Living in Northbrook, Illinois, my struggles as a woman are probably not as severe or prevalent as other towns, but my experiences involving my gender have forced me to create several assumptions towards others. Northbrook is known for its safety and low crime rates so I generally don’t find my gender creating much fear while I’m home or at school. Sure, this safety is comforting, but I’ve found that it does not prepare me for the struggles many women outside of the Northbrook bubble deal with and have to think about every day.

I first learned about these struggles when my Psych for Living teacher, Ms. Petty, brought her son in to speak to us. After his talk, I was intrigued to learn more about his high school experience throughout the Chicagoland area. I stayed after class to talk with him and one thing he told me about that stuck to me was the different way women were treated at each school he attended. He told me that before coming to GBN, many of the girls at his previous, inner-city school were often scared to even go to school. The girls would constantly be checking their backs while walking down the halls and would try to avoid certain areas in the school. They did this because the girls were often targeted, harassed, and even sexually assaulted at their own school. I was shocked hearing this because I’ve always found my school to be a safe environment that doesn’t seem to discriminate against anyone.

I could never relate to the girls at the other school Ms. Petty’s son mentioned until I went to visit my brother in college last month. I traveled to Fort Collins, Colorado to visit my brother who is a sophomore and currently staying in his fraternity. At first, I didn’t really give much thought to the fact that I was going to stay in his fraternity with him until I got there. Right as I walked into the fraternity, I immediately felt a wave of panic come over me. I realized this panic was stemming from the common assumption I’ve heard for years that many women are abused in fraternities. I had never really thought about my gender on a daily basis until this day. Even though I was with my brother, I still worried about what could happen to me as I was the only girl at the time staying in the fraternity. I was scared every time my brother simply left to go to the bathroom because I didn’t want to be left alone. It was one of the first times I felt that my gender could put me in danger.

 

After this experience, I realized that there were certain aspects of being a woman that caused me to make certain assumptions about people. Because of all the terrible things I had heard about women in fraternities, I had immediately assumed that all of my brother’s fraternity brothers were a threat to me. Bobbie Harro elaborates on this idea in her article Cycle of Socialization when she says, “Regardless of the content of teaching, we have been exposed, without initial question, to a strong set of rules, roles, and assumptions that cannot help but shape our sense of ourselves and

the world. They influence what we take with us when we venture out of our protected family units into the larger world of other assumptions,” (48). I don’t think Harro could have been more spot on with this statement. When I had left my bubble in Northbrook to go see my brother, I was thrown into the real world and left only with my assumptions from home. These assumptions have shaped me into who I am as well as my thoughts towards others. Since my visit, I have started to think more every day about the dangers and benefits I face as a woman.