This weekend I celebrated the 25th Anniversary of Coeducation at Dartmouth. To me, the Coed Celebration is not just about seeing Meryl Streep, or passively attending the one weekend's events. Rather, it is the beginning of a process of celebrating how far we have come and realizing how far we still have to go.
I talked to a lot of alumnae this weekend, especially those who graduated in the first coed classes. I heard a lot of scary stuff, the parts of Dartmouth's history that many people are not aware of and definitely not proud of. I heard about female halls being spraypainted, women's personal belongings being vandalized, and the kind of stuff that made me wonder what kind of women could have possibly endured such pain. The strong women I talked to spoke of the isolation they felt, how they were often treated like unwelcome strangers and how truly unhappy they often were. I cannot even fathom the courage, resilience and perseverance it must have taken for those women to emerge from Dartmouth with both a degree and their sanity.
It has been these 25 years of struggle that have created the Dartmouth that I currently attend and often take for granted. It is pretty much inconceivable today that someone would try to vandalize my personal property because I am a woman. But is the struggle over yet? Have we achieved gender equity on this campus? As I have pondered this, I have been left with more questions than answers.
Last week I went to a Dartmouth Community Services Council dinner. How many men were in the room? Zero. Why are the majority of Tucker projects run by females with majority female participants? Volunteering is not, and should not be a "woman's" thing. Homelessness, illiteracy and lack of role models for children are just a few of the problems our entire society faces and that the Tucker Foundation addresses. Why don't more men volunteer there?
Why are women sexually assaulted on this campus by friends, acquaintances and others? Date rape remains an all-too-real fact of life for too many women on this campus. Due to lack of reporting, it most likely happens more frequently than any of us realize. Why do some men disrespect women's bodies and continue to violate them?
Why is Tindle Lounge a male-dominated place? Why have male acquaintances assumed that I need the rules of football explained to me? Do they make the same assumptions of their guy friends? Why are there more male chemistry majors than female ones, yet more female biology majors? What about engineering and economics? Why do I feel like I am treated differently by many of my peers here than I was in my all-female high school?
This weekend truly inspired me to keep fighting for things I want to change. Listening to Sweet Honey in the Rock was a particularly moving experience. It made me even more aware that change will never come about unless we, the students, continue to fight for it. Dartmouth has come a long way in the last 25 years, but there is still a long way to go. I brought up a few questions which make me think that gender equity has not been achieved; I'm sure you can, and should, think of many more.
We as students need to challenge and confront behaviors that contribute to gender stereotypes. We need to educate our friends, our acquaintances and everyone around us. We can't be afraid to stand up for what we believe in, to speak out against the majority, to ask questions. I'm not only talking to women here. This struggle affects everyone, and needs to be fought be everyone. Just think about how hard the men and women who came before fought to create a Dartmouth for everyone. Let's continue their struggle.
