This is what happens when you mix "Sex and the Chapel": We become boy-crazed... and stupid.
Somewhere between the third hook-up and the date, Ladies, we stopped being the players and got played. Or, instead of playing the blind sexually-crazed fratboy or football player, we started playing each other.
Why is it that, as women, we have the collective tendency to choose a man over each other? Duke men live by the dogma, "Bros before hos," but as women we are too quick to choose the d--- before the chick.
My greater, upperclassmen sources, and my own experiences, have led me to believe that the time will most definitely come in a woman's life at Duke when she must choose between a man and one of her girlfriends. Unfortunately, she will make the stupid mistake of choosing the man.
Duke not only fails to teach its women how to stand up for themselves, but also how to stand up for each other. What upsets me possibly more than any other phenomenon at Duke is that the shallow, one-minded woman--no, juvenile girl--who betrays her girlfriend always seems to win... and so do her petty games.
This is the girl who blindly pursues a man who won't remember her name in the morning. This is the girl who attempts to start a catfight at Vin Rouge over some guy that looked at her twice. And this is the girl that has no clear sense of herself... or at least no sense of self apart from the man that defines her.
I'm a little afraid that I've let Duke sway me to choose the dick before the chick in my notorious column of female liberation, black lace and stilettos. This one is for my Ladies....
There is too much of a gap at Duke between the woman who knows what she wants, and the foolish girl who doesn't know what she is.
For us young and impressionable freshmen girls, we're a little unsure of ourselves when we come to a school like Duke where we have the opportunity to reinvent who we are and what we come off as. And, sadly, when we see that Duke caters to the timid girl rather than the strong woman, we reduce ourselves from potent women to pathetic girls.
We join sororities, or become lackeys of this and that fraternity. Or, even worse, the football or lacrosse team. We become part of mainstream Duke. And instead of defining ourselves, we let Duke and Duke's men define us.
And it's no wonder: As women, we exist within a social structure at Duke that will indulge our immaturities and inhibit any legitimate claim we have to womanhood. Really, Ladies... instead of prematurely placing a claim on the disinterested boy-toy, we should focus a little more on empowering and placing a claim on ourselves.
As the intelligent and capable women of Duke, we need to band together. From early on in our college careers, we make the terrible mistake of reducing friendships to either drinking buddies or competition, or both.
Friendships between women at Duke are superficial at best. Our behavior and our demeanor suggest that we are too self-involved and self-indulgent. We want our girlfriends to be there when we cry our eyes out in the early, hung-over, lonely light of morning, but the only reason we stick around for their hard times is either pity or obligation, or until our Seven jeans begin to suffocate our tiny, anorexic waists.
I refuse to believe that we really feel "Juicy" in couture; or that we've reduced the BC to our fashion runway. Whom are we dressing for? and, more importantly, drinking for?
The truth is, we are ravaging and shaming ourselves as part of Duke's social hierarchy, with no clear notion of who we're trying so hard to impress. It is most definitely not the frat boy or football player, but it may in fact be the girl in the Seven jeans....
As a woman at Duke, I don't want to graduate in four years having to keep my friends close, my enemies closer and not being able to tell the difference between the two.
I suggest the women of Duke take a good look around them, take a step down with me from their pedestal of black lace and stilettos, and ask the very pertinent question: Do I own myself at Duke, or does Duke own me?
And if they answer yes to the latter question, I suggest they take out the Jack Rabbit and start realizing what it means to "own it."
Shadee Malaklou is a Trinity freshman. Her column appears every other Wednesday.
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