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Show Equal space! The only ladies' restroom in giant Merrill Engineering Building cannot be found on maps or by wandering the halls for a while. It's on the third floor, and its whereabouts are known only to a select group of initiates, most of them male. Women can't go to the john in Merrill because "everybody" knows women don't become scientists or engineers, don't study science or engineering. Of course, the reason more women don't could be that few women (or men) have the required strength of bladder to survive. Furthermore, by implication, women don't have any business in the College of Engineering at all including secretaries, computer technicians, faculty members, or maintenance workers. They're treated like unwelcome intruders, like uninvited guests. If you can't find the lavatory, tough luck! (The problem exists in other buildings on campus too.) What all this points to is a rather illogical (and profoundly anti-egalitarian) stereotyping of "proper" occupations for each sex. Even in the context of a University preparing people for white-collar jobs is this true. Women are positively discouraged from entering the sciences, engineering, or medicine, while men are discouraged from home economics, education, nursing, certain areas of business, and dancing, among others. Women, according to this theory, attend the University to (a) Find a husband or (b) Learn a useful skill to tide her over until she finds a husband (i.e., learn shorthand and typing). Nowhere in this scheme does "education" appear as an important aspect. One female philosophy major is advised by the financial aids office when inquiring about work-study jobs: "Why don't you go into business something useful?" Hopefully, the attitude expressed ex-pressed in this statement is slowly breaking down. But the University ought to go beyond verbal commitments on equal job opportunity (which is, of course, important) to making the whole campus atmosphere one of genuine equality. That means getting rid of the old stereotypes. That also means giving women here equal access to lavatory privileges. |