Two years ago I wrote an article for The Mirror about dating at Dartmouth before co-education. Beside learning the obvious (girls were bused in!) I found a guide to men's colleges produced by students at Mount Holyoke. In contrast to the advice the pamphlet offered about other colleges in the Northeast (Wear pearls! Stay at respectable hotels!), the authors said this about the Dartmouth man: "He'll be lumberjack-ish; if you like you can be the same."Good advice. Even now. (Side-note: once I went to Halloween party at Columbia and thought it would be appropriate to dress as lumberjack. I happened to have a flannel shirt with me and no other costume. In my opinions it was a cute flannel shirt but I was the only girl there with an outfit without a slutty- prefix. Weird.)Gender relations are an eternally active source of debate on our campus. This is perhaps best evidenced by this past Wednesday when both the "Proud to be a Woman" dinner and Men of Dartmouth panel took place.This issue of The Mirror explores how our gender affects different aspects of our lives here in Hanover. There's so much to say on the topic that The Mirror is longer than usual.
Dartmouth definitely does have an effect on our perceptions of gender. Our time can't help but influence every aspect of our lives. Yet, I believe that in spite of gender issues we're united by far more things than those that divide us. We all learn to dress for cold weather (see the lumberjack reference above), we speak in slang no one else can understand and we base our social system around a game that is just as popular as our jargon. When I've worked at reunions in the past I have always been struck by all the couples I encountered who met each other and started dating after Dartmouth. They may not have been in the same year or social scene here (maybe the gender divide prevented them from interacting?), but once they left, they were socially stunted in all the right ways to be perfect for one another. On that note this is my last issue as editor of The Mirror. I'm sad to go, but I'm excited to see what the '12s will do and you should be too. The Mirror will be back the first Friday of January.Also, let's hang out on Thursday nights from now on. Much love.
Editor's Note
