Living on a college campus is like inhabiting a miniature representation of our world. The problems that plague our Earth and nation appear here on a smaller scale, but in full force.
One of these that has been called to my attention lately is the difference in the genders’ attitudes toward casual sex — for men, it is celebrated; women, however, often attempt to keep it a secret.
These gender norms are commonplace and unlikely to be changed anytime soon because they are so embedded in our cultural practices.
However, our unconscious acceptance of what is ordinary intensifies in significance as the consequences increase in importance.
What I am alluding to, of course, is an unplanned pregnancy. The disparity between the repercussions on the father and the mother mimics the difference between their responses to their casual tryst that started the whole affair to begin with.
On this campus, the dichotomy can be viewed in the microcosm of some parts of our Greek system. If a male gets a girl pregnant, his brothers might embrace him more tightly, and he continues to be a part of the organization he joined.
The girl, however, is quietly dismissed by her sorority, as she allegedly failed to uphold the standards of honorability she swore to during her initiation.
Since these instances are so sensitive and therefore kept hush-hush, this gross inequality is suppressed and filed away. We simply refuse to talk about it.
However, this is larger than any one instance of an unplanned pregnancy. This is indicative of who exactly is taking the responsibility and bearing the consequences of an unexpected child—not just on campus, but in our country as a whole. The Greek system is only a small representation of this discrepancy.
Just as a sorority girl is stripped of her letters while her equally liable partner retains his after a pregnancy, so is a woman in society blamed and ostracized for her condition, while the father walks away seemingly blameless.
You can oppose this notion and call it a generalization, but you only have to look to Fraternity Row to see it in action. We must ask ourselves why a female is not worthy of respect — whether in the form of keeping her letters or otherwise — after an unplanned pregnancy, but a male still is.
We must ponder whether we are a part of this conversation and cast the blame on the mother simply because “boys will be boys.”
This is not a call for any Greek organization to change its policies; they are private entities comprised of their own standards and codes to upkeep.
However, it is an insistent prodding to reconsider why the only one at fault is the one who physically bears the mistake.
Julia Grant is a freshman public policy leadership and journalism major from Gulfport.
