Are women's colleges going extinct?

Founded in the 19th century, women's colleges now dwindle in number and popularity for female scholars. Caroline and Cristen discuss the history of these all-female institutions and the pros and cons of their 21st-century existence.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to Stuff Mom Never Told You from house stuff
Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Kristen and I'm Caroline. And yet again, this topic of
women's colleges is coming from a listeners suggestion, So listeners
proof positive that we do take your suggestion series and

(00:25):
we steal them and we use them for well for good, yes, yeah,
for podcasting. But women's colleges was such a great topic
because it's sort of kind of college ish season. Yeah,
the kids are getting ready to move out of their
parentals home schools out for summer, and thus, so let's

(00:51):
stop this podcast. It can't get any better. It cannot.
But what can get better is the information that we're
going to give you about the history of women's colleges
and the kind of precarious position that they're in these days.
But first, let's offer a little overview of what exactly
is a woman's college, and the snarky answer to that

(01:13):
is it's the college where women go to learn. Well
that and according to the Department of Education, to get
specific about things, it is an institution where there is
an institutional mission to serve the needs of women in
higher education as well as a predominantly female student body.

(01:35):
So you know, in case you wanted to get real granular,
there it is. And it seems like, uh, if you
think that a minority of women attend women's colleges, you
would be so right. However, the proportion was a lot
higher about a century ago. Because I mean, we don't
need to point this out to you intelligent listeners. Women

(01:57):
weren't so much welcome at men's colleges because they were
just for men, just for men. Like the hair die exactly,
everybody went around dyeing their hair and their beards. Um.
So the fact that women did not have anywhere to
pursue any sort of quality education outside of the home
was a major problem, as you can imagine, and so

(02:19):
institutions did start springing up prior to the Civil War,
and these were seminaries. These weren't colleges as we think
of them today, but they were private secondary schools for
young women during the early nineteenth century, and they really
were the beginning of an interest in furthering educational opportunities
for women. And these seminaries that we're talking about did

(02:42):
not serve the traditional purpose we might think of as
training someone for religious work, but Rather, these women's seminaries
often trained women to be teachers, and then as full
fledged women's colleges, discreet from seminaries began training women in
traditionally alee disciplines and they were the only institutions where

(03:03):
women could study things like science, math, law, and philosophy.
And that history is carried forward to today where you
see that a lot of students at women's colleges are
more likely to study STEM courses the science, tech, engineering,
and math than they are at larger or co ed institutions. Right.

(03:27):
And during this time before the Civil War, there were
only three private colleges that admitted women, and they were
all in Ohio, Antioch, Oberlin, and Hillsdale. Actually my father
went to Hillsdale, but at that point it was in Michigan.
Um only two public universities at this time admitted women.
Those were the University of Iowa and the University of
Desert which is now the University of Utah. But among

(03:50):
all of these goings on, criticism of seminaries was growing
because basically a lot of critics out there were saying,
it's just not suffice. These institutions are not sufficient to
teach our women because all it's teaching them is how
to be proper and uh, you know, have great posture
and learn to be teachers. They need to be able
to learn more things better. Yeah, And during this time,

(04:14):
famed educator Catherine E. Beecher was arguing against seminaries in
a way because she's basically saying that women's colleges and
women's higher education needed more resources because at the time
that the seminaries weren't offering sufficient or permanent endowments for
buildings and libraries, and that once you got things like

(04:37):
boards of trustees established, you could secure better teachers and
therefore offer a higher level of instruction. Right. And this
is also this is part of the women's rights movement,
where women viewed quality education as a way to gain equality.
You know, we don't want something that's lesser than we
want something that's equal to what men have to get

(04:58):
the same kind of quality education and then maybe we
can have a step up in society. Now, in the
late nineteenth century early twentieth century, what was leading to
an increased demand for higher education for women, because even
just the fact that women might be thinking about getting
additional school learning was a bit of a revelation um

(05:20):
and it had to do a lot with things like
increases in labor saving devices at the home, so it
frees up more time. There was a shortage of teachers
in addition, due to the growth of common schools um
and that growth also instilled in girls a desire to learn.
And on top of that you have a proliferation of
books for women, periodicals for women. There's more philanthropy directed

(05:43):
towards women's education and some limited employment opportunities for women
thanks to he and that's thanks and quotes to things
like the Civil War man drain and a desire to
educate future mothers who would in turn raise educated children.
This was around the time time of the Republican framework

(06:03):
of motherhood, where good mothers raised their children to be
good citizens, and there was an educational component to that. Right,
So it's okay and it's safe for women to be
educated as long as it's being applied to raising good
future citizens exactly. Well. In the Northeast, as far as
women's colleges go, that's the home to a lot of independent,

(06:24):
nonprofit schools geared toward women who wanted to study the
liberal arts. In the South, the small women's schools were
mostly affiliated with various Protestant churches, such as UM Agnes
Scott College here in Decatur, Georgia, UM right next door
to us in Atlanta, which was started by the Presbyterians,
which I just learned. Um. These educational opportunities, however, were

(06:49):
limited to white students, so institutions for blacks were started
after the Civil War, such as Bennett, which actually didn't
become a women's college until nine and Spellmen, which are
the only black women's colleges today. And speaking of the
fact that Agnes Scott, for instance, was started by the
Presbyterian Church, Catholic institutions were also growing along with the

(07:10):
Catholic population in the US, and there were movements there
to establish public women's colleges. So let's get into some first.
Since we are in Atlanta, Caroline, I am proud to
report that the very first school in the United States
chartered in eighteen thirty six to grant women quote all

(07:31):
such honors, degrees, and licenses that are usually conferred in
colleges and universities to men, was the Georgia Female College,
which is now known as Wesleyan, which is in make
and Georgia, and that is associated obviously with the Methodist Church.
And it turns out that Wesleyan is the oldest women's

(07:51):
college that has neither closed nor become co ed. And
we'll get into that a little bit later when we're
talking about the modern problems that a lot of women's
colleges face and how they cope with it. So that's
pretty impressive that Wesleyan has stayed open this entire time
and just educated women. But we also have Mary Sharp
College in Tennessee, which in eighteen fifty one was the
first U. S women's college to require both Latin and

(08:14):
Greek in a four year course and give an associate
baccalaureate degree comparable to those awarded by men's colleges. Unfortunately,
Mary Sharp closed in eighteen ninety six. Now, one of
the challenges with establishing these early women's colleges was what
the educator Katherine E. Beecher was talking about in terms
of wanting to make sure that the education that women

(08:36):
were getting at women's colleges or seminaries were equivalent to
what men were leaving college with. And Elmira College in
New York, which was founded in eighteen fifty five, is
cited as the first women's college in the United States
that succeeded in doing just that of offering a degree

(08:56):
comparable with men's colleges. Yeah, and that school actually went
co ed in nineteen sixty nine. Also in New York,
we have Vassar College, which I'm sure you've heard of
Kristen uh in eighteen sixty five. It was the first
to have an adequate endowment and attain comparable standards to
those of men's colleges, which again is what Beacher was
talking about. You know, we have to give these schools

(09:17):
the same support that men's colleges do, and and that
adequate endowment is a large part of why Vassar has
been so successful. But of course, while these women's colleges
educational offerings were becoming more robust and more women were
interested in higher education and pursuing college degrees, not everybody

(09:38):
was happy about that. In the late eighteen hundreds, for instance,
may I quote Harvard President Charles W. Elliott, who, in
an eighteen speech really summed up people's feelings about women
and their potential for learning at the time, quote, women's

(10:00):
colleges should concentrate on an education that will not injure
women's bodily powers and functions, because Caroline, when we think,
it heats up our brain, and that heat could travel
down to our reproductive organs and spoil all of the ovaries.
Now we could get a brain fever in our eggs. Yeah,

(10:20):
and then we might not be able to become mothers
and raise the kids. And Heavens to Betsy if in
eight you were not only one of those women who
was getting one of those brain fever degrees, but you're
also riding a bicycle to and from class with all
that friction. Lots of dangers for women, so many, I mean,

(10:42):
we are so fragile. But M Carrie Thomas, who was
the highly educated president of bren Mar, and I know
that could sound patronizing out of context, but I mean
this woman traveled to Europe to be able to get
her advanced to degrees like she was that committed to education.
Uh So, mcry Thomas, the present then of brent Mar, said,
you may say you do not think God intended a

(11:04):
woman to be a bridge builder. You have, of course
right to this prejudice, but you will probably not be
able to impose it on women who wish to build bridges.
I love it. I love it. Put the whole thing
on a T shirt. I'll wear it. And part of
this fear, this culture that Charles W. Eliott, the Harvard president,

(11:24):
existed in, was not just that you know, we would
run off to college and get brain fevers by learning
too much, but that we would just decide that we
didn't want to get married. Oh my god, what would happen? Then?
You know, it could affect the size of families, it
could affect marriages, and a big fear was that a
decline in marriage would then lead to race suicide, a

(11:46):
coin a term coined by Teddy Roosevelt. But miraculously, as
we well know, now, women going to college has actually,
you know, coincided with massive population expansion. Good for us women. Indeed,
so we're doing just fine. Um. But now that we

(12:07):
have the history, the early history of women's college is established,
let's zero in on perhaps the best known cluster of
women's colleges, known as the Seven Sisters, and this is
essentially the women's college answer to men's Ivy League schools.
And the Seven Sisters consist of Barnard Smith, Mount Holyoke, Vassar,

(12:31):
Brent Mar, Wellesley and Radcliffe and Whoop whoop to all
of our alumni listeners out there, well done. Yeah, these
are incredible schools. Several of them were UM as was
common at the time. We're grown out of men's colleges
like Radcliffe was basically Harvard's answer to a women's school. UM.

(12:54):
These schools had very high admission standards and were able
to recruit and retain a high percentage of women faculty.
But there was quite a significant downside and that these
schools did not take well to racial integration. Yeah. Linda Perkins,
who was a researcher at Hunter College, looked into racial

(13:14):
integration in the Seven Sisters women's colleges, and she found
that there were a lot of barriers for entry and
it wasn't just a thing of the very early history
some colleges. Some of the Seven Sisters colleges didn't actively
recruit black women until the nineteen sixties when the civil
rights movement was in full swing. And she cites a W. E. B.

(13:39):
Duvois study from nineteen hundred in which he found that
it was easier for a black man to gain entrance
into a white men's college than for a black woman
to enter a white women's college. Right and to give
you some perspective. In eighteen thirty three, Oberlin began admitting
women and black students. From eighteen thirty three to nineteen ten,

(14:01):
about four hundred black women graduated from Oberlin. In contrast,
for the hundred year period between eighteen sixty in the
early nineteen sixties, only about five hundred black women graduated
from all seven Sisters colleges, and Perkins points out that
some were better than others in terms of being more

(14:24):
accepting of black students, but Vassar Barnard and Brent Maher
y'all you were the worst. Those were the most resistant
she found to admitting black women, and even when black
students were admitted to these women's colleges, things like separate
housing was always an issue. They were always segregated, and

(14:45):
in nineteen fourteen, for instance, Radcliffe president le Baron Russell
Briggs tried to help black student Mary Gibson with financial aid,
but in his donor outreach he repeatedly stressed that at
Mary Gibson didn't look black. In fact, her skin tone
was almost white, and she could even be taken for Spanish.

(15:07):
So hello, racism still existing even at these upper echelons
of higher education for women. Right. But despite all of this,
despite all of the junk that they had to face
when they got to these schools, the Seven Sisters grads
were among the earliest black women scientists, lawyers, and doctors.
So they still went after that education, and they still

(15:29):
went out into the world and made a difference despite
the resistance they faced, like you said, even at these schools.
And Caroline, speaking of black women women's colleges and the
fact that we are in Atlanta, I would like to
point out that Atlanta is also home to Spellman College
and historically Black College and University, which is women only
in one of the only institutions like that in the US. Indeed,

(15:52):
indeed they do so. As we progress through time, social
changes start to occur and the women's colleges try to
roll with the punches. So between nineteen and nineteen fifty
they really start to diversify and expand. Several four year
colleges were founded, as were two year women's junior colleges
with vocational missions, so more women were starting to enter

(16:16):
the college universe. But as time went on and more
colleges open their doors to women, or more more co
ed schools were founded, yes, more women might have been
choosing to go to college, but more we're also choosing
to go co ed in general. So the good news
it is that from nineteen o nine to the mid

(16:37):
nineteen fifties, women's enrollment in higher education jumps from one
thousand to more than a million. Hooray women going off
to pursue college and universities. But it's not so great
news for women's colleges because as early as nineteen twenty,

(16:58):
more than four fifths of college ledge women were attending
coed schools, and then by the mid nineteen fifties, nine
tenths of college women were in co ed schools. Yeah,
so those numbers are dropping for women's colleges, and so
a lot of them are forced to scramble, and things
only get worse for women's colleges. Well, except for though

(17:19):
in the nineteen sixties and seventies, when women's colleges do
could have a moment, they do, and there were a
lot of things that contributed to that. It wasn't just
uh second wave feminism, although that was a part of it.
Because of second wave feminism, there was a rebound in
students support for women's only colleges the support for mergers

(17:40):
and co education seemed to wane amid this time, and
this was also helped along by the buoyant economy of
the sixties. For instance, Wells College had its highest ever
enrollment from nineteen sixty six to nineteen seventy two, and
that school only recently became co ed. Actually, and similar
things though, are going on at all male institutions that

(18:02):
in the nineties, sixties and seventies are starting to open
their doors to women. Today. I believe they're only two
all men's colleges left in the United States, Hampton, Sydney
and one out West which whose name I do not
remember at the moment. But there are far fewer all
male colleges compared to women's colleges. Oh more house, What

(18:24):
am I talking about? More houses all men out west
in Atlanta? In West Atlanta, there is more house where
President Barack Obama visited last Sunday and shut down traffic. Barry,
I'd like a heads up next time. I'm just saying, Okay,
So during this time, a lot of women's colleges, like

(18:47):
I said, are are trying to roll with the punches
here as as demographic shift, as numbers increase and decrease
and fluctuate, so a lot of them end up becoming
co ed, merging with all male or co ed schools
or csing due to that declining enrollment and financial problems
related to competition. The things that helped a lot of

(19:08):
the women's colleges survived that did survive this period was
reaffirming their missions, so their mission where they are dedicated
to providing a quality education for women, um enhancing their
connections with other institutions, adding new programs to appeal to
non traditional students such as night and weekend programs. But
also that thing we mentioned earlier of having generous endowments

(19:30):
and loyal alumni who will support the mission. And it's
helpful too that a lot of times women's colleges leave
a legacy of really successful alumni who are very loyal
to their alma maters and will support that. But nevertheless,
the number of women's colleges has dropped drastically. They're around

(19:51):
three hundred of them in the United States in nineteen
sixty and a drop to around eighty and now in
two thousand and thirteen, there are fewer than fifty women's
colleges left and as of two thousand and ten, the
total enrollment across all of those institutions was only eighty
six thousand. Yeah, small numbers, but those schools are still

(20:12):
serving an incredibly important mission. According to a lot of
people on the Internet, where I get all of my information,
it's all Wikipedia. You can just you can check it's
not actually wikipede. No, don't worry. Um. So, one of
those people who uh stresses the importance of women's colleges
is education consultant David Strauss, who talked to Boston's NPR

(20:36):
station w bu R in April of this year. He
pointed out that, you know, women's colleges that don't have
those large endowments and don't draw students who can pay
full tuition do have a more difficult time remaining competitive,
but they maintain a critical function for a lot of women,
which he says, maybe they don't even realize when they're young.
He says, women tend to outperform men academically, but there

(20:58):
are all kinds of such idle pressures against it. These
institutions represent a solution to that, but it's very difficult
for an eighteen year old to see it. When young
women matriculate at and go through and experience at a
women's college. He says, most of them become converts. And
there does seem to be an affect that women's colleges
that all female environment has on the student body. There

(21:22):
was a paper that I found in New Directions for
Higher Education that came out in two thousand and ten
about quote tough questions facing women's colleges, and the author,
Sarah Kratzok, points out that a lot of studies have
highlighted really positive benefits of women's colleges, such as the
student body tends to have higher self esteem. Women tend

(21:44):
to say that they feel more supported on campus, that
they made greater gains in college, and that again they
might be more open to pursuing traditionally male dominated courses
or degrees such as those science and technology fields. Right,
And that's something that Susan Susan Lennon excuse me, of

(22:06):
the Women's College Coalition pointed out in USA Today in
August of twelve that women are underrepresented in leadership programs
and STEM fields. And so while women's colleges and going
to a women's college is not necessarily the answer to
fixing all of our gender gap problems. It certainly plays
a part. And Rachel Hennessy, who went to Women's College

(22:26):
and wrote a column for Forbes in February of this year,
so that choosing to attend such a college is the
opposite of comfortable. That was her answer to people who
are saying, Oh, you're just trying to hide out from
men and go where your pajamas to class all day,
she said, because these Women's college and the dynamics, the
social dynamics at them really challenge students to step outside
of gender norms and engage in new leadership roles. The

(22:48):
whole thing being well, if you don't have people making
you feel and not that there aren't, you know, difficult
social dynamics out of Women's college, but if you don't
have people making you feel like you just need to
be the quiet, proper woman, then maybe you will feel
more of a drive to step up and run for
student government and start new clubs, you know, and on
and on and on. And as someone who attended a

(23:10):
co educational university, I can personally attest to the fact
that plenty of female students still wear pajamas to class. Yeah,
I did well, And also I mean, the whole preparation
for leadership outside of college is something that is often
touted as one of the major benefits to going to

(23:32):
a women's college. Elizabeth Peiffer, who was a scripts college student,
wrote in the Huffington Post that this sense of leadership
is very real at women's colleges, and she signed a
statistic that graduates of women's colleges comprise more than of
women in Congress and represent thirty percent of the Business

(23:53):
Week list of Rising Women in Corporate America. Right, and
given the fact that such a small percent of the
female population in the US goes to women's colleges, that's
a pretty big deal. Yeah. So, at the same time,
these same columnists who went to women's colleges and definitely
support women's colleges acknowledge that the women's college environment might

(24:15):
not be right for everybody. There really does seem to
be something to that. And there was a March two thousand,
eighth survey of one thousand women's college alumni and their
female peers from liberal arts colleges or public flagship institutions,
and in several key areas, the survey found that the

(24:36):
alumni from women's colleges performed higher, including in the proportion
of entrepreneurs produced and the leadership training perceived. Yeah, and
they were also significantly more likely to have graduate degrees,
and a lot more women's college grads than co ed
college grads reported that they learned to solve problems, relate

(24:58):
to people of different background, and think analytically. And so
when you're talking about women entering leadership roles, I mean,
how important is that? And the fact that these women
feel way more prepared to take on those responsibilities is
pretty significant. And all of us research is making me
a tad bit regretful that I didn't go to Barnard

(25:19):
because then I could have met Lana done and maybe
I could be her, maybe you could get naked on
her show. Never mind. But for girls at high school,
women's colleges are usually off the radar because I think
that they do have some negative stereotypes associated with them,
that only weird girls want to go to women's colleges.

(25:41):
And if you go to women's colleges, that means that
you don't like men, And what's your problem if you
don't want men around, which a lot of times with
these especially like Seven Sisters schools, you're in a consortium
system where you can go to class at other institutions
if you want to um. But only three percent of

(26:02):
high school girls these days would even consider a women's
college do to fear of social judgment, which I think
is too bad. I mean, just because not saying that
everyone should go to a women's college. You and I
didn't go to women's colleges, and we're totally fine for
the most part. But fear of social judgment is an

(26:25):
awfully disappointing reason for, uh well, to make a major
life decision exactly. I mean, you're letting I understand being
a teenager is so hard. I know, I know it is,
but gosh, don't let your friends make you feel stupid
for wanting to go to an all girls school, women's college,

(26:46):
women women's college. Now, some people who are listening to
us say, well, women's college isn't for everybody. Might be saying, well, no, duck,
it's a women's college. Obviously it's off limits to fifty
some of the population with X Y chromosomes, right, But
this issue of gender is something that has come up

(27:09):
more recently in women's colleges in terms of who they're
going to admit because women's colleges are obviously facing some
pretty tough economic times, dwindling numbers, and now an issue
of what about trans students because Smith College attracted some
mighty negative attention when a trans applicant was automatically turned

(27:32):
down because she was born biologically male. Yeah, she was
forced to check the mailbox on her fasciform essentially because
her state does not recognize you being a different gender
if you haven't had gender reassignment surgery. Right, and reading
through this the student is Calliope Wong and reading through

(27:57):
all of the paperwork trail from the fafts A form
that you have to fill out for it's a financial
student aid form, and then the and the how they
treat gender, and then how Smith College treats gender. I mean,
it was it kind of made me cross syde going
through it. But Calliope's kind of conclusion that she wrote

(28:19):
about was like, Okay, yes, I had to check mail
on my fafts A form, Like yes, there are all
these rules and regulations, but it boils down to the
fact that Smith made a judgment call and decided not
to admit me. And so after this whole hullabaloo um
in May of this year, Smith actually announced that it
would form a committee to address issues pertaining to transgender students,

(28:41):
and that committee is to meet in September. And on
the heels of all of us that was going on,
a trans woman was accepted into the class of at
the All Women's Simmons College. And there has been some
academic research as well on this issue of trans students
who might want to go to women's colleges that we

(29:01):
found in the William and Mary Journal of Women in
the Law from two thousand eleven, and the paper ultimately
advocated for looser definitions of quote women and all women's college. Yeah,
because they ask can someone who's anatomically male yet identifies
and presents as a woman be admitted to in all
women's college. It's this big question that I think more

(29:24):
and more universities are going to have to deal with,
not not just women's colleges, but I think trans issues
and trans rights are going to be such a huge issue,
right because one thing that was brought up, and I
think it might have been in Calliope Wong's case, was
just the example of bathrooms at Smith College. They have

(29:44):
the women's designated signs and then they have something called
flip signs, where if you have a male guest, he
can flip the sign over to indicate that there's a
brow in the shower or whatever. And um, and and
then it's like the question of like, well, if if
you're trans then and you haven't had gender reassignment surgery,

(30:04):
then what do you do? And it ties into our
episode that we did a while ago on restrooms and
all the politics that you don't think about when it
comes to which bathroom you walk in. Um. So I
have a feeling though, that Smith will ultimately open its
doors to trans students as they should. Well yeah, I

(30:25):
mean if if the way has been paved by schools
like Simmons, then I would think it's only a matter
of time, right, because a lot of times two women's
colleges have traditionally been seen as more liberal enclaves, you know.
I mean, they were pioneers for gender equality and pre
Civil War era. So it would be sad to see,

(30:47):
especially a college like Smith that, in the days of
what could be the twilight of women's colleges, taking a
negative stance towards something like admitting trans students. I think
would be a grip I've miss step yeah, and perhaps
I'm about to go into women's college consulting. I don't know.

(31:07):
There you go for a fee. But reading about women's
colleges did make me reflect on how my college experience
might have been different if I had gone to one.
I mean, obviously the setting would have probably been much smaller.
Went to a large public university, and so just by
virtue of going to a smaller school, it would have

(31:28):
been a different experience. And I didn't want to go
to a tiny school because I went to a pretty
small high school. But especially hearing like thinking about like, oh, well,
maybe you know, without other without guys around, perhaps I
would have gotten involved in student government or I don't know,
there was one. In one of these articles we read,
there was a an alumna of Spellman, and she said,

(31:52):
you know, she transferred from a large co ed university
and she kind of expected to come to this utopia
and like all of these women, you know, we're braiding
each other's hair, and we're going to join every club,
and we're going to become the most highly educated women
in the world. And she got there, she's like, oh, well,
women are people, and so there's some highly motivated women

(32:14):
there's some flackers, there's you know, some like you know,
leaders and followers, just like there are at any school.
Women are people. I know, it is a radical, radical idea,
but I do think that's how we get attached to
these kinds of stereotypes about it, where it's like, oh,
if you want to go to a women's college, it's

(32:35):
because you are a socially awkward lesbian who only wants
to be around a small group of women. That's it,
you know. And if you are a socially awkward lesbian,
that's completely fine. But I'm just saying that it's you know,
that can attract like these fears of social judgment right
for making that choice. Yeah, I definitely. I mean I

(32:55):
wondered that too about my own college experience. I you know,
in transferring from the University of South Carolina to the
University of Georgia, I had to spend a semester at
a really tiny keen it Tanny religious school in in
North Georgia on my way on my way to Athens,
and I was like, gosh, if this is what small
school life is like, so I would definitely I'm definitely

(33:16):
the larger university person. Well, you know, what we need now.
We need listeners who went to women's colleges to let
us know what it was like. That's right, I really,
I'm sure that we have some WC alumni out there.
So we are soliciting your uh, your thoughts or faculty

(33:39):
at women's colleges, male, female, whomever we wanna. We want
to hear what's going on, and especially if you are
an administrator at a women's college, let us know how
things are going because the whole shift from all women's
colleges to co ed has sparked a number of uh
protests on some women's college campuses, so they'd rather be

(34:03):
dead than co ed and other fund slogans, so all
of those things. Let us know all of the things
about women's colleges. Mom Stuff discovery dot com is where
you can send your letters, or you can hit us
up on Facebook or just tweet us. We're a mom's
Stuff podcast. And before we get to a couple of

(34:24):
letters that you've written us, let's take a quick break
and then we'll come right back. And now back to
our letters. Well, we've got a couple of letters here.
In response to our episode on filial Piety. The episode
title was something along the lines of our Chinese children
more loyal to their parents, and these letters were interesting

(34:44):
because it offered a perspective on filial piety in a
different culture. So this is coming from a listener who
would prefer to remain anonymous, who writes, I was listening
to the filial Piety podcast that brought up some powerful emotions.
My parents or from Nigeria, and the whole filial piety
seems like an Asia specific thing to Americans. But I

(35:05):
grew up in a household that had strong beliefs in
honoring your parents and restricting your activities so you would
do well in school. Thinking on my childhood leaves me conflicted.
When I was a kid, I hated it and it
led me to have a negative relationship with my parents
as an adult. But at the same time, I went
to an Ivy League school because I worked really hard
in high school. So at times I resent the success
because of what caused it. So I don't know if

(35:27):
it's a good thing or not. I just know for me,
it costs more than it was war So thanks for sharing, Anonymous,
and I have one here from Henry. He says, I
listen to your podcast on Chinese children being more loyal,
and it actually helped me in my religious studies exam yesterday.
Yore welcome, he said. However, I do think that children

(35:49):
showing gratitude isn't just due to Chinese culture. Other groups
exhibit similar behavior. My dad is from Nigeria and there
was expectations on him to not only care for his parents,
but perform other acts as well. In Igbo culture, one
symbolic act is to give your parents your first salary
payment and they take up part of it and give
the rest back. In Africa, if your child is rude,

(36:12):
it brings a lot of shame on you, and in
some nations, rude children have been accused of being witches
and suffer in the name of their parents reputation. I
hope I've given you an insight into the issue from
another perspective, and you certainly have, Henry, so thank you.
I can't count the number of times I would have
been accused of being a witch as a child because

(36:34):
of like temper, tantrums and things. And now if only
we could do an outro with each woman, can will
spare you from my singing? So thanks to everybody who
has written in Mom Sebody Discovery dot com is our
email address. You can also find us on Facebook, drop
us a line there and like us while you're at it,
and follow us on Twitter at Mom's Stuff podcast. And

(36:57):
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mom Never Told You dot tumbler dot com, and don't
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(37:20):
Isn't how Stuff Works dot com