As I wrote earlier this month, the broad question What does it mean to be a woman in the 21st Century? will serve as the theme for a number of important conversations this year.
This is an important moment for these conversations and I look forward to engaging students, faculty, staff, and alumnae in this broad theme and the many implications and subtopics that this theme provides—including, initially, the topic of gender fluidity and its implications for a women’s college.
As I wrote to our campus community today: Wellesley College was founded to educate women who will make a difference in the world. Wellesley’s founders recognized that the education of women would confer powerful benefits upon both society and individuals. They also recognized that women faced significant challenges—social, economic, cultural—in attaining an education.
Wellesley remains steadfast in its mission, investing its considerable resources to awaken the potential of individual women and to give them the tools they need to make a meaningful difference. Wellesley is likewise committed to maintaining a community of individuals who embrace the College’s mission of educating women.
That said, there is great diversity today in the ways individuals experience and express their gender identity. Gender fluidity has implications for women’s colleges in general and for Wellesley College in particular.
We recognize that the issues of gender identity and transgender experience are relevant and complex. We must build a better understanding of these issues and determine what current policies and practices might need revision in light of this understanding
To begin this conversation, I will be appointing an advisory committee. Composed of students, faculty, staff, and alumnae, the Committee will have the following charge:
- First: Inquiry. The Committee will determine and delineate the specific issues raised for a women’s college and our community at a time when gender fluidity is becoming increasingly acknowledged. To accomplish this goal, they will seek input from all members of the College community.
- Second: Education. Recognizing that different members of our community have varying levels of knowledge and understanding of this topic, the Committee will coordinate a year-long program of events and activities designed to bring all members of our community to a common baseline level of knowledge and understanding. The Committee will also facilitate opportunities for many voices to be heard, both on campus and among our alumnae.
- Third: Evaluation. Throughout the fall semester, the Committee will examine all relevant policies and practices on campus, will solicit input from key Wellesley constituencies and will determine whether and how they continue to serve the mission of the College in the context of new understandings about gender.
- Fourth: Findings. At the beginning of the spring semester, the committee will present its findings regarding policies or practices that are affected by the College’s evolving understanding of gender and their impact on Wellesley’s mission. These findings, and subsequent discussion of them by the College’s governance bodies/structures, will guide recommendations to be made to the Board of Trustees.
Advisory committee members will be selected in consultation with the appropriate governance structure (i.e., Agenda Committee for faculty, College Government for students, Administrative Council for staff, and the Alumnae Association). I want to thank those of you who have already reached out to me to express your interest in participating in these conversations in some way—I encourage others who are interested to do the same.
I likewise invite all members of the community to be engaged in this dialogue throughout the year, and I welcome your feedback on the charge to the advisory committee.
As a parent a significant reason in our agreeing with our daughter’s determination to attend Wellesley was the fact that it was an all women’s institution. We recognized and embraced the advantages Wellesley would provide for her to assert herself academically and in leadership roles elsewhere on campus in an all female student body environment. In our daughter’s case the end result has been everything we could have possibly expected.
Today our society has chosen to embrace gender identity as an area where an individual has a right to determine if they are male or female. Whether one has an Y chromosome or an X chromosome has become increasingly irrelevant for societal interactions and may, perhaps, only be relevant now from a health and scientific perspective. Of course, with regard to Wellesley the issue becomes if admittance is given to transgender females who identify themselves as males has the college become de facto coeducational? And most importantly have students and parents who have bought into the advantages of an all women’s institution been duped into a “purchase” which is something other than stated? Can you deny admittance to a Y chromosome male if you knowingly admit X chromosome males? And what of the impact on Wellesley’s stated purpose when X chromosome males choose to identify as males during their 4 years as an undergraduate?
This, I think, is the main quandary ahead for the committee and one, for which, there is no easy solution. It is my hope that Wellesley continues to be committed to being an all female institution but I am not sure this is feasible any longer in the society in which we now live. It is, in my humble opinion, an unwelcome bi product of “gender fluidity”.
Are other women’s colleges, e.g. Mills, Mt. Holyoke, collaborating in this inquiry? I have great faith in multi-voiced women’s work.
Susan Klee, 1958