TASOAE: 055
« First ‹ Previous ∞ Random ∞ Next › Last » Rose-Hulman’s first co-ed class of freshmen enrolled in 1995. Sexism was as rampant as it was on many campuses; girls were evidently only there to get married, or maybe the school used different standards for women, or she must be sleeping with the professor because she can’t be that smart. It was perhaps worse that most of these things were said jokingly. Few men seriously accused women of being lesser students, but the jokes and remarks were incessant and pervasive.
On the occasion of the 10-year anniversary celebration of this event, the Flipside was co-ed themed. In addition to cartooning, I edited the Flipside, the humor page of the Thorn. I had the difficult job that issue of making jokes about coeducation and sexism without the jokes themselves being sexist. Every issue had a Top Ten List, always full of ridiculous or satirical items. That issue’s was the “Top Ten Reasons Coeducation Was a Bad Idea.” It was intended to satirize the ridiculous arguments against coeducation and included items like “Women always getting pregnant, menstruating” or “Female upper-body strength insufficient to carry bookbags.” We got a letter to the editor about that one.
