The Dartmouth Green Key 2016 by The Dartmouth Newspaper

Coeducation: from 1972 to now p. 3

Breakdown of Reflections on student majors gender non-binary p. 5 experiences p. 10

Student athletes on the impact of gender p. 14-15 ALISON GUH/THE DARTMOUTH SENIOR STAFF

THE DARTMOUTH GREEN KEY 2016

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Editor’s Note

When we started thinking about what the topic of gender means, we realized that it is incredibly broad. Gender is an integral part of our identities, and thus plays a role in almost everything we do. As gender has risen to the forefront of national discussion, particularly in the context of politics, we wanted to explore how these diﬀerent issues and experiences manifest here on campus. Dartmouth’s gender dynamics are somewhat complex — the College was all-male for the ﬁrst 202 years of its history — so it wasn’t a surprise to us that we found widely varying experiences and feelings over the course of our partnership. Gender is a deeply personal, highly individual topic, and it is impossible to capture all perspectives within our limited number of pages. For our special issue, we wanted to highlight stories and opinions that capture snapshots of how gender comes into play at Dartmouth. From admissions to sports, we wanted to portray gender through the Dartmouth lens, showing our readers how we view the subject both as an institution and as a student body. We hope this issue will serve as a catalyst to continue thoughtful conversations on campus about gender and gender identity.

Table of Contents A history of gender at Dartmouth

STEM and humanities ﬁelds see gender disparity

Greek houses adjust to new concepts of gender

Student survey reveals mixed opinions on gender

Women underrepresented in graduate schools

Gender studies research expands at the College

Theater department sees eﬀorts to involve women

Narratives outside the gender binary

Alumnae pioneer in gender-related ﬁelds

Gender shapes perceptions of mental health

Student organizations vary in gender makeup

Sports and gender interact at Dartmouth

Chin: Not Just the Numbers

Verbum Ultimum: Questioning Spaces

Coeducation: A Photo Essay

Through the Looking Glass: Screaming (Woman of) Color

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THE DARTMOUTH GREEN KEY 2016

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Coeducation at Dartmouth has a complicated history By JOYCE LEE The Dartmouth Staff

It was the fall of 1971, and the country was roiling in issues of desegregation, women’s rights, movements for the rights of indigenous peoples and protests against the war in Vietnam. At Dartmouth, the Board of Trustees had just voted to admit women as degree candidates and members of the first coeducational graduating class in September 1972. That spring, John Kemeny, had succeeded John Sloan Dickey as president and began to pave the way for changes to the previously all-male campus to reflect the shifting times. One of these changes included coeducation, an idea that had been introduced a decade before when the College expanded the 19611962 academic year to four terms to include a summer term. During the new summer term, women could take classes that would count towards their degrees at their own schools. By 1965, a poll conducted by The Dartmouth reported that students were split exactly in half on the issue of coeducation, with 71 percent of the faculty supporting it, while only 28 percent of the alumni even mildly favored coeducation. In 1969, according to The Harvard Crimson , the College conducted a five-day coeducational experiment in which the College bussed up women to campus and invited them to participate in classes and campus activities for what was dubbed “Coed Week.” The College had “succumbed to the coeducational bug that [had] recently gripped the Ivy League,” The Crimson reported. A female student from Vassar College and participant in the experiment was quoted in The Boston Globe describing Dartmouth as “a sylvan bucolic place with a good academic climate.” She also stated, “We must have coeducation; girls intellectually sit on their fannies when they are alone.” Yet while the experiment was meant to serve as an example for a coeducational experience, an unnamed member of The Dartmouth, then known as The Daily Dartmouth, said to The Crimson that he did not feel the experiment legitimately showed what coeducation would be like. “The week was more social than educational,” he said. “Having girls around was just too different for us to accept them as regular students. It was the parties that really mattered.” Following Coed Week, the College decided to participate in a 12-college exchange program, enrolling 70 women for the 1969-1970 school year, who would not receive degrees from the College but be able to take classes at Dartmouth for a

year. As calls for coeducation grew, the Board of Trustees established the Trustee Study Committee on Coeducation, which recommended in 1971 that Dartmouth become fully coeducational. Soon after the announcement of his succession as college president, Kemeny formed a committee to come up with a plan for “year-round operation.” In the fall of 1971, the committee presented a plan that fully integrated the coeducation of the College with its year-round operation, which would become known as the Dartmouth Plan, or the D-Plan to current students. Former dean of residential life Mary Turco’s doctoral thesis on the history of women faculty at Dartmouth from 1960 to 1990 quoted chair of that committee Gregory

mit women as 25 percent of each freshman class without decreasing the number of male students on campus at any given time during the academic year. In December 1971, the College received 7,362 applications for admission, 414 of which were from women, many of whom were members of the 12-college exchange program. In an interview conducted by Alex Fanelli ’42 in 1984, Kemeny said that he had not always been in favor of coeducation and had even been publicly on record as not favoring it when he was a younger faculty member at Dartmouth. However, he said he had changed his opinion partly because he had become convinced that for young men to spend some of the most formative four years of their life in an all-male, isolated environment could have a strongly

not yet equal, felt like guests said Ivy Schweitzer English and women’s, gender and sexuality studies professor. Religion and women’s, gender and sexuality studies professor Susan Ackerman ’80 said that as an undergraduate in the 1970s, Dartmouth remained very much an all-male school with women rather than a truly coeducational school, due to the ratio of three men to one woman that came from the decision to simply add 1,000 female students to the 3,000-male student population. A contingent of men remained opposed to coeducation, Ackerman said. While it was not the majority of men at the College, it was a very vocal minority. “It was a loud voice, louder than the actual numbers who actually subscribed to it,” Ackerman said.

ERIN LEE/THE DARTMOUTH STAFF

Data from the Oﬃce of Institutional Research.

Prince ’63 as saying that part of the genius of [the plan] was that it was not separable. “You could not have the yearround operation without coeducation. The faculty wanted coeducation. They didn’t want year-round operation, but were willing to change to get it,” he said to Turco. “The Trustees didn’t want coeducation, but they wanted year-round operation.” Throughout this push towards coeducation, alumni continually voiced their displeasure. In 1970, 59 percent of alumni said women should be educated. Alumni could not agree on whether the College should continue in the exchange program, build a sister school or become coeducational. To appease alumni, the College promised it would not allow the number of men on campus to fall below 3,000. The newly installed D-Plan allowed the College to ad-

distorting effect on their lives. “I talked to a number of alumni who would, when they got to know you well, tell you that, while in many ways they loved Dartmouth, Dartmouth had had a very negative impact on them as far as relations with women are concerned,” Kemeny said. “I did also feel that there was a strong danger that we’d be turning out a generation of male chauvinist pigs who would not be able to work with women as equals in the professions. So for all of those reasons, I became convinced well before I became president that coeducation was absolutely necessary.” After the Transition Coeducation became a fundamental part of the College after Kemeny’s efforts in 1971. However, many female students who were part of the institution for the first few years after the transition, when the ratio of men to women was still

“It could be a pretty in-your-face voice. Women undergraduates in 1980s were not called coeds but called cohogs.” Cohogs, a derogatory term for female students, was a crass pun on quahogs, or shellﬁsh found in the Northeast, and became a way to deﬁne women by their genitalia, Ackerman said. Signs could often be found hanging with phrases like “Cohogs go home.” “I remember particularly that one of the dorms I would go by everyday was Hitchcock, which was an all-male dorm and known as one of the places where guys in the vocal minority lived,” Ackerman said. “There was a painted banner that said ‘Cohogs go home!’ outside a window. The most amazing thing is that it hung there all day — which would not be possible today. It was just a given that this was part of the campus discourse. I don’t necessarily think this was what everyone

thought, but it was said loudly and everyone heard it.” Schweitzer said that during the earlier period of coeducation, there was explicit condemnation of women, with misogynist songs and phrases that the administration tolerated as “blowing oﬀ steam,” whereas now, such behavior is not tolerated on campus. Dartmouth’s history of being a rather conservative and primarily male space that promoted an image of self-suﬃciency in rural New Hampshire fed the attitude of students who wanted to maintain their “masculine heaven,” Schweitzer said. “This was also about entitlement — [Dartmouth’s] always been a place of privilege, and privilege reproduces itself, and doesn’t want to give up its power or open its doors to others,” Schweitzer said. “We think of ourselves as a meritocracy, but when privilege comes into it, it doesn’t have to be a meritocracy, and instead is a privileged enclave that could reproduce itself. It was okay if you came as wives, but they didn’t want women as equals.” The shift to coeducation changed not only the student population but administration and faculty as well, Ackerman said. However, while the dean of first-year students was a woman during her time at Dartmouth, there were not many women administrators, Ackerman said. Schweitzer also said that even as women faculty increased, none of them were tenured and instead became part of the junior ranking professors. “It was kind of cliché that when [Dartmouth] was an all male institution, the only women the students would see all week were women working in the dining hall,” Ackerman said. However, Ackerman notes that despite the dominance of men at the College even after becoming coeducational, there were still many welcoming male students, especially within organizations on campus such as the Dartmouth Outing Club and athletic teams. In 1997, almost two decades after her graduation, Ackerman said she was present for a weekend celebration on campus to mark the 25th anniversary of coeducation. She had attended with several classmates, and on the way to a Saturday event, one of them remarked that it was amazing to be at the campus and to be welcome, noting that it was a large indication of how much campus has changed since women were initially admitted 25 years earlier. Dartmouth’s Legacy Despite progressive changes, SEE HISTORY PAGE 16

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THE DARTMOUTH GREEN KEY 2016

FRIDAY, MAY 20, 2016

STEM and humanities fields see gender disparity in students By CARTER BRACE

The Dartmouth Staff

The liberal arts experience promises a well-rounded education to students. Despite exposure to multiple fields of study, majors are often broken up along gender lines. As the evidence shows, 44 years after Dartmouth went coeducational, certain undergraduate majors are still heavily skewed towards men or women. In an undergraduate student body evenly split between men and women, men still make up the disproportionate share of science, engineering and mathematics majors while women still make up a disproportionate share of arts and humanities majors. “There is this undercurrent of judgment about which gender is more capable of what,” former president of the Association for Women in Mathematics and mathematics professor Carolyn Gordon said. Only two of the 10 most popular majors for women are in the sciences at Dartmouth, compared to five of the 10 most popular majors for men, according to data from the Office on Institutional Research. Despite the general trend where approximately 60 percent of the majors in the science division at Dartmouth are male, women also continue to be particularly underrepresented in quantitative science fields like computer science, chemistry and physics. The Women in Science Project at Dartmouth was founded in 1991 to encourage and support female students at Dartmouth interested in STEM fields. WISP particularly works to target first year female stu-

dents interested in STEM. An even number of men and women enter Dartmouth with an interest in STEM fields, even though fewer women ultimately major in the area. “That’s not a problem if they choose to leave the sciences for the right reason but what concerns us is when they leave for the wrong reason, when they think they’re failing and they’re not failing,” assistant director for outreach and programs for WISP Kathy Scott Weaver said. Weaver said that stereotypes and societal assumptions can lead women to develop falsely low perceptions of their own abilities in math and sciences. All students and faculty interviewed for this article who expressed on an opinion on the issue stressed that the gender imbalance in STEM was not the result of innate differences between genders, but rather the result of societal conditions such as gendered expectations for career paths. Gordon said that, within our society, there is still a perception that STEM is a male field and that this perception can affect the number of advanced STEM courses students take in high school, consequently affecting their decision to major in a STEM subject in college. Another factor is confidence, Gordon said. In math, when people are deciding whether to take the honors or non-honors version, two students who had the same performance previously may judge their readiness for said difficulty differently, with women more likely to judge themselves harshly. “If a guy doesn’t do well in the course, he may have a whole litany of

excuses, and a woman says, ‘I wasn’t good enough’” said Dana Williams, chair of the math department. Another important element is a lack of female role models. Some STEM departments do better than others at providing female role models for students, such as biology, which is currently on its third female chair, Weaver said. Gordon noted that the success of WISP in other STEM fields like the life sciences and engineering may have drawn potential female math majors away from the subject, though Gordon stressed that she viewed WISP positively. The department, at least on the basis of individual professors, would also like to see more women taking math courses. Math is a predominantly male department. In 2015, 59 percent of majors were male, a proportion closer to gender parity than in years past. In 2010, 73 percent of math majors at the College were male, and in 2005, 63 percent of majors were male. Jade Yen ’19, who has taken a number of math classes, noted that there might be five to seven women in a class in comparison 18 to 20 men. Despite the general trend of predominantly male STEM majors, majors in the life sciences or brain sciences such as biology, neuroscience and psychology, are mainly female. Women also make up the majority of applicants to medical schools from Dartmouth, Weaver said . By contrast, only 46 percent of medical school applicants nationwide are female. This exception amongst STEM majors may come from a mindset among women that values helping others, she said. “[Women] want to help people.

They want to make a difference in the world. When women can see the impact of the work they’re doing, they’re much more motivated” Weaver said, while acknowledging that she was generalizing women. Additionally, there exist engineering opportunities at the College that focus on helping others, in a manner similar to the life sciences, such as a class on human-centered design and the Dartmouth Humanitarian Engineering club, Weaver said. Chair of the geography department Susanne Freidberg gave a similar explanation for the popularity of the geography department among women, where 75 percent of majors are female. “We have a strong emphasis on international development, global health and social justice issues. And those are the kinds of classes where we also have majority women,” Freidberg said. As for Dartmouth’s most popular science subject, engineering, the gender ratio is almost at parity, compared to the situation nationwide where only 19 percent of engineering majors are female, Weaver said. Forty-six percent of engineering science majors in 2015 were female as opposed to only 32 percent in 2011. Part of that success can be attributed to a hands-on approach to engineering, such as in the introductory engineering class, which encourages all students to get involved in the subject, according to Weaver. She added that another reason for the near gender parity is community building, which helps women feel more comfortable in the field. The Thayer School of Engineering contains common spaces for students and there is a

Dartmouth chapter of the Society of Women Engineers. However, the gender imbalance in STEM majors is flipped in a gender disparity in humanities majors at the College, where 62 percent are female. Chair of the art history department Mary Coffey noted that the gender balance of art history classes was relatively even, despite the fact that the art history department has had between eight and 19 male majors per year for the past five years and at most two male majors per year. This may reflect students taking art history classes as a non-major interest or to satisfy a distributive requirement, Coffey said. Coffey also speculated that the predominantly female major pool could be a result of the perception that art history and other humanities majors have riskier employment prospects and may attract students who are consequently less concerned about their future employment, which can tend to include students who are not planning on being the sole breadwinner in their homes. “That could have something to do with gender prescriptions or gender expectations but I would be really hesitant to make any strong arguments,” Coffey said. Several chairs of departments with predominantly female majors said that improving the gender balance was not a priority. Coffey said the department is more focused on getting people from different socioeconomic and ethnic backgrounds involved in the arts to expand the view of a discipline that SEE MAJORS PAGE 16

ERIN LEE/THE DARTMOUTH STAFF

Data from the Office of Institutional Research.

FRIDAY, MAY 20, 2016

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Greek houses adjust to new concepts of gender By SAMANTHA STERN The Dartmouth Staff

Amarna Founded in 1994, the undergraduate society Amarna takes its name from a city in ancient Egypt founded by Akhenaten’s wife, Queen Nefertiti, Amarna’s president Breanna McHugh ’17 said. In the idyllic city of Amarna, people could hold any position regardless of their race, gender or socioeconomic background. Amarna is not the only house that champions this egaliatarian ideal. In recent years, gender has become a more salient topic within both the general Greek community and Dartmouth’s three gender-inclusive fraternities — Alpha Theta, Phi Tau and the Tabard — which together with the undergraduate society Amarna, comprise the Gender-Inclusive Greek Council. There is a misperception that people join gender-inclusive Greek houses or organizations because they did not succeed in rush, did not feel comfortable going through the rush process or because they were not content with their Greek experience, McHugh said. Whether or not individuals ﬁt into the LGBTQIA community, they may feel uncomfortable within the Greek system, she said.

Rush is an inherently racist and part of an exclusive system, McHugh said. Even if people are not overtly homophobic, there are a lot of both internalized and externalized assumptions prevail in gender-exclusive spaces, she said. Amarna attracts many students devoted to thinking deeply about race and class issues, sexuality and gender, McHugh said. Discussions about gender often occur in an informal setting. “There are a lot of people hanging around at 1:00 or 2:00 a.m. talking about feminist epistemology over a glass of wine because that’s the conversation that happens around the bar,” she said. “There are a lot of people just hanging out on the couch and discussing how homophobia has intersected with racism in their daily lives.” Last term, Amarna had a series of formal conversations about gender, race and class and how the house could better support people with certain identities. McHugh said that gender, sexuality and race are only “as much of a thing as you make it,” noting that there are also many members who are less vocal about their identities. Amarna exists as an alternative or supplement to the Greek system, she said. Although Phi Tau and Alpha Theta do not permit dual membership in a gender-inclusive and gender exclusive Greek house, those in Amarna are

also welcome to belong to any Greek organization. Membership in Amarna is much more flexible than at an average Greek house, McHugh said. Anyone, freshmen included, can join the society, given that they sign a code of conduct. The code of conduct was initially intended to protect victims of sexual assault within the house, but is now a more general document that aims at creating a culture of inclusivity and respect for others’ identities, she added. There are no requirements for membership in terms of duties, dues or the number of meetings members must attend. Between 30 and 50 percent of members at any one time are also affiliated with a fraternity or sorority, and McHugh herself is a member of both Sigma Delta sorority and Amarna. She said that while women’s spaces are critically important, there is a degree of nuance that gets lost in discussions about gender within them. “Sigma Delt can be a really powerful place for healing, but at the same time, I think having a more active dialogue where people come in with very different experiences in terms of gender creates a critical conversation that’s monumentally different,” McHugh said. The conclusions you reach about how to structure safe spaces while maintaining ideology happen both at Sigma

Delt and Amarna, albeit in different ways and with different conclusions, she added. Sigma Delt has traditionally had a high percentage of gay and bisexual women compared to other sororities, she said. While her sorority embraces “loud, outspoken tits out feminism,” gender discussions within the house always revolve around women, McHugh said. Furthermore, Sigma Delt’s emphasis on sexuality is absent from fraternities, she said, noting that she has never heard about a fraternity that encourages discussions about men’s femininity or on gender fluidity. McHugh highlighted that neither the single-sex Greek organizations nor gender-inclusive houses are inherently superior. Choosing where to rush is a matter of personal preference, as both systems can enable students to find solidarity, build confidence and develop ideas and identity, she said. “[At Amarna], I felt like I was given a much more powerful voice right off the bat, but at the same time, there’s also power in numbers, and Sigma Delt has this really beautiful, collective energy that happens because there are so many of us who are so in tune with each other,” McHugh said. “It comes down to a matter of preference, and for me that preference was to be engaged in both communities, to the extent possible.” Phi Tau Unitas et Diversitas — unity and diversity — is the motto of Phi Tau. Although the organization’s official name is Phi Tau coeducational fraternity, its member now use the term gender-inclusive, due to the fact that the phrase coed implies a gender binary. “There comes a point that you have to realize that there are various groups we’re excluding with this name,” president Bev Alomepe ’17 said. Despite its gender-inclusivity, members of Phi Tau still refer to one another as brothers, a holdover from when it was an exclusively male organization, member Ruby Hopkins ’17 said. “I sort of see it as a [darn] you to the patriarchy and that’s how a lot of the women at Phi Tau have felt,” she said. Phi Tau separated from its national organization, Phi Sigma Kappa, in 1956 after a dispute involving the segregationist membership policies of the latter. The local fraternity first began welcoming women upon their admission to the College in 1972. One of the advantages of being in a gender-inclusive house is having discussions about stereotypes and misperceptions surrounding what it means to be a man, woman or transgender individual, Hopkins said. Phi Tau is a space that while full of differences, fosters conversations about them, Alomepe added. “It makes me happy when others who are often discriminated against tell me they feel so welcome in the house,

and that it’s such a home for them,” Hopkins said. “That’s when I think Phi Tau has fulfilled its purpose.” Alpha Theta Alpha Theta gender-inclusive fraternity also split from its national organization, Theta Chi, as the result of a racial exclusion clause, former house president Noah Cramer ’16 said. Like Phi Tau, the fraternity began accepting women in 1972. The house also welcomed many of Kappa Kappa Kappa’s gay members in the 1980s, after an incident during which the single-sex fraternity ousted them, Cramer said. “We have this incredible history of diversity and openness that is booked into the fabric of our organization,” he said. “Even still, at one time we were an all male [and] all white organization and we have to reckon with and grapple with that history as well.” Other Greek organizations also carry “historical baggage” including gender-based, class-based and raciallybased exclusion. “Those institutional ideologies are very hard to expunge and persist in ways throughout an organization’s practices, character and values,” Cramer said. In contrast to Phi Tau, members of Alpha Theta call one another “siblings” unless they are acutely aware of a person’s gender identity. In those cases, the terms “brother” and “sister” may be used. The fraternity became officially gender-inclusive in name in the fall of 2015. The name change follows the rebranding of the Co-Ed Council to the Gender-Inclusive Greek Council in 2014. Cramer said that the change served two purposes. First, it most accurately described what the house has been for years. “There are people the history of Alpha Theta that don’t fit into that binary,” Cramer said. The name change also served as a political statement. For many, the term coed may be upsetting, and Alpha Theta’s goal in changing its name was to state its valuing a non-binary gender system “loudly and proudly,” Cramer said. Nevertheless, he noted that the gender-inclusive houses are not necessarily better or safer spaces for gender nonconforming individuals than singlesex Greek institutions are. “People that are gender nonconforming might find a reason to love Alpha Theta [and] might find a reason to hate it,” he said. “I think there are people who don’t conform to the tradition gender binary but still want to be in single-sex Greek life.” Gender-inclusive overview Gender-inclusive Greek CouncilPresident Yasmeen Erritouni ’17 said SEE GREEK PAGE 17

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FRIDAY, MAY 20, 2016

Student survey reveals mixed opinions on gender By PARKER RICHARDS The Dartmouth Staff

In a survey conducted by The Dartmouth, 342 students shared their perspectives on the College’s campus climate in regards to gender. Amongst the topics considered were Greek life, the College housing system, academic discrimination and counseling and medical services available for people questioning their gender identity. The survey represents approximately eight percent of the student body and was not weighted for demographics. Forty-three percent of respondents identified as male, 52 percent as female, 2 percent as gender nonconforming and 3 percent as other, including “demigirl,” “transmasculine non-binary” and “agender.” Responses were broken down relatively equally by class year. The prospect of mandatory gender sensitivity courses at Dartmouth was met with strong disapproval. A plurality of students — 38 percent — strongly disagreed with implementing such a course, with another 24 percent disagreeing. Only 21 percent either strongly agreed or agreed with the proposal. Still, most students did believe gender as a concept should be a part of campus dialogue, with 62 percent of respondents agreeing with that statement to 21 percent against. Most respondents could not report having themselves experienced genderbased discrimination in most settings, but many knew someone who had. Half of respondents said they were aware of someone who had experienced gender-based discrimination in academic settings. The responses indicate a campus with social spaces that are split by gender in terms of safety and inclusivity and a perception that more people are discriminated against than can actually report such discrimination. But there is little support for mandatory courses on the subject. For fraternities and sororities, the responses were more mixed. While most agreed that sororities were safe for both men and women, gender non-conforming individuals were not viewed as equally welcome. Additionally, sororities were not always viewed as welcoming by respondents. Sixty-eight percent of respondents believed sororities were welcoming for men, while 10 percent believed they were not. Eight-one percent of respondents thought sororities were welcoming for women, with five percent disagreeing. Forty-two percent of respondents thought sororities were welcoming for gender nonconforming individuals and 22 percent thought sororities were not. The picture for fraternities was even more mixed. While 86 percent of respondents believed men were safe in fraternities, 51 percent felt the same for women, and 37 percent felt gender nonconforming people were safe. Twenty-eight percent felt women were not safe in fraternities and 33 percent said the same of gender nonconforming individuals. More people believed women were welcome in fraternities than safe, however. Sixty-four percent of respondents believed women were welcome in fraternities, compared to 88 percent who felt the same for men and 29 percent for gender nonconforming individuals. But 40 percent of respondents thought gender nonconforming people were not welcome in fraternities. Most students believed the College does enough to provide gender-neutral facilities — including bathrooms and dorms — with 56 percent saying they agreed these facilities are adequate and 21 percent saying they disagreed.

BARRY YANG FOR THE DARTMOUTH

THE DARTMOUTH GREEN KEY 2016

FRIDAY, MAY 20, 2016

President Hanlon invites you to

Open Office Hours For Faculty and Staff*: (Parkhurst 207) Friday, May 20th, 3-4 pm

Meetings are held on a first come, first serv served basis

Friday, May 27th, 4-5 pm Friday, June 3rd, 3-4 pm Check www.dartmouth.edu/~president/officehours for any changes **Please note that these Office Hours are now open to Staff

PAGE 7

Women in grad schools underrepresented

By ZACHARY BENJAMIN The Dartmouth Staff

Though the College generally matchs its peers in the Ivy League in female representation and outperformed other schools across the country, women remain underrepresented in all of Dartmouth’s graduate schools, both in the student body and on the faculty. Each of the schools at Dartmouth — the Geisel School of Medicine, the Tuck School of Business and the Thayer School of Engineering — have sought to improve gender parity on both levels. Geisel had 791 students enrolled in the fall of 2015, 42 percent of whom were male and 58 percent of whom were female, according to the Dartmouth Fact Book. At Tuck, 37 percent of the school’s 571 students were female, while at Thayer women made up 28 percent of its 257 students. There were an additional 791 graduate students studying through the College of Arts and Sciences, 48 percent of whom were women. All of the professional schools have also seen upward trends in female enrollment over the years. In 2002, only 45 percent of students at Geisel were women, while at Tuck only 28 percent were. In the period in between, both schools have seen ﬂuctuations in their gender rations — Tuck, for example hit a low point at 24 percent in 2004. Both also saw record high levels in 2015. Thayer, meanwhile, had the same 28 percent female enrollment in 2002 as it does today, though it hit a high of 34 percent in 2012. The Forté Foundation, a nonproﬁt organization dedicated to increasing women’s opportunities in business that partners with various schools and businesses, released a report in 2015

listing Tuck as one of 12 business schools with female enrollment levels in full-time MBA programs of over 40 percent — among the highest in the country. Tuck dean Matthew Slaughter also announced in a welcome letter to the Class of 2017 that 42 percent of its students would be women. Some of these numbers are expected to go up in the coming fall. Thayer dean Joseph Helble, for example, said he anticipated around 30 to 35 percent of the incoming class to be female, although admissions decisions have not been ﬁnalized. There are also gender disparities in female representation at the faculty level. At Geisel, around 149 of the faculty were women out of 335 total in 2015. Fifteen of Tuck’s 66 professors were women, as were 10 of Thayer’s 58. Since 2004, Geisel’s number of female faculty has steadily increased, from 99 women, representing 33.1 percent of the faculty, to 149 today. Tuck had 12 female faculty members, representing 19.7 percent, in 2004, and reached a peak in 2007, with 19 female professors making up 28.8 percent of the total. Thayer has seen mixed growth across the years, but currently has a record high in terms of absolute numbers of professors. In terms of percentages, though, they had greater gender representation in 2013 and 2014, when 18 percent of faculty were women. Each school has made eﬀorts to increase the diversity of their student bodies and faculty, including their gender breakdowns. Director for strategic initiatives at Tuck Dia Draper said that Tuck, for example, has partnered with groups like the Forté Foundation, Management Leadership for Tomorrow, and the Consortium for Graduate Study SEE GRAD PAGE 21

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FRIDAY, MAY 20, 2016

Gender studies research expands at the College through GRID By AMANDA ZHOU The Dartmouth Staff

PARTY AT ThE MUsEUM

In 2013, current Gender Research Institute at Dartmouth director Annabel Martín, the then-women’s, gender and sexuality studies department chair, and four faculty members got together to brainstorm a research center to bring together a wide array of professors to study gender. Then-interim president Carol Folt initially helped direct funding towards the program, Martín said. The professors traveled to Brown University, Columbia Univeristy, Rutgers University in New Jersey and Barnard College to learn about the established gender research institutes. Then, these institutions created their own model. With that funding, GRID put on its first spring lecture series, titled “Seeds of Change: Gender Scholarship and Social Justice.” “None of [the other universities research institutions] incorporate the undergraduates the way we do into the model,” said Martín, “None of them have a parallel class or have the students in the seminars. It’s common with graduate students but not undergraduates.” Martín said that GRID, as the re-

search branch of gender on campus, produces original work on the topic. The academic branch includes the women’s, gender and sexuality studies program while the student life branch includes the Center for Gender and Student Engagement. “Gender is one of those analytical categories,” Martín said. “What you do is learn how to interpret and create reasons why things matter. What is invisible to the common eye. That’s the originality.” Post-doctoral fellow for the seminar Max Hantel agreed with this viewpoint, saying “I think gender research absolutely makes a fundamental demand on how you see and imagine the world, beyond a simple aggregative, ‘Take whatever you’re usually doing and add women and stir.’” Martín noted that in the past 15 years, gender research has shifted away from focusing on how men and women are different to focusing more on how various categories of class and race intersect with each other. Martín said that today, the most exciting and productive new field within gender research was general queer cultural studies, in which scholars have shifted towards thinking more about sexuality and the actual practice of gender.

SEAMORE ZHU/THE DARTMOUTH STAFF

The office of the Gender Research Institute at Dartmouth is housed in Wilson Hall.

Since then, GRID conducts a seminar research course in conjunction with the women and gender sexuality studies department and puts on a themed lecture series. Past themes include “Times of Crisis” and “Just Words: Free Speech and Social Change.“ “I think if we can generalize a little bit, we want to be critical,” Martín said. “We want to offer a lens that isn’t rosy. Diversity isn’t

just the shape and size and color of people, but also how we think. That’s why it’s important for us to bring speakers who maybe aren’t necessarily mainstream or follow the flow.” Every year, GRID chooses a faculty member to direct the lecture series and seminar. The director of spring programming then decides the theme and works with a steering committee to chose a postdoctoral

fellow to teach the research class. The director and the post-doc then work together for nine to 10 months to determine subtopics, speakers and other details of the seminar. Martín said that GRID seminars are very interdisciplinary with involved professors from departments in the humanities, social sciences and the Neukom Institute SEE GRID PAGE 20

hooD MUsEUM oF ART

sPECIAl EVENT CREATE n PAINT n DANCE n PARTY

Saturday, May 21, 3:00–11:00 pM

ThE WRITINg’s oN ThE WAll Party at the Museum Create art in the Hood’s empty galleries and on the walls. Strike a pose with props in the photo booth. Enjoy light bites, film screenings, and spotlight performances. Stay for a latenight dance party in the galleries and paint under black lights.

More info: hoodmuseum.dartmouth.edu

FRIDAY, MAY 20, 2016

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Women in grad schools underrepresented By ZACHARY BENJAMIN The Dartmouth Staff

Though the College generally matchs its peers in the Ivy League in female representation and outperformed other schools across the country, women remain underrepresented in all of Dartmouth’s graduate schools, both in the student body and on the faculty. Each of the schools at Dartmouth — the Geisel School of Medicine, the Tuck School of Business and the Thayer School of Engineering — have sought to improve gender parity on both levels. Geisel had 791 students enrolled in the fall of 2015, 42 percent of whom were male and 58 percent of whom were female, according to the Dartmouth Fact Book. At Tuck, 37 percent of the school’s 571 students were female, while at Thayer women made up 28 percent of its 257 students. There were an additional 791 graduate students studying through the College of Arts and Sciences, 48 percent of whom were women. All of the professional schools have also seen upward trends in female enrollment over the years. In 2002, only 45 percent of students at Geisel were women, while at Tuck only 28 percent were. In the period in between, both schools have seen fluctuations in their gender rations — Tuck, for example hit a low point at 24 percent in 2004. Both also saw record high levels in 2015. Thayer, meanwhile, had the same 28 percent female enrollment in 2002 as it does today, though it hit a high of 34 percent in 2012. The Forté Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to increasing women’s opportunities in business that partners with various schools and businesses, released a report in 2015

listing Tuck as one of 12 business schools with female enrollment levels in full-time MBA programs of over 40 percent — among the highest in the country. Tuck dean Matthew Slaughter also announced in a welcome letter to the Class of 2017 that 42 percent of its students would be women. Some of these numbers are expected to go up in the coming fall. Thayer dean Joseph Helble, for example, said he anticipated around 30 to 35 percent of the incoming class to be female, although admissions decisions have not been finalized. There are also gender disparities in female representation at the faculty level. At Geisel, around 149 of the faculty were women out of 335 total in 2015. Fifteen of Tuck’s 66 professors were women, as were 10 of Thayer’s 58. Since 2004, Geisel’s number of female faculty has steadily increased, from 99 women, representing 33.1 percent of the faculty, to 149 today. Tuck had 12 female faculty members, representing 19.7 percent, in 2004, and reached a peak in 2007, with 19 female professors making up 28.8 percent of the total. Thayer has seen mixed growth across the years, but currently has a record high in terms of absolute numbers of professors. In terms of percentages, though, they had greater gender representation in 2013 and 2014, when 18 percent of faculty were women. Each school has made efforts to increase the diversity of their student bodies and faculty, including their gender breakdowns. Director for strategic initiatives at Tuck Dia Draper said that Tuck, for example, has partnered with groups like the Forté Foundation, Management Leadership for Tomorrow, and the Consortium for Graduate Study SEE GRAD PAGE 21

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FRIDAY, MAY 20, 2016

Exploring narratives outside the gender binary

Students who identify as trans- and/or gender non-conforming share their experiences. STORY

By Sonia Qin

For Logan Henderson ’17, his “It’s been an alienating experiidentity as a trans and gender-queer ence,” Manisha said. “I think this place person of color has been significantly can get very isolating, very lonely and affected by the College’s small size, there are times I need to get away from lack of racial and ethnic diversity and here to regain perspective and feel like location in a rural town. Most people a human.” hear the identity stories of wealthy, Manisha said that when he first white people, Henderson said, adding started coming to terms with his own that stories like his own are rarely, if identity, he felt “sub-human” at the ever, told. College and was sometimes reduced to “My trans experience is inseparable a political statement. He has also been from my blackness,” he said. personally subjected to transphobia Each transgender and gender and said that from what he has seen nonconforming student at Dartmouth and heard, transphobic verbal abuse has unique stories and seeks to find remains a prominent issue for those in inclusion and acceptance at an institu- the trans community at the College. tion that seems to still H e be struggling to be “My trans experience added that inclusive to people of he feels a all gender identities. is inseparable from my strong con Kendall Chris- blackness” trast when tensen ’19 identifies he leaves as a female and said the College that while she has -LOGAN HENDERSON ’17 and feels like always been “more “somebody or less comfortable has poured identifying as a feback the humale,” she has not always been com- manness into [him].” fortable with the norms associated Some students, however, have been with that gender label. able to find a sense of community “I’m female-presenting and com- within certain subsets of the Greek fortable within that label, but I feel system. pretty a-gendered in that I feel fluid, Christensen said that while she and I don’t always feel comfortable does not feel comfortable in most with what society expects women to fraternity scenes, she felt disappointed be, and I don’t think I fit that role,” about the suspension of the Tabard Christensen said. gender-inclusive fraternity, because When Christensen first applied to the organization seemed to provide the College, gender-inclusive hous- a more welcoming community based ing and social spaces were not a top on what she had heard from members priority for her because she had not in the house. Now that the Tabard is yet come to terms with her identity. gone, there is one less inclusive house However, she added that if she were in the Greek system, Christensen said, to redo the whole process, this would adding that the suspension reinforces factor much more into her decision. the monoculture at the College. In Feb Christensen said that because she ruary, the Tabard was suspended for is a white female from a well-off so- three terms after the house admitted to cioeconomic background, she enjoys violating the College’s hazing, alcohol certain privileges that other students and recruiting policies. Following the in her position may not have. suspension, the house will be placed “I’m hoping that I can continue to on probation until the end of 2017. become informed about other people’s Alexander Weinstein ’16, who experiences and continue to reach out identifies as a trans-masculine, nonto people, and then use what privileges binary person, said that while he has I do have to bring about change that I not always had a great response from think needs to happen at Dartmouth,” professors regarding his gender idenshe said. “That’s a responsibility I have tity and is often misgendered in class, and a responsibility that people who he found a welcoming community care about these issues do have.” in Phi Tau coeducational fraternity. She added that while it may be easy He said that his house responded to be cynical and complain about big- extremely well when he came out otry and toxic social spaces, it is more about his gender identity. important that people actually take Other students criticized the Greek action to positively affect the campus system for its lack of inclusivity and climate, and to not be “complacent focus on the gender binary. and used to the norms and scared to “Dartmouth is very unique in being speak out.” a small school and being so dominated Prodhi Manisha ’17 identifies as by the Greek system,” Manisha said. a trans man and gender-queer indi- “The Greek system is probably one vidual who “always knew [he] wasn’t of the last remaining systems in most someone who [he] was designated to parts of the world that truly, so legisbe.” latively, enforces the gender binary.”

Henderson, who is unaffiliated, said he tends to shy away from Greek life and from big or main events on campus, usually secluding himself with other people who are black or queer. “I tend to avoid situations that I know would make me uncomfortable or unsafe,” he said. Justin Maffett ’16 is a leader in Spectra, a group for queer and allied students. Maffet, who identifies as gay, advocated in his freshman year for the creation of the residential college system, hoping for these houses to be a new type of social space for those who do not enjoy the Greek lifestyle. “I wholly and unapologetically believe that [the Greek system] has to be abolished,” Maffett said. “It stands in stark contrast to the values and the needs of queer students on campus and also students on campus of racial minority and socioeconomic minority.” A former member of the Tabard, he added that since his time here, the Tabard “is not immune from any of these social ills or prejudices regarding transphobia that one might find elsewhere on campus.” In the past few years, the College has put forth several initiatives such as programming and the creation of gender-inclusive housing and bathrooms, though many students expressed skepticism at the effectiveness of these measures. Henderson said one of the challenges he has encountered on campus has been finding accessible bathrooms. In order to reduce the bathroom problem for other students, Henderson has created a Google map of all the genderinclusive spaces on campus. Last fall term, the gender-inclusive bathroom in the Collis Center was defaced, but Collis failed to fix the wall until the Office of Pluralism and Leadership pressured the staff to do so at the urging of students, Weinstein said. However, he added that most of the time, the College has been “relatively accommodating” for trans and gender nonconforming students, examples such as students being permitted to change their name in the College’s internal system, as well as the College having one of the best trans student health care coverage in the country. Director and head endocrinologist of Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center’s transgender health clinic Jack Turco is the doctor in charge of trans students’ medical care at the College. He has been providing medical care to trans people in the Upper Valley for decades. OPAL director Reese Kelly said that very early on, Turco and others had advocated for transgender health care to be covered by the Dartmouth

Student Group Health Plan. Currently, the DSGHP covers health care for trans-associated needs such as hormone therapy and gender affirming surgeries. “I feel like the administration can take action, but in the end it’s a campus culture thing,” she said. “I think administration can do a lot in terms of affecting campus culture but it can only do so much, because at some point it just feels like an artificial thing that’s being engineered.” Maffett said that it seems as if the College repurposed single-use bathrooms instead of really building new, safe and inclusive spaces for all identities. The programs put forth by the College right now are a means of providing safety for students in an implicitly hostile community, Manisha said. “That’s more of a short-term measure, because the hostile environment should not exist in the first place,” he added. However, Maffett expressed optimism regarding Dean of the College Rebecca Biron’s confirmation that the new social space being constructed outside of Hitchcock would have gender-inclusive bathrooms. “That’s a positive sign that the College is moving towards building as

“The Greek system is probably one fo the last remaining systems in most parts of the world that truly, so legislatively, enforces the gender binary.” -PRODHI MANISHA ’17 opposed to repurposing these spaces,” he said. Another progressive move by the College has been to adopt the NCAA transgender student-athlete participation policy, which allows trans students to participate in any varsity sport, Kelly said. He added that in late spring, OPAL will also be piloting a program called “Speak Up,” a 60 to 90 minute training workshop similar to the Dartmouth Bystander Initiative, but focusing more on discrimination and bias. Maffett said OPAL is uniquely positioned to promote inclusivity for all gender identities, as some OPAL staff members identify as gender nonconforming or trans themselves. “Within the sphere of Dartmouth, OPAL is at the forefront,” Maffett said. “They provide resources that other offices or other student organizations

don’t necessarily do.” Henderson and Weinstein both agreed that OPAL should receive more funding, resources and attention from the College. The sexuality, women and gender division of OPAL recently hosted an event in observance of Transgender Day of Visibility on March 31. For this event, SWAG sent out campus emails every day for a week as part of an online awareness campaign. Weinstein, a student coordinator at SWAG, helped run the campaign. He said this event is about more than just visibility, as for many transgender people, visibility is tied up with the risk of violence. “My fear is that we don’t provide the spaces in which trans people can be visible here on campus every day, for the other hundreds of days in the term,” Maffett said, adding that other than during Transgender Day of Visibility or PRIDE week, trans and gender nonconforming students can be invisible. Dartmouth also held a Transgender Day of Remembrance in the fall to honor deceased trans people, Weinstein said, adding that only four students attended the event. “That speaks volumes about the importance that Dartmouth places on trans people,” he said. Christensen said she would like to see a freshman requirement or distributive requirement added to the curriculum, regarding diversity, social justice or something that covers issues of diversity around race, gender, sexuality and intersectionality. “I think the biggest problem here is people just don’t know,” she said. “Some people just haven’t had the privilege to be informed about these things in the first place.” Distributives may not be that useful because people may not be taking the classes seriously, Manisha said, adding that a “fullblown understanding and respect of the human being” is more important. Kelly said that the discrimination and bias surrounding trans and gender nonconforming people is a broader aspect of American culture that is not singular to Dartmouth. “There’s still a lot of negative perceptions of trans and gender nonconforming people in U.S. culture so people bring a lot of misinformation and bigotry, whether conscious or not,” he said. Since the student body is changing every year, it becomes necessary to reeducate every new class that comes in, Kelly said. “If our goal is to prepare responsible leaders, we’re leaving something out if we’re not helping prepare people to work with people who are different from them,” he said.

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Alumnae pioneer in gender-related fields

Alums talk about careers in gender studies after graduation. STORY

By Lucy Li

Despite its 247-year history as an institution, Dartmouth opened its doors to women 44 years ago, and since then we have had some incredible alumnae who have made their

mark in a patriarchal world. These are women who are working to improve the lives of other women, who have seen ﬁrsthand the kind of inequality that women around the world face, who have had to work harder to make a career in a male-dominated industry

and who have gone through trauma that they hope to save other women from ever experiencing. Averil Spencer ’10, a women and gender studies major, stumbled upon a pilot program for social enterprise fellowship, called the IDEX Accelerator, upon graduation. The program partners with social enterprises across India to provide IDEX fellows with hands-on experience. Spencer went to Hyderabad, India to work in lowincome schools. There, she fell in love with the girls she worked with, while also becoming aware of the obstacles in their way. “These girls were absolutely incredible,” she said. “They were smart and passionate and driven, and when I talked to them they wanted to be doctors, lawyers, engineers and pilots, which was really exciting, but unfortunately I found out that a lot of these dreams were actually just dreams.” The Nike Foundation approached the organization she was working with to sponsor a camp for girls in India. So in 2011, Spencer started VOICE 4 Girls, a supplemental education program for adolescent girls in India that focuses on providing them with critical information, action-oriented

COURTESY OF AVERIL SPENCER

Averil Spencer ‘10 founded VOICE 4 Girls to help educate girls in India.

life skills and spoken English proﬁciency. VOICE’s mission works speciﬁcally to combat issues that Spencer believes are very prominent around the world right now, including the inaccessibility of credible information for girls, the decline of girls enrolled in school as they grow older and early marriage. According to VOICE, only 30 percent of girls in India graduate from 10th grade and 47 percent are married before the age of 18. Early marriage, she says, might be the most critical issue.

“If girls can delay early marriage and stay in school, with each additional year they’re able to do that, the health beneﬁts to them, to their future families, and the added income they can earn by the added years of schooling are huge,” she said. While this issue is both complex and large, Spencer’s work with VOICE certainly changed lives — the lives of 73,479 girls to be exact. An innate interest in gender studies, and an awareness of gender dynamics that SEE ALUMNAE PAGE 20

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By GAYNE KALUSTIAN The Dartmouth Senior Staff

rom the U.S. Women’s National Team suing U.S. Soccer this year for wage discrimination to the splitting of rifle shooting based on gender in the 1984 Olympics after Margaret Murdock tied for first place with a man in the then-mixed event during the 1976 games, sports and gender have always had a complicated relationship. Female coaches still make less than male coaches. In the 2014-2015 season at Dartmouth, head coaches of men’s teams averaged salaries of $125,311 while head coaches of women’s teams had an average salary of $86,595. Assistant coaches of men’s teams made on average per full time employee $64,090 while their counterparts on women’s teams averaged $56,414. Of the 13 full-time head coaching positions of men’s teams, all 13 are filled by men. Of the 15 full-time head coaching positions of women’s teams, six are filled by men and nine are filled by women. Of the 35 assistant coaching positions of men’s teams, 30 are filled by men and five are filled by women. Yet, of the 29 assistant coach positions of women’s teams, 13 are filled by men and 16 are filled by women. So, in general, men can coach women, but women can’t coach men, and the gender of the athletes you coach determines how much you can make. But the intersection of gender and sports doesn’t stop at pay and hiring discrimination. In college sports, your gender partially shapes your experience of playing a sport. The experience of seven Dartmouth athletes and the relationship between their sports and gender identities follow.

CHARLOTTE GROSS ‘16

“It was not a performance enhancer,” Nordic skier Charlotte Gross ’16 said of her tampon falling out 20 kilometers into her 2013 30k Tour de Trapp race. But there’s no pausing, no stopping, no waiting for periods to go away in athletics. It can start during training, right before the game, at halftime — in the middle of a race. Even when you know it’s coming, dealing with it and still performing is a totally different battle. Out in the woods, pushing through the snowy trails of Stowe, Vermont, Gross just kept skiing — 10 kilometers with her tampon loose, trapped on her leg by two layers of spandex. “I didn’t know that could hap-

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BY THE

Sports and gender interact at Dartmouth

pen,” Gross said. “chest said otherwise.” According to a 2015 study by “If we were in lacrosse gear, that University College London and St. wouldn’t happen,” Zimmerman Mary’s University, more than half said. “Or it would be a lot harder. It’s of female athpartially the nature letes respondof the sport [wearing to the oning swimsuits] that line survey said we are so exposed. their periods Partially,…[it’s] the It was the biggest fact that no one has impact their performance. wake up call for me. told them it’s not Many struggle okay.” I honestly wouldn’t After the comwith managing their periods be where I am today. ment about her on game day teammate’s chest with tampons was made, Zimand diva cups. merman walked - AMELIA ALI ’19 Others, like right off the deck Gross, go on and into the direcbirth control tor’s office. to deal with “I said I can’t their periods train with this,” and the side effects. Zimmerman said. “I can’t listen to “I had such terrible cramps that I this and still practice and so I told my couldn’t train for the first couple of coach please tell them to stop, and days I would get my period,” Gross he made a comment [to the male said. “I could jog around, but if I teammates], and it didn’t really do tried to go to an elevated heart rate, anything, so I left.” it was excruciating.” As her senior year dragged on, Recently, 2015 London Mara- she became less and less active thoner Kiran Gandhi unashamedly with the team, walking off the deck welcomed the gift and the curse of when someone said something disbeing female on the eve of the mara- respectful, until she cut herself off thon. Gandhi ran without a tampon, completely after graduation. very publicly bleeding through her “There’s no excuse for that kind clothes, receiving both support and of behavior,” Zimmerman said. harsh criticism for her choice. For “You should never treat anyone like Gross, the tampon mishap didn’t that. Especially your teammates. stop her from crossing the finish line. Especially someone young and imWhen asked about her time, she said pressionable. If that behavior were it was “not her best race.” ever in a workplace, you would be fired immediately.” On mixed teams where young AMBER ZIMMERMAN ‘19 athletes train and compete next to each other inappropriate behavior The Upper Main Line YMCA’s can proliferates and the narrative that website says it “has what your entire “boys will be boys” excuses this befamily needs to live better and have havior. But as Zimmerman pointed fun! Home to [a] nationally ranked out, the viewpoint undermines male swim team…the Y is the place for athletes’ ability to have self-control you!” and excuses behavior against women Amber Zimmerman ’19’s experi- in the process. ence differed greatly from the advertisement when swimming for the YMCA in Berwyn, Pennsylvania for four years in high school. Day in and AMELIA ALI ‘19 day out, Zimmerman and the other female swimmers — training on a “I was never conscious of what mixed team not unlike Dartmouth’s I ate or how I looked,” thrower — were subjected to multiple forms Amelia Ali ’19 said of her early years of sexual harassment. Zimmerman in high school. The self-proclaimed acknowledged that training with cultivator of some serious biceps men sometimes cut down on her and triceps changed her behavior, own team’s drama, but that almost dropping her consumption to two never outweighed the costs. bananas a day while still training One day when Zimmerman had full-time as a thrower. After passing a sore throat, a male teammate asked out in practice, her coach made her her if her “knees hurt, too.” Zimmer- take a break from the sport. man also recalled an incident when The change started for Ali dura female teammate commented that ing her junior year. With the buzz she didn’t think it was cold outside of college recruitment surrounding during one morning workout. A male her, Ali felt invincible. She even teammate said to the group that her asked a male friend to go with her

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to her junior prom, an invitation he accepted — at first. Rumors about the match began to circulate and a mutual friend ended up telling Ali that her date didn’t really want to go with her. “You emasculate him,” the mutual friend told her. Ali confronted her date who confessed that he didn’t feel comfortable going with her. He had heard from other guys that, “They would hook up with her, but they would never date her because she’s strong and not as feminine as [they] would like her to be.” Ali went to prom with another date, but the words hung in the back of her mind, plaguing her as she tried to train to be the best. After taking extreme measures with her diet and being forced to take a break from the sport, Ali came back to throwing and came to Dartmouth to continue her passion. But despite being back in the game physically, her mental game remains conflicted. She struggles to add pounds to the rack when she squats because she knows it will add mass to her body — even if that comes at the expense of her sport. “I know there are girls who squat 400,” Ali said. “I have a friend at Cornell [University] who squats 400 so it’s just kind of daunting going up against other girls in the league and in the Eastern region. I’m not going to do as well. I’m doing fine, but come my junior or sophomore year I’ll just be stagnant…It’s hard enough being a tall girl. To have someone say they felt emasculated by her. It was the biggest wake up call for me. I honestly wouldn’t be where I am today. I wouldn’t be struggling to figure out how much food I’m eating. I wouldn’t have this mental struggle constantly.”

ARMIN MAHBAN ‘17

Figure skaters lift weights. Figure skaters train. They sweat. Some figure skaters are women. Others are men. So why is it generally considered a “girls’ sport?” Armin Mahban ’17 — an internationally acclaimed figure skater who has trained at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs and won multiple medals during his four gap years between high school and college — is pretty much as good as it gets in terms of Ivy League figure skaters. The 24-year-old came to Dartmouth with thick skin, he said — skin he earned having figure skated since he was five-years-old. “The hockey players would call me faggot,” Mahban said. “That was tough, and it kind of continued. It was never horrible. It was mostly just words. I learned to brush it off.”

rower back at her alma mater, the After winning medals and gaining Massachusetts Institute of Technolmore respect, the bullying subsided ogy. But that designation has fallen — maybe, Mahban said, because out of style and for athletic teams he was successful or maybe because that are sub-professional like Dartpeople started to grow up. Looking mouth’s, weights of female athletes back, though, he said he can see why have disappeared from public rosters. the sport has those stereotypes. “On most men’s teams, if some “Yes, the guys are out there in one needs to lose or gain weight you rhinestoned outfits competing, but can have that conversation,” Muri for every one of those days there are said. “But women’s bodies — you 300 days where we are sweating our have to protect them.” asses off, falling on the ice, getting The problem, Muri acknowlbruised,” Mahban said. “Lots of edged, is rooted in the body image blood sweat and tears. While there’s issues and eating disorders that absolutely nothing wrong with what can take over athletes’ lives — parwe present to people, that it’s a very ticularly, she added, at a place like little part of the story.” Dartmouth where students are under As Mahban was growing up, even an enormous amount of pressure. the U.S. Skating Federation pushed But the protectionism of one gender figure skaters who were masculine, over another speaks to a larger issue trying to change the image of the of gender inequity. Women have a sport to align more with the typical perceived weakness — in need of masculine ideals. But Mahban takes protection from a mental health a different approach, emphasizissue that plagues them. Men are ing that while there are masculine strong and don’t need that protecelements to the sport which are tion suggesting these problems do not often publicized, there is also not exist for men. In separating the nothing wrong with the skater that standard, both genders are hurt. has been used to typify men’s figure Allowing men’s weights to be a skating — feminine and slender. He consistent part of the conversation makes no public comment about his while women’s have become taboo sexuality one way or the other on ignores that there are men — includpurpose, because regardless of what ing men in athletics — who struggle is “supposed to be” true of male with eating disorders. And there are figure skaters, Mahban has learned women in athletics who don’t. Top to focus on himself and tune out the tier women’s teams of wide array of noise. sports monitor weight because it is a “At the end of the day I didn’t critical element of overall health. skate for other people,” Mahban T h e fo o t b a l l said. “I skated team weighs in for myself, and twice — once bewhatever fans fore a workout and I had. It made after a workm e h a p py. On most men’s teams, once out — to monitor A n d t h a t ’s if someone needs to proper hydration. all I really ability to track cared about. lose or gain weight The their athlete’s physiI learned early you can have that cal health, however, on that you a dream for can’t pay atconversation. But remains Muri and her staff. tention [to women’s bodies — But the way the issue people who think the sport you have to protect is framed, Muri said, is part of what drives is feminine].” them. the problem. “If you have good, responsible LINDA LINDA MURI, HEAD coaching it’s not MURI WOMEN’S ROWING going to be a problem,” Muri said. “An At DartCOACH irresponsible coach mouth, three says, ‘Carrying a few rowing teams extra pounds there?’ fill the boatas opposed to, ‘I house for want someone who workouts — the lightweight men’s is fit and can get a full range of motion team, the heavyweight men’s team and do the right mechanics’…or ‘Are and the women’s team. Women’s they strong enough to carry all that rowing, in places where schools weight?’ There’s ways to talk about it. make the distinction, separates into You look at strength to weight ratios. two teams — lightweight and open But belittling somebody, mocking weight. Heavyweight women’s rowsomebody, that’s where the problems ing used to exist — head women’s come.” coach Linda Muri was a heavyweight

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MATT STURM ‘13

On the other end of the phone, calling in to Hanover from Washington D.C., Matt Sturm ’13 carefully chooses his words. Spaces in the conversation linger between us as he mulls questions over in his head, starting and stopping sentences, weighing his words so carefully with a misplaced comma, an accidental plural could tip the scales and cause him to recede into silence again. He felt the pauses were necessary to explain his story. “I guess the reason that I’m so careful with my words is, you know, trans people are so misunderstood.” His story, he says, represents more than him. Sturm came to Dartmouth identifying as Maddy, joining the women’s rugby team his first week in Hanover. He later transitioned to Matty and finally to Matt. Not until his junior fall did he consider himself publicly gender nonconforming. By his senior fall, he consistently used the name Matt and the masculine pronouns he and him and his. But remembering the exact dates and the exact terms that marked that moment in his transition was difficult — transitioning privately, socially, publically and possibly medically are all part of a huge and long process. Outsiders to the process like me belabor pinpointing the particulars. Insiders know better. “It’s not a clean transition,” Sturm said. “I think that is part of what is confusing for everyone who observes this…It’s messy, and it’s not discreet and clear. There’s things where someone might be trans and say that presenting the way that they do means they’ve transitioned their gender and someone might not be trans and do the same thing. They might not say it’s a transition thing at all. It’s just how they are and say it’s how they are the gender they have always been…Everybody has the right to do it at the pace that works for them. I think that definitely made the rugby thing complicated.” Sturm’s experience in athletics exposes the dark underbelly of the feminist oriented, female empowerment side of sports. Sports are clearly divided — men to the left, girls to the right. Gender nonconforming and trans athletes fall into line where the NCAA and other governing bodies command them to stand. Trans athletes face unprecedented struggles with competing, forced into a system that recognizes an antiquated view on gender, touting a binary that ignores identity. Concerned people raise questions about fairness and

NUMBERS

hormones. Trans athletes find few Sturm continued to play at Dartteams that have ever scrutinized mouth until concussions sidelined their gender policies or would even him from the game, though he mainknow how to begin to make their tained his position as president and team inclusive. remained active with the club until “I think being the first openly graduation. The NCAA terminates transgendered person on the wom- eligibility for trans athletes who have en’s rugby team, it was a process for begun taking hormones, which Matt the coach and some members of the didn’t take until after his final season team to transition to a more inclusive ended. understanding of what the women’s In Sturm’s senior season, a young rugby team meant and could be,” player — new to the game at the time Sturm said. — came to the Dartmouth Women’s With inequality in gendered sports Rugby Club. Four years later, corampant among pay, spectatorship captain Yejadai Dunn ’16, two-time and support, women’s rugby — writ All-American and USA Eagles hopelarge — makes a ful, enjoys some point to champion of the fruits of female empowerS t u r m ’s l a ment. The only bors. Dunn, full-contact NCAA who identifies sport for women, Gender was a strong in a “neutral rugby players on territory” and component of the uses feminine both men’s and wo m e n’s s i d e s Dartmouth Women’s pronouns, has play with the exwreaked havoc Rugby Club’s culture, on the women’s act same rules, take the exact same and figuring out how rugby pitch in hits — athletic her four years to maintain that at Dartmouth. trainers mend the exact same broculture in a way that But those who ken bones. Welld o n’t k n o w was not exclusive to her, she said, documented songs often rooted in trans people was new. question her misogyny that represence on the verberate through team. pubs across the “[Peo- MATT STURM ’13 world are sung ple at rugby postmatch and g ames wonwarped to reflect a der], ‘What’s woman’s perspecthis dude doing tive — a woman on a women’s who is unafraid of sports team?’ her sexuality and ” Dunn said. will drink in the “This is a space rugby tradition. But navigating the where I belong but there’s not a space presence of a man in a culture that built in where it feels like I belong. is so engrained in seeking equality Inherently when you’re on a women’s for women exposed growing pains sports team, you are gendered into for the club at Dartmouth. this group of people as a woman “Gender was a strong component and there hasn’t been much room of the Dartmouth Women’s Rugby to move within that. Knowing Matt, Club’s culture, and figuring out how rugby kind of made space for Matt to maintain that culture in a way that and used open language to be more was not exclusive to trans people was inclusive of male pronouns within a new,” Sturm said. “The coach at the women’s team. We haven’t moved to time…it took some time for the coach neutral pronouns at all. That hasn’t to get used to my name and the idea been a part of our team or even a that there could be a transgendered part of Dartmouth athletics.” player on the women’s rugby team. Keeping her hair short, sometimes And women’s rugby culture, for me, cut close to her head and other times was always something dynamic and in a Mohawk — bleached blonde encompassed a lot of identities.” when she feels like it — Dunn finds At the time of Sturm’s transi- she is misgendered often by strangers tion, he had just been elected team in sports, particularly in the bathpresident. rooms. One woman in a bathroom “The head coach at the time ex- put her hand on Dunn’s chest and pressed that she was concerned that said, “You don’t belong here.” People my status as a trans person playing stare at her, make uncomfortable on a women’s rugby team and how faces, struggling very visibly with her public I should be about that,” Sturm place in the bathroom. Sometimes added. “Ultimately, I was public and they remind her it is a women’s the team used my name, and it was bathroom. fine.” “I know,” Dunn replies.

“

”

Recruiting budget for men’s teams

$739,376 Difference in expenses between men’s and womens’s teams

$256,901 Practice-to-game ratio for men’s hockey

3 Dartmouth alumni played in the 2016 Stanley Cup Playoffs

36% Data from the U.S. Department of Education, 2015.

THE DARTMOUTH GREEN KEY 2016

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FRIDAY, MAY 20, 2016

Gender shapes perceptions of mental health Mental health experts reflect on the impact of gender on mental health. STORY

By Alyssa Mehra

Language and cultural perceptions surrounding mental health can often be gendered, a result of a long history of mental health stigmas that persist today. Dick’s House staff counselor Liz Stahler said her team considers gender identity in the context of a patient’s identity as a whole, though its immediate relevance varies case by case depending on the patient’s specific concerns. “The whole gender spectrum may present with different concerns around gender based on masculinity or femininity or gender-role expectations or gender-nonconforming presentations and how the culture affects that,” she said. “So I think we’re all considering that, all the time.” Stahler said that she and most of the other counselors at Dick’s House see about 25 patients each week, though she could not estimate the gender ratio of her patients. Katherine McAvoy ’17, vice chairman of the Student and Presidential Committee on Sexual Assault, noted that while Dick’s House is understaffed and underbudgeted, there are counselors with a range of identities that are available to students, a fact that may not be publicized or emphasized. Geisel School of Medicine psychiatry professor Veronika Fuetchner said many mental disorders, including hysteria, anxiety and depression, have been associated with femininity since the mid19th century when mental health research was first conducted. “From early on I think medical science was looking at this already through the lens of gender,” she said. Disorders associated with excessive emotion were often labeled as feminine. The idea of male trauma or hysteria was nonexistent until World War I, when many soldiers arrived home traumatized by what they had seen. Even then, the way in which the medical profession began thinking about men and trauma was very different than the way in which they thought about women and trauma, Fuetchner said. The diagnosis for depression has also changed drastically over the decades. She noted that in the 1950s, depression was associated with women, particularly those of privilege. The association arose from an image of housewives sitting at home taking care of children, isolated from both their work and social lives, she said. The case files of the 1950s were very judgmental of depression, insinuating it was a choice or could be easily addressed..

students are susceptible to,” she said. “No mental health concern “Some of these stereotypes that I’m aware of is impenetrable have ceased to exist but there are by a particular gender.” At the College, aside from counstill references,” Fuetchner said, “Men and women are still treated seling services at Dick’s House, peer differently around depression, and advising resources are also available to support students dealing with that comes from this history.” McAvoy said the historical con- mental health issues, though these nection between gender and mental are often overlooked. The Drug and Alcohol Peer health still affects mental health Advisors and treatment toEating Disorders d ay, n o t i n g “No mental health Pe e r A d v i s o r s that some physicians have concern that I’m aware p ro g r a m s h a d low capacity as been known to of is inpenetrable by a there were not take women’s enough students pain less seri- particular gender.” getting trained ously. every year and “T here’s not enough proa c o n n e c - -LIZ STAHLER, STAFF fessional staff to tion between COUNSELOR continue those mental health trainings, McAand marginvoy said. T he alization and inherent power structures and programs collapsed into the more society,” she said. “That is where holistic wellness peer position, and women are more likely to experi- the students who were in those ence sexism, which can have an positions remained peer advisors but took on special concentrations. impact on one’s mental health.” Fuetchner added that women They were retrained to talk to are often perceived as being more students about ways that empower emotionally expressive, which them to make their own changes, can lead to slower mental health diagnoses of women as compared to men. According to a 2015 American College Health Association report, 57.8 percent of undergraduate respondents said they had experienced “overwhelming anxiety” in the past 12 months. Of these, 74 percent were female and 25.1 percent were male. In addition, 15.8 percent of respondents said they had been diagnosed with anxiety in the past 12 months, of which 79.4 percent were female and 18.9 percent were male. Stahler noted that the rates of eating disorders among women are significantly higher than among men, though there has been a stark increase in men diagnosed with eating disorders in the past 15 years. In the ACHA survey, of the 1.4 percent of respondents who said they had been diagnosed with anorexia in the past 12 months, 81.7 percent were female and 15.1 percent were male. The statistics for bulimia were smiliar, with 1.2 percent of respondents said they had been diagnosed with bulimia in the past 12 months, of which 79.1 percent were female and 18.2 percent were male. However, Stahler emphasized that mental health concerns can affect people of any gender. “I can’t think of a single mental health concern that only women or only men or only transgender or only gender-nonconforming

McAvoy said. many people had good experiences Amanda Geduld ‘15, an EDPA, with mental health help from Dick’s said she was unable to estimate the House.” gender ratio of her advisees beDick’s House currently holds cause she has only been reached out satisfaction surveys, but those are to once during only filled out by her four years “There’s a connecstudents who seek as a EDPA. counseling there, tion between mental “Students which creates a m i g h t n o t health and marginalresponse bias bek n o w w h a t ization and inherent cause generally resources are people who have available or power structures and had positive exwouldn’t seek society.” periences are the out resources ones to fill out the on their own,” surveys, McAvoy she said. “If -KATHERINE MCAVOY ’17 said. they see signs “A n e c d o t a l l y, up around we hear a lot of campus about negative things this program specifically targeting about counseling at Dick’s House this, they might be more likely to compared to the qualitative data reach out to students as a mediator.” we have, which points out that Students are certified by a pro- students who go have overwhelmfessional associated with Dick’s ingly positive experience,” McAvoy House, after which students are said. “And we hopefully can come able to reach out to them if they up with some ways of improving or a friend they were concerned the Dick’s House experience if about had a problem, Geduld said. things come up showing that it “From what I saw, there weren’t needs to be improved or coming up a whole lot of resources,” she said. with concrete ways to correct the “We could send the students over to misperceptions about the counselDick’s House, but I don’t know if ing experience.”

THE DARTMOUTH GREEN KEY 2016

FRIDAY, MAY 20, 2016

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Student organizations vary in gender makeup

Students chat about how the gender composition of their members affects their clubs. STORY

By Megan Clyne

Throughout her freshman year at Dartmouth, Rachel Patel ’17 was interested in becoming involved with scientific research. She was drawn to the College’s Women in Science Project, a program specifically targeted towards women attracted to the sciences and one of about a dozen single-gender groups on campus. Other organizations on campus vary widely in the gender makeup of their membership. For many clubs, the gender ratio of their members is not as important as the overall mission of the organizations. A survey conducted by The Dartmouth received responses from 18 different clubs across campus. All respondents reported they were not surprised by the gender composition of their respective clubs and organizations. Thirty-nine percent of clubs that took the survey reported that gender makeup was not at all an issue to the members in the club, 39 percent voted it was of slight to mediocre importance and 22 percent said that gender makeup

was of utmost significance to the members. Patel is one of 200 to 250 women in WISP. Former assistant dean at the Thayer School of Engineering Carol Muller ’77 and the late Karen Wetterhahn, who was a chemistry professor and associate dean of the arts and sciences, founded the program in 1990 in an effort to address the underrepresentation of women in the sciences. At WISP’s 25th anniversary event in April, Muller said that when she assumed her position at Thayer, she was surprised to find very few engineering majors were women and Thayer only employed one female faculty member. When WISP was founded in 1990, only 45 women majored in STEM subjects, but by 2015 that number more than doubled, with 114 women graduating in the sciences. Through WISP, women apply for scientific research internships with faculty members and participate in peer mentoring programs with other women of different class years. As part of her involvement with WISP, Patel assisted in at

Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center’s bioinformatics department and served as a WISP mentor. She is now one of two peer mentor coordinators for the program. WISP mentee Rachel Martín ’19 said she thinks that limiting this program to women does not adversely affect males or limit their options for research. Programs like the First Year Research in Engineering program are open to everyone, so she does not believe men are at any disadvantage in terms of pursuing research opportunities at the College. Another single-gender group, Women in the Wilderness was originally founded to promote female leadership in the outdoors and foster discussion about the value of empowering women through outdoor trips. Molly Ryan ’17 leads Women in the Wilderness and is one of 264 women involved in the club. She said that the gender gap in the larger outdoor community is striking to her and due largely to societal and historically based gender norms. Traditionally we conceptualize the outdoors as a male realm, and so this club seeks

SOCIOLOGY HONORS THESIS PRESENTATIONS Hopkins Center Faculty Lounge

Tuesday, May 24

Nana Adjeiwaa-Manu, 4:30pm

Grieving for the Ungrievable: Support Systems among Bereaved Ghanaians in the United States

Ledah Geller, 5:30pm

The Ivy League Hookup Culture: An Examination of the Female Undergraduate Perspective

Thursday, May 26

Samantha Cheng, 4:30pm

Examining Gender Through Mentor Perspectives in Collegiate and Entrepreneurial Environments

Laura McCulloch, 5:30pm

A Sociological Examination of the United States Opioid Epidemic

to allow for female mentorship and involvement in nature. Women lead all trips, but students, regardless of gender identity, are welcome to attend trips and feeds. In this way, Women in the Wilderness fosters a community based on friendship and empowerment that allows women and men to learn from each other in a positive environment, Ryan explained. Women in Computer Science president Kaya Thomas ’17 also said her club began in 2012 as a way for women taking computer science classes to get to know each other. Men usually grouped together for assignments and projects, so it was important for females to support and form community with each other, which contributed most to Women in Computer Science being limited to women. The group, which has 15 to 30 active members, often hosts a variety of events for women in the field, including dinners for women to get to know professors, most of whom are male, and develop relationships that often evolve into mentorship and internship opportunities. There are also events which educate women on how to build a resume, as well as recruiting events, in which computer science companies come to campus to talk about internships and full time jobs, and casual meetings where women can get to know each other better. Apologia, Dartmouth’s journal of Christian thought, has a staff and leadership that oscillates between 15 to 20 people of an equal gender ratio, editor Jack Casale ’17 said. The organization releases two publications each year and hosts a series of engagement events each term. Casale said the organization likely attracts equal numbers of men and women because its mission has the potential to be appealing to everyone, regardless of gender. It is a space where members’ voices feel heard and participants feel they have an active part in the dialogue they are trying to foster on campus, he said. The Dartmouth Business Journal, another campus publica-

tion, also has equal membership among men and women. The organization publishes dozens of articles in print and online that cover a range of topics, including economics, psychology, finance and government. In terms of gender, the club has equal gender representation among writers, which president Joseph Bernstein ’17 said he thinks is due to equal interest in business among males and females. However, the club’s leaders are 60 percent male and 40 percent female, he said. Bernstein is also president of the Dartmouth Investment and Philanthropy Program, which he said is 85 to 90 percent male. The club manages an equity fund of $400,000, hosts programs on managing stocks and investment and choose non-profits to donate to each year. Bernstein said he believes this overwhelming male presence to be a result of the other business opportunities women are afforded at the College. Clubs like Smart Women’s Securities and Women in Business strongly attract women, he said. “It’s not that males are better investors than females,” Bernstein said. In contrast, Dartmouth Random Acts of Kindness president Kaitana Martínez ’16 said her club’s members are predominantly female. The ratio of women to men is approximately four to one. This ratio could be partially attributed to her club’s theme, which can be related to the stereotypical female role of care and service, Martínez said. Regardless of the primarily female participation, Martínez said the club does still have male involvement, though she wishes there were more men involved. She thinks that if more males participated in the club, the organization would have a broader perspective. Club projects would be a little different, the dynamic of weekly meetings would be distinct and the music choice would also differ slightly. “We probably wouldn’t listen to the Disney Pandora station as much,” she said.

THE DARTMOUTH GREEN KEY 2016

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FRIDAY, MAY 20, 2016

Coeducation defined the College’s changing gender dynamics FROM HISTORY PAGE 3

Dartmouth’s legacy as an all-male institution still lives on, Ackerman said. The most obvious example of this legacy is the Greek system, she said, where fraternities outnumber sororities and hold positions on campus and in student social life that vividly indicates who has power and who attention is centered on. “Furthermore, every building at Dartmouth is named after a man and we have a campus that has a lot of portraits of dead white men,” Ackerman said. “I don’t think students walk to class saying they’re oppressed by names, but subconsciously, it’s a strong message that’s sent saying men get buildings named after them and women don’t.” When it comes to female students of color, this legacy is also heightened by a lack of services that are not available to them even today. “Black students today talk about where you can get your haircut, where you can shop for your own personal style and without being looked at strangely,” Schweitzer said. “Even today, some of the basic services aren’t here today for minority women, and they feel that it’s an indication of ‘You’re not welcome here, we don’t want you here.’” In 1972, the total percentage of students of color was 10.9 percent.

It was not specified what portion of this percentage was minority women.

Dartmouth Today Women currently make up 49.3 percent of the College’s student population, a marked difference from the 27 percent in 1972. Despite the growing pains of the initial years of the transition, female students are as much a part of the institution as male students. Schweitzer said that some of the services available today are evidence of the progressive tendencies of the College in regards to women and gender. Such services include the women, gender and sexualities studies department, whose research is no longer seen as threatening or outside of the academy as it once was, she said. Schweitzer noted that many professors outside of the department teach courses on women’s and gender studies, Schweitzer said. “My sense for female students here are that they do feel like the college is fully coed.” Schweitzer said. “Clearly, there’s a lot of ways in which, since our society is maledominated, the campus will be residually male-dominated in that men are more entitled nationally, culturally.” However, the College has started many programs that seek to address this imbalance, such as the Gender Research Institute at Dartmouth and

WISP, Schweitzer said. Another clear example of progression for women on campus is the Center for Gender and Student Engagement, which used to be called the Women’s Resource Center because women were seen as a harassed minority on campus, Schweitzer said. She noted that the realization that a “feminist revolution” would not occur if services were only provided to women as opposed to including men and other members of the LGBTQIA spectrum allowed for the creation of the center, she said. Director of admissions Paul Sunde said that while current concerns about gender are very real, the College’s history is not a significant factor for prospective students when making their decisions to attend Dartmouth. Instead, issues such as sexual assault and Greek life are more common gender-related concerns. “Having this problem indicates that there is a group of men on this campus that regard women as less than equals and regard them as objects,” Schweitzer said. Lynn Pasquella, the president of Mount Holyoke College, said that students attending women’s colleges have said that they feel more engaged than students at a coed institution, which may in part be due to the fact that every leadership

COURTESY OF RAUNER

Women stand outside one of Dartmouth’s first female housing complexes.

role at a women’s college is occupied by a woman. Furthermore, female students at a women’s college may sense that they are able to really focus on their work at hand, she said. However, Sunde said that as a former graduate of Vassar College, which transitioned from being a women’s college to a coeducational institution in 1969, he found that while Dartmouth’s history may be a factor in issues such as sexual assault, he could not assume that the history is the sole cause of such issues. “I think those issues are pervasive and we see them across the higher landscape at institutions that are historically all male and female,” Sunde said. “They are very important and

relevant issues today regardless of the history.” Instead, Sunde said, while legacies of institutions may be present for each generation of students, the institutional identity is constantly being redefined by students who are present. The DOC’s First-Year Trips program shows this redefinition as it broadened its initially narrow offering for a diverse group of students. “It’s good to examine our history, and be mindful of our history, but I also think it’s important to be rooted in the present, and I’ve been really struck by how Dartmouth students claim ownership of their present and their energy in creating the future of Dartmouth,” Sunde said.

College sees efforts to encourage more women to go into STEM FROM UNDERGRADUATE PAGE 4

was originally very Eurocentric. The reasons for gender balance can be difficult to determine in some departments. History, the fifth most popular major for men and seventh most popular major for women,

is currently 59 percent male. The discipline can be classified in the social sciences or the humanities by different college — for organizational purpose, history is a social science at Dartmouth. “We have people who look like they’re doing stuff like IR [interna-

tional relations], but we also have people who look like they’re doing stuff like English literature,” chair of the history department Robert Bonner said. Moreover, Bonner stressed that the different subfields of history, rather than the subject as a whole, are more

COURTESY OF RAUNER

One of the first academic classes at the College offering credit to women.

likely to attract one gender than the other. For instance, a military history course previously offered at the College was predominantly male while a women’s history courses are typically predominantly female. The social sciences as of 2015 saw

a split between male and female majors. The majors that make up interdisciplinary studies, which includes majors for various area and identity studies, as well as miscellaneous fields such as linguistics and environmental science, are 63 percent female.

FRIDAY, MAY 20, 2016

THE DARTMOUTH GREEN KEY 2016

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Co-ed houses and single-gender houses discuss gender them. Having heard about EKT’s constitutional change, he approached Ihionu about rushing EKT. According to Ihionu, Bui has made gender a more important topic within the house. Since Bui’s joining, Ihionu has become increasingly conscious of using female-specific terms, at times forgoing the term “sisterhood” in favor of “Theta” or “the house.”

total members are women of color. Based on their oversight by national organizations, Ihionu think the bylaws governing many of Dartmouth’s sororities will not change. Despite the probable lack of change, Ihionu still recognizes the value in not accepting male members. “I do like that we have expanded with all but men, because of the patriarchal

corresponds to the person’s assigned sex at birth. “Sigma Phi Epsilon is a national fraternity built on the brotherhood and fellowship of men. Any individual who identifies as a man is welcome to seek membership in the fraternity,” former student director and student of Davidson College Sawyer Hicks said at a meeting on Dec. 5, 2014.

the time went to the executive committee to seek advice on whether this student that for a student who does not identify could potentially join the fraternity and with a particular gender, it can be a lot was told the student’s gender identity more comfortable to be a member of was a non-issue, Moolenijzer added. a gender-inclusive house. Nonetheless, this student — as well as In a survey conducted by The Dartother transgender students who rushed mouth on gender and Greek life, parin the past — have instead opted to ticipants were asked to mark their level “shake out” at other fraternities, he said. of confidence with a number of state “I think generally, as a single-sex ments by selecting the Greek house, [Sig Ep] options strongly agree, is pretty self-selecting agree, neither agree nor and kind of inherently disagree, disagree or exclusive,” Moolenijzer strongly disagree. said. An overwhelming To Moolenijzer’s number of the 342 knowledge, no transparticipants agreed wth gender students have Erritouni that genderbeen offered a bid. Howinclusive organizations ever, gender identity has are safe, welcoming and never been a defining inclusive for nonconformcharacteristic during deing students. Roughly 40 liberations, he said. Bids percent of participants are offered based on the strongly agreed that brothers’ interactions gender-inclusive orgawith prospective memnizations are safe, with bers, not their identity. only 1.5 percent strongly “It’s never been, in complete dissent. Simi‘This guy’s so masculine. larly, 41 percent strongly He’s super macho. Let’s agreed that these spaces give him a bid,’” Moolwere welcoming and enijzer said. inclusive for those other Considering that then men and women, Sig Ep is a group of priwith 1.5 percent in total marily cisgender, gender opposition. is talked about much Gender-inclusive more than Moolenijzer houses are unique for would have expected. taking a model of a social The brothers often play group that is traditiongames such as “Crossing ally gender-segregated the Line,” during which and making it their own, someone reads a stateCramer said. There is ment and members cross nothing inherently bad a line if the said statement about the structure of a is applicable to them. Greek house as a group of Many of those given deal friends who share a living with gender identity and space and participate in sexuality, Moolenijzer activities together, he said. noted. However, a number of The fraternity factors, such as genderbrothers also hold dissegregation, can change cussions about making the character of a house, Sig Ep as safe as possible making it a “really toxic, for people of all gender ultra-masculine environidentities, he said. In ment.” this regard, this past fall, While discussions on Moolenijzer proposed gender identity have marking the first floor become commonplace in bathroom gender-inclucoed houses like Phi Tau, sive. single-sex fraternities and “What made me sororities are also graphappiest was when I pling with contemporary proposed making the first BARRY YANG FOR THE DARTMOUTH definitions of gender. Data was taken from a campus-wide survey conducted by The Dartmouth, which received 342 responses. floor bathroom gender EKT inclusive, I expected there Epsilon Kappa Theta sorority Ihionu attributed the constitutional dynamic that still exists today,” she said. Vice president of membership devel- to be some resistance,” he said. “But amended its constitution two or three change in part to her sorority’s pro- “The whole school was created for opment for Sig Ep at Dartmouth Nick [the resolution] was unanimously and years ago to accept anyone who does gressive nature. She cited the soror- [men]. We were only accepted begin- Moolenijzer ’17 said that prior to the immediately passed.” not explicitly identify as male, president ity’s posting of resource sheets with ning 40 years ago.” national organization’s implementation During last year’s PRIDE week, a Amara Ihionu ’17 said. Since that the phone numbers of executives on Sig Ep of its more inclusive policy, Dartmouth’s few Sig Ep members attended a discuschange, the local sorority had the op- bathroom doors — a decision that has Last year, the National Board of local chapter was open to accepting sion on gender inclusivity in the Greek portunity to welcome its first non-gender since been adopted within the larger Directors of Sigma Phi Epsilon frater- transgender students, although this rule system, to share the steps they had taken binary member, Kevin Bui ’17, this Greek community – as an example of nity also unanimously voted to open was not formally codified in its constitu- to make the fraternity more inclusive winter. its forward-thinking ways. its membership to those who identify tion. and welcoming place, he added. Ihionu said that Bui had explored EKT is also the most racially diverse as transgender. The term transgender In the fall of 2014, a gender non- Bui and Sig Ep national organizathe gender-inclusive houses, but felt sorority within the Panhellenic Council, refers to a person who expresses a gender conforming individual participated in tion did not respond to requests for they were not an appropriate fit for Ihionu said. This year, a majority of its identity that differs from the one which rush at Sig Ep, he said. The rush chair at comments. FROM GREEK PAGE 5

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THE DARTMOUTH GREEN KEY 2016

Alumnae look to change norms FROM ALUMNAE PAGE 11

Dartmouth helped her develop, cultivated her passion for activism. Her affiliation with Sigma Delta sorority gave her an empowering base that inspired her to give back to girls who might not be lucky enough to have a strong female support system. “I realized that a lot of the girls in India didn’t have that, and so creating a camp that was all girls and only for girls and a special space for them was something that I was able to bring for them,” she said. Anne Munger ’13 managed social COURTESY OF SUSAN STRUBLE media platforms and created multimedia content for VOICE from July Susan Struble ‘93 started Dartmouth Change to keep Dartmouth accountable 2013 to July 2014. At Dartmouth, she by submitting recommendations on sexual assault issues to the College. majored in film and media studies filmmakers. They funded three real honesty about the root cause of and philosophy, dedicating herself female filmmakers to make short those problems, and that needs to to filmmaking. Munger’s interest lies documentaries about female subjects be done by a group of independent in changing the conversation around succeeding in their respective fields to experts, and that is precisely what the women. Through her work with be shown at the 2016 Tribeca Film College refuses to do,” she said. VOICE, she came upon the issue of Festival. Munger’s piece, titled “Chro- Spencer says that gender issues female sterilization in India, which mat: Body Electric” (2016), follows can be more than just an interest; is the most prevalent form of birth fashion designer Becca McCharen they can be a life calling. control in the country. as she develops a line for the runway. “If you are interested in activism “If you’re talking about a coun- Munger developed an interest in around gender equality or developtry as large as India and as widely gender equality and female empow- ment or any of these things dealing uneducated in certain areas, instead erment at Dartmouth, where she with women in the U.S. or abroad, you of promoting the pill, condom, IUDs worked as a Sexual Assault Peer Ad- can make a career out of it, and there or whatever, it’s a lot easier for the visor. According to the Rape, Abuse are things you can do at Dartmouth government to sterilize people who and Incest National Network, one out that will set you up for success after are done having children,” she said. of six Ameri- college,” she said. According to can women has Munger wants women on campus the 2005-2006 “I think Dartmouth been the victim to know that we need our male peers National Fam- has a long, long way of attempted on board in order to change the ily Health Survey, or completed gender dynamics at Dartmouth. the rate of female to go when it comes rape in her “I think Dartmouth has a long, sterilization in In- to treating female lifetime. Many long, long way to go when it comes dia is 37 percent alumni have to treating female students with and accounts for students with the d e d i c a t e d the respect they deserve,” she said. 66 percent of all respect they deserve.” themselves to “There’s a lot left to do in terms of contraceptive use. battling sexual gender equality on campus, and we For such a quesa s s a u l t , i n - can only get so far without the support tionable policy, the -ANNE MUNGER ’13 cluding Susan of male peers.” topic of female Struble ’93. Struble has a direct message for sterilization has When she first College President Phil Hanlon: “I received very minimal press coverage. graduated, she worked at a domestic would like for President Hanlon to Munger noticed that the literature violence and rape crisis hotline for state very publicly exactly why we that she could find on the topic, four years. She reengaged with the have sexual assault on Dartmouth though, was very much one-sided sexual assault issue at Dartmouth campus. What are the driving forces and through her documentary, “Nas- through an organization called Dart- behind it? I think it starts there, with bandi” (2015), she wanted to capture mouth Change four years ago. some brutal honesty.” the other side. “I formed a group that we call Struble believes that belief is neces “The articles that we could find Dartmouth Change as a collection sary for change. that were addressing the nuances of alumni, faculty and students and “It’s awareness combined with of the governments policy [and] together we try to put forth recom- belief,” Struble said. “You can make were really not taking into account mendations to the College and keep somebody aware of the fact but they the woman’s voice and her agency. the pressure on the College to be can still just say, ‘I don’t believe that; We found it was severely missing, so making changes,” she said. I don’t believe the stats behind it.’ It’s the goal of film was to bring to light Struble feels that the statistics speak awareness plus belief plus a feeling womens’ voices on the subject of their for themselves — there simply hasn’t that the institution and your peers own reproductive health,” she said. been enough change. And if the sta- and the culture is actually willing to When Munger moved back to New tistics aren’t enough, her own personal change.” York, she started focusing on an issue trauma has a voice of its own; she Will we see the change you want that was more personal. was raped at Dartmouth both when to see? “One issue that’s very close to me she was a prospective student and as “Over the long term, yes, because I and my industry right now is the fact a freshman. The reported numbers think over the long term we are luckily that women are severely underrepre- don’t lie, nor do they begin to account in a shift of power, and women will sented in the film industry,” she said. for all the cases of sexual violence on wield much more influence, and we She jumped on the chance to campus that go unreported. will ask much harder questions, and participate in the #ActuallySheCan She believes that the first step in we will refuse to take weak answers campaign, a project started by solving the epidemic of sexual assault that too many of us do now,” Struble Tribeca Enterprises and Allergan is transparency. believes. “In the short term, I don’t Pharmaceuticals to promote female “I think the first thing starts with know.”

FRIDAY, MAY 20, 2016

GRID looks to secure more funding FROM GRID PAGE 8

for Computational Science. Faculty apply to be fellows with GRID by explaining how their research could relate to the year’s theme. “It’s a mix of very interesting conversations because people are coming at the topic from very different angles,” she said. The faculty director comes up with several readings which the faculty members associated with GRID read and debate, then incorporating those readings into their research. “If I’m a person studying nationalism and terrorism, why would I need theoretical framings coming out of feminist ecologies?” Martín said. “That’s what I’m trying to work through in the seminar. Everyone produces an article in which they translate what we’ve done as a group into their work.” The seminar, research class and lecture series are all available to undergraduates. Hantel said that the full term seminar is part of what makes GRID unique and helps it draw students into its programming. This year’s seminar theme is titled “Gender Matters: Feminist Ecologies and Materialisms” and was led by English professor Aimee Bahng. The issues discussed tie directly into Hantel’s research on feminist and Afro-Caribbean philosophy exploring alternative political and ecological systems of thought, which relates to the current seminar theme. “I think there are two scales to ecological crisis and we’re really bad at talking about them together,” Hantel said. Hantel said the large scale consists of issues including global warming, the plastic in the Pacific Ocean and “generationally huge problems.” The small scale are “intensively local versions,” including Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and the recent water crisis in Flint, Michigan. He added that he explores ways to talk about those scales at the same time. This year’s series brought Rutger’s University professor Jasbir Puar, a choice that some students criticized because of her past remarks on Israel and Palestine. Currently, GRID is renegotiating continuing its funding with the College. In regards to College backing, Martín said that the administration has been very supportive. However, she also said that as the initial funding for the program has now been spent, GRID and the administration is in the process of thinking about GRID’s future funding. “[Folt’s] gift has allowed us to

exist for four years with a healthy program,” Martín said. “But now, we’re in conversation in how to be sustainable and how to grow because we want to grow.” Martín noted that possible future projects could include funding student internships and scholarships. GRID’s aspirations are similar to its Ivy League counterparts, but its space and funding is “not there yet,” she said. Martín said Dartmouth losing “R1” status, a top research classification, has hurt GRID by diminishing morale, shrinking their speaker budgets, and will likely hurt its recruiting and chances at external grants, since “R2” status is a “step down.” Dartmouth fell out of the R1 category released by Carnegie Classifications of Institutions of Higher Education on Feb. 1 of this year. “I would hope that our school would knowingly support the activities GRID does because it helps our school to meet the challenges of a liberal arts education,” Martín said. GRID has collaborated with Durham University through “extremely productive” visits and by co-organizing workshops and panels, said Santiago Fouz Hernández, director of postgraduate studies at Durham University in the United Kingdom. He said they are collaborating on a book publication and facilitating future exchange programs for staff and students. Hernandez said that GRID does a great job of putting Dartmouth’s gender research on the world map. “I guess I would define GRID’s contribution to the field as markedly interdisciplinary, cutting-edge research of the highest standards,” he said. As a graduate student in the late 1990s, he remembered everyone being excited about queer theory and men’s studies, with gender research focusing on “ensuring that men, male bodies and masculinities experienced the same level of scrutiny that women, female bodies or femininities had been subjected to in the previous decades.” He said that back then there was not enough focus on diversity within those categories and that today’s research focuses more on class, race, ethnicity, age and transnational issues. Hantel also emphasized the importance of gender programs. “There were no women, gender and sexuality programs 40 years ago, so it’s all kind of new and experimental and coming at a moment when universities are being reorganized so we’ll see [how the field evolves],” Hantel said.

FRIDAY, MAY 20, 2016

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Graduate schools slowly increase female enrollment FROM GRAD PAGE 7

in Management. She attributed these partnerships as part of the reason for Tuck’s increases in female enrollment over the past few years. Draper also noted that many businesses today are demanding more female employees to boost their own diversity, creating a stronger demand for MBAs among women as well. Draper said that Tuck remains in the early stages of figuring out how to recruit more female faculty members. Slaughter and associate dean for the faculty Richard Sansing both value this heavily, she said, and have been trying to educate themselves on how to form effective search committees and avoid implicit biases that could come up while conducting these searches. Hilary Modjeska Tu’16 said that she doesn’t think much about being a woman during her day-to-day life at Tuck, as women and men at the school have generally similar experiences. While the school has frequent discussions about gender biases and pay gaps in the workforce, within the school she does not notice much division. Modjeska said she came to Tuck in part because of the community, which she described as inclusive, as well as for the opportunities for personal and professional growth. She said this inclusive community likely attracts many women to Tuck, as do active efforts to recruit female students. She also noted that Tuck has focused recently on holding more discussions about diversity and inclusivity, a trend that she hopes continues. In the fall, Modjeska co-chaired the annual Women in Business conference, which invites prospective female students to visit the campus for two days

and speak with current students. Around 80 to 90 people attend each year, she said. She said feedback for the program has been positive, and that its two-day duration gives prospective students a great chance to learn more about Tuck. Helble discussed gender diversity in two types of programs at Thayer: engineering management and doctoral students. For engineering management, Helble said that the admissions office actively seeks to encourage women to apply. More women applying results in a positive feedback loop effect in which women see strong female representation at Thayer and feel more comfortable applying, he said. For doctoral programs, Helble said that there are limitations in the school’s ability to attract female students. As doctorate students typically seek out particular faculty to work with, attracting those students on criteria besides their field of specialty can be difficult. One way the school has managed to increase the diversity of its applicant pool is by looking at students from a wide variety of disciplines, he said. Since some fields like the life sciences are much more representative of women, the applicant pool also becomes more diverse. Helble highlighted Thayer’s Ph.D. Innovation Program as another example of the school successfully making itself more welcoming to female candidates. The program, which began in 2008, had no female applicants for its first two years, he said. In response, Thayer interviewed female undergraduates and asked why they were not applying to the program in order to better understand how to meet their needs. They also began marketing it much more heavily at conferences and through female faculty and staff. As a result of these efforts, female enroll-

ment in the program has increased to 30 percent of its total enrollment since 2008, Helble said – 50 percent in the years following their marketing efforts, which started in 2010. For faculty, Helble said that while Thayer is not doing anything different from the other schools on campus, they are still taking steps to increase diversity. Ultimately, Thayer is focused on bringing the best candidates it can to the school, he said , and more traditional forms of recruitment, such as placing ads in a magazine, would leave out many qualified candidates, he said. Derik Hertel, director of communications and marketing at Geisel, wrote in an email that Geisel has many initiatives in place to increase diversity and cultural awareness. The school has a dedicated associate dean for diversity and inclusion, Leslie Henderson, to focus on diversity issues, he said. Geisel has also recently appointed three women to endowed chairs, and currently has six female department chairs, he said. Compared to national averages, Dartmouth’s graduate schools tend to stand slightly above the pack in enrolling women. In the 2015-2016 year, 46.8 percent of American medical students were female, according to the Association of American Medical Colleges – 11.2 percent lower than at Geisel. For the 2013-2014 year, the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business reported that 37.7 percent of MBA students in North America were female, slightly lower than Tuck’s 40-plus percent. And in 2012, the National Science Foundation reported that only 23.3 percent of engineering graduate students were women, lower than Thayer’s 28 percent and far below its expected 30 to 35 percent range.

In terms of medical school enrollment, Dartmouth also has higher levels of female enrollment than its peers in the Ivy League. Harvard Medical School’s entering class in 2015 was 50 percent women, while Yale Medical School’s was 51 percent. At Weill Cornell Medical College, 46.2 percent of the incoming class was female, and at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine 47 percent were female. For business schools, Dartmouth’s numbers are closer to its peers. Female students make up 43 percent of the MBA class of 2017 at the Wharton School and 41 percent at Harvard Business School. At the Yale School of Management, women make up 40 percent of the incoming first-year MBA class. Cornell’s Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management lists a 43 percent enrollment of women in its incoming one-year MBA program, though only 26 percent in its two-year program. Harvard’s School of Engineering and Applied Science had 24.8 percent women enrolled for all graduate degrees in 2014, while Cornell’s College of Engineering has a 29.6 percent enrollment. U.S. News and World Report lists Yale’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences as having 32.4 percent female enrollment. These numbers, too, are consistent with Thayer’s levels of gender diversity. Director of community and inclusion at the Yale School of Management Tiffany Gooden ’01 also highlighted the importance of pipeline issues in increasing female enrollment. The school has partnered with Forté and recently participated in a White House initiative with Valerie Jarrett, senior advisor to the president and chair of the White

House council on women and girls, in a forum in October, to increase women’s awareness about graduate management programs, she said. The school believes that women’s representation in business is an industry-wide issue, and therefore is focused on expanding the entire pool of women applicants for all business schools, she said, not just at Yale. Over the past five to seven years, Yale SOM’s female representation has steadily increased, she said. Forté executive director Elissa Sangster said that if business schools want to see an improvement in female representation they should seek to connect with women about their interests and understand what they want to gain from an MBA. She also highlighted the importance of having female leaders in the faculty and administration. Men, too, can play a role in increasing women’s presence in business by acting as allies and seeking to change business culture at large, she said. Other graduate schools have also put in efforts to recruit female faculty. In an email, dean of faculty at Harvard Medical School Maureen Connelly wrote that the school has engaged in several practices to increase their gender diversity, such as making sure to include female representation on senior search committees and tracking gender representation on junior search committees. She also wrote that Harvard Medical School has created a new guide on overcoming implicit bias when searching for faculty. In addition, HMS has several institutions and awards to support diversity, including a committee reporting to the dean that provides forum for women’s issues and an annual award given to a faculty and a staff member who support the advancement of women.

BARRY YANG FOR THE DARTMOUTH

Data for this graph came from a campus-wide survey conducted by The Dartmouth that received 342 responses.

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FRIDAY, MAY 20, 2016

STAFF COLUMNIST CLARA CHIN ’19

VERBUM ULTIMUM THE DARTMOUTH EDITORIAL BOARD

Not Just the Numbers

Questioning Spaces

Societal norms inhibit women in STEM fields.

We need to take a serious look at the value of single-gender organizations.

Despite being an English major, I am fact that the top 10 highest paying jobs for concerned about the lack of women in women still show a wage gap in favor of science, technology, engineering and math- men and that as women continue to pursue ematics fields. Statistics from the National these jobs, which are mostly in STEM, the Student Clearinghouse reveal not only that average wage decreases. This indicates an the number of women with bachelor’s de- even more problematic gender disparity in grees in science and engineering disciplines which the work that women do, whether it is low, but that it has in fact decreased since be humanities or STEM related, is gener2004. Most drastically, women received ally devalued. An article by Claire Cain only 23 percent of computer science de- Miller in The New York Times cites a study grees in 2004, while in 2014 this number involving U.S. census data on pay and type fell to 18 percent. Coincidentally, I happen of job. The study shows that computer to be taking a statistics class that involves a programming, which used to be a “relalittle bit of computer science, which allows tively menial role done by women,” began me some personal insight as to why this to pay more after more men became proproblem exists. After all, why don’t women grammers. Conversely, the wage for biolojust major in science? gists fell about 18 There’s no legal or writpercentage points ten boundary stopping when more women “The subtle sexism that them. entered. And for While social struc- sometimes occurs in the highest paytures have a lot to do numerically femaleing college major with the lack of female group, pharmacy, STEM majors, I think dominated classrooms pharmaceutical sciour psychological bar- should serve as a ences and adminisriers — or what an the median reminder that, even when tration, English major like me earnings for women may refer to as “mind- women are the statistical are $10,000 less forged manacles” — are majority in a classroom, than the median far more influential. earnings for men. Clearly, I’m comfort- social assumptions about So, the proable making references gender may persist.” portion of men to to poets like Blake, Poe women in STEM and Plath, because I am fields is a good starttold it is socially approing place to solve priate. The gender gap gender disparity in in STEM is a vicious academia and, by cycle; because the statistics are already extension, its impact on gender disparso low, we might subconsciously perceive ity in the workplace. And, granted, there humanities majors to be more accommo- have been several good initiatives aimed dating for women than STEM. STEM is, at solving this problem. New organizations therefore, a realm not just out of reach, like Girls Who Code help make coding a but also undesirable. It’s hard to encourage possible and accessible career for women, people to go into a field that they perceive equipping girls with the resources and as hostile towards them. the mindset to follow their STEM pur However, it is also not true that hu- suits. In addition, as I suggested earlier, manities majors are, by default, more ac- mindset may just be the most important commodating towards women. There’s a part. Because I may have subconsciously popular BuzzFeed video that reverses the internalized the social stereotype that stereotypical, often sexist roles that men and STEM is not for girls, I sometimes find women play in the workplace. It draws on it difficult to suppress pessimism and fear female experiences of feeling excluded in in the few STEM-related, or even simply conversations and having ideas dismissed numerically-based classes I have taken due to their perceived weakness and unac- here. But this brings up another point. ceptable femininity. I have felt this before While I do regret my own pessimism in a couple of my humanities and social towards STEM and believe it should be science classes — perhaps more so in high made clear that future generations of school, but even a little bit now. It is difficult women should find comfort, passion and to be in a class in which the majority of excitement in STEM fields, it is also imthe literature is by white men, and then to portant to realize that this only begins to have the most frequent hand-raisers also be solve the problem. The humanities should men. The reality is that, even when most not be devalued because they are seen as participants in a conversation are female, traditionally female subjects. Furthermore, men can still dominate. A 2004 study at the subtle sexism that sometimes occurs in Harvard Law School found that men were numerically female-dominated classrooms 50 percent more likely than women to speak should serve as a reminder that, even up at least once during class and 144 percent when women are the statistical majority more likely to volunteer a comment at least in a classroom, social assumptions about three times. This is a social phenomenon gender may persist. The low number of known colloquially as “mansplaining.” women in STEM fields is just one aspect Perhaps even more disturbing is the of gender inequity in academia.

Two weeks ago, Harvard University’s familiarity with a potential employer that other administration handed down a historic ruling comparable candidates don’t, then it would that stated that starting with the Class of 2021, definitely give you a leg up when looking for any undergraduate members of unrecognized work. But again, we don’t see any clear reasons single-gender social organizations would be why this wouldn’t be the case for coed social banned from holding captain positions on organizations. Perhaps the argument could be athletic teams or holding leadership positions made that such a change would make some in any recognized student groups. Members of of the more traditionally inclined employers these organizations, which at Harvard include uncomfortable, which could in turn make them finals clubs and Greek houses, will also not less likely to treat someone from the newly coed be eligible for fellowships like the Rhodes or organization with extra favor. Marshall scholarships. This decision, which As far as creating a social space where hard came in the wake of a sexual assault investi- working students can cut loose, the arguments gation that shined a very unflattering light on for single-gender organizations become slightly Harvard’s single-gender social organizations, more difficult to analyze. We would argue that has sparked a lot of discussion around the people are going to have fun with their friends, country about the merits regardless of what and drawbacks of social gender identity those organizations that inherfriends have. However, ently exclude half of the “Why not define others would say that student body based on ownership of your having a space that gender. Whether they belongs to them withspace by the people be Greek houses or out the social pressures secret societies, single- who are part of your they’ve assigned to gender organizations the opposite gender is organization, rather have all but dominated important. Yet, that arDartmouth’s social scene than having gender gument begs the quessince there has been one. tion: why would people be a prerequisite to However, in the wake of need to be around only intense national discus- being a part of that their own gender to feel sion concerning Greek organization?” comfortable in a space? houses and the decision Why not define ownerfrom a peer institution to ship of your space by all but abolish any social the people who are part of your organization, organization that does not go coed, we are left rather than having gender be a prerequisite to to question: what are the merits of single-gender being a part of that organization? social organizations? Finally, many argue that single-gender To be perfectly clear, this is not a condem- organizations offer the opportunity for people nation of the Greek system or single-gender to create lasting bonds of brotherhood and organizations in general, nor is it a call to sisterhood among peers of the same gender in a make all Dartmouth social organizations coed. safe and comfortable space. In a perfect world, However, we think it is worth examining the needing a single-gender space to grow close to reasons people usually give for keeping social people and to feel safe and comfortable should organizations single-gender and whether or be a non-issue. If men and women were equal not these rationales still hold true in 2016. in each other’s eyes, then they should be able to When asked to defend the Dartmouth Greek form lasting bonds with people around them system, proponents often cite a few reasons for with whom they identify, regardless of their the system to remain intact as is. Some of the gender. However, we do not live in a perfect most popular ones include philanthropy, the world. On college campuses across the country, creation of lasting student-alumni networks, including our own, there has been a disprothe creation of a social space for students to portionate amount of violence perpetrated cut loose and the fostering of bonds between by men against women. This makes this issue like-minded individuals. It would be interesting even more complicated. In theory, men and to examine how these would be affected were women should be equal and should be able to single gender organizations to go coed. inhabit the same space. But in practice, women When defending Greek life, proponents have time and time again been the victims of point to their philanthropic achievements. At violence perpetrated by men in male dominated Dartmouth as well as other schools, fun phil- spaces. So, although they can promote further anthropic events hosted by Greek houses often distinction along gender lines, single-gender end up raising a lot of money and awareness organizations provide safe spaces for women. for good causes. While this remains a solid For decades, many students arriving at argument for the Greek system in general, Dartmouth have considered single-gender there isn’t any reason that coed houses could social organizations a given. Perhaps, however, not put on the same kind of fundraisers and we should look more closely into the reasons do the same kind of good work. why we keep these single-gender. Some of the Members of single-gender organizations arguments don’t hold up as well as they should, often laud their organizations as a great way while others are predicated on disturbing truths to form connections with alumni and help that shouldn’t even be true in the first place. secure students opportunities going into an increasingly competitive job market. Again, this The editorial board consists of the editor in chief, is probably true; if you have a level of social publisher, both executive editors and the editorial editor.

FRIDAY, MAY 20, 2016

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Coeducation: A Photo Essay By SEAMORE ZHU

The Dartmouth Senior Staff

COURTESY OF RAUNER

THE DARTMOUTH GREEN KEY 2016

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FRIDAY, MAY 20, 2016

Through the Looking Glass:

Screaming (Woman of) Color

Students, faculty and staff of color are silenced at the College, and it’s time to fight for change. COLUMN

By Pei-Yun Chu

Here’s the thing: being a woman of color her outstanding excellence as a teacher, mentor was never something I thought about really and scholar they no longer wanted her here was being until I came to Dartmouth. Politically I the day I genuinely realized that this institution identified with it, but it wasn’t until I arrived in doesn’t give a damn about women of color this frankly toxic white, male, heteronormative and our struggles. I know it’s maybe a little space that I absorbed the full extent of how pathetic that it took me almost two years to much being a woman of color would dictate arrive here. I was so optimistic! But this place my experience here. Although Dartmouth has has crushed so much out of me. I wanted to many more people of color than the incredibly believe that people like me could be valued in white town where I grew up, its rhetoric of academia, that Dartmouth might at least not diversity and inclusivity only masks an apa- actively oppose change. I wanted to believe thetic at best, often actively that this adminishostile attitude towards tration cared about those who by their mere what I go through as existence challenge the an Asian-American rigid norms of this place. “I do feel silenced! I woman. But in the Before I really get into days following the feel exhausted, drained, it, I’d like to take a moment decision, College for a bit of a reminder. I terrified, grief-stricken, President Phil Hanthink oftentimes we spend enraged, because of this lon and much of the too much time considering rest of the adminidentities as isolated expe- place that has told me in istration wasted no riences. Here’s a panel on actions far louder than effort in dumping gender, here’s a discussion the last straws on any words that they do on race, here’s an event our already weighton queerness. Existing not value women of ed backs. as a woman of color I color.” There is nothcan’t fathom how we try ing to conclude to dissect these different from the denial segments of ourselves, like of Bahng’s tenure my being Asian-American other than this instihas nothing to do with how tution cannot stand I experience my gender. It to let a professor has everything to do with it. Last year when like her remain on campus and continue to my dear friend Moulshri Mohan ‘15 published threaten their carefully preserved status quo. her amazing photo project, “What Dartmouth I don’t need to list her accomplishments here Doesn’t Teach Me,” the backlash against — if you don’t already know them they’re easAsian women on various anonymous internet ily found — but one of the reasons she is so spaces was like my first slap in the face here. beloved by students, faculty and staff is because Violent sexual remarks made against specific of how powerfully she supports the causes of Asian women — me and my friends — by women of color at this school. Aimee uplifts people who I walk amongst us even as the adon this campus, dunked me ministration tries to headlong into the real fear keep us suppressed. “This is only part of that hovers over women of Now they’ve takcolor like a constant nag- a larger trend of the en away our only ging cloud. It’s because of Asian Americanist devaluation of our this that I cannot and will professor, one of not separate these aspects bodies, our experiences the few faculty who of my identity. I have to live puts so much of her and our work here.” daily with the knowledge energy and love into that because of the way my making this school identities intersect, much a better place. Perof this campus sees me as haps they’re thinka silent, submissive object, ing, this is the way to and my words and space prevent rebellion. are constantly compressed, threatened and This is the way to really silence those students erased. of color, those students who are not white, This is only part of a larger trend of the straight or male, those students who they put devaluation of our bodies, our experiences on the brochures but not on their priority and our work here. Women students of color lists. And if they are thinking that, then they are silenced in the classroom, women staff of aren’t wrong. I do feel silenced! And I feel color are “let go” after hours spent support- exhausted, drained, terrified, grief-stricken, ing the community and women professors of enraged, because of this place that has told color do brilliant scholarship, inspire countless me in actions far louder than any words that students and then are denied tenure by the very they do not value women of color. administration that claims to bring them in to But women of color have been stepped increase “diversity.” The day Dartmouth told on and pushed down for centuries, both here English professor Aimee Bahng that despite and elsewhere, and we’ve always kept fighting.

COURTESY OF PEI-YUN CHU

Pei-Yun Chu ‘18 discusses English professor Aimee Bahng’s tenure denial in the context of the marginalization of people of color at Dartmouth.

We fight and fight and we almost never get to the collective of women of color who welthe credit but we keep on fighting. Even now comed me when I first stepped on campus as an accepted student. we refuse to stay Throughout my time here silenced, refuse it has been women of color to be complawho have encouraged me, cent, refuse to “Women of color have reassured me and bettered assimilate. The been stepped on and me. It is for these women, women of color pushed down for and for all women of color whom I love and who have been touched by admire are the centuries, both here and this school, that I continue strongest people elsewhere, and we’ve to demand that Dartmouth I know. Their take a good hard look at strength comes always kept fighting.” itself and mend at least in their resissome of its many wrongs. tance, whether This place will never be it be quiet or made for us. But despite loud, in their all that, we have carved k i n d n e s s, i n out our own spaces with their brilliance, in their love. Though it is bittersweet, much labor and love and I will not let them take of my initial optimism in this place was due that away.