My boyfriend has this incredibly annoying habit of calling me a dork.”Why do you spend so much time doing boring things like studying and going to class and going to meetings for all of your stupid organizations?” he queries, when I ask him why he played poker until three in the morning and slept through class the next day.”Why do you take notes when it’s all in the book anyway?” he demands, as he sits in chemistry lecture sketching out possible fantasy baseball league trades. “Why are you such a loser?” he inquires, after I spend a couple of hours conjugating French verbs instead of playing Super Nintendo until my eyes are bleary.For a long time, I believed his rhetoric. Convinced that I was an abnormal freak, I resigned myself to eternal nerd-hood, certain that I would forever be alone in my quest to turn in a 10-page paper three days early. I became stressed out, frustrated with myself for taking on more responsibilities than I needed to, and wondered why my boyfriend didn’t feel compelled to try hard in school or do things like volunteer or join campus organizations. But then, observing dorky behavior eerily similar to my own in several of my girlfriends, I realized that what I thought was my own problem is actually a pretty typical phenomenon.You may have thought I was a nut, but the facts bear it out: a recent nationwide survey of college freshmen revealed that on average, female students spend more time than boys studying, doing volunteer work and doing household chores. On the other hand, male students tend to spend more time exercising, partying, watching television and playing video games. This pattern is seen as early as fourth grade, where a department of education survey found that girls spend more time on homework than boys, and in high school, where more girls become editors of their school newspapers and members of organizations such as the National Honor Society. If you look at the class honorary system here at Ohio State, it’s obvious. In the sophomore organization of which I’m a member, only six of the 35 members (17 percent) are guys. In another organization, one in which students volunteer giving housing tours to prospective students, only about 35 percent of the tour guides are male. So why the discrepancy? My guess is that we gals are trying to prepare ourselves for the future. Studies have shown that we are paid less for our college degrees than the guys. So maybe by beefing up the extracurricular side of our resumes and getting A’s, we won’t become another statistic to be discussed in a women’s studies class.Another explanation might be that we ladies are flexing our muscles in preparation for the “super mom” overload. If we can juggle studying, volunteering, involvement in organizations and chores now, maybe in ten years we’ll be able to handle taking care of kids, holding full-time jobs and going to PTA meetings – without chipping our nails. Do guys feel this pressure as much? It often seems like their image of the future looks more like playing a game of racquetball after a day at the office than racing home to burp babies, cook dinner, and scrape the mildew off the shower curtain.I’m not criticizing all men. There are tons of women who take slacking to new levels and tons of guys who have me beat in the dork department. And this phenomenon is a general pattern, not an axiom which will determine the future of every college student based on his or her gender. So ladies and gents, let’s buck this trend, meet in the middle, and maybe we’ll all be a little healthier.As for the boyfriend, if he’ll spend three nights a week studying, I promise I’ll cut class to play golf with him at least once.
Jessica Weeks is a sophomore sociology major from Shaker Heights, Ohio.