*GENDER INEQUITY?
I was struck recently by an article in The Wall Street Journal entitled "Colleges Struggle to Keep a Male-Female Balance," which featured Oberlin as a liberal arts college facing the "problem" of a student body that is 59 percent female. Aside from the obvious question of whether anyone fretted about all this when the majority of college students were men (they did not), the discussion raised other issues of concern. According to the article, Oberlin's admissions staff is faced with the challenge of "how to keep men interested in the school." Short of hanging a "Men Wanted" sign (which, a high school guidance counselor claimed, would result in a "backlash from women's groups"), the school revised a science brochure that "seemed too feminine;" gives men "a second look" in borderline admissions cases; and sets an enrollment goal of no more than 60 percent women. Boys, it seems, must be given a little extra help because they "develop more slowly than girls and may lack the high grades and SAT scores" that apparently give girls an edge. As an educator, a parent, and a newspaper reader, I agree that there is a problem with boys in our society and our schools. But I doubt that the solution lies in a more aggressive affirmative action program for white boys at the nation's academically excellent liberal arts colleges. Implicit in the article was a problem similar to that faced by Swarthmore College in its decision to end its football program: admitting larger numbers of men (or football players) would lower academic and social standards in a way that would change the character of the college. As a professor of women's studies at a large, football- and fraternity-dominated state school who teaches students about the negative social impact of particular male-dominated settings, among other things, I suggest that schools like Oberlin consider closely the cost of admitting more men as such. When people, including high school students looking at colleges, ask me to describe my experiences as a feminist at Oberlin, I often note that the men I met there were, and still are, the gentlest and most feminist I've known. Those of us who loved Oberlin's coeducational culture, where men did not seem threatened or embarrassed by the high-powered intellectual women around them, hope that Oberlin will take care in instituting affirmative action for men and continue to accept those men and women who wish to share Oberlin's traditions of artistic expression, political involvement, academic achievement, and just being different.