UNC Women Need to Stop Thinking About `The Ratio'

If you listen to some women on campus, you will begin to believe that the Ratio is the root of all social evils. It makes every decent-looking guy a player who throws away women like tissues. It gives even the most heinous of men more game than the laws of nature should ever allow. It makes journalism and psychology classes have waitlists the length of a bratty kid's Christmas list. It causes fierce competition among women, which leads to eating disorders and maybe even banishment to convents.

So there are a lot of girls at this school.

Get over it.

It is common knowledge that the UNC-CH student population is 61 percent female and 39 percent male.

Close your eyes and picture almost 5,000 women dancing without male partners.

No, it's not the Lilith Fair. It's what would happen if the entire student body got together for a Universitywide dance.

But don't confine yourself to wallflower status yet, ladies. The Ratio will never affect you that directly.

You can't say you weren't warned about the Ratio. The enrollment statistics are public record, stated clearly in brochures and publications. You probably noticed that two of the three men in your tour group were dads. Your perky, backward-walking tour guide was probably a chick too. If you came to college to meet men, maybe you shouldn't have trashed that N.C. State University application.

But it's not as bad as some people make it out to be.

You say there are no guys here. But in any population, you rule out most people as potential mates. By my estimates, at least 98 percent of the male population is undateable. Once you rule out guys with wives, guys who like other guys, guys who smell bad, guys with violent criminal records, guys with issues and guys who just don't like you, you're down to slim pickings no matter where you go to school.

You say it's hard to get a date around here. You whine about how guys don't take girls out on proper dates. And you're right. Lots of guys don't take girls out. It requires a lot less effort to pick up a drunken girl uptown than to risk rejection by asking a girl out and enduring an awkward first date with no guarantee of a nightcap.

The large number of women at this school is a positive thing. It provides a sense of community among women and allows for strong friendships to develop. The 14,782 women at the University today are the future leaders of North Carolina and the world. Talk about networking.

Here at UNC I have made friendships with brilliant women that will last long past my four years here. Who knows if I would have had that opportunity if I went to a male-dominated university?

We should be proud that women dominate this school. For more than a century, women weren't even allowed to be students here. Today, UNC-CH is an ultra-competitive, world-renowned university that only admits a small percentage of its applicants each year.

And if most of the admitted students happen to be female, so what? We should be congratulating each new batch of incoming freshman girls instead of glaring at them in their tube dresses and platform shoes, complaining that they're going to take "our" men.

Despite all the progress and all the opportunities that exist for women at this University, I still see us taking steps backward. It is a step backward when an emaciated girl spends hours at the Student Recreation Center attempting to achieve the perfect body. It is a step backward when girls greet each other with snotty once-overs. It is a step backward when a girl shamelessly pursues another girl's boyfriend.

Let's stop blaming everything on the Ratio and make the best of our relationships here, with both men and women. Carolina girls are the best in the world. Make it more than a T-shirt slogan.

Lauren Miura is a junior journalism and mass communication major from Raleigh. E-mail questions and

comments to lsmiura@email.unc.ed