The Experience of a Woman in Higher Education Entering the Professional World
The nature of the experience of higher education for women at University of Leeds is something which has come to my attention during my time here. From a day-to-day sense of attending campus, seminars and study spaces, to the professional and working world that we are about to enter, certain pressures live amongst us and are highly influential.
It is the deep-rooted sense of worth attached to female appearance in society and many traditional expectations of women which still dictate how welcome and accepted they are upon entering their chosen career paths.
The pressure of ‘looking good’ on campus is something personal which is experienced internally or silently, in some ways perhaps even subconsciously; such ideas often may invade your thoughts against your will. Having asked a select number of girls of varying courses and years of study, there was an evident theme running through their answers when they were asked the following question:
Do you feel the need to ‘look good’ when on campus? If so, why?
“The library honestly feels like a fashion show sometimes.”
Neuroscience Student
“I find it embarrassing to admit but sometimes I will avoid using the library on days where I don’t feel I look good. It is frustrating that I’ve been conditioned to think this way as I have quite a heavy workload with my degree, so study spaces are useful areas to focus and get it done. I always thought this originated from my own personal insecurity so it’s nice to know others feel it too.”
Biomedical Science Student
Branding a study space in this way heavily indicates an unspoken belief that areas such as the library should be an opportunity to showcase your style or fashion. This culture forces young women to consider their appearance daily.
The notion of ‘pretty privilege’ is a term which comes to mind when thinking of this culture. The suggestion that your appearance can grant certain advantages or status creates both the sense of an abstract societal hierarchy and subsequently the wrong type of competitive environment which overshadows the position education holds in the minds of young women. Subconsciously, this causes women to protect their self-image, only showing themselves when they feel they look their best. When they are conditioned to believe that it is so valuable, why should they not behave this way?
When looking to the responses above, the girls seem to worry more about how they look on campus than they do about their education; rather than prioritising effective study, they choose not to show themselves in public when they feel they don’t ‘look good’. The idea that such anxieties should prevent women from attending study spaces is concerning; it is damaging to their education and, with little awareness of this culture, does not seem to be on the way to any improvement. Nevertheless, if this issue was to be approached with the hope of finding a remedy, it would require a deeper cleanse of societal ideals, norms, expectations and stereotypes, rather than a change in the running of day-today campus life. Despite being designed for education, university is not exempt from feeling the social pressures that society inflicts upon women, if anything it is a breeding ground for them.
As we move into a world where education for women has started to become accepted, or so we should hope, I think it is important to address how accepted this idea is on a smaller scale or more individual level. Yes, in theory, women have the right to the same opportunities, for the most part, but how accurate is this in practice? I asked the question:
As a woman, do you feel taken seriously by your peers and superiors? Is your voice heard?
“My course is quite a female dominated which is definitely a comfort to me during seminars, it feels like more of a safe space to contribute without the added pressure of how I am perceived by the male gaze.”
English Literature Student
“I’m the only girl in my seminar; I find it really intimidating. I think people would consider my degree as very ‘boyish’, whatever that means. I think people expect me to be doing art or midwifery or something. It affects how seriously I am taken by my male peers during group discussions and debate, their political voice just seems to speak so much louder than mine.”
Politics and Economics Student
What came to light when asking these students how their gender affected their presence and reception in circumstances such as seminars and group discussions, it was interesting to hear their awareness of how their male peers and superiors played a role in it. Their responses revealed an overlap between how they were perceived in both a physical and an academic sense. It is perhaps a series of preconceived ideas which are the cause of this, namely gender stereotypes surrounding which degrees are typically ‘feminine’ or ‘masculine,’ and deeply rooted ideas of male leadership and women as second rate.
The politics and economics student reveals how she feels her voice does not hold as much force as her male peers. Addressing such an idea at a very local level she, perhaps unknowingly, acknowledges the fact that women are underrepresented in politics. While the proportion of women in national parliaments around the world is growing, as of April 2019, the global average of women in national assemblies was revealed to be only 24.3%. Despite breaking through and accessing the right to achieving these roles and careers that were, at one time, considered strictly ‘masculine’, the underrepresentation seems to originate much earlier in the career pathway; its prevalence here suggests it exists in the minds of young University students.
The right of entry into the professional world as a woman still proves tricky. If you were to ask the general public if they believed the professional world to be reasonably progressive nowadays, I expect a large percentage of the answers to be confident that it is largely accepting and fair. This is perhaps true in a general sense, compared to how far we have come from women being unable to work at all, yet if we zoom in and really ask the question of those individuals who are entering the professional world, what would such a survey reveal?
What role do you think your gender and appearance plays in the professional world?
“I think the fact we haven’t been in academia for as long as men means there’s an unspoken idea that we must prove our right to be here. I think there is an overlap between looking good and looking professional; if I’m dressed well and wearing makeup, I think it gives my male peers the illusion that I deserve to be here.”
Psychology Student
“I would even go as far as saying that many of my lecturers and medical professionals inflict this pressure on me as well as my peers, if not more so. I get criticism for my career aspirations and told ‘you won’t have time to find a husband’ or being asked ‘don’t you want a family’ as if those are things I should be worried about. I was really surprised about how backward thinking people in the medical field were considering I’m working alongside very intelligent minds.”
Medical Student
Drawing upon the ‘overlap between looking good and looking professional’ we find the theory of ‘pretty privilege’ being alluded to once again. This preoccupation with appearance therefore seems to hold just as strong an influence on campus as it does in the professional world. In the field of medicine, the traditional roles of women appear still to be fixated in the minds of men. What is to be said of the fact that young, aspiring, female medical students are to be thus treated by superiors who should be encouraging their career? Such ideas appear backward and shocking in such a highly regarded profession.
Assessing the experience of women in higher education and subsequently their entry into the professional world reveals how influential preconceived views on male and female roles and traditional definitions of masculinity and femininity can be. Originating from an aversion to attending campus and study spaces, to feeling their voice to be inadequate at a university and professional status, there is a clear difference in the experience for men and women.
So how do we remedy this? Is this a mindset we can alter at university or is it a flaw of wider society that would require the facilitation of mass social reform? Perhaps a combination of the two? To conclude, I invite you to give consideration to the fact that while women may appear more widely accepted as equals to men in education and the working world, the severity and significance of the divide may be more than you would think or hope to believe.
Header Image Credits: Wikimedia Commons.
