THE GRADE F STANDS FOR FASHION.
When one thinks of an Ivy League education, a fashion degree is probably not the first program of study that comes to mind. Fashion, a predominantly feminine pursuit, continues to be viewed with a jaundiced eye in higher education institutions such as Princeton University. As the university continues to reject the validity of fashion education through its lack of endorsing fashion classes and extracurriculars, the rise of Fashion Schools and programs across the country continue to support the fact that the fashion industry is both a respectable and lucrative field of work. This raises the question of why there is a sense of frivolity that surrounds the subject of fashion education at Princeton?
Up until the 19th century in the United States, women were effectively barred from higher education. Slowly, women's colleges and coed institutions were integrated into systems of education. Most Ivy League schools, including Princeton University, refused to admit women and created sister schools as a compromise (Yang). Princeton’s sister school was called Evelyn College. Evelyn was founded in 1887 by Joshua Hall McIlvaine, a Princeton alumnus and former professor at the institution. While the name ‘Evelyn’ may sound traditionally feminine, the school was named after a man, Sir John Evelyn. Most of the faculty and staff of the institution were also men, including Woodrow Wilson and Henry Fine (Healy 57). The ratio between the men at Princeton and the women at Evelyn was 50-to-1. “The Evelyn students were subject to considerable harassment from their male counterparts. Police were employed to keep the men off the Evelyn campus, though the male students would still stand outside the gates chanting for the women to let them inside” (Holden 45). This reputation caused many families to forbid their daughters from attending and receiving a higher level education. Evelyn College closed permanently in 1897 after the death of McIlvaine, and women were not permitted to enroll at Princeton University again until nearly a century later in 1969, when the university became co-educational.
While delving into the history of female education at Princeton, the educational inequities faced by women at Princeton becomes apparent. Evelyn College was not an institution created for women, it was a seized opportunity for men to continue their narrative as heroes, ‘sharing’ their privilege of education with women, when in reality all they did was reinforce pre-existing stereotypes of superiority. “The truth behind this propaganda is that some people just love to keep their power and they invent these convenient dichotomies” (We are all). It is not the field of study that has stopped Princeton from incorporating fashion education into its curriculum. Rather, it is the generational sexism that has been rooted in the systems of structures at the university.
The generational histories prescribed in Princeton’s educational system limit the accessibility and support prescribed to feminine disciplines. Female pursuits are regarded as fluid and transgressive in nature subconsciously due to institutional sexism that was instilled by the societal patriarchy. The university continues to fail the current female student body as it fails to recognize this issue and begin to further support more female disciplines. Luckily there are growing threats of modernity that are beginning to challenge familiarity, but for now, when one thinks of an Ivy League education, a fashion degree is probably not the first program of study that comes to mind.
