Necessary Trouble

Before we arrived on campus, each of us was supplied with a copy of the "Freshman Handbook," intended to prepare us for our new lives. The president, Katharine McBride, who had led the college for more than two decades, opened the booklet with a message of welcome. 她的问候语和手册上的其他条目都没有使用“女人”这个词，甚至没有使用“女孩”,这是我们习惯上对自己的称呼——然而，书中的内容说明了我们的生活在许多方面都是由对女性得体行为的假设所塑造的. 期望——以所谓的“家长规则”的形式出现——是明确而具体的:傍晚之后，男性不允许进入学生房间, and doors were to remain at least partially open when they were visiting. For our safety, 当我们晚上离开学校时，我们要在签到上注明我们的位置，并在凌晨两点前返回.m., a much more lenient curfew than permitted most college women. 关于女性脆弱的几乎毫无疑问的假设掩盖了对女性道德的潜在焦虑，并为一套在附近的全男性哈弗福德难以想象的规定提供了理由. 这种恐惧的产物之一就是灯笼人——布林·莫尔版的夜间保安——他们为深夜返校的学生打开宿舍锁着的门，并护送天黑后从费城乘坐保利慢车到达的年轻女性, a train that stopped a few blocks from the college. 我发现，在校园小路上，让护卫者照亮我们的台阶，这个想法相当迷人, 但是，点缀在哥特式拱门和塔楼之间的草坪上的摇摆灯笼——让少女们远离痛苦——最终在概念上和外观上都显得像中世纪. 没过多久，我们就开始问为什么我们不能都有自己的钥匙.

手册上解释说，我们应该穿裙子去上课和任何校外目的地, 出于对教授的“尊重”和学院的“声誉”. 但是至少自治协会——布林茅尔的学生们在近四分之三个世纪以来一直声称有责任制定他们自己的规则——刚刚废除了这项法律

requirements for skirts at dinner. 我们被建议带的一件衣服是一件“基本的羊毛连衣裙”，可以“在教堂里穿得很好”, Miss McBride’s Tea and the Princeton Mixer.” I had no intention of attending church or the Princeton Mixer, but Miss McBride’s freshman-week tea was legendary. Elegant dishes of coffee ice cream and raspberry sherbet. Stockings a necessity. We were to be ladies as well as scholars.

Bryn Mawr represented a very peculiar sort of feminism. In the mid-1960s, there was not yet a women’s liberation movement. 我们的意识刚刚开始被唤醒，当然不能被认为是提高了. Many of my classmates were like me, uneasy with the hurdles and injustices we recognized in our own lives. 但我们还没有具备对我们所处的世界发起系统性挑战的语言和洞察力. We accepted many constraints that today would seem unthinkable. Slowly, however, we had begun to identify and resist others.

布林·莫尔向我们保证，我们可以和男人竞争，因为我们有特殊的智力天赋, ambitious, as good as—or even better than—any man. We would be able to transcend obstacles that would limit other women. 甚至把女性作为一个类别来谈论，都被视为一种特殊的恳求, an acknowledgment not so much of difference as of deficiency. As one member of the class of 1966 put it, “我觉得管理层和教职员工认为，作为一名女性是你应该克服的事情.”

But we, as outstanding individuals, 我们不需要关心妇女生活的更广泛的环境或结构. Bryn Mawr women had no deficiencies. Our education was designed to empower us, 但这样做并不要求或鼓励我们考虑我们作为女性的社会或文化地位. Tellingly, Bryn Mawr declined to join Phi Beta Kappa, insisting that all its student were worthy of the honor. In some ways, 学院和我母亲有着共同的观点:都承认这是一个男人的世界. 我母亲的结论是，我应该接受我的命运. But Bryn Mawr, in contrast, 目的是让我具备个人的力量和能力，在男人创造和定义的舞台上获胜.

我们对以茶和仆人为象征的社会和阶级优越性的假设感到越来越不安，这似乎是布林莫尔文化和身份的基础, 但与20世纪60年代兴起的对等级制度和特权的敌意越来越格格不入. 作为女性，我们收到的推荐全球十大博彩公司排行榜的角色和机会的相互矛盾的信息让我们感到困惑. As my classmate Liz Schneider wrote, looking back from the “real world” a few years after our graduation, “对女性的教育——无论多么严格或多么鼓舞人心——都无法克服一个根深蒂固的社会偏见，即认为女性是低人一等的，理应被排除在一流教育可能为她们准备的职位之外。.但布林·莫尔让人们很难承认这些矛盾确实存在, 我们离开大学时，没有准备好应对大学围墙之外女性可能面临的障碍. “Most Bryn Mawr women are trapped, she wrote, 在一种基本的矛盾心理中:他们想成为医生还是医生的妻子?” I remained blithely unaware that I might have to choose.