Is gender equality in college that important?

According to NPR, colleges are favoring male applicants ahead of female candidates, in order to keep schools from becoming overwhelmingly female. Other than being a seemingly blatant violation of Title IX, I can’t quite figure out if this is good or bad.

So I took a look at both sides:

Gender balance on a college campus is not a bad thing. It’s been a long standing argument for Affirmative Action that diversity enhances the learning experience, and it’s true. Guys see things differently than us ladies and hearing their perspective can really change the way we think. As a graduate of an all-girls high school, I can honestly say that having males in the college classroom was a welcomed change and a truly eye-opening experience. And even what happens outside of the classroom – including dating – is an important part of college life and growing up.

And let’s not pretend we don’t see the obvious perk here. With colleges accepting more male students there will be less competition on the hunt for a boyfriend. You may be just as romantically-challenged, but at least there are less girls around to point that out. Can’t hate that. Read More »

Although we gals have pushed, yelled and fought for our rights for decades, it’s an unfortunate fact that men dominate a number of professions in the U.S. (and often make more money than women doing the same things). Can we imagine a world where estrogen ruled, women weren’t subjected to workplace prejudices, and men were delegated to diaper duty (okay, we don’t have to go this far, but still…)??

Let’s take a look at some professions dominated by men and see how women could handle them…

Job: Floor Trader
Description: Member of a stock or commodities exchange who trades for their company amongst a sea of hysterical competitors.
Why women should dominate this profession: Many women I know admit to making a habit of picking fights with their boyfriends. There’s something about our argument style (sometimes fierce, sometimes whiny, sometimes teary, always clever, and oftentimes a mix of the four) that, when combined with batted eyelashes, ensures that we’re going to walk out of the room knowing that the score is Girl: 1, Boy: 0. Read More »

[We'd like to take this opportunity to welcome our favorite love, sex and relationship blogger - Lena Chen - to the CollegeCandy team. Lena is smart, funny, and her perspective on all things relationship is incredibly thought provoking. We're so pumped to have her here, so be sure to let us know in the comments what sorts of things you'd like Lena to discuss!]

Marriage isn’t a right; it’s a privilege. Depending on the time, place, and partner, getting married could be harder than getting into Harvard, if not downright impossible. As recently as fifty years ago, miscegenation laws would have forbid me from marrying my boyfriend (or any man not my race) in certain areas of the United States. Before that, the legal and social benefits to getting married were denied to minorities, immigrants, and the poor for centuries. Marriage is, for lack of a better analogy, membership into the biggest country club in the world.

For me, getting married would be a personal endorsement of some of the worst societal norms in existence.

The supposed “right” to marry has never been much of a right at all, and our understanding of marriage as a basic liberty is unique to contemporary times. Thanks to my predisposition for heterosexuality, it’s a liberty I could easily exercise, but I’d much rather march in a rally than down an aisle, because I find it difficult to take part in a practice that is denied to others (plenty of them my friends). Even with the best of intentions, I can’t imagine that my own wedding will serve any purpose but to reinforce existing norms, such as the idea that a relationship is only valuable if recognized by a third-party institution. Read More »

Tomorrow is Equal Pay Day, a public awareness event to draw attention to the gender pay gap. Today, women make about 80 cents per every dollar a man makes.

It’s ridiculous – if we do the same work, we should get paid the same. Am I right!? [Crowd cheers.]

But I’m here to say that we not only deserve equal pay, but should actually be making more money than men. Here are 5 very real reasons why:

1. Women are biologically superior to men. We have a longer life expectancy, more grey matter in our brains (it’s useful stuff, trust me) and can have multiple orgasms. We aren’t as susceptible to many inherited diseases (like hemophilia and colorblindness) because we have two X chromosomes rather than just one.

2. We work twice as much. Most women and men work eight-hour days. But when women get home, they have to cook, clean, and take care of the kids. This extra work is known by feminists as the “second shift” and we deserve to be compensated for it.

3. Women are more qualified than man. Women get better grades and take more advanced placement classes in high school. Nearly sixty-percent of undergraduate college students are women, and women earn more bachelor and graduate degrees then men. Read More »

Although you probably do not know who Lilly Ledbetter is (I didn’t know until this past week), you should thank her.

For the last ten years of her life, Ledbetter has fought for equal pay rights in the work place for women. After experiencing pay-based discrimination because of her sex (and learning about it through anonymous letters in her work mailbox), Ledbetter filed a complaint of gender discrimination with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). Making a long story short (however, you should read the whole story over at CNN), President Obama stepped in and signed the Lilly Ledbetter Equal Pay Restoration Act this past week making the fight for women’s rights and equality better upheld through the law.

While I feel gratitude for Ledbetter’s ongoing battle with the Supreme Court and Congress to pass this act that will give women the rights they warrant and money that is rightfully theirs, I know that work is still left to be done.

It may seem hard to believe, but to this day, full-time working women get paid “on average, only 77 cents for each dollar full-time working men get paid,” according to the Wage Project. This happens in every occupation across the nation, and while it impacts women in different ways, the reality of it is that hardworking women with outstanding college degrees lose money in their pockets simply because of their sex.

Think about it. Imagine working at the same place, doing the same job as a man (who has the same degree and amount of experience as you), putting in the same hours, only to find out he is, in fact, making more money than you on an annual basis. How is that fair? It’s not, at all.

But it is reality. Read More »

So, we learned the other day that women are having more sex than men. I was surprised by that fact (because men are so obsessed with getting some…all the time), but embraced the cultural shift. Women have needs and they are finally feeling comfortable enough to go out and fulfill them.

But the sex doesn’t seem to be enough! This morning I learned that women are not only are sleeping around a bit more, but they are also taking care of business on their own a lot more, too! A recent survey revealed that 9 out of 10 women masturbate.

Women claim that self-pleasuring (a nice way of saying “masturbating”) gives them confidence when they are with a man, and that it is a natural extension of how liberated we have become in all other facets of our lives.

And it feels really good, obvi.

All of these new findings finally prove that women are sexual beings who never had the opportunity to explore before. Now we do. And we can’t get enough.

Do you “self pleasure”?

I wish I were gay.

Well, no. That’s only a little bit true. That’s actually barely true at all. I don’t want to be saddled with unfair prejudice in the workplace, social and religious spheres, and military. So let me refine that statement a bit.

I wish I could be into dudes.

Not quite the same thing, really. I’ve always been a fan of the Kinsey scale when it comes to human sexuality, since “gay” and “straight” are so painfully restrictive. So let’s just say I wish I could ding my rating up a few points or two.

I’m perfectly happy with women, of course. Ladies, you guys are great, and I mean that. It’s not like I’m not getting enough variety in my sexy diet or anything. And honestly, friendship-wise, I tend to be one of those wimpy boys that has more female than male friends and always gets called “a really nice guy”. So what’s up, man?

Why the thirst for testosterone?

It’s a matter of principle. See, I’ve always believed that gender expression is mostly socialized. Girls get dolls, boys get dump trucks, that sort of thing. Switch them around and little girls would grow up to be seven feet tall with full Thoreau neck beards – no kidding, man. And from a very young age, us dudes have basically been told: “Hey! Check it out! Boobs!” Read More »

Remember when Girls Gone Wild used to shame party girls across the country who had one too many body shots on Spring Break and had the bad luck to land in front of a camera? Since when has slutty behavior turned into a profitable asset and a celebrity vehicle? Mini Me’s lover is collecting big after a sex tape “somehow” leaked, and now Eliot Spitzer’s ex-whore is getting a REALITY TV SHOW. I can’t believe that we Americans will actually tune in to the lives of nutjobs like the Lohans, the Kardashians, and now, some hooker who happened to win the jackpot.

When Tila Tequila burst on the scene, she had a great gimmick: the first bisexual reality dating show. But after the Bobby Banhart breakup-scandal, and oh-so-predictable opposite-gender-choosing finale in season 2, there’s not much buzz left in Tequilaville. Bring in the hooker! If you thought Tila’s patented, “How will your parents react when they find out I’m bisexual?” act starts to get old, imagine the “How will your parents react when they find out I’m the whore that ruined Eliot Spitzer’s career?” segment.

Yes, Handprint Entertainment, the fine folks who bring the lives of Pamela Anderson and Nicole Ritchie to the small screen, are in talks with MTV to give Ashley Dupre a shot at love. Read More »

[Read day three HERE]

…Or maybe it’s the gender distinction of romance and love.

It’s been my understanding that the majority of guys do not watch rom-coms without mentally noting what things someone would obviously do if they loved you; that they in fact can listen to a John Legend song without awaiting a diamond ring; that they can even watch that sappy Hershey’s Kiss commercial (the one where the guy special orders all those Kisses with the little tags that say ‘I miss you’ for his lady) and never register that might be something you would actually do for the one you Love. Talk about a revelation.

Talk about a productive night’s sleep. I just woke up with this brain child.

It may not be the ’solution’ to all this, but it is kind of brilliant in figuring this whole thing out; maybe I am not so unreasonable as a hopeless romantic, but rather just sh*t-out-of-luck as far as finding a guy who is on the same page to provide me with all the things I am waiting for, all the time. Read More »

I’ve always made a bad girl.

I don’t mean to say that I’m bad. I’m far too responsible for that. I listen to NPR. I vote in primaries. But when it comes to femininity, to the trappings of girlhood (the shoes, the makeup, the cooking, the arcane household crafts), I just do not get it. I am not good at it. I fail to perform “girl” correctly.

It’s not as if I haven’t been trained for the job. Throughout my childhood, several family members staged interventions and crash courses on femininity, from the grandmother who told me that I could be so pretty, if only I’d try a little, to the cousins who told me that ya cain’t use big words on a guy, or he won’t like ya. My father – a check-bouncing, hard-drinking, waitress-dating guy who rode motorcycles and used the word f*ck approximately eight times in any given conversation – despaired over my failure to become, in his words, “a real lady.”

I tried. I really did. Before I knew what feminism was, I studied gender, the assumptions and behaviors and roles that were assigned to the men and women around me. I didn’t have revolutionary aims. I just wanted to know what I was missing.

This is what I picked up:

Boys are strong. Girls are gentle. Boys are brave. Girls are patient. Boys want to have fun. Girls want to have babies. Boys are attractive because of what they do. Girls are attractive because of how they look. Boys smoke, drink, and screw. Girls cook, clean, and marry. Boys pick the girls they want. Girls take the boys who pick them. Boys can’t help themselves. Girls spend their time helping.

To borrow a phrase from my dear father: f*ck that sh*t. Read More »