By Eilene Zimmerman / New York Times News Service
ONE of the things Tina Campt, a professor and director of the Barnard Center for Research on Women, has noticed about the young women in her classes is their radically open notion of sexuality and gender.
“These students want the freedom to express who they are without the constraints of choices, such as either a woman or man, heterosexual or homosexual,” Campt said. “Those categories no longer carry a definitional value.”
Women now account for the majority of college students, according to the National Center for Education Statistics, 11.3 million of them as compared with 8.7 million men. And 63 percent identify as feminist. Their concerns run the gamut, from sexual assault and poverty to affordable education, immigration and reproductive rights, said Alison Dahl Crossley, the associate director of the Clayman Institute for Gender Research at Stanford University.
Both Campt and Crossley, who is also author of the book Finding Feminism: Millennial Activists and the Unfinished Gender Revolution, say women today are in a world that is profoundly different from what it was a generation ago, so they are having to create ways of coping with new challenges, the same as previous generations did.
“The structure of the economy, of family and of work is very, very different,” Campt said.
She said young women today were entering an economy with fewer work opportunities and much more debt. It is also an era in which feminist activism and education happen in both the physical world and the virtual one, often through blogs and social media.
One thing that surprised Crossley about the college women she studied was their wholehearted embrace of feminism. “They spoke about how feminism permeated their worldview and their interactions and the relationships they had in their everyday lives,” she said. We spoke to female undergraduates at colleges around the country to find out what issues they were most concerned about and what feminism meant to them. Their comments have been edited and condensed.
Morgan Brownlee, 22, graduated from San Diego State University in December, Sociology major and French minor
THE biggest issue for me as a woman on campus is safety and acceptance. When I walk in a room, I do a quick scan to see if there are any other women there. And if there are men, I look at how many are white, and their ages. It gives me a sense of the openness of the room.
I worry about equality of pay, and it’s something that when I hear my dad talk about, as a black man, I think, “He’ll still probably make more than I ever will,” because not only am I a woman, but I’m black. I feel like the women’s movement doesn’t represent women of color, as well as it could. I’m not expecting the movement to be perfect, but if you’re talking about women earning 80 cents for every dollar a man makes, you’re not really talking about Latina women, black women, Native American women, who make even less than that.
Melanie Camejo Coffigny, 18, first-year student, Duke University, Neuroscience major
IF you had asked me, my concerns about being a woman six months ago, I don’t know if they would have been the same.
The election and college have changed that. I’m a Cuban immigrant—I came to the US in 2009, when I was 11 years old—and what concerns me most now is the idea of safety, both on the college campus and in the world.
I’m very involved with the fight against rape culture, and I’m out as an LGBT student and activist. But the climate in North Carolina now, that’s something to be concerned about.
I worry a lot about immigration status. I’m technically safe, but who knows what will happen now. The whole idea of safety as something that is given to us by society concerns me.
The idea that we are to blame for what happens to us—women, minorities, immigrants—because of how we dress or express ourselves or our immigration status. There’s so much victim-blaming. I consider myself a feminist, and that means attaining equality in all the senses that entails. As an out woman of color, it’s the idea that I will be able to be myself and fight for the things I care about.
Alexa Dantzler, 21, senior, Emory University, Atlanta, Biology and African studies major
FOR me as a woman, what I see on campus and in the bigger world is that we’re always fighting for equal opportunity and access.
I am on the premed track, and I’m also African-American, Korean and Slovak. I see such a lack of minority women in STEM.
I haven’t had a physician mentor who is a minority woman, and I think it’s harder to relate to role models in your future career field when they haven’t had the same racial experiences. I don’t have someone I can ask: “What was it like being a black woman in your medical-school classes? What were the challenges you faced?” That’s a real concern of mine.
On campus, I’m concerned about the language and rhetoric used to describe minority groups, and that includes women. I think our voices may be heard less as a result of the current rhetoric and the direct implications of it.
Lexi Hoagland, 20, sophomore, Harding University, Searcy, Arkansas, Public relations and marketing major
I’M concerned that some women don’t feel capable of succeeding or comfortable in our own skin.
I am a conservative Christian and my morals and beliefs line up with that, but I would also say I’m a conservative Christian feminist. I believe in God and I am definitely pro-woman, but I’m also pro-man.
I believe God created men and created women with different skills and talents to serve for different reasons. Feminism to me is believing in myself, following my dreams and empowering other people—both men and women.
There’s a scripture in the Bible that I fall back on a lot, that I aspire to live by, and it’s really important. In Proverbs 31, it talks about being a “wife of noble character”. I’m not married, but I take it to mean not a wife but rather a ‘woman’ of noble character. Full of confidence in myself and bringing good to everyone around me, being a hard and persistent worker, being respectful, being bold—not shrinking or weak.
Kat Kerwin, 19, sophomore, University of Wisconsin, Madison, Political science and geography major
THE biggest issue on campus for women here is sexual assault, being afraid of the young men we know here, who are in our lives.
One of my best friends was sexually assaulted a year ago but didn’t report it, and we were out at a bar and he was there. She was very uncomfortable with him being there, and I went up to him and said, “Look, she feels really uncomfortable, could you leave?” He said no. It’s concerning, the rape culture and lack of respect for women.
Another big concern for me as a woman is being able to graduate and find a job. I think as a woman it’s a lot more difficult. Guys are given priority—you’ve seen the studies where if it says you’re a man on your résumé you are more likely to get hired. I’m also bothered that if you’re an assertive woman—and I’m called aggressive all the time simply because I’m assertive—it’s misconstrued as bossiness. That really undermines us. It says to women it’s not OK for us to be driven, ambitious and have strong opinions.
Kelsey Ritchie, 22, senior, Texas Christian University, Fort Worth , Political science and journalism major, business minor
I am concerned about unequal pay between men and women in the workplace. I’m going to grad school after college to study public policy and if I have debt after that, will I be able to pay it off, as well as my male peers? Because men earn more.
When I look at jobs, I know it will take me X amount of years longer to pay off my school debt than it would if I were a man. That could affect my ability to pursue a career I’m passionate about.
I consider myself a feminist and also a pretty religious Christian. I went to the march in Washington this past January, but I also went to the inauguration. I look at feminism as feeling empowered enough to behave in a way that demands respect, rather than acting in a way that demands attention. I am a student body vice president at TCU and very career-focused. I’ve thought a lot about balancing what the world defines as a strong woman with biblical truths, such as this phrase in Scripture: “Submit to your husband.”
The Bible is very clear about men being the ones to lead relationships. And for a long time it was difficult for me to accept this, but I’ve realized it doesn’t have to demean a woman’s role in a relationship. Submission doesn’t have to come from weakness. We are all called to serve each other by utilizing our strengths. My biblical foundation empowers me to advocate for women’s rights.
Image credits: Audra Melton/The New York Times