The Scarlet Manifesto: The Rise of the Adulterous Woman

Back when I was in college, there were rules for the female students. We had to wear skirts to meals. Curfew was strict, broken under threat of expulsion -- or worse. Naturally, boys were not allowed into our rooms. These maxims were designed to "protect" us women -- we who were so easily taken advantage of, so at risk of being romantically duped -- not to mention reinforce the idea that we were expected to act in a certain way.

Which was fine. In those days, many girls, and their parents, thought of college as a means to a husband. (So many of my contemporaries who achieved that end are now divorced, some more than once.) Now, although finding a mate at college is still common -- and there are certainly Ivy League graduates who decide to make their lives as mothers and homemakers -- it's no longer what secondary education is about. Away at college, young people live in dorms in which male and female students share common areas, bathrooms, and even, at times, sleeping rooms. Sex is not necessarily part of the equation. And when it is? Well, we are, after all, talking about adults. But the bigger shift is one of perception: If there is any sort of expectation of "propriety," it is imposed on the guys as much as on the girls.