Recently I read UWEP’s Research and Policy Brief, Women and Higher Education in Utah: A Glimpse at the Past and Present. (UWEP stands for The Utah Women & Education Project.)
I think the title of the research program — UWEP— is fitting. I feel like weeping about the fact that Utah has the lowest percentage of women enrolled in postsecondary institutions in the country.
Utah is dead last in higher education for girls.
I was raised in Utah but left over 20 years ago. In my exile, my hope for girls in Utah was that the culture had gotten better: more encouragement to have dreams in addition to motherhood; more opportunity for self discovery and expression; and more encouragement to go to college and graduate school.
Last fall, my sister Julie and I talked to guidance counselors at some Utah colleges and high schools and we were dismayed by what we heard — that attitudes haven’t changed much in the last twenty years. Many girls are still not attending college or seeing career possibilities beyond traditional pink–collar tracks like school teaching, nursing, and cosmetology.
The UWEP analysis supports what we feared. Education for women in Utah significantly lags the rest of the country. For African American women, the college enrollment statistics are worse than the national average by almost 23%. Stunning.
And according to UWEP, when women in Utah attend college they still major in traditionally gender appropriate majors that lead to the lowest paying jobs. Women still tend to major in education and health rather than business management, science and math.
In a related trend, women in Utah have much higher numbers than the national average for women getting certificates in cosmetology and culinary arts.
Even when young women pursue higher education in Utah, they are still primarily learning about teaching children, caring for sick people, enhancing beauty and cooking.
Many young women in Utah still can’t see what they can do beyond what is defined by a very old, traditional female standard where women are beautiful caretakers and homemakers.
Over twenty years ago when I lived in Provo Utah and attended BYU, I lived with more than a dozen women roommates. Most of the women were majoring in elementary education. A few majored in home economics. Two were attending beauty school. I was unique because I majored in science.
None of us intended to work.
None of us expected to be financially responsible.
Even in the 1980s, we all believed what Betty Freidan in 1962 called the “Feminine Mystique” — a traditional gender ideology where the man would be the bread winner in the sphere of the world and the woman would be a mother in the sphere of the home. Any other scenario went against a woman’s natural destiny and God’s eternal plan. (Read about the same God ordained destiny of women argument articulated by the United States Supreme Court for denying women the right to be lawyers in my post Women Should Be Limited To the Domestic Sphere.)
The women’s liberation movement of the 1970s bypassed Utah. Indeed, Utah women rallied against the Equal Rights Amendment and helped stop its passage. When I lived in Utah, most Utah women wholeheartedly supported patriarchy—the rule of the fathers— and sex discrimination — the subordination of women to men.
Women in Utah seem to be burying their heads in the sand and ignoring reality. The Utah Department of Labor says that women in Utah work an average of 30 years outside of the home — despite their intentions.
Some women seem to be clinging to a very outdated standard rather than envisioning possibilities and identities that go beyond motherhood, traditional roles, and simplistic dualities.
Although Utah women fought against sex equality, they have benefited from women’s campaign for equal pay, sexual harassment and sex discrimination laws Things have gotten somewhat better for women in terms of work and school conditions but Utah women are still far behind other women in the nation in gaining access to the benefits of higher education for themselves and their families.
Young women in Utah still don’t seem to understand that if they got more education and training they could actually work fewer hours and spend more time with their children than the Utah Labor Department’s statistics show they do now.
In the next few weeks, I’ll be writing about the history of women and education and the reasons that I think contribute to the stagnation of women’s higher education in Utah and the lack of women’s empowerment worldwide. It’s a complex but fascinating subject that has dramatic implications for the lives of women and children.
To read the UWEP Research Policy briefs go to http://uvu.edu/wep/
There is a common theme among many of the inspiring career women I’ve interviewed for Lookilulu.com:
