Who has the power? This is a question I have been asking myself for the past three years. And now I’m trying to discover the answer.
Here is the question I sent via text to both boys and girls: “Who has the power at Bucknell in terms of hookups and relationships? In other words, who has the upper hand? Boys? Or girls?”
From eleven of my girlfriends, I received the same response: “boys.” And from the boys, a unanimous “girls.”
Why is this? Here are some of my findings:
Boys host.
For the most part, every party you attend at Bucknell takes place at a boy’s house, whether it is at a fraternity or a house downtown; the boys are on their home turf. Girls are their guests, leading some boys to assume (incorrectly) that girls are obligated to behave in a certain way. Boys do spend a lot of money in order to throw fun parties. Fun parties bring girls, and more girls means more potential hook-ups for the hosts. Additionally, “guys stay at the same party all night whereas girls parade from party to party which obviously leads to more opportunity for females in the Bucknell hookup scene,” an anonymous senior boy told me. There definitely are more opportunities for girls to meet boys. But does this mean we have power over them?
Girls make it too easy.
“A guy isn’t going to waste his time getting to know a girl who won’t sleep with him. Plus, they don’t need a girlfriend to get laid so why put up the extra work of having a girlfriend?” – Anonymous
In order to land a boy at this school, do we need to lower our moral standards? Are we forced to become “easy” to get a guy? Or do we uphold our values and watch on the sidelines as they pursue other girls? Why must we compromise in order to have boys pay attention to us? This leads to the question as to whether girls should become more open to random sex. Seemingly, dropping all morals would provide girls with the hook-up “power.”
“A girl can go home with a guy any day or time they want. That might be indicative of guys’ constant willingness to hookup, but girls really can dictate the social scene.” –Mike Kehrli , Senior.
Double Standard
A guy can go home with two different girls on two different nights, and experiences no consequence. If a girl does the same thing, she is a slut. She is labeled, he is not. And while she may be enjoying herself, at what price does this come?
Play the game.
Playing the game is a boy-girl interaction. It’s quite simple: girl plays hard to get, boy pursues girl, boy gets girl, game over. A roommate of mine told me, “girls have the power until boys get what they want—whether it be a physical act or an emotional attachment—to boost their ego or brag to their buddies.” Two can play this game, but with the double standard attached to females, you can bet that a girl puts a lot more on the line than boys do when she finally “gives in”.
Date Parties
There comes a certain point of the year when date parties become the social events of the week. With just a limited number of coveted invites, girls are “more likely to hookup with someone because they want to get invited to a date party or something,” my roommate Jenn said. Just an invitation may encourage a girl to lower her standards, leading to favorable outcomes for boys. For girls, hooking up with someone you’re not necessarily interested in may be a method of being invited. In this scenario, boys have the upper hand.
Freshmen, freshmen, freshmen
Boys thrive in situations where freshman girls are present. According to senior Kerry O’Callaghan, “Boys tend to go younger and want to hookup with freshmen and sophomores.” Once a girl reaches her junior and senior year, her role of a player in the game can quickly switch to one of a spectator, as she watches her guy friends repeatedly hookup with younger girls.
Dress Up
Girls dress up for guys every night. When do guys dress up? Twice a semester, maybe. We put a much bigger effort into our appearances than boys, which is not often reflected in the attention we receive later on that night.
Levels of attraction
Perhaps a touchy issue, it is also an imperative one to the discussion. There seems to be a consensus among my friends that the girls at Bucknell are more attractive than the boys. And yet, we often see boys hooking up with girls more attractive than themselves. This is only possible because girls are allowing this to happen. If this is the case, girls have the power to say no. The boys don’t have the power in this situation, they just get lucky.
For the most part, girls want boyfriends and boys want sex. This muddles with the power formula, and muddles our interactions. Ultimately, it is incredibly unclear as to who actually has upper hand at Bucknell, but if I had to boil it down to one simple statement, I think I’d just say that it’s complicated.