Well it’s finally happened. Rutgers is seriously talking about elliminating Douglass College as we know it. It’s my alma mater and the largest public women’s college. Of course there are people who say that there’s no need for an all-women’s college in this day and age. Or ask that once you graduate you have to work with men, so how is being educated in that setting a good thing?
Well, I firmly believe that because I went to Douglass I’m a stronger woman and better employee because of it. And there is still a need to have a women’s college, even today. Why? Well I can just take a stroll around the engineering department in the company I work for, I can count on one hand the number of women I bump into. And if you read the Transforming Rutgers report you’ll see that the percentage of women in the engineering school is appalling, but that doesn’t take into account the number of women at Douglass. We have to create environments where women know that they’ll have the support that they need to succeed in traditionally male programs.
Some of the same reasons that you need women’s colleges are the same reasons that BlogHer came into existence. The things that concern women are not being addressed in traditional settings. We get told to work within the system, but sometimes that just doesn’t work. You have to go off, get together, and do what you want/need to get done. It’s not something that’s going to get resolved anytime soon.
