On Oct. 2, the board of Wells College, an all-women's school in upstate New York, voted to begin admitting men for the first time in September 2005. The decision was made in an effort to solve the school's long-standing financial problems. Furious over the sudden decision, Wells students have staged vigorous protests and sit-ins. National response to their objections has ranged from sympathy to ridicule.
Although I recognize the school's need to raise money, and acknowledge that becoming coed might even be the best solution, I have been disheartened to see the negative reaction to the women's protests. Many of the responses merely reflect common misperceptions about women's schools.
The criticisms include the idea that women's institutions fail to represent the "real world" and that graduates have a distorted sense of their own importance as women. Critics assert that women's colleges are discriminatory and that they are bastions of man-hating hyper-feminism. Finally, people claim that although women "can attend women's schools if they want" (gee, thanks), women would actually benefit more from a coed educational environment.
I should mention that, although I'm certainly not an expert on women's education, I have experience with women-only schools. I attended an all-female Catholic high school. My mother received her undergraduate education at Smith College, a women's school. And I seriously considered attending a women's school for my own college education.
When I hear people claim that colleges such as Wells fail to represent the real world, I have to laugh at the argument's ludicrousness. Since when did any college even slightly resemble the real world? Where in the real world do you interact almost exclusively with people between the ages of 18 and 22? Where in the real world can 40 percent of the population afford to pay $40,000 per year to attend college? For all their supposed commitment to "diversity," colleges are inherently artificial environments -- if they were just like the world outside, people wouldn't bother to go.
Instead, colleges prepare students for the real world by giving them the skills they need to succeed in it. In addition to instructing on academic material, a college should teach students to consider new ideas, to think and write clearly, to pursue their goals with conviction and to assert themselves while working cooperatively. Using these criteria, women's colleges succeed admirably. Studies show that graduates of women's colleges are more likely than their coed counterparts to pursue advanced degrees and hold leadership positions in business and government. They show greater gains on standardized tests, they participate more in philanthropic activities and organizations and they have higher self-esteem. When Wells claims that "it's real-world experience," it refers to its ability to foster talents in its students that make them prepared for real-world challenges.
Furthermore, women's colleges do not discriminate against men arbitrarily, nor do they exclude them because of an anti-male agenda. A women's school is not just a coed school without men. Rather, the all-female environment is an integral part of the academic and social experience.
When I attended a women's high school, the friendships I formed were different, views of intellectualism and scholarship were altered, personal encouragement took a distinct form and attitudes about personal relationships were unique. Simply put, that same atmosphere could not have been replicated if men had been present. Women's schools do not exclude men merely out of a sense of tradition; they do so because it is the only way they can provide that experience. By choosing to admit men, Wells is depriving its students of the experience they selected.
Most importantly, to claim from afar that women at Wells would benefit from attending a coed school is patronizing. At its core, such a claim asserts that the women don't know what is good for them, and are incapable of recognizing the environment where they thrive best. One of the things that I learned at my high school is that women are quite capable of making wise decisions for themselves. Since surveys show that, compared to coed college students, women's college students are happier with their school experience in almost all areas, it seems likely that most Wells students made a good choice.
Despite the many benefits of an all-women's education, it is of course not right for everyone. Since both coed and all-female schools can provide positive experiences for women, each student must choose the environment she prefers. And naturally, a person who is forced to attend any type of school against her wishes -- whether it is single-sex, coed, religious or otherwise -- is unlikely to derive maximum benefit from the experience. Unfortunately, that's what has happened to Wells students.
After all this, you may be wondering why I did not attend a women's college myself. Although I seriously considered schools such as Smith and Wellesley College, I ultimately felt that I had already enjoyed many of the benefits of an all-women's education. I decided I wanted the opportunity to explore a new experience by choosing Penn.
Sadly, Wells students probably thought the same thing when they chose Wells.
Jennifer Weiss is a senior Linguistics and Theatre Arts major from Los Angeles. War On Error appears on Wednesdays.
