Bclintonk, you describe an ideal, where women self select a single sex institution for various benefits. Unfortunately, so much of this discussion has been about women choosing a women’s college to avoid political situations, certain sorts of men or misogyny. An expression among many women’s college gals is you don’t choose one to “run from” but to “run to” the many advantages.
Interesting debate though we seem to have veered off the original topic.
@Hanna I have found it useful to ask admissions officers at non-women’s colleges why they think applications to women’s colleges have increased, i.e. Columbia and Pomona. They’ve cited the current political atmosphere but also the number of special initiatives at the women’s colleges, such as Barnard’s Athena Leadership Program and its new programs for women interested in careers in finance, consulting, and STEM subjects. Admissions officials at both colleges said that many women were choosing to attend women’s colleges affiliated or part of larger universities or consortia as they see them as providing the best of both worlds.
The students going to college this year are the Millennium babies. These kids were born in the year 2000 when everybody and their bother had a baby! LOL Seriously, the turning of the calendar to 2000 inspired many. Just ask all the students being placed in built up triples right now. Big year!
The good news - IMO, next year will be an easier admissions year for applicants. The bubble has passed.
Interesting discussion. Kids self select for region (hmm…how will they work with Northerners in the future?) they self select for prestige, for ranking, for football team. And yet, so much angst about self-selecting for gender? BTW - ALL my daughter’s professors for this term are men.
No problem with self selecting for gender. I do have a problem with self selecting to avoid those with other political beliefs, as alluded to here.
“you don’t choose one to “run from” but to “run to” the many advantages”
I think it’s OK to take into account what your utopia will avoid as well as what it should include.
If the politics you want to avoid are the politics of sexism, well, there is less sexism at women’s colleges. There’s less racism at HBCUs, too. Not zero, but less.
Residential colleges are intended to be a utopia of sorts, where everyone is young and working on growing up, no one has a spouse or kids to worry about, and you build an intentional community devoted to the ideals of the school. Different people want different utopias, but they are all artificial. They aren’t supposed to be exactly like the adult world.
@roycroftmom - But why have a problem with that? Conservative Christians often go to Conservative Christian colleges so they can be with people who share their mindset about sex and alcohol and abortion, etc. Why so difficult to understand why a very liberal young woman would want to be around liberal young women? Her campus is one of the most diverse in terms of international students and gender and sexuality issues. She loves the fact that one of the mandatory orientation sessions is on gender issues/pronoun usage. Can you imagine the eye rolling that would get from a more mainstream campus? When so many other groups choose to be with people like themselves, why is it difficult to understand that politically liberal women might prefer to go to a college that reflects their values?
It’s not women’s colleges. It’s the notion they go because of misogyny in the world. That’s what charges this discussion.
Cvalle, you should get out more. Even the public k-12 schools in this Texas suburb have intro orientations regarding gender pronouns and trans issues. It is a big world out there, and I promise, there are many liberals on every college campus. College can be a time to explore, to challenge, to encounter new thoughts and new people. Or not, if you prefer not to. Your choice.
Hanna hinted at this, but let me be more blunt. I think it’s a mistake to characterize young women’s desire to avoid being subjected to sexual assault and other forms of misogynistic behavior as simply a question of “avoiding those with other political beliefs,” although there certainly is an element of the political in it. The political comes in women’s individual and collective choices to stand up and no longer submit silently to demeaning, degrading, and morally reprehensible behavior that has been tolerated and swept under the rug for far too long in many settings, including our colleges and universities. I say more power to the women making those choices. And if women’s colleges see an uptick in applications and yield as a consequence, I say more power to them, too.
It’s no different than LGBTQ students choosing colleges based in part on the advice of websites that rate how LGBTQ-friendly the colleges are. That’s not simply “avoiding . . . other political beliefs,” though these questions certainly have a political dimension. But it’s also a question of protecting one’s psychological, emotional, and even physical well-being, and choosing an environment where you can flourish.
The stereotypes assumed by some of the posters are astonishing. I am an early feminist (think 1970), so I am glad many in my generation chose to confront and engage instead. We didn’t make as much progress as I expected, though. But to each her own
I’m with you, @roycroftmom. I do endorse the option of single gender but the reasons here are…I don’t know what to even say about the implication choosing coed is choosing sexual assault.
Choose whatever you or your daughters want. But just choosing a women’s college is…not…what empowers them. They still have work to do. This is more than a badge.
Well, I think that’s arguing against a straw man. I neither said nor implied that choosing a coed college is choosing sexual assault. I believe I made it clear earlier in this thread that one of my daughters chose a coed college and the other chose a women’s college. I think they both made sound choices because both colleges were good fits for them individually. But I will say they were both very attentive to the degree of misogyny they thought they were likely to encounter at various colleges, and among other things they went out of their way to avoid colleges where social life seemed to be dominated by male-run frat parties, where the goal all too often seems to be to get the most attractive women drunk and bed them, even if that occurs beyond the point at which they can reasonably consent. And that’s a problem that is rampant on many college campuses. As are lesser forms of misogynistic behavior.
There are many ways women can address that. One is simply to avoid those kinds of parties. Another is to attend those parties accompanied by friends you can count on to look out for you. Another is the path chosen by the older of my two daughters. She chose a coed college—one with no Greek life, because that was important to her. She did attend some student-run parties where alcohol was served. But she often did so as a member of a team of college-approved “bouncers” whose job was to blow the whistle if drinking became excessive to the point that lives and health were in jeopardy, including if a woman—or anyone, really, because it sometimes happens to men, too, though less often—was vulnerable and at risk of sexual assault. Another path is the one chosen by my younger daughter who, like many of her college classmates, chose a women’s college in part (but only in part) because she felt that she hadn’t the time of day for that whole scene.
Neither of my daughters is a teetotaler, and neither is a prude. But they both have a low tolerance for misogyny, and in my book that’s a good thing. I think that’s a view that’s widely shared among women at women’s colleges, and certainly among many at coed colleges, too. Is it “political”? Well, yes, in a sense, but it’s not just an abstract difference of opinion, it goes to how you’re going to allow yourself to be treated as a person. I do think it’s a factor in many young women’s choice of a women’s college, perhaps increasingly so, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s related to both the Me Too movement and what many perceive to be the misogynistic attitudes and behavior of certain prominent political figures. But as others have said, let’s wait to see harder evidence before reaching that conclusion…
I take issue with the idea that choosing a women’s college is choosing NOT to “engage” – as someone posted above, who called herself an old-school feminist. @roycroftmom
I also take issue with the idea that women choose women’s colleges primarily to escape misogyny. That’s not the reason my thoughtful child chose a women’s school. (And it may not be what’s being argued, but simply the direction that this discussion has taken.)
TO THE FIRST POINT, choosing a women’s school is perhaps choosing HOW to engage and learning to engage in a different way. It’s perhaps an incubator where you can learn tactics/ skills for engaging.
Evidence maybe is a measure of leadership roles that women who attend co-ed schools attain vs those who attend women’s colleges. On average women who attend women’s colleges disproportionately achieve high-levels of leadership in fields traditionally associated with men (politics, CEO, science), compared with women who attend co-ed schools. Is it the school that prepped them to achieve in that way? (perhaps because they are leaders in the extracurriculars, or because of leadership-training centers that exists on the campuses, or because they are viewed for their work before their gender in the classroom) Or is it the self-selection of women who see themselves as leaders choosing at attend women’s colleges? Or is it the networking that happens among this group?
I’m guessing that it’s a combination of all of the above, plus several other things that I’ve not considered.
In any event, women who attend women’s colleges tend to achieve at a disproportionately high level. That means that they are engaging full-on at school and after they graduate, IMHO. And it’s hard to argue that the majority of women doing this are NOT by default feminist as they are breaking barriers to help to achieve equality among all people.
TO THE SECOND POINT, This “achievement” idea plus learning is the main reason one of my children decided to attend a women’s college. It wasn’t to escape misogyny – at least that never came up in discussion. It was because she was excited by the idea first of an extremely intellectual community. The intellectualism came first for her. Second it was because of the supportive, non-competitive atmosphere of the college she ultimately chose. She saw that on the tour and was so enthralled by that idea in a school (having come from overly competitive high school experience) that she looked for other supportive schools, where, as she put it “what you’re learning or interested in comes first”. Others she found were also women’s schools and one co-ed school in the Midwest. But mainly she found it in women’s schools. Third she was thrilled with the idea of becoming a leader in her career, that perhaps this environment and the talented women around her would help propel her on her ambitious track.
No misogyny was alluded to ever in her personal discussions. It was all about the extremely high-level academics, the supportive community of learners, and the idea of learning leadership skills that she could bring into her career.
I fully acknowledge that’s our personal experience and may not speak to the general point of this thread which is that MORE women are choosing because of the current political climate. Our daughter may simply be representative of the USUAL crowd of women who choose women’s schools for the unique leadership skills they seem to impart, the network of supportive peers, and high level of intellectual engagement.
One of my daughters was set on coed schools. Her high school counselor encouraged her to visit a women’s college based on a visit the counselor had just had at the school. She visited for a weekend program and she fell in love, came of the visit saying that this was the school she wanted to attend. It’s just as @Dustyfeathers and @bclintonk say. It’s a different way of engaging. It felt empowering. The high level academics, the supportive community, the opportunities for leadership, it all spoke to her. She threw herself into the school from the start and remains an active alum. From what I understand, this is not an unusual story. I have no idea whether the numbers have jumped or for what reason.
I admit, there are certain stressors that go away on a campus like this. If women want frat parties there are other places to go off campus but it’s not an issue on campus. Sexual assault doesn’t disappear but it’s much less an issue.
I can think of a number of reasons why women’s colleges have become increasingly popular, some of which have nothing to do with the current political climate. They are a great admissions value compared to their coed counterparts and they often offer merit aid. The more competitive admission becomes in general, the more attractive these schools become. The value of the community has always been there but perhaps the message has become clearer. I met someone on a crowded tour of a nearby coed school who told me that they’d been to a women’s college in the area and that they were struck by how much more personal the tour and info session had been. That school had never been on the student’s list but it was after those experiences.
@CValle , considering that your D did most of her schooling in India, I am a bit surprised that she chose her college in the US based on such preconceived notions (kids wearing MAGA hats in class…). Living in a cocoon of like-minded folks is not the answer to getting exposed to the diversities/wealth of the culture and experiences of this land. My older D (Indian-American but born in PA) did her undergrad at Pitt and her decision to continue her studies at Pitt Med now was primarily based on the fabulous experiences (socially and academically) she had there.
Not all women’s colleges are the same. As the parent of a Barnard/Columbia alum, I have found some of the comments on this thread to be laughable… for the same reason I chose just now to refer to Barnard including the name of its parent university. But at the same time I wouldn’t assume my daughter’s experience living in Manhattan and experiencing an education that was and is a hybridization of a women’s college and a co-ed research university to be applicable to any other women’s college. But I also don’t think that students at Mount Holyoke would necessarily have the same experience as women at Smith (despite close proximity and shared roles within a 5-college consortium). Nor do I think the Boston area Wellesley and Simmons colleges necessarily share much in common outside their continued status as women’s colleges.
All women’s colleges do share some commonalities — and certainly for my daughter at Barnard she experienced the benefit of those commonalities.
But most of the generalizations that have been made in this thread would not apply to Barnard, and that’s why it doesn’t make much sense to generalize about the reasons women choose to apply to any one or more of these colleges.
@i012575 Not sure I get your point. Happy your daughter loved Pitt and had a great experience. What does that have to do with the discussion about why some young women choose all-women’s colleges? And what does where my daughter did her schooling have to do with anything? She is American, is fully conversant in American politics, and has been raised in a fully international environment.
@roycroftmom Right it’s a choice. And the article is about more women potentially choosing to go to women’s colleges for reasons that are related to the current cultural and political moment we are in. Amazed how many people want to debate the choice.
Seriously- does anyone tell the kid going to Yale you are”running away” from seeing how less privileged people go to college, you should choose to be with students who are not as qualified academically or as privileged personally so you will know how to work with them in the future? Or how about the kids going into the service academies? Shouldn’t they be choosing schools where they would be exposed to ALL types of people? Not just patriotic, military service planning kids?
WHY does this argument only apply to young women choosing a single gender school?