We remember what our parents told us right before we left for college. “Don’t give into peer pressure,” “Make sure you go to class every day,” “Act like you have some common sense/home training!” Some of this advice may or may not help you, but what some people don’t realize is that women are sent off with more female biased advice than you think.

   Society presents every one with a sense of double standards at a very young age. Whether you believe it is right or wrong, those same standards stick in life and are very influential the older you get.

   Every woman has had that discussion with their parents on the way women should act and carry themselves when they are away from home. Girls are given a stern and serious talk about how they should deal with males, and what they should and shouldn’t do, while males are given a pat on the back and told to enjoy college.

   “I think it is harder to be a woman in today’s society, so there are rules that women are expected to abide by when going off to college: do not be promiscuous, do not get pregnant, make all A’s and B’s….,” William Garrett, a junior journalism major, said.

   When women leave for college their advice becomes more about their safety.

   “Even though I don’t believe in double standards some are actually for protection. Like not walking along at night is a big one for females but not so much for males,” Garrett said.

   So what do men think about these double standards? Do men believe women still follow them in today’s spontaneous generation?

    “I think they should, but I think they don’t anymore,” Jerrell McGirt, a freshman Southern Poly Tech student, said.

   When asked do these rules help females, McGirt replied the women who do follow these rules get the benefit of what life has to offer.

   “They end up being the ones successful, with a good man that won’t cheat on them and won’t beat them,” McGrit said.

   There are some people who don’t believe there are separate rules for men and women. They might believe there are no double standards in college life at all.

   Tiera Johnson, a junior speech communications major, works at the front desk of Langdale Hall. She has the night shift, from 12 to 6 a.m., on Friday and Saturday nights.

   Johnson encounters students throughout the night, some coming from social events who may be intoxicated.

   She doesn’t believe that college life has different rules or regulations for men than women.

 “I feel that every college student needs guidance all the way up until graduation,” Johnson said.

If she had children and had to send them off to college, she would provide them with the same advice. The only rule she would tell her son rather than her daughter is to “break all stereotypes.”

   No one really knows why the advice for men and woman are different, it’s just what they grew up with and believe is the right rules to follow based off of their community.

    “Go to school and screw women. This is their time, they tell them to wild out,” McGirt said.

   McGrit explains this is what some of his friends’ parents told them because they knew it was a phase and they would grow up to settle down.

   “I don’t know anyone who hasn’t received advice, but I do know that college students are going to be college students,” Garrett said. “We are going to make mistakes, and some of us are more mature than other.”

   In college it is more difficult to break these double standards..

“College students like to pretend like we are all original but the truth is that we are not,” Garrett said.

   Given the double standards, some women just do what they need to do regardless of what the standard is becoming.

   “I am very conscious of my actions and make sure that a carry myself with dignity, I am cautious about where I go and make sure I have people around me when I go out, and as unfortunate as the double standard is I live with them,” Jessica Moore, a junior undecided major said.

   VSU’s Public Safety Department does provide women with a free Rape Aggression Defense (R.A.D.) course, which allows women to learn how to defend themselves with realistic self-defense tactics and techniques. It is one of the nation’s largest women’s self-defense networks.

   For more information students can visit the website, valdosta.edu/studentaffairs/healthpromotions/rad.shtml, or call Health Promotions at 245-3896.