Breeze Perspectives: Disposable women
At JMU, as in the world at large, females are nothing more than big tissues
By Kate Griendling, contributing writer
Posted on October 12, 2006

Every year JMU graduates women competent in biotechnology, computer graphic art and health communication. Every year future psychologists, genetic engineers and teachers walk across the stage to receive their diploma. And every year an overwhelming majority of women graduate believing they are disposable.

I was enjoying a typical Saturday night with a few guy friends when their roommate returned from a date function with the most beautiful girl on his arm. She had striking deep-set brown eyes with blond tresses framing her delicate features. I realized I was observing the climax (socially, not yet biologically) of a one-night stand. Sensing my observation, a friend coyly remarked, “He’s not bad-looking, that’s his game.”

If only it were that easy.

Similar sentiments and acknowledgements were made during the discussion portion of Tuesday’s Faculty Women’s Caucus seminar, “Why do female JMU students feel disposable, and what can we do about it?”

Let me be clear: I have nothing against recreational sex, one-night stands or JMU men. I simply hate that men seem to have the pick of the litter. Then again, maybe scoring a hottie-with-a-body isn’t exactly victorious when the odds favor the men two-to-one.

The sentiment echoes throughout campus by single women: Where have all the cowboys gone? Julia Sheffield hypothesizes that “if you’re a half-decent man, you can get anything you want, so why settle?”  (The trick is for the older women with cars and apartments to seduce the fresh meat. Watch out, class of 2010.) 

Dr. Anne Gabbard-Alley, member of the Faculty Women’s Caucus (FWC), noted that she has concerns for JMU’s young women because there is pressure to hook up with any man that shows interest, lest the next girl in line can easily replace her. To many in the communication department, this mindset and/or silent pressure is known as the “disposable phenomenon.”

The FWC concern for JMU women prompted the Oct. 10 seminar featuring two female professors followed by a group discussion about the disposable phenomenon. JMU graduates female leaders in the top 10 percentile, yet when Judy Flor, kinesiology professor, asked the graduate women at the April FWC meeting, “how many of you realize you have the skills and potential to be a leader?” only two raised their hands. “It is scary,” Flor said.   

Lindsey Smith, a teaching assistant to Dr. Eva McMahn, insinuated the same notion, “I walk into a JMU party and all I see are girls. The boys don’t even look my direction and I have to laugh to myself because it is those same boys who I won’t give the time of day to back home.” Smith, as many women do, opts for the long-distance relationship rather than compete with her peers. 

The competition for a boyfriend requires that JMU females lower their standards and morals. It seems that some women are so desperate for a boyfriend and male approval that they will hook up after just meeting in hopes of a booty call the next night. What is interesting about this promiscuity is that most guys say they don’t have respect for girls who put out on the first date. In order to delicately balance sexual assertiveness and desire to have a boyfriend, “girls and women remain silent in ambivalence rather than say yes or no, which leads to murky sexual scenarios that are neither completely consensual or completely coerced, but somewhere in between,” author Leora Tanenbaum says in her book, “Slut! Growing up Female with a Bad Reputation.“

Calling attention to this disposable phenomenon is not to reprimand the men, but to remind the Madison women of the real world. When you graduate, you will actually be entering a male-dominated work force. You’ll be up against new obstacles. Romantically, the odds are good, but the goods may be odd. You’ll no longer be negotiating relationship terms, but job benefits, salary, promotions and vying for positions with male counterparts. You won’t be up against other females, but a glass ceiling.

There is pressure to be thin, pressure to be beautiful, and pressure to put up or shut up. These concerns and sometimes obsessions of women are phallocentric. When you bend to the desires of men, you can lose your footing. To enter the real world with the notion that you are disposable is to surrender to an institution larger than JMU — the institution of inequality.

Kate Griendling is a junior communications major.