RIP Hildabeast
RIP Hildabeast St. Hilda’s co-education vote
So, St. Hilda’s has finally seen the light. Thank God for that. The college’s governing body has voted to admit men both to the fellowship and as undergraduate and graduate students. And, with yesterday’s decision, the longest running joke in Oxford is finally over. St. Hilda’s was not the first woman’s college, it was not the most prestigious, and it was not the most attractive. It was just the last.
Ever since Somerville went co-educational in 1992 Hilda’s has lumbered on, beset by financial difficulties and besieged by an embarrassing absence of applicants. What had once been a proud symbol of defiance to the institutional sexism of nineteenth century society has become an anachronism, a victim of the very changes it helped to bring about.
Women’s colleges did tremendous service in providing a gateway to an Oxford education at a time when the older college‘s were resolutely single sex. We should never forget the bravery and determination of those who helped set them up. However, we must acknowledge that their time has passed. The real imperative for Hilda’s to go mixed was not on moral grounds, or because there was anything intrinsically wrong with it being a women only environment.
No, the reason why the fellowship has voted for change is because they have come to acknowledge what has been abundantly obvious for years, that continuing as a single-sex institution was fatally compromising their future livelihood. Only one in four of the girls currently studying at St. Hilda’s named it as their first choice when they applied to Oxford. Ignore their incessant rhetoric about how they have come to love it now they have arrived.
Of course they will say that, and we should applaud their determination to make the best fist of a situation that was not of their choosing. However it is undeniable that 75% of the student body voting with their feet before they have even arrived is a pretty strong mandate for change. Certainly a much stronger one than a bunch of lesbians with miss-spelt placards getting excited on the lawns. Time and again the same tired arguments have been brought forward in favour of staying single sex.
The ones about offering a place for girls whose religious views (or more accurately whose parent’s religious views) mandate an all female environment are valid. Just. The others are bollocks. Particularly the hackneyed drivel about sisterhood. If people want a sisterhood they would join a convent. Wake up and smell the 21st century - no one wants to go to a girls’ college.
But all that is now consigned to the past, to the great repository for discredited ideas, along with thalidomide and apartheid. We stand at the opening of a new era. In ten years’ time Hilda’s will be just another Oxford college, and there will be no more stigma attached to studying there than at, say, St. Anne’s. The college claim they are creating a special ‘wimmin only’ accomodation block, but it is a good bet that this will fade away too.
Somerville’s ‘Women’s Room’ is now notable largely for the naughty words the rugby team spell out with the supply of free tampons every time they break in after raucous socials. This is then a great day. And while the lion’s share of applause must go to Lady English and her bold followers who have supported the reforms, perhaps we journalists can take some small credit too. After all, a single sex St. Hilda’s is so passé. Note that well.
Hacks and Harlots Finale
“It is a newspaper’s duty to print the news and raise hell.” So thundered Wilbur Storey, the editor of the Civil War era Chicago Times, in 1861. And that, in our own little way, has been what we have tried to achieve this term. We did not set out to make enemies, but we have been bloody certain that picking up a few along the way was not going to stop us doing our job. This final week we have compiled a list of the top 50 characters in Oxford.
In a town that has produced so much celebrity, past and future, this is bound to be controversial. But we are absolutely certain that the only people howling louder than those whose egos we have shredded will be those who did not make the list at all. It has all been an enjoyable ride, particularly given our competitive but ultimately good natured rivalry with Cherwell.
Perhaps most importantly though, we have tasted, however briefly, Stanley Baldwin’s famous definition of journalism: “Power without responsibility, the true prerogative of the harlot throughout the ages."
8th Jun 2006