As I sit here in my first period class (Dance and Pop Culture) in my second semester here at CU Boulder, I can't help but to look back at the type of education I had gotten for the last four years.

My class I am taking is designed around discussing the stereotypes of women/men in dance, however the class seems primarily focused around the objectification of women and the "male gaze." Reference to Title IX (1972), a bill that required all federally funded programs to have the same amount of teams for men and women, is the current topic.

When I was in high school I was only ever surrounded by men, save for a few female teachers. All lesson plans were geared towards men, yes, but the differences were not that great. Our focuses on women's rights focused mainly on the historical movements not on the "doomed future of women." Now that I'm in a public institution the many biases pointed out on TRP are blatant. Women's studies here focus around the "oppression" of women's rights over time and the victimization of women by men. Never once have we mentioned that men have a harder time getting into the dance industry, unless they are breaking the masculine stereotype- in which case they have an easier time getting recognition.

Even down to the level of personal living, where all basement rooms are only occupied by men for the sole reason of the safety of the female population. Really? Like a window a drunk person can climb through to assault a woman is more important than a window a drunk person can climb through to steal my nice expensive shit. Why not just bar the fucking basement windows (they've done it on some buildings but not all of them), and now people breaking in isn't a problem. But no, instead the best solution was clearly to move men into all the basements!

Even in my brief few weeks reading this subreddit and supporting essays I can't help but kick myself thinking about what I've ended up getting into with a publicly funded, majority female student body.