Okay, so you're a brand-new student starting your first semester of college classes, enjoying the independence of living away from your parents' prying eyes, eagerly plunging into your sport or club or other interests, and on your way to your first class you encounter a whiteboard in the hallway of a classroom building with a sign that asks first-year students, "In one word, what excites you most about college?" What do you write?
For most of our new students, the answer is nothing. The whiteboard sits inside the main entrance of the busiest classroom building on campus, but four days into the semester, only five words or phrases have been written on it. The first was "Engagement," a word that rolls more readily off a professor's tongue than that of an 18-year-old fresh out of high school. The next two were "Learning" (yay!) and "Leaving" (boo!). We want students to be excited about learning, but it's distressing to think that some anonymous first-year student is already excited about leaving.
But that was yesterday. This morning there were two more entries on the whiteboard, neither of which follows the "one word" rule. What are today's first-year students most excited about? "Powerful women" and "Being demure."
Well I think we can deliver powerful women. Our current president, provost, VP for enrollment, CFO, and faculty chair are women, and we have plenty of powerful women on the faculty, amongst the coaches, and within the student body.
But what first-year student writes that the thing that most excites her (I assume?) about college is "Being demure"? The words are surrounded by cute little puffy hearts, whatever that means. I'm trying to get inside the head of a young person who thinks, Yeah, I can't wait to move into the dorm and meet my roommate and hang out with all my classmates so that I can finally get a chance to be as demure as I've always wanted to be.
I went to a college with a very strict dress code and expectations for female appearance, so that getting ready for class might require ironing a blouse and skirt (that reached below the knee!), putting on a slip and panty hose, employing a hair dryer and hot rollers and lots of spray, donning full makeup and earrings and a fake pearl necklace, and tottering down the steps of the dorm in high heels, but all that performance of femininity didn't always translate into demureness. There were a lot of powerful women behind those fake pearls.
And what does it even mean for today's 18-year-old to practice being demure? Dressing like a tradwife? Avoiding eye contact? Limiting the size and number of holes in her jeans?
I confess that I am befuddled. If being demure is a new trend among the younger set, I want to see what that looks like--but the definition of demure seems to demand that the practitioner avoid drawing attention to herself (or, I guess, himself, or theirself), so a student practicing demureness may escape my notice entirely.
As a jaded, cynical old coot, I guess I'm glad that I'm still capable of being surprised by students. I just wish I knew which student surprised me so I can ask what it all means.
2 comments:
It's a meme that's going around. A make-up influencer was talking about what she wants to project prior to a job interview. It's blown up on tiktok and even jetpens did a meme with some of their stationery. The funny thing is that the influencer's definition of demure is not the standard one. (I had to google this after half the people I follow on youtube were talking about demure.)
Well that was educational. And that's what I get for avoiding Tik-Tok.
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