Critical Review of Educated in Romance Book Essay Example
Critical Review of Educated in Romance Book Essay Example

Critical Review of Educated in Romance Book Essay Example

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Family and peer relations are critical to understanding the social and academic life of young women. For the past several decades, women have proven their worth by establishing great educational, professional, and social developments. Nowadays, a significant number of women are perceived to be actively taking part in worlds that were traditionally dominated by men. Generally, majority of incoming female college students, with their vibrant career aspirations, apparently expect to have a rewarding profession after school and even after marriage.

However, reality tends to show the opposite of this culture. Bright and highly motivated young women fail to fulfill their academic and career goals after having been exposed to collegiate experiences, school assignments, dating practices, friendships, and family ties. Moreover, most of the young male students of the present day world believe that they will marry women wh

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o do not need a career after college because they will have to eventually stay at home. This made motivated college women set aside their career aspirations for married life and appreciation of their beauty by their partners.

They strive to establish their marriage and become physically attractive so as to be appreciated by their partners—all at the expense of education. The book “Educated in Romance: Women, Achievement, and College Culture” written by anthropologists Dorothy C. Holland and Margaret A. Eisenhart (1990), shows how romance apparently reversed the decisions of young women. According to the research stated in the book, female students actually entered college with aspirations and high levels of enthusiasm.

However, their future careers were eventually subdued because of their romantic involvement with men. These women preferred to spend the rest of their lives with their loved ones rather

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than work hard to achieve their supposedly promising professions. The book presented the results of the study made by the authors involving incoming female college students who preferred to get less prestigious jobs and earn far less than their male counterparts rather than to pursue their career goals.

The book describes the turn-outs of the lives of the women college students fostered by the decisions made by the students themselves. The Holland and Eisenhart study illustrates how young men and women students positioned themselves differently for careers, marriage, and parenthood after having been exposed to intimate relationships. The research of Holland and Eisenhart (1990) principally studied what was coined as a "culture of romance" on college campuses.

The authors' research and findings were based on an in-depth interview of 23 young college women and examination of 362 other female students in a predominantly white state university and a large, predominantly black university. The authors learned that instead of advancing their respective career paths, the concerned young female students put an extraordinary amount of time and effort into grooming, talking about dates and relationships, and participating in dating and events to attract dates.

According to Holland and Eisenhart (1990), these factors and exposures eventually changed the students' future professional perspectives. As a reverse of their previous goals in life when they entered college, the young female students are inclined to show their interest in men by compromising their own goals in order to spend time with their loved ones and support their partner's goals (Holland ; Eisenhart, 1990). The Holland and Eisenhart Research and Findings Parts two and three of the book talked about the theoretical framework and the

research itself.

With an initial purpose to determine why an insignificant number of young college women pursue or major the fields of the sciences, Holland and Eisenhart (1990) worked at two Southern universities. These involve the predominantly black Bradford University and predominantly white Southern University (SU). For one and a half year, the authors followed a small sample of 23 career-ambitious first year college women, half of whom are science-oriented. The Holland and Eisenhart research was observed by tracking each of the subject students with monthly observations and interviews.

The authors employed the services of field assistants, black assistants at Bradford and whites at SU to aid them in conducting the observations. The subjects' development or life progress, starting from their entry into college up to where their careers eventually settled, was also monitored and checked through phone calls two and six years after they graduated from their respective universities (Holland & Eisenhart, 1990). In an article titled “The centrality and costs of heterosexual romantic love among first-year college,” Gilmartin (2005) made her own interpretations on the fourth part of the book by Holland and Eisenhart (1990).

According to Gilmartin (2005), the said part of the book promoted feminist ideals or the critical approach to the issue of gender relations. She cited the gloomy observations of Holland and Eisenhart of college women from the last part of 1970 to the early part of 1980. Specifically, she mentioned that the observation was evident in the two universities that served as the research sites of Holland and Eisenhart. She stressed that the subjects' eventual inclinations to romantic relationships, instead of their professions, were attributed to peer culture.

This is where men

were perceived by younger women as a major route and their only means to achieve personal value and prestige (Gilmartin, 2005). The results of the research conducted by Holland and Eisenhart (1990) revealed that a young woman's respectable stature among her peers is further elevated if she is perceived as heterosexually appealing and if she possesses a high level of boyfriend attraction. This standing, however, proved that the academic and social lives of the subjects including their dealings with their friends and family, were set aside.

The said young women who participated in Holland and Eisenhart's study were left with no option but to adhere to the dictates of the peer culture. This is where they promote their standing among their colleagues by experiencing to the fullest a series and network of personal relations while setting aside their academics. As part of a peer group, the young women subjects have to halfheartedly perform their educational functions. At the same time, they have to prioritize how to guarantee the attention and affection of popular young men on their respective universities (Gilmartin, 2005).

Gilmartin (2005) said that the economic and social as well as developmental effects of the Holland and Eisenhart's research and findings are not subsiding. By giving more emphasis to the romantic inclinations or relationships of the subjects rather focusing on their course works, the young women were deprived of the chance to get and develop their skills and intellects needed for their respective career development. The results further revealed that the public's value and treatment based from women's sexual attractiveness almost ensures that they stay to be reliant on male partners for their own social and

financial needs.

This dependence will eventually put the subjects into having no essential support to put up an enterprising set of qualifications that may enable them to promote participation in the public field to challenge their male counterparts. Moreover, by centering only on one attachment and giving more time on romance and disregarding other important relationships such as family and female friends, young women waive having an opportunity for close friendships that are significantly necessary to their emotional and well-being development for the rest of their lives (Gilmartin, 2005).

The book summarizes the ten-year research process and the subsequent findings of Holland and Eisenhart involving well-motivated college women who often put aside their education and eventually their respective professional goals to be physically endowed by the opposite sex and achieve their dream of having a successful marriage. The authors focused on the subject of young women’s adherence to the dictates of the society to the effect of reversing their academic plans and professional aspirations.

This is an issue that determines the level wherein women agree and adapt to social structures that are more advantageous for male college students (Holland & Eisenhart, 1990). Conducting the study of Holland and Eisenhart's in two Southern universities in the 1980s, with one predominantly black and the other white, proved the effectiveness of the research. This is because it laid down a study pattern that followed the lives of academically-motivated college women with high career goals through their studies and beyond.

The result of the study presented the changes in the female participants, from their entry to the universities, to their study and social interactions during college, up to their after college life which

turned out to be a reversal of their initial plans. The said research uncovers the very evident cycle where the subjects lower down their career aspirations just to marry and satisfy their romantic needs, after which, they unfortunately settle for careers that are financially inferior compared to their husbands.

Finally, a summary of the book unveils the great influence or pressure of peer group in determining the kind of life that a highly-motivated incoming college student would eventually have if she would be exposed to an educational institutional that would not address her academic needs but rather her romantic affiliations. The book stresses the dangers of conforming to society’s perception of feminine attractiveness because it subjects women to be sexually auctioned. This grants her only a handful of opportunities to advance her career or totally disregard her interests in the educational process.

Meanwhile, critical assessments of the contributions brought about by the study made by Holland and Eisenhart show a contrasting evaluation. The ethnographic study by the said two sociocultural anthropologists may have explored the reasons why bright, highly motivated young women fail to fulfill their academic and career goals. However, is the reversal of their career paths can only be attributed to their romantic involvement with men whom they have met during college education? The reason can also be attributed to their fate and/or choice of devoting themselves to their partners and not to professional advancements.

An analysis of the authors' contributions revealed that a careful study process and longer monitoring of the subjects can determine the inevitable influence of a compelling peer-community that relates a woman's regard to her appeal with male partners. An emphasis on

romantic success rather than academic excellence makes a woman, in her efforts to fit herself to the norms of the society, eventually decides to change her planned educational goal which results in their acceptance of inferior societal roles.

Although somewhat repetitive, the book's presentation of the issues such as gender relations, peer culture, family and romantic ties make it likable and an important source for academic and feminist discussions. The limited number of participants and study sites of the Holland and Eisenhart research are important factors in determining the actual goals and preferences of young women entering college education. It is difficult to generalize the findings from the two Southern Universities and apply the theories to other educational institutions.

Although the study was able to identify and prove the reasons why the college women in the said two universities altered their educational goals in exchange of intimate affiliations, the authors failed to answer specific issues and prove the effectiveness of their study to the whole community of college education. The results of Holland and Eisenhart’s study turn out to be just a presentation of the lives of the women subjects. It, unfortunately, did not address if romance is really more important to women in college than grades and intellectual nourishment are.

The research was not able to justify why a lot of incoming women college students, with strong academic backgrounds and firm career goals, dramatically shift their goals and settle for scaled-down ambitions. The Holland and Eisenhart exposure of a pervasive "culture of romance" in the two universities, coupled by an influencing peer system, cannot actually ascertain that these are the only reasons that prompt women into prioritizing

their appeal and romantic attachment to men over their academic achievement and professional career.

Moreover, the research could not totally speak for all the college institutions as the same study could result in different findings in other types of universities. This holds true for the argument that not all young women, given their different educational environments and societal attributes, prefer to scale down education and career advancement in favor of romantic relationships. The subjects in the Holland and Eisenhart study represent only one side of women who generally advocate for equality with men as well as professional and career satisfactions rather than domesticated lives.

In exploring the relevance of the findings of the Holland and Eisenhart study to other types of universities with different environments and generation of women college students, Gilmartin (2005) drew and created a study based on a vital feminist abstract model. This study aims to determine whether the results of Holland and Eisenhart’s research would be different when conducted in other colleges. This links the aspirations, roles, and social networks of women students in other type of colleges while ascertaining the difference in their personal, educational and professional experiences (Gilmartin, 2005).

With Holland Eisenhart's study and findings as the motivating factors, Gilmartin (2005) took into account various orientations on women's intimate relationships such as women's (same sex) friendships and heterosexual romantic relationships. Based on her study, it could be inferred that there are a lot of emotional and psychological rewards of friendship among women. This is because same-sex friendship provides college women with the chance to present their work plan, apply their own ideas, and practice their actions outside their respective comfort zones.

Women's friendship

allows the undergraduates to go out of the competitive atmosphere inherent to a typical educational institution. This also addressed racial discrimination in other colleges because it made the women students depend on one another for comfort or consolation. Gilmartin (2005) adds that same-sex friendship causes identity growth which enables women to recognize themselves. This is because female friends tend to be someone they can freely share everything. Same-sex friendship is also a stimulating factor that makes women deviate from the norms of the society which restrict their attitudes and preferences.

These conditions, which are typical in an all-women university, are the specific examples that prove that the Holland and Eisenhart study and findings differ in various school set-ups. Gilmartin, however, stated that same-sex friendships among women could also be set aside in favor of heterosexual intimate relations in other colleges. This is because the society dictates that women's friendships are not secured specially in a world where heterosexual relationships dominate. Women's friendships are perceived with less worth than heterosexual romantic affiliations (Gilmartin, 2005).

Same-sex friendship for undergraduate women tends to be of less priority than main heterosexual relationships. Gilmartin (2005) explained that the importance of women's friendship is heightened during college days but eventually lessen with the entry into adulthood wherein start to establish stable heterosexual relationships. This preference to heterosexual relationship over same-sex friendship is another reason that caused the findings of the Holland and Eisenhart study to differ in another type of college where there is a combination of male and female population.

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