The Uneven Female: Male Ratio on College Campuses: Who is to blame for the hook up culture?

Across America, there are more women than men attending college. This is due to a number of reasons: women’s achievement in higher grades and more men entering the work force upon high school graduation are just a few. The New York Times published an article titled “The New Math on Campus” which discusses the gender imbalance on college campuses throughout America. Many American colleges and universities have an unequal female: male ratio and the disparity seems to be growing. This article examines how the gender imbalance affects college relationships or the lack thereof. I thought it was very appropriate for a News Flash because I think many of the concerns that are raised in this article are echoed here at Colgate. I know many of my single Colgate friends find themselves putting out and feeling pressured to act a certain way in order to “secure a guy” and constantly lamenting the Colgate hook up culture. The unequal male to female ratio at American colleges has resulted in a dating culture that is dominated by men’s rules but is a system that both men and women participate.

The laws of supply and demand at American colleges and universities are leaning in the men’s favor. As a result, women “are competing for men on men’s terms,” (New York Times) meaning that there more “casual hook-up encounters that do not end up leading to more serious romantic relationships. Since college women say they generally want ‘something more’ than just a casual hook-up, women end up losing out.” (New York Times). Consequently, women tend to do more than they feel comfortable just to “secure” the guy or hoping that those actions will lead to more than every other causal hookup. This illustrates system of patriarchy in which both men and women play a role according to the article “Patriarch, the System: An It Not a He a Them, or an Us.” As expected in a patriarchal system, men make the rules as seen on these college campuses and reap the benefits of having the numbers skewed in their favor. Not only are men reaping the benefits of being surrounded by six women at a bar and having many girls interested, but they are also able to get away with actions that would be less tolerable if the ratio was more balanced and especially if it were tipped in women’s favor. For example, Emily Kennard, a junior at Chapel Hill explained “As for a man’s cheating, “that’s a thing that girls let slide, because you have to. If you don’t let it slide, you don’t have a boyfriend.” (New York Times). This is an example of a way this patriarchal system causes girls to act in ways they might not act otherwise simply so that they don’t spend Valentine’s Day at home watching When Harry Met Sally with a pint of Ben and Jerry’s Chubby Hubby Ice Cream.

However, men are not the only ones to contribute to the system. Even those girls who according to Kate Andrew, a senior at Chapel Hill describes as those who “slip on tight-fitting tops, hair sculpted, makeup just so, all for the benefit of one another, because there are no guys” (New York Times) are perpetuating the system. When these many girls in their tight sequined tops crowd around a boy or two at a table, the boys continue to remain in control of the situation. And when these girls engage in the casual hook up culture, they continue to feed the cycle.

Swarming around men like bees and putting out is not the only way that women today are feeding the system. A trend that seems to be pervading these college campuses is women who are adopting stereotypical men’s actions in vying for the men’s attention. A junior at Chapel Hill shared an example of how girls act differently in order to be noticed when she said “I was talking to a friend at a bar, and this girl just came up out of nowhere, grabbed him by the wrist, spun him around and took him out to the dance floor and started grinding” (New York Times). Stereotypically, a man would make a move like that while the women remained more passive and reserved at the bar, but the gender gap seems to have sparked a kind of role reversal. Ariel Levy would look at this and point out that this situation is by no means a move toward equality. In fact, she would note that it is a perfect example of how in our culture today, we are valuing stereotypical men’s behavior and devaluing stereotypical female behavior. She would be pleased to see however, that women on these American college campuses are not calling this situation “empowering” or “liberating.”

Both men and women are participating in this system of patriarchy that is pervading college campuses across America. Women at Colgate are by no means exempt from this. It is not uncommon to walk into the Coop or in a conversation on a Monday morning between a set of friends to hear the tales of woe about boys and the hook up culture at Colgate. And if that weren’t enough, the Campus Climate Survey shed light on the very similar situation that Colgate faces. So as the administration struggles to figure out how to improve Colgate and correct these problems that students have voiced, they should remember that both men and women participate in perpetuating this cycle. Targeting one group will not correct it. Obviously the Admissions Office needs to start accepting more men than women to correct this problem, but in the broader scope of things more can be done. Women need to look at their individual actions at college. It is four years of their life and while it may be comforting to have a boyfriend, settling for less than they want or deserve continues to perpetuate the system and send signals that men’s behavior is acceptable. Men may not be actively perpetuating this system as the numbers just happen to be skewed in their favor, however they should be aware of the problem and know that what they can get away with in college with a much larger female: male ratio than in the world, that their actions will not have the same great effect in the real world where there is a smaller gender gap. But surprisingly, women while they are suffering the greatest problem here, also have a great deal of power to fix it. If women focused on themselves and what they wanted and their individual actions and stopped feeding into this system, the men would be left with fewer girls fawning over them and the laws of supply and demand would work and balance out.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/07/fashion/07campus.html?pagewanted=1&sq=gender&st=cse&scp=3

Ariel Levy: Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture.

Allan Johnson: “Patriarchy as a System”.