One hundred girls for every boy

This may sound empowering and glass shattering, but I found it somewhat odd to sit in an anthropology class called Evolution and Diversity with a homogeneous group representing only 50 percent of the subject matter. How complete could any discussion of the psychology of gender (or race and gender in economic history, gender in world politics) be without male input?

I avoided taking courses containing the word "women" in the title, seeing the distinction as redundant. Eventually I began to take immense comfort in my science for non-majors classes, because then I could just look at the constellations or balance simple chemical equations without having to "theorize about the needs and experience of women in the context of a multicultural society and postcolonial world" (Political Science 344: Feminist Political Theory).

Then I began to take immense comfort in theorizing about the needs and experiences of men.

A few of my classmates opted to transfer after their first year, explaining that Stanford was closer to their California home, or that Columbia had more opportunities for theater and acting. These were the primary reasons, of course, because saying "I miss men" was simply out of the question. Other women -- the coeds -- needed that stereotypical college existence, with the kegs and the folklore about library stacks and the possibility of seeing someone of the male persuasion more frequently than every six weeks or months.

But we, the brave Wellesley sisters, were the links to the past. To look at us was to see the women who once defied the very society in which they were raised, who risked being outcasts by pursuing the education that was denied them elsewhere. We represented tradition.

I related to that traditional outcast feeling when I returned to a coed classroom at Harvard. In the space of two years, men had gone from being fellow classmates to the Dominating Voices, the Higher Wage Earners, the Beings With More Defensive Firming of Ego-Experienced Boundaries (à la Nancy Chodorow, read in two related Wellesley courses). These mythical figures surrounded me, and all I could do was stare. Stare.

When I heard guys talk -- something that had been almost completely absent from my everyday life from age 18 to 20 -- my concern about facts became nonexistent. Who could care about the finer points of the Geneva peace accords when the boy with the disarming smile and heartwarming laugh in your discussion group sat next to you one Tuesday midsemester and asked how your weekend was? And: "Oh no, this pen is dead -- hey thanks, it's Theresa, right?"

Thus, World Religions was not a critical discussion of the five major religions practiced across the globe and their impact upon social and cultural history, but a hello in the Store 24 from a guy who recognized me from class. Introduction to Music II never concerned the excerpts of "The Four Seasons" or "Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun" -- examples of works from the baroque and Romantic eras respectively. It was all about the guys who almost involuntarily adjusted their baseball caps at the end of each piece.

In the end, a vast array of logistical issues -- mostly about graduation requirements and endless paperwork -- forced me to return to Wellesley for my senior year.

Five years after receiving my diploma, I live within a few blocks of a large, coed university. Every morning I cram for that exam in early childhood development or philosophy of language along with my studious train mates; every night in the supermarket I become engrossed in overheard conversations about parties "down the hall" or "at some friend of his over on Beacon, I think." These daily scenes have come to form a new college viewbook for me. Flipping through its pages of hugs and laughs and ponytailed heads resting on broad shoulders, I become overwhelmed with regret. Anger. And wonder. Sometimes, wonder.

Story finder (3 ways to search Salon)

Search terms:

Salon the Web

Salon Directory (browse by topic)