A recent article in the New York Times details the rising phenomenon of gender imbalances on college campuses—in particular, the sixty to forty percent ratio that exists at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. In “The New Math on Campus,” (William, 2010, p. ST1), Alex Williams explores the lives of young women at “just one of the many large universities that at times feel eerily like women’s colleges.” Williams initiates her discussion of this disproportionate gender representation with a summary of why this is occurring—citing reasons such as higher grades, retention statistics, and propensity to be a minority. Indeed, Williams is quick to acknowledge the good in this; women are disproportionately successful in early and upper level academic achievement in comparison to their male peers. Her real interest, however, lies in her extensive exploration of the effects of this gender imbalance. Williams believes that the overflow of women on college campuses has ignited a situation in which women are finding it “harder than expected to find a date on a Friday night” and guys are being placed in the position where it is acceptable and highly possible to “play the field” (Williams, 2010, p. ST1). Indeed, this is not the first encounter women’s studies—nor any college academic setting—has been introduced to the horrors of college “hook up culture.” However, I find Williams’ notion that gender imbalance is the ultimate culprit to be quite questionable. At Colgate University, a school with a slightly higher percentage of female students (52% female, 48% male), hook up culture seems to be elevated to unprecedented levels, which leads me to conclude that as there are several other (and more influential factors) that make “hook up culture” not only possible, but the norm.
Indeed, Williams suspects that “Thanks to simple laws of supply and demand, it is often the women who must assert themselves romantically or be left alone on Valentine’s Day, staring down a George Clooney movie over a half-empty pizza box” (Williams, 2010, p. ST1). Williams paints a discouraging image of young women attempting to “force” relationships out of random hook ups or, what seems even worse, allowing their male peers to get away with cheating (and other unacceptable behavior), simply because, in an environment where the datable men are far and few, “If you don’t let is slide, you don’t have a boyfriend” (Williams, 2010, p. ST1). Williams cites sociologist Kathleen A. Bogle’s interpretation of the impacts of this imbalance: “Women do not want to get left out in the cold, so they are competing for men on men’s terms,” she wrote. “This results in 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.” http://www.kathleenbogle.com/
While it is interesting to consider this perspective, I have found that there is a significantly larger number of factors playing into the situation that currently exists on a college campus such as Colgate. In response to the 2009 Campus Climate Survey, Colgate Sophomore Thomas Hedges recently wrote an incredibly controversial article titled “Sexploitation at Colgate” (Hedges, 2010) which detailed the unfortunate truths of the nature of “romantic” male and female interactions at Colgate. Hedges find that Colgate’s deeply rooted male chauvinist history—one that was late to admit females, minorities, and Jews—into its elite society, are at fault. Based on several interviews with female students, Hedges finds that Colgate is “male dominated” in the sense that men are in complete control of their interactions and relationships with their female peers.
http://www.maroon-news.com/commentary/sexploitation-at-colgate-1.1081493
In “Your Life as a Girl,” Curtis Sittenfeld indirectly alludes to the concept of a pre-college version hook up culture. In this case, Sittenfeld’s short story discusses the childhood and adolescence of a girl, plagued by constant male dominance and power and female inferiority (though often not explicit, but evident in all forms of daily life). In one section of the short story, Sittenfeld writes:
Friday night a boy next to you is feeling playful...The boy keeps saying he is in love with you. He rubs your shoulders and says ‘Your hair is magnificently soft,’ and everyone at the table cracks up. You say, ‘I forgot to wish you Happy Birthday yesterday,’ so he says, ‘Do it Now,’ and he sticks out his cheek for you to kiss. You say, ‘No way!’ You’re grinning ferociously, you’re practically hyper from the attention, and you think that if he offers you the option of kissing him, you couldn’t be that gross after all. And then on Saturday morning, when you pass in the hall, he looks at your exhaustedly and says not a word. (Sittenfeld, 2001).
While there is no sexual interaction involved in this situation, Sittenfeld lends insight to what may be the root of hook up culture; that women (and even girls) have been programmed to understand—and blindly accept—that men will always control the course of their interactions and relations. Much like the women in Williams’ article who live in a world where “men have the social power” and “create a man’s ideal of relationships,” (Williams, 2010, p. ST1) and the women at Colgate who say “The men control the hook-up culture. The guys have the power to change it to a dating culture. But they choose not to,” (Hedges, 2010) this young girl accepts this idea—that whatever future interactions may occur is not her decision but entirely left to the male’s desires and preferences—as truth, as the norm, and does not even bother to question that fact.
Williams does, however, make a valid case for how gender imbalance on college campus is certainly playing into and impacting the rise of hook up culture. Indeed, one girl claims: “If a guy is not getting what he wants, he can quickly and abruptly go to the next one, because there are so many of us” (Williams, 2010, p. ST1). This young woman’s realization is indicative of the fact that gender imbalance is certainly not helping the growing prevalence of hook up culture, but I believe that there is more fostering this phenomenon and that it is necessary to look deeper into its origins. If girls as young as those described by Sittenfeld are accepting that males are meant to dictate male/female interactions, that this is normal and a given, it is no wonder that women are engaging in repeated meaningless sex when, in actuality, they want more out of their relationships. Men perpetuate the trend, but so do women, by accepting that it is up to the men to change it.
Works Cited
Hedges, Thomas (2010, January 22). Sexploitation at Colgate. Colgate Maroon News.
Sittenfeld, Curtis (2001). Your Life as a Girl. In B. Findland (Ed.), Listen Up (pp. 3-10). Emeryville, CA: Seal Press.
Williams, A. (2010, February 5). The New Math on Campus. New York Times, p. ST1.
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