The betch, the party girl, the brown noser, the whipped girlfriend, the prude, the athlete – you might think you left the world of catty stereotypes behind you when you walked across the podium at high school graduation, but think again! College may give you fewer rules, more free time and harder classes, but you still have to be careful of your image.
As human beings, it is in our nature to stereotype others because it is easier to make a one-sided judgment than to develop a three-dimensional view of those around us. And according to the stereotype threat theory, people will actually conform to a stereotype subconsciously once they know it has been placed on them. In a recent study by Toni Schmader, women were divided into two groups. One group was given a math test with no instruction while the other group was told that they were being measured against males to determine if men were actually better at math. The women who received instruction scored lower than those who simply took the exam. It was the stereotype threat – in their fear to fall into the stereotype of women being worse at math, they actually confirmed it.
The moral of the story? Even seemingly harmless college stereotypes can be dangerous. As most colleges put you in a random dorm freshman year, the chances of meeting all types of people are high. And even if you get to choose whom you’re living with, your classes will also be full of new people – ready and waiting to label and be labeled. So are you stuck in the rut of these stereotypes for four years? Are labeling and stereotype threats unavoidable? Not quite.
Here is the lowdown on the most common “college-girl” stereotypes, so you know what to expect before you jump headfirst into the game.
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The Stereotypes
“The Betch”
The betch is focused purely on her image, and her main goal in college is to meet her husband-to-be. She’s all about designer brands, BBM (BlackBerry Messenger, for those of you non-smartphone toters), sorority issues and playing catty games with her friends. The betch is often a “sorority girl” at a school with Greek life and usually finds joy in partying, getting primped and avoiding all things school-work related.
“The Party Girl”
You’ll be able to pick this girl out after a week of college life. She’s ready to party anywhere, anytime. This girl knows how to dance all night, drink too much and still rally for class in the morning – although you may find her with sunglasses on and a mug of strong, strong coffee. While some people may be focused on the “work hard,” she’s all about the “play hard.”
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“The Brown Noser”
It usually takes about two days of class to be able to pick out this girl. She will sit in the front row and answer every question loudly and in great length. You want to be her partner for the big class project because she is obviously smart, but you also can’t stand listening to her ramble on about how much she just lovesthe professor. She spends hours in the library and gets to office hours five minutes early.
“The Whipped Girlfriend”
Pray that this girl isn’t your roommate because if she is, you just got two roommates for the price of one: her and her boyfriend! She spends all of her time with her man and has very few girlfriends, and if her boyfriend doesn’t go to your school, most of her time is spent on the phone and on Skype.
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“The Prude”
She attends prayer group twice a week and looks down with disdain on the Party Girl each time she brings a boy back to her room. This girl is pretentious and parades her virginity like a prize while pressing others to do the same.
“The Athlete”
Morning and night, day after day, this girl can be found in the gym pumping weights. Whether she is a D1 athlete or a former high school star, she’s addicted to exercise and lets it consume every part of her life. She eats, sleeps and breaths ESPN and dresses solely in athletic shorts and tanks, no matter what the weather.
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What to Do About Them
“But I like sports!” you might say. Or maybe you have a steady boyfriend. Are you stuck with these stereotypes? Nope. You may feel like the above stereotypes are harsh and judgmental, and that’s because they are! In order to avoid falling into the bounds of the stereotype threat theory, you must be consciously aware of the way you see yourself and the way others see you. Don’t be afraid to be who you are, but also make sure you’re presenting yourself in the way you want to be seen.
Holly Kieling, a marketing major at California Baptist University, has some realistic advice about starting off on the right foot. “If you had a label in high school that you didn’t like, it’s important not to talk about it when you first get to know people,” Holly says. “I was a cheerleader in high school, but that can often have bad connotations in people’s minds when they are making a first impression, so I usually wait until later to mention it.”
Kieling is right: first impressions can be tricky, and that’s especially true once you enter college. Present yourself in the way you wish to be seen, but if you get labeled anyway, don’t fret. You’ll find that college differs from high school in that cliques aren’t solid and stereotypes aren’t set in stone. If you feel as though you’ve been wrongly labeled, chances are things will get better as the weeks move on because you will spend so much time with the other collegiettes™ living around you. Once they learn more about you, their initial judgments and stereotypes will fade.
As the weeks go by, you’ll also start to notice that people can fill multiple slots in this stereotype game. In high school, I was the “brown noser,” always studying and proving my intelligence in class. As I entered college, I wanted to be anything but the smart girl. So I tried to prove my “non-brownnoseness” by grasping at other stereotypes – I joined the D1 crew team (athlete!), rushed a sorority (betch!) and talked to my high school boyfriend on the phone every night for hours (girlfriend!). And then I began to realize that as much as I was trying NOT to be the stereotype I feared the most (brown noser!), I was labeling everyone around me: my roommate was the smart girl, and my neighbor was the athlete. In reality, both girls were ten times more well-rounded than that.
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People can be more than one label because people are three dimensional.
Bucknell University student and senior Alex Clayton remembers labeling the people in her freshman dorm. “I lived on a hall with a lot of athletes, so I assumed that they would just always be in the gym,” Alex says. “Then I got to know them and found out that they were so much more than their sports. One of my neighbors was also super artsy while another one of them was really dedicated to her schoolwork. You’ll learn in college that the girl you see raging at a party one night could be the same girl you sit next to in engineering class. People aren’t usually just one thing – they can surprise you.”
“I feel as if stereotypes are overhyped,” says Emma Brenner, a nursing major at the University of Portland. “In college your major can lead people to assume you’re a nerd or a slacker or artsy, but there are so many factors that go into a person, so you need to get to know them before you label.”
So just remember, your initial judgments of others can often be wrong, and their judgments of you can be incorrect as well. If you find yourself being labeled as the “party girl” for attending four parties in the first week of college, or if you’re feeling like the teacher’s pet, the best thing to do is let people get to know you on a deeper level. College differs from high school because you’re living and learning with other people your age, so you’re constantly given opportunities to meet new people, to reinvent yourself and to let your true self shine through. Cliques aren’t the strongest ties, and you’ll find yourself meeting new people, making new friends and entering different social circles as the years go by. Besides, once you reveal your obsession with Harry Potter or your years as a hard-core gymnast in high school, your “party-girl” reputation will likely crumble, and those around you will be able to see you as a multidimensional person. So go get ’em, girls. Show off what you’ve got because there’s a world full of stereotypes waiting to be crushed under your feet.
Sources:
Schmader, Toni. “Gender Identification Moderates Stereotype Threat Effects on Women’s Math Performance”. University of Arizona, 2001. http://schmader.psych.ubc.ca/publications/ Gender%20Identification.pdf
Holly Kieling, California Baptist University ‘12
Alex Clayton, Bucknell University ‘12
Emma Brenner, University of Portland ‘12