Date of Award

Spring 5-20-2024

Document Type

Thesis (Undergraduate)

Department

Sociology

First Advisor

Kimberly Rogers

Second Advisor

Janice McCabe

Abstract

Reflecting on Dartmouth College’s tumultuous early years of coeducation in the 1970s, former president John Kemeny remarked that several students “took it on as a sort of mission to make life miserable for women students when they first arrived… from verbal abuse to … raids on women’s dormitories and… doing everything possible that a minority of students can do to make the women feel unwelcome.” Using archival data from the Rauner Special Collections Library, this thesis explores two questions: (1) how were norms and values around masculinity constructed at Dartmouth? (2) How did this construction of masculinity shift over the course of coeducation? To answe the first question, I establish that before coeducation the College provided its male students an identity and cultural script to follow in addition to social status and wealth. In response to the perceived threat posed by coecucation, some men perpetuated acts of harassment and intimidation against the women students This period was marked by heightened inter-group conflict and rigid social/cultural boundaries defining what it means to be a man or woman at Dartmouth. To answer the second question, I examine the connection between male peer bonding in fraternities and sexual violence. I test “male peer support theories” that posit that certain all-male peer groups foster hypermasculine values that condone women abuse. Throughout this analysis, I find that Dartmouth culture constructed a masculinity that was exclusive and restrictive. Consequently, this masculinity was fragile and needed to be consistently proven and defended.

Additional Files
Parrish Penny Library Publishing Agreement.pdf (322 kB)
Publishing areement
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