Restrictions of 1960s College Life for Women

During the 1960s, female college students commonly received women’s handbooks that asserted how they should be—or else. From campus rules to societal norms expected of them, these handbooks outlined a cookie-cutter mold that women should aspire to fit into. My research hasn’t turned up any mention of a corresponding men’s handbook, so if one existed back then, please pass it along as I would be fascinated to see whether it’s as restrictive.

Reading through examples of these expectations are shocking—anything from restrictions on women’s whereabouts to guidance on how best to maintain a positive reputation on campus. What was important to one’s reputation according to these handbooks? To name a few:

• How to make one’s voice sound pleasant

• When to take a man’s arm

• How to use a fork

• The appropriate length of shorts

• The best Sunday dress

Quite restraining, huh?

Regarding women’s whereabouts—female students living in residence halls were under extreme surveillance. Examples I found include having to sign in and out every time they left their dormitories, female-only campus curfews with demerits as punishment, and even a housemother checking for closed curtains to ensure that no wandering eyes may see the women within. Often framed as necessary protections, these restrictions created unfair systems that punished women for men’s behavior.

Now that theme unfortunately still exists today, but as someone who went to college in the twenty-first century, just a few decades later, these specific restrictions are hard to fathom. The ability for women of this time to persevere and maintain a sense of self despite a system rewarding one way of ‘being’ is inspiring and something I think about often. These inequities and societal expectations struck such a chord in me that they inspired my debut novel, A Future of Her Own—a historical fiction novel based on real experiences of women in the 1960s.