The Story
Staff Editorial: The Wo(Men)'s Rights Movement
The year 2008 marks the 90th anniversary of women attending the College. In 1918, William and Mary became the first state-supported four-year college in Virginia to admit women, and the Commonwealth of Virginia became the final state in the union to finally provide public higher education to its female residents.
So as 2008 is coming to a close, we should wonder: where are we now? What have roughly 90 years wrought in the fight for women’s equality?
In 1920, the 19th Amendment prohibited state and federal governments from denying women the right to vote based on their sex.
In 1936, federal law ruled that information on birth control was no longer classified as obscene, and in 1960, the Food and Drug Administration approved birth control pills.
The 1963 Equal Pay Act made it illegal to pay men and women different wages for equal jobs, and one year later the Civil Rights Act barred employment discrimination based on sex.
In 1972, Title IX banned sex discrimination - from academics to athletics - in schools with federal financial assistance.
And then, in 1981, the College’s very own chancellor, Sandra Day O’Connor, became the first woman appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Ninety years has certainly seen an impressive run of progress for American women. How have men fared during this time?
Two years ago, the male-to-female ratio among American college students was 43:57, and a 2005 report by USA Today quoted Thomas Mortensen , publisher of the Postsecondary Education Opportunity newsletter, as saying that national statistics forecasted a continued drop in the percentage of males on college campuses - across all races, income groups and fields of study.
The Department of Education predicted the gender gap would worsen to 40:60 by 2010, and studies agree that more boys are continuing to drop out of high school and college.
Additionally, programs once enacted to protect women’s rights, like Title IX, are under scrutiny due to claims of adverse effects on male students. A Government Accountability Office study showed that between 1981 and 1998, the number of women’s sports teams grew and the number of men’s teams available per male student declined by 21 percent.
So, where are the cries for men’s gender equity?
Author and family therapist Michael Gurian argued in 2005 that “there is no big network that protects the needs of boys” and also commented that “if we create a generation of men who aren’t getting an education, that’s bad for women.”
It seems that the voices speaking up today for men’s equality in college admissions and college athletics are few, and it seems that they are speaking against a much louder voice of media images and traditional notions that say being male means not needing someone else to fight for you.
In reality, many of these problems start before college. The average male faces a dangerous statistic that says he will drop out or lose motivation during his early academic career. No wonder the competition among women in college admissions grows ever harsher, while most men merely follow their ambitions and boost the all-important gender ratio.
In the 1994 movie adaptation of Louisa May Alcott’s “Little Women,” Jo March said, “I find it poor logic to say that women should vote because they are good. Men do not vote because they are good; they vote because they are male. And women should vote, not because we are angels and men are animals, but because we are human beings and citizens of this country.”
When the tables are turned, shouldn’t this logic still hold true? Women do not deserve campaigns for equality because they are good or fragile; women deserve equality because they are human beings and citizens of this country. Men, as also human beings and citizens of this country, deserve that same push for equality.
In no way is the point to say that the women’s rights movement has finished its work. On average, women still receive only 77 cents for every dollar men receive in salary, and worldwide, more women work in sweatshops and live in poverty than men.
The point is that when the facts show inequalities and we ignore (or laugh at) the thought of a “men’s rights movement,” we are perpetuating the idea that while it’s okay for women to have a major advocacy movement, it’s not okay for men.
To the men - this is unfair. And to the women - this screams inferiority, something that would certainly be against the ideals of that first class of women who entered the College 90 years ago.
This piece originally appeared in the November 2008 issue issue of The DoG Street Journal.