Where the Women Aren't: Gender Differences in the Use of LGBT Resources on College Campuses

Abstract

LGBT campus resources are vital for many LGBT college students’ wellbeing and academic success. In this article, I explore what factors may cause different groups under the LGBT umbrella to be included in or excluded from use of LGBT campus resources. I examine patterns of participation at two college campuses: one where women wanted access to LGBT resources, but did not use the existing ones on campus or produce their own, and another with a high level of participation of women in the LGBT campus community. Drawing on in-depth interviews of 30 students and staff members, I show that two factors previously unexamined in the literature on LGBT college students produced the gender gaps in participation: (1) disparities in student group membership related to gender-blind organizing and (2) differential leadership development caused by a combination of patrimonialism and friendly-fire sexism. Based on these findings, I offer several strategies for reducing gender gaps in production and use of LGBT college resources.

KEYWORDS:

• Activism
• college students
• community formation
• gay
• gender
• gender gap
• leadership development
• lesbian
• motivation for participation
• queer
• sexism

Notes

1. In this article, I use “queer” as an umbrella category including a wide variety of sexual identities claimed by interviewees, such as: lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, dyke, heshe, homosexual, and non-labeling. “Queer men” includes all self-identified men, including gay, bisexual, and/or transgender men. Similarly, “queer women” includes all self-identified women, including lesbian, bisexual, and/or transgender women. All interviewees identified as either men or women.

2. It should be noted that this level of women's leadership is actually a drastic increase from the years before I interviewed at Berkeley, when there were rarely more than one woman at a time on the LGBT student council or working as an intern at the campus center.

3. Thus, students who are very “out” still use these groups in order to make friends and build community. This means that, although in recent years students have begun to come out before they get to college, the importance of college resources is not decreasing. For example, many of my younger interviewees were out in high school and had a Gay Straight Alliance (GSA) at their high school, but still sought out resources when they got to college because they wanted to make friends.

4. Since the primary purpose of attending these student groups is to feel not alone, to make friends, and to find a partner, once students have accomplished one or more of those goals, they usually stop attending the group. This, although potentially stressful for a group leader who does not understand why the attendance of their group drops, is a sign of the success of the group, not a failure.

5. Here, I follow Max Weber's (1978/1925) distinction between bureaucracy and patrimonialism. In patrimonial systems, resources are distributed through affective ties. By contrast, in bureaucratic systems, resources are distributed equally, regardless of the relationship between the bureaucrat and the client.

6. At Berkeley, successful groups were connected to an office or other form of institutional support. These included: groups run by LGBT campus center interns, such as Fluid and the group for closeted students; groups run by campus staff, such as the group for transgender students; and groups closely advised by the director of the LGBT campus center, such as the LGBT student government. In contrast, the groups that were struggling were those whose facilitators did not have ties to an office, such as the group for students in the dorms and the group for Latino/a students. Because leadership support was not provided in a systematic manner, many groups did not receive the support they needed.

7. This is not specific to LGBT groups. McPherson and Smith-Lovin (1986) argue that of all voluntary associations, “business-related and political groups” (61) are the most likely to be sex-integrated (but they do not explain why this is the case).