In my previous post I talked about a New York Times Style section article by Alex Miller where Miller bemoaned the fact that a woman heavy gender imbalance at many universities has lead to a “man’s world” of dating, i.e. more hookups rather than relationships and more attractive women dating less attractive men. The article focused on the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, one of the most prestigious public universities in the country. There’s been a semi-large hullaballo about the article in campus and feminist communities, so UNC’s newspaper, The Daily Tar Heel ran an article after they began covering the buzz surrounding the article on the day it came out, collecting comments from readers and twitter. A brief selection:
“I’m embarrassed by the things in that article. It’s dis-empowering, to say the least. It
reduces dating to numbers.”- John Reitz, Senior, English and drama double major“That’s not the image we need to be portraying. Those quotes are really demeaning to women.” – Jordan Swain, Senior, communications studies major
And from Twitter (as collected by The Tar Heel):
CInscoe: I am kinda annoyed by the NYT article about girls at UNC. Makes them look kinda desperate and makes guys look like shallow pigs. No true
leslie_gant: apparently a lot of girls at UNC are in denial about the NYT article. it’s true.. get over it. RT @dailytarheel http://bit.ly/bXllkV
emilykennard: I am not desperate for a boyfriend. I would never let my boyfriend cheat on me. LEAVE ME ALONE
Quote: Emily Kennard is quoted in the New York Times article. She is also a senior writer for The Daily Tar Heel.
This comments section is a strange mix of school pride and slut shaming with a lot of people expressing sexist and sex-negative positions on the text of the article:
For a moderately but not extremely attractive girl, the dating scene at UNC has got to be painful — all the guys they might have had a shot with at other places are suddenly much harder to snag.
and
I think it is ridiculous that some “girls feel pressured to do more than they’re comfortable with” just to have a boyfriend. If you are willing to whore yourself out then no, you probably won’t end up with a very nice guy. Girls shouldn’t be so desperate to have a boyfriend that they lose all self respect.
Just a reminder to the comments section of The Daily Tar Heel, the official newspaper of a school that is the foremost training ground for the acclaimed US Women’s Soccer Team (which still wins more games than the men): Women (and men) are not all the same, and they can (and should) have sex whenever and (with whoever) they want. Physical beauty is not all men’s biggest thing, and sometimes you have sex on the first date because you both feel a spark, have protection, and are consenting adults. Continue reading