through golf outings, sports talk, cars. There was a level of bravado among the top men, some posturing. The clever women worked this to their advantages, but it’s not what they learned in a single-sex environment. We don’t have to reach far to see how some powerful, spotlight women were (and are) belittled.</p>

<p>I bring this up because, as much as I see the tremendous advantages to single-sex education, I want our daughters to understand there’s an additional skill set needed. If a woman ends up pursuing a career field that’s independent of this, fine. But, success can require more than what we bring to the table or the meeting, or how confident we are. </p>

<p>Barnard is different, because of Columbia. The opp to take many coed classes may allow young women to experience these male-female dynamics. Maybe Smith and MHC are a bit different because of the cross-registration. What about Wellesley? What about those of us who graduated a generation ago?</p>

<p>Not griping, not putting down the experience. Asking.</p>

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<p>Ah yes, the “fear of success” study. We spent half our time fearing that we were fearing. I feel like I’ve been an underachiever, but the fact is that it’s very hard for two people to optimize their careers and for various reasons mine ended up being the one that got somewhat sacrificed. (I don’t regret it, and it was not all dh’s fault.) I didn’t realize how hard it would be to find a good job in a recession outside the area where I went to grad school. I didn’t realize that five years in Germany (which was supposed to only be 2 or 3 years) would have a big dampening effect on finding subsequent jobs and I didn’t think about how much time I’d want to spend with my kids. I made my choices even as Matina Horner whispered in my ear making me feel guilty about them.</p>

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<p>Don’t women who attend women’s colleges often come from competitive, co-ed high schools, where they excelled? Haven’t many of them grown up in families with brothers? Don’t many of them gain internships or paying jobs over the summers working for companies or agencies that seem to further their career goals? Don’t some of them study abroad in co-ed environments? Don’t many go on to grad schools at co-ed institutions? (Madeleine Albright has a master’s & Ph.D. from Columbia). </p>

<p>It seems to me that the concern about male business environments is akin to the concern some people express about the socialization of home-schooled children. Students at women’s colleges do not live in a vacuum; they simply spend a short period of their live’s in a female-dominated educational environment.</p>

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<p>Mathmom: your experience is quite typicality would think, and nothing to feel guilty about, as you know, and when all factors are considered may well have been the most satisfying option. I know you don’t do this so I am not addressing you , but I don’t think women need to walk around like we have something to prove.</p>