My First College Lesson: Gender Norms
Graduation 2018
From the age of five to eighteen, I attended a small, all girls school on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. Every morning, I put on my navy pleated skirt with a quarter zip to substitute the required polo and arrived at my school’s signature blue doors seconds before first period. I never wore makeup, I hardly ever brushed my hair, and never, not once in my memories from Kindergarten to twelfth grade, was I afraid to raise my hand in the classroom. I offered my answers and asked clarifying questions with little to no hesitation.
Not until much later in my academic career did I understand the prevalence of timidness and embarrassment in educational environments because my K-12 experience was anything but. Girls fought over who could speak next and popularity was heavily determined by GPA and class rank. Smart equated cool; debating opinions demonstrated intellect and wit. Caring about politics was not just encouraged, it was the expectation.
Arriving at college in rural Virginia, therefore, was a cultural shock. I was unprepared for the contrasting norms and the attitude that was met with my persistent and liberal all-girls school ways.
I vividly remember one of my first classes of college in which I pushed back on a belief a male classmate had clearly been brought up viewing as fact. The topic: religion; the debate: ethnogenesis. Different backgrounds help emphasize context and perspective, I thought, hearing from both sides strengthens the debate. After I left the class, I moved on. I only realized the boy’s upset from his distasteful greeting when running into him at a party. My opposing comments had followed me from the classroom’s four walls and were strongly impacting the dynamics of a distinctly different social setting. I was unprepared to be taunted about my political beliefs at all hours of the night. My prior experiences had demonstrated a tacit expectation of mutual respect when discussing different viewpoints. I was unprepared for the newfound lack of respect I felt from male classmates that extended past the educational realm as a result of my courage to disagree.
It felt as though there was an expectation of caution and reservation from my female classmates, and what was worse was the realization that it was mainly self-imposed. It seemed as though whenever I glanced around classes freshman year, my girl classmates were quiet, almost stoic. Throughout that first semester, I found myself constantly asking: Why am I the only girl struggling with this? Admitting that I didn’t know something in front of a crowd had never felt shameful before. Questions transformed from a help-seeking method to a humiliation mechanism with an abrupt perspective change that I did not appreciate in my higher level of education. And it was clear that my female classmates had the answers. But the risk of their commentary affecting their social lives was prioritized over their class participation.
I say this now in retrospect with a grain of salt. Freshman year is one giant learning curve with everyone playing ‘catch up’ in some aspect of daily life. It is also a huge transitional milestone with insecurities and vulnerabilities at all time peaks. I do not judge the girls in my classes for focusing first on the social aspect of college and collecting their comfort before mimicking my ways of what felt like pasting a target on my back. I also acknowledge my own learning curve that placed me in many of those early, uncomfortable situations. I was unaware how much my all-female schooling had impacted me and my methods of learning. I didn’t place a higher weight on my social life than class participation because I had been taught the exact opposite: bold comments received A’s; A’s were met with popularity. It didn’t occur to me that this was atypical until experiencing the flip-side firsthand.
Since freshman year, I have felt much more accepted and appreciated for my beliefs even from the original boy in my story. I have also seen much more participation from my female classmates who now dominate the majority of class discussions. I only wish this confidence had been instilled in other women from a young age as it had been in me, making initial reservations shocking and the sentiment of female dominance in classes the norm.