Ok, so it's four years later. I am a senior, a soon-to-be graduate, and a woman. What
do I want to do with the rest of my life? Beats me -- I remember seeing Ferris Bueller's Day Off in the movie theater. The girl I baby sat over break had never heard of it. I feel closer to the days when the guys wore parachute pants and we played kick the can; not to the days of getting married and being a "real person." I've even started sitting at the grown-ups table when I go home.
As my time runs out on this campus, I find myself involved in more and more conversations in which people are finally admitting their fears. I want to thank all of my stimulating friends whose ideas I will freely espouse in this random stream of consciousness. Would I do it over again? Would I send my daughters to Dartmouth? Would I send my sons to Dartmouth? Where will I ever meet anyone after graduation? These fears are common and you don't only have to be a senior to stress over them. So why do I feel alone when I think about them?
I have great women friends. I love Dartmouth. But last week I was at a women's empowerment workshop that I left feeling anything but empowered. We talked about the dilemmas women face at Dartmouth and in the world. I feel like I have the same conversations over and over again and nothing ever changes. In fact, my outlook grows increasingly blurry.
At the workshop we had to define the word "Housekeeper." We came up with words like stationwagon, curlers, fussy and soap operas. Another group had to define "Career Woman." Wow, that was an interesting one. One of the women in that group prefaced the reading of the derived list by saying, "I intend on being a career woman, but I would hate to be associated with any of the words on this list." One of the first: bitch. Then came lonely, unemotional, masculine, cold. I don't consider myself any of these things and I want to have a career. Does that mean I will become these adjectives or will I simply be pegged as a cold-lonely-bitch because I have a career and will be a success?
Women are supposed to be nurturers -- we spent the better half of the workshop talking about the effects our mothers had on our development. We love our mothers. We hate our mothers. It's the biggest compliment in the world when someone tells me over the phone that I sound "just like my mother." It is the lowest blow my little sister can hurt me with in a fight: "You are just like Mom." But then again the oedipal complex is alive and well -- the two guys I had drinks with this week spent the better half of our conversation talking about their relationship with their mothers.
My women friends are looking for Non-Profit organizations, Social Work, careers in education. They know that a few years down the line they will want to raise a family. Well, how do they know this? Why don't my guy friends think in these terms? Women are abnormal if they don't want to be "helping others" or a "good mom." Yet at the workshop the leader asked us to share what we personally do to feel empowered. Almost every single one of the women said basically the same thing: BE ALONE. Not to be helping others, nurturing, or conquering this campus like the tiger-lady nightmare from the movies. They simply wanted some time to their very own, with no one around, when they could be selfishly obsessed with developing themselves as rational, whole and sane people.
Are we rational? No. Women are totally irrational. That is a bold statement, but that's the problem with this campus and the women on this campus. Say things. Do things. Don't hide in the corners. Especially avoid the fraternity basement corners where women end up acting like "the ditz-you-could-never-be-because-then-you-wouldn't-be-here" that we are all familiar with and may have even been at one time or another whether we admit it or not. We are irrational because we feel the need to carry the baggage for all of the women who didn't have the opportunity to attend an Ivy League school and go on to be doctors, lawyers and engineers. We think that since we are the first generation of women to theoretically have all doors open to us (watch out for the glass-ceiling, ladies) we are "wasting" our brains and talent if say, yes, we just wanted to be a mom for a few years.
What's my point? That's the problem, I don't know. I am more confused about who I am than I was before I came to Dartmouth. Before I came here, I was a person. Now I am a "woman." I am supposed to be sensitive yet firm, aggressive not bitchy, nurturing but not clingy, feminist but not obnoxious, a leader but not overwhelming, an intellectual but well-rounded. Well, I simply can not remember all of these corollaries all of the time. I see two totally different species on my planet Earth now: men and women. Something tells me that this isn't quite right. I think I'll call my mom and ask her. She'll say all the wrong things which will turn out to be totally right. I hate that.
