The Bowdoin Orient

Being in the Middle East, where gender norms are more outwardly evident than the U.S., has us thinking more about gender and gender inequalities. In addition to my  [Alex’s] opinions on gender norms here in Qatar, we have been thinking a lot about Bowdoin and what could be improved on our campus. We came to this conclusion: Bowdoin needs a Men’s Resource Center. Yes. A Men’s Resource Center. 

Before you start burning copies of the Orient and telling us about our privilege—“everything is your resource” one friend told us already—give us a chance to explain ourselves. A comfy house somewhere on or near College Street with a kitchen, living rooms and an awesome staff would be ideal, but we don’t need that to accomplish our goal, which is to more effectively engage Bowdoin men in discussions regarding gender and sexuality.

The Bowdoin of today is a very different place than the Bowdoin of the 1970s, when women first enrolled at the College. The challenges we face are novel, and addressing them requires different institutional approaches. 

We are growing up in the age of Tinder, Snapchat and Facebook. There are more women attending American universities than men. Pop culture and ads extol the values of drinking, crazy sex and not thinking about the next morning. We aren’t here to sound like an NBC news reel—we admit to loving Snapchat, drinking, and occasionally not thinking about consequences, but we are here to point out that we today face pressures our parents’ generation did not.

The Women’s Resource Center organizes amazing programming regarding sexuality and gender, but right off the bat the name alienates around half of the population of the College. Providing programming and support for only half of the population allows us to confront only half of the problem. 

If we as aim to fully address issues of sexual violence, gender norms, and gender-based discrimination on campus, we must do a better job of engaging the entire student body. That’s why organizations such as BMASV are so important in our community: they bring sexual violence education to the population that sadly needs to hear it the most. It’s also why Emma Watson’s speech at the United Nations advocating for the HeForShe campaign. HeForShe is a campaign that aims to involve men in the women’s rights movement.

If men better understood the forces that shaped their conception of masculinity and how masculinity affects their relationships, our society would be a better place. Men deserve the chance to define their masculinity outside of the constraints of patriarchy.

Having an annual luncheon and panel with a number of male faculty and staff is not nearly enough to begin tackling this issue. Talking about these questions with friends is good and talking about them with a female professional is better, but it is necessary that young men who are defining their masculinity can speak to a professional who is a man—to say otherwise is simply ridiculous. In these discussions we seek a friend, a mentor, or a role model—in other words, someone who has personally dealt with the issues we now face.

Bowdoin has a plethora of extremely intelligent women who are well versed in feminist theory and counsel their peers on issues of gender at a moment’s notice. 

However, if a man has a problem regarding gender, say social pressure to have sex or a body image issue, he will be unable to easily find another man from whom he can receive counseling. For men, these conversations are especially difficult because common conceptions about masculinity bar us from questioning our identity or addressing our emotions in a meaningful way. 

For many straight men, these challenges are especially evident when it comes to expressing feelings openly or around women. 

For non-straight men, the challenge of defining one’s sexuality is inherently entwined with perceptions of masculinity. 

We are calling for the establishment of a Men’s Resource Center, so that all men on this campus have the support they need to address issues of masculinity, and a forum in which they can openly advocate for solutions to the gender-based challenges that face our campus and society.  

The beginning of a new academic year is always exciting. Reuniting with friends, exchanging tales of absurd shenanigans from the summer, and, let’s be real, going to the lobster bake—all these things make for a delightful cocktail of fun times and cute outfits. 

However, this time of peace will be torn apart by the stress and angst, both social and academic, that will descend upon the campus in about two weeks time.

The first years got a head start in the angst-fest when they stomped around New England during their godforsaken Orientation trips with people they had never met.

The sophomores, on the other hand, appear slightly more relaxed at this point, despite the tidal wave of decisions they will have to make this year: WTF even is a major? Should I go abroad? Should I get an internship? 

Don’t get us started about the seniors. The stress and uncertainty already emanating from visitors to the Career Planning Center and the inhabitants of the Tower merit mandatory meetings with the Counseling Center. We encourage all of you to make an appointment as soon as possible.

As for the juniors—half of us are gone, half remain. Yes, we miss each other. Yes, it is awful. However, this accursed situation does allow for some entertainment. For the next semester we will offer you our perspectives, from inside and outside the  Bowdoin bubble, on whatever it is that is gnawing at the soon-to-be frozen souls that inhabit this campus.

 We can only hope that Alexander’s perspective from abroad will offer a respite from the rampant bitching that will soon plague the. We also look forward to his special investigation into missing British human rights workers, what it’s like to live somewhere without snow and with sun, and most importantly, 10 ways to occupy yourself when you can’t stream Netflix.

But returning to campus, the first years and their social anxiety were on full display this  past week. We all remember the days we depended on easy conversation starters and ice breakers, such as: where are you from? What dorm are you in? What Pre-O did you do? 

This year, we heard a new way to kick off a conversation—by taking shots at our dear campus’ pink monolithic structure, Searles Science Building. To summarize the eloquence of a typical conversation: “it’s ugly.” “Yup.”   

People pick on Searles because it’s one of the easiest things to talk about, but we can be more creative. You can discuss the worst eyesore on campus, the Visual Arts Center, with its heinous 70s architecture.

What are the meanings behind the yonic nature of the VAC and the phallic towers of the chapel? Why the postmodern glass entrance to a renaissance-inspired museum? You could even talk about the crumbling foundation of Burnett House.

Alas, none of these more riveting topics of conversation were chosen since they would have demanded less superficial discussions between first years. 

What was happening is what always seems to be happening on campus. We have a habit of choosing the easy conversations and ignoring the difficult or more interesting ones in an effort to appear put-together. 

Bowdoin students don’t do “disheveled”—we leave that to kids at Colby and Bates. Even the kids who do look disheveled spent a lot of time digging around “Salvo” looking for that perfect owl shirt and hand knit sweater. 

We look nice everyday, get to class, offer politically correct statements in difficult discussions, smile fabulously on the Quad, rant online, and then silently cry in our showers.

We hope that the new first year class will break this culture—we hope first years choose the difficult conversations, attack the issues they are passionate about with energy and unashamed intellectualism, and realize that they will learn more about (and from) their peers when they say provocative and thought provoking things. 

We all feel stressed out and angsty from time to time, and we all deserve to rant whine, and bitch. Let’s at least make our screeds meaningful and interesting this year. 

Hopefully our confessions will move from Facebook pages to the dining hall tables, and then finally we will admit that we might not have it all together. We are capable of that much—because let’s be honest—how many of our worries here aren’t #firstworldproblems?

The current chem-free housing model is deeply flawed, and we should all be glad that it’s changing next year, when affiliation will be determined by floor instead of by brick.

The College House application process  is nearing its end decisions will be in student mailboxes by April 8—and all the nervous chatter about pending House placements made me think about how the Houses will adapt to the new chem-free system.

I’ve come to believe that Bowdoin is moving in the right direction with the new plan, which  was announced this fall. Dispersing chem-free floors throughout the first-year bricks will lead to an emphasis on what I call “diversity as feeling” at Bowdoin.

Stepping onto the Bowdoin campus was too exciting and emotional for me to put into words. During my first week here, I noticed nothing but the things I love most about the College: the food, the town, the architecture, and the people, to name a few.  

However, being here has led me to question some aspects of my life for the first time. With just a few weeks of school behind me, I’ve grown as a person and have come to understand myself more, partly through questioning things that I took for granted before arriving on campus. One question that I asked myself, and that I had never thought about before, was whether any of my accomplishments have been inflected by the fact that I’m a student of color. 

I think this was on my mind because of the predominantly white demographics of the campus. I come from a 4,000 student high school in Houston, Texas. And I have only this to say: Bowdoin is not racially diverse compared to my high school, but it is more diverse than I expected it would be. And I want to stress that these thoughts came to mind as the result of my own observation, reflection, and conversations—not because of any observed or experienced racial intolerance on campus.