Women’s Weekend offers us a chance to reflect on the progress Duke has made in women’s issues, in the last century and in this one. But this weekend also offers the University an opportunity to evaluate its success in empowering and supporting women on campus right now. This weekend’s bevy of panelists, speakers and visitors should celebrate the past, but we all need to cast a critical eye to the problems that remain—and what must be done about them.
The 2003 report on campus gender issues, known as the Women’s Initiative report, catalyzed a sustained institutional response to women’s issues, starting at the end of former President Nan Keohane’s term and extending through the Richard Brodhead years. Increased resources for Counseling and Psychological Services, the prominence of the Women’s Center and updated maternity policies for faculty and staff all attest to Duke’s commitment to providing funding and support for positive change.
Still, underlying cultural issues continue to plague Duke’s gender relations. There has been no real change in the way women experience Duke since the 2003 initiative. We have kept up the changes from a decade ago—now we need to make new ones.
We offer a brief assessment of where the University needs to focus its energy. Although many of these gender issues stem from broader societal patterns, Duke must continue looking for innovative ways to address these problems.
On campus today, the continued prevalence of sexual assault is disturbing. Although subtle shifts like the introduction of the mandatory reporting policy are encouraging, Duke needs to work to ensure that the University is free from sexual violence.
Headline grabbers like sexist party themes and emails are probably not the most serious drivers of gender issues on campus. Still, the prevalence of these issues is a manifestation of a deeper set of attitudes that characterize social interactions. Deep-seated biases that uphold, implicitly or explicitly, norms privileging men have material consequences for women on campus—they are at the heart of issues ranging from male dominance in certain academic fields to stereotypical portrayals of women in everyday culture at Duke.
Going forward, the challenge is clear: How do we address these fundamental motivators of the gender issues, especially when the most crucial players—perpetrators and those who countenance perpetration—either do not see themselves as part of the problem or do not care if they are? The same students who would never go the Women’s Center are exactly the students we need to reach.
Although the Women’s Center is an excellent resource, its campus reach is confined—in part, unfortunately, by stereotypical notions of who and what the Women’s Center actually is. Projects like Men Acting for Change, Prevent Act Challenge Teach and the Greek Women’s Initiative have extended this reach, but they fall short of where we must go.
What we need to address—and what this weekend’s participants need to think about—is how to make gender issues matter to students who do not yet care about them. Solutions are not easy to come by—we suspect narrative has a role to play. But this is the problem we have faced since the reorganization in 2003, and, in the end, it may demand a new initiative of its own.
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