Have you ever looked around in your largest concentration-required lecture class and realized that you’re the only girl within three rows? Half of the people in the world are women, but it would just be inconvenient if they were equally represented in fields like computer science, engineering and physics. If more than eighteen percent of computer science majors were women, the wonderful perks that come with being female in a male dominated concentration would be lost. Let’s take a look at some of the advantages that are on the line:
The CIT bathrooms are always empty.
The women’s room in the CIT has all the comfort and privacy of a one-person bathroom without any of the pressure (if someone knocks when you’re in a one-person you’d better have an appropriate response ready). Plus they’re usually clean and tidy, as if no one had used them at all since the last time you were in there.
There are so many boys to explain things to you when you just don’t have the capacity to understand.
Boys love to patronize explain. They’ll let you know that they have a firm clench on the material even if you weren’t really asking. Of course, this isn’t because they’re trying to impress anyone—it’s because they really think that you’re too dumb to get it. Right now every time you ask a question you get to hear hundreds of boys talk over one another to explain the answer—to that and every other question you could never think to ask. This ample free advice will be much harder to come by if the ratio of males to non-males evens out.
You get to avoid all that drama that being around a lot of girls brings.
There’s nothing wrong with women in general, but get too many around each other and it just gets gross. Women should only group together for bridge tournaments and synchronized swimming competitions. Certainly not for homework sessions or exam prep (or comedy writing). Won’t it be distracting to hear another period story when you’re just trying to get through a problem set?
The future husband opportunities are prime.
Being around so many boys who are used to being around so few girls will make it much easier to find someone to enter a high-pressure, rigid, idealistically long term, archaic, patriarchal commitment with. Unless you’re gay.
For these and so many other reasons, remember to enjoy being the only girl in half your classes. Eighteen percent is more than enough.
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