<p>My D is considering several women's colleges. I graduated from one 30 years ago. Would like to hear from recent Seven Sisters etc. graduates --how did your undergrad experience affect your ability to relate to men after college?
Do you feel it hampered your social development or prevented you from meeting enough interesting, compatible men at a crucial time in your life? Even if you enjoyed and valued your college experience, do you in retrospect wish it had been coed? Some coed grad friends are suggesting that my D would be "better off" at a coed school because she is shy and inexperienced with dating issues etc.</p>
<p>Very good question, Pyewacket....I went to a womens college 30 years ago, too. I look forward to responses from recent alums.....</p>
<p>from "Silent Femmes" by Amy Sullivan
Washington Monthly, April 2005
<a href="http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2005/0504.sullivan.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2005/0504.sullivan.html</a></p>
<p>It may be no coincidence that a number of pioneering female opinion columnistsincluding Meg Greenfield, Molly Ivins, Ellen Goodman, Anna Quindlen, and Jodie Allenattended women's colleges. Allen, who got her start through Meg Greenfield at the Post's Outlook section and writes a business column for U.S. News & World Report, told me that while her college experience was filled with women freely offering opinions, I bet you if there were men around, we wouldn't have. Even at elite schools, with the most driven, educated young women, the 25-percent rule is in place by this point: At the daily newspapers of top-rated universities, only 10 to 25 percent of opinion columnists are female. While women dominate the increasingly popular arena of college sex columns, men are the ones writing pure opinion pieces, what Allen and her colleagues used to call thumb-suckers. I think, she says, men are more likely to think their thumbs are tasty than women are.</p>
<p>I am not sure how "recent" I am since I graduated 15 years ago from a small woman's college. I do not believe it negatively affected my ability to interact with men. </p>
<p>I did have an active coed social life in college, but even if it had been tamer, I don't see how my life now would be different. It didn't seem like all that crucial a time, really. I didn't plan on settling down and getting married right out of college, so I wasn't exactly spouse-hunting. And I found I was much more self-possessed and confident in my 20s anyway--that was the more-crucial dating period in my life.</p>
<p>There hasn't been any time in my life when I looked back and wish my college experience was co-ed. Of course, maybe it helps that I went to grad school (which was, of course co-ed), so I had both experiences and don't have to wonder what it's like to have "the male perspective" from classmates.</p>
<p>I'd make the same decision over again.</p>