Editor’s note: This is a humor column
Women — aren’t you tired of them? As female students at the University, we’ve come a long way from the co-ed upheaval of 1970 and now populate places everywhere on Grounds. From the limited gym space of the Aquatic and Fitness Center to the Einstein’s line at Rice Hall, us women at the University are unavoidable these days.
Women in higher education have proved themselves disturbingly capable of handling academics and social life at the University — in fact, so capable that they need a new challenge. Beyond dismantling DoorList by being hot and mastering the enormous feat of parallel parking on the Corner, maybe the University is out of challenges for us women. This Women’s History Month, I suggest it’s time to turn away from places like the University. It’s time to rediscover our real purpose. It’s time to become tradwives.
Admittedly, the solution of tradwives might come across to you as unrealistic. With the proliferation of “situationships” across Grounds, this might be the one problem no woman at the University can solve — how to convince someone that actual relationships have value, much less the ancient institution of marriage. Although Marriage Pact has proposed its own solution of pairing students off, it doesn’t confront the problem of female students still being enrolled in school rather than depending on their betrotheds.
Take a look across our flavorless, unsavory grounds. Gone are the centuries of women being able to follow a standard Jello salad recipe — we now live in a time where most women don’t know how to make a good sourdough. What’s the point of a bioengineering degree if you can’t figure out how to feed yourself? Home economics courses used to be nationwide staples at public schools in the mid-20th century — and since we’re all aware life was so much better during those years, why don’t we pivot back? If they can make us take free-thinking, progressive Engagements curricula, the University should re-engage us in the place we really belong — the kitchen.
Furthermore, does the modern undergraduate female even know how to clean anymore? After calls for the new adaptation of “Snow White” to encourage young girls to seek autonomy over getting married off to some guy who canonically does not have a real name, it’s no surprise that purchases of Swiffer WetJets are at an all-time low. The liberal agenda that women should spend their time poring over textbooks rather than pouring some soap on some DISHES has gotten us nowhere.
Perhaps the women of the University should take a cue from the frat brothers populating Rugby Road, who clean their houses top to bottom weekly after destroying them with Busch Light cans and aggressive sound waves of mid-2010s white girl music. The incredible standards set by these men and their conflict-free lives should be our example, instead of thinking we’re so much better than the men we constantly outpace academically. Personality matters — vacuum with a smile!
Despite what the media wants us to believe, being represented in traditionally male-dominated fields maybe isn’t as good as we think. For example, take Virginia Athletics, which women have parasitically invaded the leadership of. Athletic Director Carla Williams is a prime example of not taking into account the nuanced, valuable input of knowledgeable Twitter users who often tell her that she sucks at her job. Disregarding the nine national championships won under her tenure beginning in 2017, Williams is out of touch with her actual job performance, and we shouldn’t trust her previous success.
The women of U.Va. should do the same — why should we take up spaces men have historically had much more success in, from our terrible parking jobs on Elliewood Avenue to the University’s Executive Vice Presidency? Besides, more women don’t always make places more efficient or productive, and increasing our numbers certainly won’t make it easier for us to change a lightbulb.
After climbing the mountain of academia, surviving the social turmoils of University life and fielding the question of whether they’re in a relationship or not from relatives year after year, what can be left for the women of this University? We’re already diminishing our accomplishments to elevate the people we try to please, and thinking about Sylvia Plath’s “The Bell Jar” a weird amount of the time — what ceiling is left for us to break?
Maybe it’s time to consider being back under one.
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