"Sister' and "brother' schools, women and men: gender, power and inequality in a women's college space

While current debates assess the continued relevancy of women's colleges in the US, no research has explored how an ongoing relationship with a brother school'a previously (or sometimes currently) men-only institution that serves as the men's counterpart to a women's collegemay influence the gendered ideas and identities of women's college students. Using interviews with students at a women's college that maintains an ongoing relationship with its historic brother school,' I explore how these students make sense of their identities as women's college students and gendered people in the space. I employ Hochschild's concept of gender strategies' to explore how women use the ideas about gender they have available to craft responses to the cultural misogyny they experiencea cultural trait that exists despite the larger women's college project of attempting to protect women from such misogyny. Though the women's college students in this context do demonstrate a heightened awareness of gender-based inequality and injustice, their strategies often fall short of challenging systemic inequality. I conclude with a discussion of the implications for women's college students and women college students more generally.