In 2004, Elizabeth Armstrong, then a sociologist at Indiana University, and Laura Hamilton, a young graduate student, set out to do a study on sexual abuse in college students? relationships. They applied for permission to interview women on a single floor of what was known as a ?party dorm? at a state university in the Midwest. About two-thirds of the students came from what they called ?more privileged? backgrounds, meaning they had financial support from their parents, who were probably college-educated themselves. A third came from less privileged families; they supported themselves and were probably the first in their family to go to college. The researchers found their first day of interviewing so enlightening that they decided to ask the administration if they could stay on campus for four years and track the 53 women?s romantic lives.
Women in the dorm complained to the researchers about the double standard, about being called sluts, about not being treated with respect. But what emerged from four years of research was the sense that hooking up was part of a larger romantic strategy, part of what Armstrong came to think of as a ?sexual career.??For an upwardly mobile, ambitious young woman, hookups were a way to dip into relationships without disrupting her self-development or schoolwork. Hookups functioned as a ?delay tactic,? Armstrong writes, because the immediate priority, for the privileged women at least, was setting themselves up for a career. ?If I want to maintain the lifestyle that I?ve grown up with,? one woman told Armstrong, ?I have to work. I just don?t see myself being someone who marries young and lives off of some boy?s money.? Or from another woman: ?I want to get secure in a city and in a job?? I?m not in any hurry at all. As long as I?m married by 30, I?m good.?
The women still had to deal with the old-fashioned burden of protecting their personal reputations, but in the long view, what they really wanted to protect was their future professional reputations. ?Rather than struggling to get into relationships,? Armstrong reported, women ?had to work to avoid them.? (One woman lied to an interested guy, portraying herself as ?extremely conservative? to avoid dating him.) Many did not want a relationship to steal time away from their friendships or studying.
Armstrong and Hamilton had come looking for sexual victims. Instead, at this university, and even more so at other, more prestigious universities they studied, they found the opposite: women who were managing their romantic lives like savvy headhunters. ?The ambitious women calculate that having a relationship would be like a four-credit class, and they don?t always have time for it, so instead they opt for a lighter hookup,? Armstrong told me.
The women described boyfriends as ?too greedy? and relation?ships as ?too involved.? One woman ?with no shortage of admirers? explained, ?I know this sounds really pathetic and you probably think I am lying, but there are so many other things going on right now that it?s really not something high up on my list?? I know that?s such a lame-ass excuse, but it?s true.? The women wanted to study or hang out with friends or just be ?100?percent selfish,? as one said. ?I have the rest of my life to devote to a husband or kids or my job.? Some even purposely had what one might think of as fake boyfriends, whom they considered sub?marriage quality, and weren?t genuinely attached to. ?He fits my needs now, because I don?t want to get married now,? one said. ?I don?t want anyone else to influence what I do after I graduate.?
The most revealing parts of the study emerge from the interviews with the less privileged women. They came to college mostly with boyfriends back home and the expectation of living a life similar to their parents?, piloting toward an early marriage. They were still fairly conservative and found the hookup culture initially alienating (?Those rich bitches are way slutty? is how Armstrong summarizes their attitude). They felt trapped between the choice of marrying the kind of disastrous hometown guy who never gets off the couch, and will steal their credit card?or joining a sexual culture that made them uncomfortable. The ones who chose the first option were considered the dorm tragedies, women who had succumbed to some Victorian-style delusion. ?She would always talk about how she couldn?t wait to get married and have babies,? one woman said about her working-class friend. ?It was just like,?Whoa. I?m 18?? Slow down. You know? Then she just crazy dropped out of school and wouldn?t contact any of us?? The way I see it is that she?s from a really small town, and that?s what everyone in her town does?? [they] get married and have babies.?
Most of the women considered success stories by their dormmates had a revelation and revised their plan, setting themselves on what was universally considered the path to success. ?Now I?m like,?I don?t even need to be getting married yet [or] have kids,? one of the less privileged women told the researchers in her senior year. ?All of [my brother?s] friends, 17-to-20-year-old girls, have their?? babies, and I?m like,?Oh my God???Now I?ll be able to do something else for a couple years before I settle down?? before I worry about kids.? The hookup culture opened her horizons. She could study and work and date, and live on temporary intimacy. She could find her way to professional success, and then get married.
?Hanna Rosin, ?Boys on the Side? (bolding mine)
Breaking news: hooking up may in fact be an exhibition of young women?s agency and desire to manage sexual desire against other competing goals like career and friendships. Sorry sexual panickers.
But clearly class matters in distinguishing how women negotiating against these different norms. I LOLed at Susan Walsh?s line that this was featured in?The Atlantic, ?the unrivaled go-to source for all stories describing the educated female?s life trajectory and meteoric rise to financial success and emotional independence.? I wouldn?t expect The Atlantic?to focus more on how socio-economic status changes these dynamics, so I?ll hold out for Rosin?s book before making Walsh?s critique.
Also sexuality matters. What about the lesbian and bi ladies?does this apply? Or is this just a straight girl strategy? Nobody?s gonna know if we don?t do the research.
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