The Feminist Reflex

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I did not graduate from an all-girls school. I graduated from a women’s college.

The distinction between those two becomes more than just a case of bandying words. It can be a distinction of identity, a motivating force or a defensive explanation. It can even serve as a call to ideological arms. Most often, though, the distinction materializes in the form of a correction.

“Don’t you miss men at your all-girls school?” an unsuspecting person might ask.

“Women’s college,” I would politely, but firmly, correct them.

“So, Kristin, what classes are you taking this semester at your all-girls school?” a distant relative might inquire over lunch.

“Women’s college,” I felt impelled to reply before I could move on to answer his question.

And so on, in countless variations. At the end of four years of undergradu- ate education at a women’s college, this obsessive desire for the correct term has become automatic. It becomes the most obvious signal of the general outlook that women’s education fosters. I call this way of thinking “The Feminist Reflex.”

That the Feminist Reflex is a shared phenomenon became clear to me when I attended a conference alongside my fellow tutors for our college’s Speaking Center. One of our peers, a male student leading a particular seminar, made the mistake of wishing to clarify that my coworkers and I represented an all-girls school.

“Women’s college,” one of my coworkers cut in without hesitation. Every female in the room hooted with laughter and broke into applause.

It seems that women’s colleges always feel the need to come out swinging. They must forever defend their existence by outlining the value of single-sex education to review boards, funding sources, the press, parents of prospective students and prospective students themselves. From the moment she accepts her offer of admission to a women’s college, a new student has signed on for a long tenure in defensive mode. It begins with her fellow high school seniors: Is she crazy? Why on earth would she want to attend a school without men? Is she a lesbian? Does she think she’ll become one? All too often, it seems the prospect of attending class in one’s pajamas without giving it a second thought is not enough to answer for the old-fashioned yet somehow radical notion of single-sex learning. Small wonder, then, that we women’s college advocates begin to develop a Feminist Reflex very early in the process.