Hilal Nakiboglu: Working to help women beat the odds

When my parents told me I'd be going to a single-sex high school, I was nothing short of horrified.

They informed me over dinner one night, on the eve of my graduation from ninth grade. "It'll be great for you," my dad had said blandly. In response, I shot my mom a look of outrage. "An all-female environment will help you build confidence and character" was her response, without a flinch.

I felt my stomach sink. I understood that this wasn't up for discussion. I guessed that my registration check had already been mailed. I was right. Clearly, tragically, the dictator/parent team had made an executive decision. And there was nothing I could do about it.

A gray scene out of Jane Eyre popped to mind at the prospect of attending this Institute of Estrogen. I excused myself calmly from the table and went off into the sanctuary of my bedroom for some very necessary hysterical weeping.

I decided to hate this school when I discovered its initials spelled out the word MARS. To make things worse, "MARS" was embroidered on the lapel of my ankle-length uniform; a uniform that was a sad shade of gray and resembled a baggy toga.

Having spent a good deal of junior high in the library, keeping abreast of the developments at Sweet Valley High, the prospect of becoming a "martian" crushed me. My understanding of high school was that it should be about pompoms, lip gloss and boys.

It would be very incomplete without first kisses, prom dresses and football games. Surely, going to MARS would mean that some key chapter in the book of "growing up" would be missing, lost to me.

As it turns out, I was right. I was left out in a big way.

Not only did I miss out on the pompomed-sporting events, I also missed a prime chance to develop an eating disorder. I missed out on being subjected to imbalanced classroom dynamics and sexist teachers. I missed out on the chance to decide that I was inept at math or science. And on the opportunity to realize that I wasn't beautiful, curvy, thin or fill-in-the-blank enough.

Mind you, I wasn't aware of all this while enrolled at MARS. I began reflecting critically on my experiences after coming across the American Association of University Women's report, "How Schools Shortchange Girls."

Widely addressed in the media since it came out in the early 1990's, the report offers a look at the attitudes of about 3,000 boys and girls from nine to 15 years of age. It pulls together national survey and focus group information in its presentation of an alarming set of findings.

According to the AAUW, transitioning from adolescence to adulthood is especially rough on girls. The report chronicles a serious loss of overall self-confidence with an especially marked drop in perceived ability to perform well in science and math.

Adolescence is the time when girls learn to be dangerously critical of their appearance and their bodies. They decide they are not smart enough and become increasingly silent in class. For them, it's a time of self-censorship and is discerned by a sad shift away from a positive self-image.

Young girls especially leave their adolescent years behind with low expectations of themselves. They, according to the AAUW report, are more depressed than their male counterparts and are four times more likely than them to attempt suicide.

The adolescent girls captured in the study overwhelmingly said they felt "not good enough" or "not smart enough" to be successful. Not surprisingly, they tended to underscore the importance of their physical attributes. Most offered a component of their appearance as their best trait. Meanwhile the boys stressed their "talents," be they athletic or intellectual.

I can't make the argument that my single-sex schooling gave me the confidence to pursue genetics in college. I can't say that it is the reason all of the 26 women with whom I graduated high school went on to do very well for themselves, academically and emotionally.

What I will say instead is that I have acquired a great deal of respect for the women who have "beat the odds" and are here at Penn. It is remarkable.

Though the critical years seem behind us all, it is imperative that we be mindful of ourselves and attuned to each other, especially us women. The opportunity to be a student at Penn is an exceptional one. Let's not waste it by underestimating our abilities, our bodies, our intelligence.

The challenge remains to become better versions of ourselves and to spread the word that women, too, can be from MARS.

Hilal Nakiboglu is a second-year doctoral student in Higher Education Management from Ankara, Turkey.

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