They are the campus rebels, the young women who refuse to play by the rules laid down by a male-dominated culture.<\/p>\n\n
They wish that more young men would focus on their minds and souls, instead of their bodies. They are tired of crude social games that serve the desires of men rather than the dreams of young women.<\/p>\n\n
They are rebels, the religious women who struggle with the frat-boy patriarchy that rules the modern university campus on nights and weekends.<\/p>\n\n
\u201cThere is a mini-revolt going on out there and you\u2019ll find it in the Christian groups that you find on most campuses,\u201d said Barbara Dafoe Whitehead, co-director of the National Marriage Project at Rutgers University. \u201cThe students in these independent religious groups \u2014 especially the girls \u2014 are the new countercultural revolutionaries at our modern secular universities.\u201d<\/p>\n\n
That\u2019s the good news. The bad news is that if alternative religious groups didn\u2019t exist on most campuses, then these young women would have \u201cnowhere else to go if they are looking for the kind of moral support that they need to find some way around the \u2018let\u2019s get drunk and hook up\u2019 scene,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n
Secular and religious researchers have tried to describe the causes and the effects of this alcohol-fueled sexual mayhem on mainstream campuses.<\/p>\n\n
Thus, publications ranging from Christianity Today to Rolling Stone have published reports on this issue, with predictably different verdicts. Much of the news coverage has focused on novelist Tom Wolfe\u2019s profane morality tale \u201cI Am Charlotte Simmons,\u201d in which a brilliant Christian from the North Carolina mountains suffers a moral collapse during her freshman year on an elite campus that is famous for academics, basketball and sexist lacrosse players. Many critics noted a resemblance to Duke University.<\/p>\n\n
College administrators have responded by focusing on alcohol abuse and its impact on campus life. However, they have failed to realize that alcohol is linked to other moral issues, said Whitehead, author of a book on a related topic, \u201cWhy There Are No Good Men Left.\u201d Administrators must understand that campus gender roles have been turned upside down, with mixed results.<\/p>\n\n
Only a few decades ago, men ruled the classrooms on most campuses, stressed Whitehead, writing in the progressive Catholic journal Commonweal. There were more male students and more male professors, resulting in powerful networks that dominated academic life. Women, however, controlled campus social life, with all of its formal and informal rituals of dating and courtship.<\/p>\n\n
Times have changed.<\/p>\n\n
\u201cWomen now rule the classroom,\u201d argued Whitehead. \u201cWith the strict enforcement of laws prohibiting gender discrimination and sexual harassment, the classroom has become more egalitarian and merit based. Women have flourished academically in this well-regulated environment. <\/p>\n\n
\u201cOn the other hand, men increasingly set the rules for an unregulated social life. \u2026 They\u2019ve streamlined the old system. They\u2019ve eliminated the time-wasting efforts to attend to women\u2019s wishes and gotten down to the fundamentals of adolescent male desire: playing competitive games, drinking with buddies and having sex with lots of compliant women. They\u2019ve also taken charge of party venues and themes: they rent off-campus party houses, stockpile massive quantities of alcohol, hire strippers and organize female wrestling and wet T-shirt competitions.\u201d<\/p>\n\n
It\u2019s hard to party harder than the guys who make the rules and the girls who are willing to play by them.<\/p>\n\n
Yet, when reporters and researchers ask the right questions, even many young women who are not religious sound stunned by the choices they have to make when it comes to alcohol, clothing and sex. One Duke coed told Rolling Stone: \u201cI have done things that are completely inconsistent with the type of person I am, and what I value.\u201d<\/p>\n\n
Whitehead said that these young women often sound like they have been abandoned, rather than \u201cempowered.\u201d Their confused statements sound like they want help, but don\u2019t know how to say so.<\/p>\n\n
\u201cIn many cases their moral compasses have become so disoriented that they can\u2019t even describe how they feel,\u201d said Whitehead. \u201cThese young women feel bad, but they can\u2019t pin down why they feel bad. They feel guilty, but they\u2019ve been taught that there\u2019s no reason to feel guilty about anything. \u2026<\/p>\n\n
\u201cMany girls sound like they want a way out. If their own parents and churches won\u2019t help them, who will? It sure doesn\u2019t seem like their colleges are going to.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
They are the campus rebels, the young women who refuse to play by the rules laid down by a male-dominated culture. They wish that more young men would focus on their minds and souls, instead of their bodies. They are tired of crude social games that serve the desires of men rather than the dreams […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":610,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[48,244,1547,792,929],"class_list":["post-1405","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-alcohol","tag-college","tag-sex","tag-sexism","tag-women"],"yoast_head":"\n