Bogus New York Times Gender Trend #462
Never trust the New York Times when it ventures into the murky waters of zeitgest or trend. Today's front page features a story called, ironically, The New Math on Campus and is about the romantic bind college women apparently find themselves in now that they outnumber college men. Only problem is, their math is way off, as it so often is in studies that attempt to pin down so-called differences in the way men and women approaching mating and dating.According to the article, a group of women from the University of North Carolina, where women make up 60% of the population, "slip on tight-fitting tops, hair sculpted, makeup just so, all for the benefit of one another..." because, according to one of the young women, "there are no guys.”You know what then? Go to another bar. 60% is not a significant enough majority to explain the absence of a single male specimen at any bar in a college town. Maybe they're next door. Or, I don't know, studying.At the University of Vermont in Burlington, where the student population is a staggering 55% female, apparently some of the students refer to the town as “Girlington.”Huh? Are the other 45% not only male, but also invisible?But it gets worse, as the interviewees for this increasingly breathless panic-feast go out of their way to reinforce the stereotype that girls can't do math.One of the North Carolina students complains that out of the 40% of the student body that is male, "there are maybe 20 percent that we would consider, and out of those 20, 10 have girlfriends, so all the girls are fighting over that other 10 percent.”This is not a problem of male versus female enrollment in college. This is a problem of you being choosy and also, not knowing basic arithmatic. If 10% of the guys you'd consider have girlfriends, that means 10% of your competition is out of the picture too. Remedial math is in your future, I think.Okay, so what's this all about anyway? Why is the New York Times wasting its energy on a bunch of math-challenged young women who clearly don't know how to use Google Maps?Here's a clue:
...this puts guys in a position to play the field, and tends to mean that even the ones willing to make a commitment come with storied romantic histories. Rachel Sasser, a senior history major at the table, said that before she and her boyfriend started dating, he had “hooked up with at least five of my friends in my sorority — that I know of.”
You know what that means, Rachel? It means your sorority sisters did their fair share of hooking up too.But, of course, women "hook up" for different reasons than men, right? To answer this, the Times called upon Kathleen A. Bogle, author of Hooking Up: Sex, Dating and Relationships on Campus. According to Ms. Bogle:
"Women do not want to get left out in the cold, so they are competing for men on men’s terms. 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.”
And here we have it. Women are being screwed by, well, being screwed. I can't for the life of me figure out why there is such a hunger to believe that men are grunting promiscuous beasts while women are chaste husband-hunters. It's so tiresomely last century and so obviously simplistic. Plenty of men want relationships. Plenty of women want to play the field. To suggest that a marginal increase in the percentage of women on campus has turned all women into victims of unfettered male lust is just daft.But keeping women afraid is a popular past time in persistently patriarchal societies, and the Times and Ms. Bogle, are happy to play along. Their message is simple:Women, fear your academic superiority. Fear your sexual liberation too. And while you're at it fear for your eroding virtue as you succumb to the "terms" of men you yourself have deemed eligible.Alternatively, take a look at the guys you've dismissed as "ineligible." But only after you've taken a good look in the mirror yourself.