On the second evening of my Orientation Week, a wise man in Zeta Psi (whoa, I'm dating myself) revealed "The X" to me. For those of you who aren't in the know, "The X" is a wonderful visual aid that shows the relative 'worth' of a Dartmouth student according to gender and year: women start high freshman year and drop down, men start at the bottom but only see their cache rise. And so, as a young freshman girl, I already knew what awaited me -- hag-dom in three short, increasingly wrinkled years.
Now a senior, I have a more nuanced view of gender relations at Dartmouth. If feminism is all about equality between men and women, Demi Moore is this decade's Gloria Steinem. For every child bride that's out there (hello, Michael Douglas and Woody Allen), now we know there can be a child groom, too. This issue is about equal opportunity cradle robbing -- the "cougar" phenomenon, as it is so lovingly called. But are '09 women really 'on the prowl' and ready to attack? Are '12 guys sitting ducks in the Choates, waiting to be preyed upon? And why don't all of the freshmen chick-senior dude relationships get a predatory nickname? Ponder this, Dartmouth.
