Young women's issues

Young women are today introduced into the world of dating and relationships much earlier and more harshly than were previous generations. Most navigate or cope with the new terrain, but many are victimized. Freedom from strictures and structures of the past has not had universally positive effects.

For example, according to a recent report in the Journal of the American Medical Association, violence is a normal part of the dating ritual for a significant number of adolescents (most often perpetrated, of course, by boys upon girls). An average of 9.5% of girls surveyed reported physical abuse; nearly 4% reported sexual abuse and 6% reported both. Abused girls are also more likely to abuse drugs and alcohol, engage in risky sexual behavior, get pregnant, adopt unhealthful eating practices and attempt suicide. Although the study was conducted in only one state, researchers say results reflect national trends.

Do things get better once young women get to college? Actually the mating game has changed fundamentally there too. According to "Hooking Up, Hanging Out, and Hoping for Mr. Right:

College Women on Mating and Dating Today," a report commissioned by the Independent Women's Forum, the culture of courtship - the set of social norms and expectations that once helped young people find the pathway to marriage - has disappeared from American college campuses.

What has replaced it is a world of coed dorms, drinking parties and two kinds of sexual relationships: the "hookup" (sex without commitment), and "joined at the hip" (partners that spend so much time together they can't form independent lives of their own). Because women outnumber men by a significant 5:4 ratio on college campuses (where a high level of sexual activity is accepted and expected), young men can be passive - never asking for a "date," for example - and still enjoy the intimate company of young women. But the old double standard still applies: men who hook up a lot are called "players," women who hook up a lot are called "sluts."

Other terminology now in the vernacular of every American college student: "friends with benefits" (people available for hookups); "the walk of shame" (the embarrassing early-morning exit a woman makes from the dorm room of her latest hookup); "the talk" (what women initiate when they have hooked up with a man several times and are desperate to know if they are now "in a relationship," a determination left wholly to the male).

College women are both dazzled and baffled by this world of all-or-nothing relationships, according to the study's authors, University of Texas sociology professor Norval Glenn and Elizabeth Marquardt, an associate scholar with the Institute for American Values. But in the end, neither kind of relationship is likely to lead to what college women say they really want - an intelligent, long-term, committed relationship that might lead to marriage.

The study concludes that parents, college officials and social leaders should recognize that current mating and dating practices of the young constitute a major social problem. It recommends that such adults in positions of responsibility should support the creation of socially prescribed rules and norms that are relevant and appropriate for this generation. (The entire report is available at iwf.org or shethinks.org.)

Copyright FutureScan Aug 2001
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