What’s the Deal with Women’s Colleges?

Emilie and Bridget chat with resident lil’ sis, Isabel, about her experience at a women’s college and explore the merits of single-sex higher education.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hey, this is Emily and this is Bridget, and you're
listening to stuff Mom never told you. Now Today we
are joined by a very special guest, aren't we Bridget

(00:25):
very special, could not be more happy to have her here.
Same we are joined by our resident Lil Sis, my
little sis, isabel Aries. Welcome to the podcast. Hi, Emily
and Bridget, Thank you so much for having me. Thanks
so much for being here, because we are really excited
to dive into today's topic, all about women's colleges and

(00:47):
what's the deal with women's colleges, especially in today's day
and age where gender fluidity is the norm, And we
wanted to bring in someone like Isabelle, who happens to
be uh, second year student at Smith College, one of
the nation's most famous, really longest standing, revered women's colleges

(01:10):
based in Massachusetts. So is he How did you end
up at Smith? Let's start there. Um, Well, I wasn't
really intending to go to a women's college, and it
wasn't something that I was looking for specifically, but I
heard that Smith was an amazing place and it is,
and uh, it fits really well with a lot of
what I wanted out of the college. So I visited

(01:32):
and then I applied and I got in. The more
that I saw myself here and the more that I
imagine myself like living on campus and taking classes and
being in the kind of environment that a women's college provides,
I just found myself falling more and more in love
with it. So now I am finishing up my first
semester of my second year here, so it's just about

(01:53):
final season, and I am double majoring in biology and
environmental science and policy here. Now, so is it you
didn't go to a private or an all girl high
school when you were a bit younger. Did you just
go to a public school? Yeah? I um, up until college.
I was in public school my entire life, from like
kindergarten through my senior year of high school. So this

(02:14):
is my first experience, like in an educational setting that
is completely free of sins men. So, just in terms
of your anecdotal evidence from being on campus, would you
say a lot of the students there have a similar
kind of background where they went to a public school
or a co ed school and then somehow well and
up an all girls school or is it folks who
have gone to single sex schools for most of their lives.

(02:35):
I would say that now the amount of people who
went to single sex education and then came here to
a single sex secondary education um is very much a minority.
I think most people also went to public schools or
like also went to co ed schools of any kind
um and either intentionally or unintentionality like myself, um fummselves here. Yeah,

(03:00):
like all of us in our household were all public
school kids, and I experienced higher education that was also
co ed. Bridget you went to, as we've discussed a
few times on the pot already a single sex all
women's high school. Yeah, I went to women's school when
I was younger. Um, I feel I could talk about
this a lot because I loved it so much. But
I loved being around all girls. My school had a

(03:23):
relationship with the all boys military school called Benedictine High
School that was down the block. Fun fact that's where
Steve Bannon went to high school. More like a shameful
fact that I cringed every time I think about it
that we have anything in common at all. But yeah,
I went to all girls school for high school and
for a lot of my my upbringing, and when it

(03:45):
was time to pick a college. It never even occurred
to me to go to an all girl college, as
much as I liked all girl high school. Isn't that funny?
How this is something that wasn't on my radar at all,
having gone through co ed school in K through twelve,
and yet is it all ended up in an all
girls higher education. You went from all girls secondary to
co ed higher education. And it does seem like the

(04:09):
benefits which I want to talk about in a second
are very real. However, let's just level set for a
second by acknowledging the number of all female colleges has
diminished dramatically over the last fifty years. Even in nineteen
sixty there were over two hundred and fifty women's colleges,

(04:29):
But since Vassar went co ed in nineteen sixty nine
and Radcliffe was absorbed by Harvard as a research institution
in ninete. Even the revered Seven Sisters Network, a network
of historically all female colleges in the Northeast, many of
whom were founded as partner colleges to the all male
Ivy League schools that initially barred women. There are only

(04:51):
five of them left, so there are more than five
women's colleges in the country, but there are only five
of even the seven Sisters revered New England call it
is Left, which include Smith. Doesn't that Yeah, Smith is
actually the largest of the seven Sisters. Well, what I
also find so interesting about that is that even though
there aren't as many women's colleges around as there used

(05:13):
to be, actually demand is up for wanting to attend
women's colleges. According to the data from two thousand and
four to in the United States, applications to women's colleges
actually rose, and Bernard's class of one had a fourteen
point nine percent acceptance, right, a drop from sixteen point

(05:34):
seven percent just the year before. So what is that
the class of Oh? Interesting? Okay, So it feels like
this moment we find ourselves in politically, with the rise
of teen Vogue, you know, leading the feminist tween revolution,
and the political climate that we're in right now, it

(05:55):
doesn't really surprise me that there's been this renaissance in
value young all female or all women identified person environments. Well,
look at coworking spaces like the wing right, super super successful,
making a huge splash. I think that a lot of
folks are seeing the value more and more of spaces
where it's not overrun by SIS men. Yeah. Actually the

(06:18):
Smith class of one was over enrolled. Um Smith lot
in the same percentage of people that they normally do,
expecting some people to turn it down, but so many
more people decided to enroll than they were expecting. Wow,
that is so fascinating. It really seems like in the
very recent past there's been a new renaissance and excitement

(06:39):
around environments that all female higher education colleges, women's colleges
really have to offer. When you first stepped foot on
campus as a well, when you were just considering Smith
amongst the other colleges you applied to, did you notice
right away that there was a change in the experience
of being in all women's college. I mean, what stood
out to you as a significant before you were a

(07:01):
student and after you enrolled. See when I was visiting Smith,
like when I was touring a campus because it was
the only women's college that I was going to, I
was really noticing. I was like, wow, there are just
absolutely no boys my age here, like no SIS boys
at all that I can see. And it was like

(07:22):
really cool. I mean it was not necessarily like kind
of shocking because obviously it's a women's scholars I was
expecting that, but it was just like, you really take
note of it. Like when we toured the science building,
all of the students and the science building were women
and it was great. And when we were to the
campus center, like the people that were making us drinks

(07:42):
and the people that were running the male center, who
are all students, they were all women, you know. I
mean it was just like very interesting to see that,
like they're really just wasn't a presence of guys. I
guess what's so funny is that when I toard colleges,
I had the same exact experience, only reversed. And so

(08:04):
in high school, going to an all girl high school,
everything was just girls all the time. We I think
we had one male teacher who was there sometimes, but
wasn't really there a lot. I probably did not know
more than five boys that were not blood relatives. Like
I did not know any dudes really at all. And
then when I toured my first college, which was co ed,

(08:27):
I was like there were just guys just around in
the classrooms, in the gym, They're just everywhere they're hanging around.
It was I had never seen that many men before.
It became a really interesting new thing where I thought,
is this what college is? Like? There's just guys all
was all around, it was hanging out. Did you feel

(08:47):
like excited about that? Or did you feel intimidated? And
the same question for you is he like did you
feel less under uh looking glass? Yeah? Okay? Um, I
mean it was just really nice. It was very just
chill because like even in a single sex educational institution,

(09:08):
there are so many different expressions, Like people were dressed
so differently, people had like lots of different haircuts and everything,
and it's just like there was just so much going
on um expression wise that it was just more exciting
and more like this is really cool and it seems
like a really freeing and really open environment. And like

(09:30):
now as a student here, um, I kind of see
where I was right and where in some parts that
I was wrong. And it's just very interesting to compare
like how I looked at Smith as an outsider um
with how I look at Smith now. Interesting. The pixie
power was palpable on campus Smith Chop Chop. I love it.

(09:51):
For me. This might sound a little bit strange, but
my high school was known for being academically very good,
and the boys school that was affiliated with our school
was not so much known for that. So when I
got to college and I saw boys in my class,
my first thought was are they smart? And I was.
I don't mean that in a mean way. I really

(10:12):
was like, Oh, boys can understand literature. This is gonna
be interesting. But I was very interesting to see how
what it would be like to be in a class
discussion with with guys, because in my experience going to
a school that was very academically rigorous and then knowing, oh,
all the all the boys who go to the boys
school are all like ubs in bag school and blah

(10:34):
blah blah, and that's where they are a black Yeah,
well that's what I mean. The kind of kid that
wound up at this school, at least when I was there,
was the kind of kid who was like needed to
go to military schools and military school right well as
sisters of a brother that went straight from high school
to military. That's interesting to me. I always feel like,
to me, that's one of the potential downsides of a

(10:55):
single sex education. Is like, that is totally valid, So
don't take this the wrong way, But I feel like
That's pure ignorance, isn't it. Oh it was like it
was ignorant. I have no concept of men being capable
of academic rigor. Yeah, it's basically the same sex ast
thing that men will say about women, Like a woman
doing geometry is like a dog doing you know, driving

(11:18):
a car. Yeah. I was like, oh, boy, understanding Sylvia Plath,
there's like a horse being a lawyer. The funniest part
of that whole anecdote is that I went to co
ed schools up until college, and then even in my
first year of college. When we do like peer reviews
of like papers or labor horse and stuff. If something

(11:38):
is terribly written and it's given to me anonymously, my
first thought is is, oh, a boy must have written
this before I remember where I am. Well, there's something
to that. I mean, if we look at the data
on academic achievement, women and girls have been outperforming men
and boys in the ways that our academic uh meritocracy
is set up, and that's a problem. I mean, there's

(11:59):
articles written by hand Rosen about the boy crisis and
in education right now that are worth looking at. Different
podcasts not today's topic, but I think there's definitely something
to that. But at the same time, what people are
choosing for themselves when they go into an all women's
college is something very special, right, So that's not a

(12:20):
blind choice. It's a personal choice and it's a thoughtful,
mindful one that everybody makes when they're choosing their college
and what's the right cultural fit. So let's look at
some of these benefits. What are the major benefits from
enrolling in a women's college exactly. I couldn't agree more
with this quote from Nikki young Blood Giles, who attended
Spellman College, basically highlighting and underscoring the importance of sisterhood

(12:43):
that you find on women's college campuses. I definitely found
that to be the case when I was in an
all girl educational environment. She says, it is important as
women to champion each other and be strong in the
face of adversity. The importance of sisterhood is ingrained in us.
But a sister, you may not be best friends or
like them, that there's no one you would go to
bat for more than your sister, And that really resonates

(13:03):
with me, and I think that that feeling of you know,
she may not look like me, she may not have
my same experience. She may not share my struggle, but
she is my sister, and I will go to bed
for her. I think that's one of the most important
benefits of being in a single sex environment. Yeah. I
think that's really true with Smith as well. The whole thing,
um where for the environment and Smith is very competitive,

(13:25):
but not competitive necessarily in a way where I want
to push you down so I can push myself up
over you, but more like this person is working very hard,
doing very well. I also want to work very hard
and do very well to prove that I am just
as good as or better than like this person. Um.
And like calling each other out in social experiences, like

(13:47):
instead of doing that where it's kind of just calling
somebody out on saying something wrong, or maybe like not
really understanding the background of other people, um, calling them
in and saying, hey, let's have a conversation about this,
Let's understand where you're coming from, and let's try to
have a conversation about where other people are coming from

(14:08):
and how what you did hurt people. Yeah, it's interesting
you mentioned it because there's not a lack of diversity
at women's colleges. It just goes to show you how
diverse women are in general. And it actually really reminds
me of a quote that came out of a past
episode that one of our amazing fans on Instagram turned

(14:29):
into a piece of art, which was, what makes us
different doesn't threaten our unity as women, right, And it
just goes to show you that there are so many
different kinds of women, that diversity and collins are going
to happen even in single sex environments, and that it
just goes to show you that sisterhood can persist even

(14:49):
in the face of that difference and maybe sometimes even
conflict around that difference. Yeah, we don't have to be
the same and have the same story, same background, same
struggles to support you other. And I think that's something
that I come back to time and time again. And
something important to note is that that's something I had
to learn. I wasn't born knowing that. I didn't always
know that. That's not something I always championed. It's something

(15:12):
that I learned honestly after you know, encountering lots of
different kinds of women, And so that just goes to
show you the importance of building community with women who
aren't like you. I think that there is a lot
to be said about the benefits of learning from other
people's experiences and being able to tie them in and
connect them um to your own. And I feel like

(15:33):
at Women's college, which you know, can focus on these
types of diversity, Like we have a program for college
students of nontraditional age and they are like coming in
and taking classes with us, and they are members of
the Smith community, and um a lot of people from
different like racial backgrounds, religious backgrounds, like different class backgrounds.

(15:54):
It's kind of thrown into the same pole together. That's great.
I also want to acknowledge this in credible list of
benefits or values that come from women's colleges that Simmons
College put together, which has some really astounding statistics. First
of all, they found that of women's college graduates felt
well prepared for their first job versus sixty of women

(16:18):
graduates from public universities. They also found that despite the
fact that women's college graduates make up less than two
percent of college graduates overall, they comprise more than twenty
percent of women in Congress and thirty of women on
Fortune one hundred boards. So women's college graduates be achieving

(16:39):
stuff like they are on the rise. That doesn't surprise
me even a little bit. When I graduated from an
all girl high school, I felt very prepared and very
sort of centered in my own goals and academic achievements
and all of that. So when it doesn't surprise me
at all that these women's college graduates also are going
on to feeling very very in control of their academic
lives and their their goals to come, totally not mentioned

(17:00):
the impact on STEM. We know that women are leaving
STEM fields at much higher rates than their male counterparts,
but students who attend women's colleges, they don't see that
same kind of drop off. On the collegiate level, there
are one point five times more likely to major in math,
science or premed than students attending co ed colleges. So

(17:22):
it just goes to show you that that experience of
seeing women in every role, whether it's in the mail
room or in the biology lab, right, seeing women represented
in every different job on campus, every different academic department
on campus. It's one of those see it be it
type situations where the role models are right there, right

(17:44):
in front of you. Yeah. Um, I know that when
I came to Smith and when I started taking science classes.
It was just amazing to see that there were so
many opportunities for undergraduate research that I mean, obviously they're
all going to go towards students here at Smith, so
like the labs are pretty much staffed by Smith students

(18:07):
that are like identify as email or identify as another
gender along the gender spectrum. It's really really amazing to
see that there are just so many people that are
doing so many different things across so many different fields.
Like my friends are majoring in physics and chemistry and
biochemistry and um like sell bio and like also like

(18:32):
women's studies and theater and the study of gender and
all of these different things. And it's really cool to
see that here it doesn't seem to be something that
holds people back. Just f y, I eithers a gender
and women's studies major in college alongside English. So one
of my best friends is a study of women in

(18:52):
gender major. Shout out to us gender studies major. Very humanity, yeah,
very expecific kind of person, very interested in long term unemployment,
like myself preparing the generation of tomorrow for the marketplace
of never. Yeah, my dad saying, oh, it's the women

(19:12):
studies factory, you're gonna hire you. I mean, hello, look
at what we're doing right now. Absolutely, I love it.
I mean. The other interesting finding is classrooms of only
or mainly women's students seem to result in those students
participating more actively in the classroom, reporting higher levels of

(19:34):
active learning, higher order thinking, and more academic challenge throughout
their four years of college than women who are asked
to report on the same indicators in a co ed setting. So, Isabel,
did you find yourself participating more in a women's college
environment than you did in a coed high school? Well,
I don't think that there has ever been a time

(19:55):
in my entire life when I have not talked over
everybody else we share that gene is that? Is that
a family trait just out of curiosity in the areas
I know, in the areas find minto I swear, I

(20:16):
think that you guys, you guys rehearse this as a bit. No,
is not a bit. But in the area's household, everything's
a bit. In the aira's household, you have to compete
for air time with six of us who are trying
to get our port and grass right? Is he? And
I am the youngest of four, So I've had to
shout like extra loud and say things like three or
four or five times before anybody actually acknowledges me, which

(20:36):
now as like a pure In college, my friends will
have to literally say, Isabelle, we hear you before I
can move on. It's funny. I get that too. Yeah,
how how strange? So we're maybe anomalies and I and
that question doesn't necessarily apply. But but I think, um
that in college, I am having more meaningful interactions with

(20:59):
students in the clastroom, in more meaningful interactions with my professors,
because it's less of a like me answering the questions
that we can move on in more of a me
answering the question and then asking another question for follow up,
and then another student answering that, and it turns into
like a discussion, or it turns into the professor acknowledging
that and talking about it and what you said about

(21:20):
higher order thinking, Um, I've really seen that happen in
the classroom here. That reminds me a lot of my
high school experience. I read a lot about how sometimes
girls in class feel pressure to not speak up, not
answer questions, perhaps because they don't want to look like
they're the smart girl whose domain domain in the class discussion.
Maybe they think it will make them look attractive if

(21:41):
they're not answering questions, and like boys don't want a
girl that's too smart or some sort of gender stereotype
like that. I never had to deal with any of
that being in a single sex educational environment. I never
had to worry that someone was going to think something
about me because I was talkative in class or you know,
piped up in class discussion a lot. So I think
I took that with me to college. It was definitely

(22:03):
someone who liked to be involved in class discussions. Never
even gave a thought to how it made me look.
It just seemed like how I had been socialized to
be in a classroom. That's great. I think that's a
really valuable and rare opportunity, and that's part of what
makes having the safe space of having an all female
environment so powerful. So here's the thing, right, Research shows

(22:26):
that women's colleges succeed at nurturing and educating young women
in a way that outperforms co ed college campuses. But
Bridget is he the world is co educational. The world
is not all women. So I want to talk through
when we come back from this quick break, whether or
not we're doing women a disservice by not preparing them

(22:48):
for that. But first a word from our sponsors, and
we're back and we're talking through the major benefits of
women's colleges, and they're increasing demand, even though the numbers
of women's colleges have decreased over the past half a century.

(23:11):
But one of the potential drawbacks that is written about
is well documented. UH is a concern among some parents
and prospective students is that attending a women's college might
not make those women graduates fully prepared to take on
the co ed world that we all live in. What
do you think about that? Bridget Well, If you listen

(23:32):
to our episode on HBCUs historically black colleges, that's the
same argument that people made around why they shouldn't go
to HBCUs because you know, the your campus is majority black.
When you get to the working world or whatever, it's
not going to be that way. I don't think that
argument holds a lot of water because I think exactly
like you see in the research. Perhaps it's that women's

(23:53):
colleges and HBCUs set people up for success more readily
than their than their counterparts. Yeah. Here at Smith, I
think that we very much understand that the world is
not all women, unfortunately, like we aren't all amazons on
the island that Wonder Woman grew up on that I
would not be able to pronounce for the life of me.
But I think that here we foster and nurture the

(24:18):
sense of confidence and the sense of like empowerment and
really just the ability to get the work done and
the ability to know what you're talking about and know
what you are doing. That comes a lot from having
the opportunity that is provided out of women's college to
get the jobs and get the experience that a lot

(24:41):
of times in coed colleges would go more often to men.
Like here at Smith, you can do undergraduate research starting
your first year at Smith, but at coed college is
a lot of those research positions would probably be taken
up by men. I don't know the statistics on that,
but knowing the other statistics about the gender dynamics and STEM,
I mean I feel pretty confident in saying that exactly.

(25:03):
Smith College actually offers this perfect tagline about navigating the
transition between a single sex college environment and the coed
world we live in. They say, of course the world
is co educational, but smith women enter it more confidently
than women graduates of co ed schools. And I think
that's really, at the end of the day, what women's

(25:24):
colleges are all about are preparing women to do the
work and have the confidence to enter the arena and
not be shy about being seen as bossy or brash
or too smart god forbid. I also think it just
underscores the importance of really getting to know how men
operate in professional and educational settings. I think going into

(25:45):
the working world that is co educational, thinking it's going
to be the same as it was when you were
in an all girl environment isn't probably the best way
to get yourself set up for success. One of the
stories I was released truck by was this woman who
graduated from Notre Dame of Maryland University who basically says
that in her workplace she can this sort of get
comfortable with how men can be. And we all know,
looking at statistics, men and women interact differently in professional settings,

(26:10):
and so she realized, oh, men are quicker than women
to ask for promotions. Men are more likely to use
the word I than we even talking about professional accomplishments,
and so just being aware of these sometimes very real
differences helped her navigate that transition. So I don't want
to tell people that they're never going to encounter any
kind of downside for having gone to a single sex

(26:31):
education in the workplace. To be aware of it and
be thinking about it while you're navigating these these workplaces. Yeah, Also,
I think we run the risk of making it sound
like all women's colleges fits some feminist, utopian stereotype. And
I wonder if those are just stereotypes, right, Like the
reputation out there that a lot of incoming students into

(26:53):
women's colleges especially have to contend with, is, oh, you're
going to go to a college that's full of feminist
vegetarian in lesbians. That's no fun at all, that's super
serious and PC all the time, and it's basically a convent.
And I don't know, I mean, like came up in
the research that sort of stereotypical mythical reputation is he

(27:13):
you're there, like you can speak to this better than everyone.
What's your take on on what's true about those stereotypes
versus what's not true at all. Well, I just remember
the summer before I came here that I was taking
a driving instructor lesson, and um, I told the guy
who was my instructor that I was going to Smith
and he was like, oh, Smith, everybody's really catty up there,

(27:36):
and all of their periods sync up, and it was
just it was really gross, and it was just like,
I mean, it's at that point was like, come on, really,
we're Smith. We're not a big party school. I don't
really know if any of the women's colleges are big
party schools. But we do have fun. We aren't always

(27:57):
super serious. There are a lot of queer are women
on campus, but a lot of queer people on campus.
There are a lot of feminists. Not that any of
those things are bad things, right, No, of course not. Um,
it's just it's really funny because people are like, oh
my god, everybody here's a lesbian and it's like, yes,

(28:17):
you're here first, folks. We do actually have one dining
hall that is specifically vegan for people who don't eat meat.
Just rolled her eyes. I'm not rolling my eyes with
the concept of veganism. I'm rolling my eyes because I'm
thinking back to my college experience, where if you didn't

(28:38):
get food poisoning, you were lucky. That Smith has an
entire vegan option dining hall, you can still get food
poisoning as long as as long as it's an equal
opportunity food poisoning provider. I'm fine. Everything here is good.
Like it's less of Smith being a place where there
are tons of caddy PC people that are going to
jump on you for making one small misstep, and more

(28:59):
of a place where it's just really open to people
from all different walks of life and people from all
different kinds of experiences, who have different dietary needs, and
who are minorities in sexualities or in gender expressions. So
it's just a very open, very tolerant place to go
to school. I feel like this episode is revealing a
lot of my own personal ignorance around this subject, because

(29:22):
when you mentioned the stereotype that women's colleges, you can't
party there, They're no fun, They're full of sort of serious,
dowdy people. That was probably one of the reasons why
I didn't ever think about going to a women's college,
because after years and years of Catholic girls cool. I
was ready to party, like I was. I made a
conscious choice. I'm like, I am ready to party. I

(29:45):
went to a school that is often on one of
those Playboy Top Party School lists. I went to a
party school, no dat about it. And I always thought
that if I went to a place like Smith or
you know, a small liberal women's college, I wouldn't have
chance to drunkenly fall out of a window or something.
I felt like I was gonna be missing something that

(30:05):
was quintessential to what I thought was the college experience.
Knows thyself and bridget Todd knows herslf. I'm also that's
not a hypothetical, knowing I did drunkenly fall off a balcony.
I was sitting out a balcony and I was trying
to impress a guy, and somebody was going around throwing
beers at people, and I was like, hey, throw a
beer to me, and I just caught it and then

(30:26):
I fell right over. Oh my god. All right, Just
to go on the record here, drink responsibly sminty listeners.
And maybe that's one of the unspoken risks of being
around guys. It makes you want to show off by
looking really cool, like bridget Todd does. Honestly, bridget you
are an icon. Hell yeah. I think something that it's

(30:47):
really convenient about Smith's party culture specifically is that we
are right down the road from you mass Amherst, or
as locals call it, Zoom mass Slamhurst. It's true though
a lot of women's colleges have this reputation of being
the convent where all these serious women go to study,

(31:07):
but almost all of them are right across the street
from a co ed schooling environment or have like a
brother college that they're associated with. So it's not that
you're never going to be around guys. It's just about
the classroom setting being a safe space for women to
really get the attention. And speaking of safe spaces, we've

(31:27):
been talking a little bit on the binary about gender.
Thus far, we've been talking about women's colleges versus dudes
that are hanging around that we're impressing by hanging out
a windows, sometimes a little drunken late. But when we
come back, I want to take a closer look at
those students who don't fall neatly on this false binary

(31:48):
of gender and explore how colleges, especially women's colleges are
opening their doors and including trans students in a mindful way.
We'll be right back for this word from our sponsors.
So we're back, and I want to explore what the

(32:10):
experience at women's colleges can be like for trans students
and students who don't fall on this false binary of gender.
So is about You've already mentioned that Smith and many
women's colleges have this culture of inclusion and acceptance for
diversity amongst all the women students who are there, all
the students who identify as women who go to women's colleges.

(32:32):
But what about this sort of post gender gender fluid
world that we're living in now. We have to consider
how women's colleges have adapted in terms of guidance on
transgender students and whether or not they're allowed at women's
colleges and protected from discrimination under Title nine. So, just

(32:54):
as a refresher, I know we talked a lot about
Title nine on our episode about campus sexual assault recently,
but it was a ruling enacted by Congress in nineteen
seventy two to prohibit all discrimination on the basis of
sex in any educational institution that receives federal funding. But
when Congress was actually deliberating the legislation, elite schools like Harvard, Dartmouth,

(33:14):
and Smith of all places, lobbied for and one a
private school exemption for single sex undergraduate admissions. So basically,
as Title nine is written, private women's colleges can still
accept or reject anyone based on their gender. That's what
they were asking for in terms of their exemption, and
they got it. And that became really thorny when a

(33:36):
student in two thousand thirteen, Calliope Wong, applied to Smith
and was rejected along the basis of gender. Basically, Smith
sent Calliope a letter saying Smith is a women's college,
which means that undergraduate applicants to Smith must be female
at the time of admission. Your FAFSA indicates your gender
as male. Therefore Smith cannot process your application. And this

(33:57):
is such a thorny issue because first transgender student who
are trying to transition from one gender identity to the next,
getting that m to f on your FASTA form is
not as easily said as done. The rules for changing
gender on government issued documents very wildly from one agency
to the next and across state lines. In many parts

(34:19):
of our country. To get a change of gender on
your birth certificate, you need to get proof documentation that
sex reassignment surgery has been performed. Surgery that, by the way,
most doctors will not perform on anyone under the age
of eighteen. Wow. So that really does complicate the issue
of trying to get into a woman's college and needing
to have this kind of designation. The vice president of

(34:42):
Enrollment for Smith College, Audrey Smith, explained this choice and
an email. She says Smith was founded for a specific
purpose to educate and create opportunity for women. We don't
define what constitutes a woman. We leave that to other
entities and agencies to affirm, but we do require that
it be affirmed at point of admission, which I think
is kind of a cop out. It's it just seems

(35:03):
so reductive to me. It's obvious now that Smith had
more power all along to make their own rules about this.
It seems strange to me that they would just sort
of pass the buck and say, hey, we don't define
anything when it comes to gender. We're leaving that to
up to other agencies, but we're just gonna say that
we won't let you in, right and that was what
a lot of the students on campus we're up in

(35:26):
arms about, which is why in twenty Smith came around
on their policy. They reshaped their entire policy after a
quote year of soul searching and decided that all incoming
students are applicants to the college have to do is
self identify, is to note on their application that they
identify as women. I just want to add, I think

(35:48):
that's the way it should be. I think we should
be operating along the lines that individuals know their own
situations better than anyone else, and so if you identify
as a woman, I'm could take your word for it,
because is who knows better than you. I don't think
that we should be leaving it up to other agencies
to define that. We should let people have the space
to self define and then take them for their word

(36:09):
because they would know right. There was some hubbub from
the other side of that opinion, though, that students, let's say,
male identified students who were children of I don't know,
administrators or professors at Smith would then try to go
to college basically at a discounted rate using moms discounted

(36:30):
access by just saying, yeah, I identify as female when
they're really totally existing as men. Was that something that
actually happened, now it was just a fear. I think
there was no evidence behind that fear. I always find
that a lot of times the alternate arguments for these
things are these wild hypotheticals that are not actually happening.
So my thing is always like, if that happens, it's
something that should be dealt with. But if it's not happening,

(36:52):
why make the college application process so much harder for
trans students along the lines of something that isn't even
happening because of a hypothical Yeah, I feel like, especially
if Smith, because our living situations are all like you
live in a house and you have a roommate your
first year, and you are in this community where you're
basically spending time with students like all the time, like

(37:14):
in class home. It would be really hard to get
away with that, And I don't understand why anybody would
really want to do that, you know, like it just
is not a real issue here. Yes, it sounds like
the plot of an eighties movie, right, like She's the
Man or I'm always thinking of some like get hot,
total different decade. They were talking about with Marilyn Monroe,

(37:34):
with those two guys who were basically in drag for
the entirety of the movie for a financial gain, right,
like that, Just it's so far fetched. And that's to mention,
Smith and other women's colleges have to design policies for
trans women who are applying to go to college, but
also women who apply to Smith or other women's colleges
get accepted and then decide to transition to a male

(37:57):
gender identity while in college. How has that come up
for you at Smith as well? Well, I know a
couple of people who are exactly as you described. They
came to Smith identifying as them and then realized over
their time here that that wasn't really true to them
and that they do identify as Mail and UM. They
were met with some skepticism, of course, because it was

(38:18):
kind of this thing of like, well, if you are that, like,
if you don't identify as a woman, then why would
you want to be at a women's college. But they
have received support from the administration and from like people
that they need in order to be able to transition
a Mail while at Smith and UM be comfortable and
be safe here, and like the whole idea that if
you don't identify as a woman, that you don't belong

(38:40):
at a women's college is kind of ridiculous, especially after
these are people who have sent like two or three
years here because they have built up a life here
and they've built up a community, and they are on
track to get their degrees and they're getting very good grades.
And now because of their transition, you're saying that they
should give all of this up and go somewhere else,

(39:01):
which is just not necessary. It's not necessary, and it's
not fair. It's not fair to tell a student that.
And I think, particularly at a place that is meant
to be inclusive of all these different experiences, all these
different backgrounds, it's not fair to say, because you are
advocating for how you actually feel your gender is playing out,
because you're advocating for yourself in that way, you you

(39:24):
have to lose all these college credits, all this money,
all this time, all this community that you've built. I
don't think it should work that way, because, as we
know in seventeen, gender isn't that black and white exactly.
And I would be remiss to not mention the high
amount of people of Smith who don't identify as male
or female, and they identify as like UM, non binary
or gender queer, and their identities are very much volued

(39:46):
and very much respected by the majority of people here,
and like in classes and in house meetings and UM
in lots of different like club meetings and everything, you're
asked for your pronouns, and you go around and you
say your pronounces that, like you don't accidentally call somebody
she when they would rather um be referred to as
they or them or any other like pronoun totally. And

(40:09):
you know, it's interesting that women's colleges aren't the only
institutions who are adapting their policies on this. You mentioned
the Wing bridget at the top of the episode, which
I thought was so on point, because the Wing, this
women's only coworking space that's really taken off, has also
been questioned for their policies around trans women and how
they're advocating for and including folks who are gender non conforming.

(40:34):
In this New York Times article covering the evolution of
the Wings policies, the founder said they would likely check
out the person's social media feeds as part of their
vetting process and look for other indications of the person
quote living as a woman. They've actually looked to women's
colleges for guidance on how to construct their policies. Barnard College,

(40:55):
which they cite in The New York Times, stipulates that
it will quote consider for admission those applicants who consistently
live and identify as women, which sounds a little bit nuanced, right.
It requires this like track record of gender performance that
I don't know if that's perfect or if it's could

(41:15):
be better. When I think of a policy like that,
I think it sounds a little bit confusing, but it
actually seems kind of like common sense to me. That
basically reaffirming this idea that someone is going to be
lying about their gender just to like get into a
women's change room or get into a women's locker room,
or get into a women's own college, we know that's
not actually happening. Basically, what I think they're saying is

(41:35):
that if that happens, they'll probably be able to tell,
but they can. Generally, people are not lying about their
gender to grip somebody, And I think that's basically what
they're saying, that you know, there are ways of seeing
if someone is authentically living the way they say they are,
and I think it's obvious. Does that make sense? Yes,
I totally agree, And I think that that also opens

(41:59):
the door to through some potentially dangerous viewpoints of people
who are general nonperforming or who are trans that come
to women's colleges. Like there is a very small and
unfortunately pretty vocal, well not like mainstream vocal, but like
kind of underground vocal group of these people that think
that trans people shouldn't be a smith at all because
they're just like basically they see the trans people as

(42:24):
men who are dressing up as women to come and
like get off of some perverse like idea of being
in a women's college. And it's really disgusting because that
kind of idea that like you have to have proof
of your gender because otherwise men are just going to
try to sneak into a women's college. It's it's just harmful,
well is he? I think it actually reflects all larger

(42:46):
and someone unfortunate debate happening in a lot of feminist
circles right now, where you have what they call trans
exclusive radical feminists who pretty much say, if you like,
you need to have been born this way in order
to be accepted into this community and they draw a
hard line. I just find that to be such a
disappointing stance, because I think movements like the feminist movement

(43:08):
are better and stronger when there are more folks represented,
not less. And I think this idea of you're in
because you had this kind of experience and you're out
because we had that kind of experience is so wrong.
And that's something that I had to learn myself, is
that just because a trans woman had a different kind
of experience upbringing than I did doesn't mean that a
trans woman is not a woman, doesn't mean that our

(43:31):
experience is Just because they're different doesn't mean that one
is more valid than the other. Again, our differences don't
have to threaten our unity exactly exactly, and that, honestly,
we could do an entire podcast on feminists and trans
movements and trans inclusion, which we totally should. But what
you're reminding me of is one other facet of diversity

(43:52):
on women's college campuses that I really think it's important
we explore, which is that intersection of race as it
eats women's colleges. We know that there are historically black
colleges and universities like Spellmen that are also women's colleges.
So talk about Spellman women really living at that intersection
of being in a women's environment that's also a POC environment, right,

(44:15):
and that that must be like the most intersectional moment
of life for those students. But unfortunately, intersectional feminism wasn't
historically in vogue at the start of many of these colleges.
For instance, bryn Mar College recently announced that it would
be scaling back its association with Ms. Carrie Thomas, a

(44:38):
founder of the college who happened to be racist as hell,
who was a total vocal anti Semite and completely discriminated
against people of color, despite the fact that she was
a suffragette. She presided over the college from eighteen nine
four to ninety two, right around the suffragist victory on

(45:00):
women winning the right to vote, but historical accounts revealed
that she almost exclusively championed the rights of white women,
as did many suffragettes, unfortunately, and discriminated against Jewish and
African American applicants to bren Mar. Again, none of the
surprises me at all, because it really does reflect a
lot of the other conversations happening in feminist circles in

(45:21):
terms of intersectionality and inclusion. Um. Yeah, so there's kind
of a similar history with Smith. Like our Foundersia Smith
founded the institution for white upper class Protestant women, so
it was very much exclusionary for many groups. But now
we have lots of different programs that are made specifically

(45:42):
for supporting our POC and our students of color. We
have the Bridge program, which happens for incoming first year students.
They get to campus a couple of days before the
rest of the incoming first year class, and it's specifically
for navigating a predominantly white and historically white institution and

(46:03):
getting that community of POC together and basically telling them like,
this is going to be a huge culture shock because
it's full of white women who are just going to
like have no idea unfortunately, like how to relate to you,
and no idea how to talk to you, because lots
of women who are at this college are white folks

(46:25):
who are from other predominantly white communities. So navigating this
space as a person of color can be super, super difficult,
and it takes a lot of support, and from what
my POC friends tell me, it can be exhausting, Well
is it. You really underscore the importance of building those
communities on campus. And so, as someone who did go

(46:45):
to a predominantly white college, it was really important to
me to have spaces where I could connect with other
students of color, and not even in a way that's,
you know, what you think of as like safe spaces,
just knowing that I wasn't alone, Knowing that I could
you know, kick it with someone who understood what I
was going through, and all of that was critically important
for my time in college. And so I'm happy to

(47:06):
see that Smith is investing in those same community building
strategies because they are really important. When you go to college,
you need to know that there are other people there
that get you, that are like you. Even small things
of like if you're a black girl, where do you
get your hair done? Where do you buy your makeup?
If you're in a really small, all white town, things
like that, those are real. Those are real, and it
really does make a difference in terms of how you

(47:27):
feel in your college, whether you feel like an insider
or an outsider, whether you feel included or not. It's
so funny you would mention that because one of the
things that stood out to me the most about that
article in the New York Times about the Wing is
that they include makeup products and hair products in their
bathrooms throughout their entire coworking spaces city to city, and
women of color were interviewed saying, I was really impressed

(47:51):
when I went to the bathroom and saw that they
had hair products. There were not specifically and only for
white women. Uh shout out to the Wing. If you
guys get a hair braider in the on staff, I'll
be there tomorrow. Yeah, exactly. So I'm optimistic for spaces
that have been created for women, women's colleges or women's
coworking spaces who are evolving when it comes to racial inclusion,

(48:14):
trans inclusion, folks who are non gender conforming, and making
sure that those diverse populations of all kinds of women
feel included, seeing respected and heard, and are given that
equal opportunity to have safe access to their education. I mean,
there are lots of experiences that people come to Smith

(48:35):
with and lots of different backgrounds. So we have the
Black Students Alliance, and we have the Bridge Program, which
I know people who have gone through the Bridge program
and they said that it was extremely meaningful and that
without it they probably would not have gotten through SNIPE.
I think that being at a women's college like this
that really works every day on bettering itself as an
institution and has a student body that pushes itself and

(49:01):
the institution to better itself along all of these different
fronts of diversity and inclusion. Um, it's a really powerful experience.
And I learned something new from my peers every single day,
And I learned something new from my professor's every single day,
not only like lessons that they're teaching in class about
the subject, but also how they teach it and how

(49:22):
they interact with us, and how they are also in
themselves working to better the diversity and better the institution
as a whole. And UM, I'm very just grateful for
this experience. I don't think I could get it anywhere else.
And we're grateful for having you on the pod. Is
do you think so much for for being a friend
of the pod, for being a resident little cyst of

(49:44):
the pod? Yeah, I don't think I have a choice
to be a friend of the pot of your family
of the pod. Okay, smint fans, if you want to
hear from you Are you like me who is a
lifelong and vocal advocate of single sex education, or are
you kind of coming around on the issue, thinking a
bad at mulling over. Either way, we want to hear
from you. Did you go to a women's college? Why

(50:04):
or why not? For women's colleges on your radar when
you're making a list of where you might go to
college if you win and all. Honestly, I just want
to know how women's colleges and single sex education has
played out in your life or shown up or not
shown up. Please get in touch with us. You can
find us on Instagram and stuff I'm Ever Told you
on Twitter at mom Stuff podcast, and as always, you
love getting your emails at mom stuff at how stuff

(50:25):
works dot com