Suffragette City

This comic from a 1990 issue of The College News describes the experience of the difference between the "Bryn Mawr bubble" and "the real world". Two people, ostensibly Bryn Mawr students, discuss the upcoming end of the school term, when they will be leaving campus. One says "I've had enough of academia and bureaucracy", which sounds like she simply wants a break from schoolwork for a while. But the other Mawrter's complaints are different: "I'm so burned out on PC-ness that I'm almost looking forwards to the real world!" Her friend replies, "Oh, I know! The real world doesn't deal much with issues like feminism, or homosexuality, or pluralism."

This exchange demonstrates the students' perceived experiences of the world outside of the Bryn Mawr bubble vs. life inside the bubble. Namely, in the Bryn Mawr bubble, discussions about social justice issues (or "political correctness", the Mawrter in the comics calls it) that don't happen neary as often in the outside world are a common occurrence. Many of these conversations are related to gender and what is acceptable behavior for a person of a particular gender- things like feminism and homosexuality, as the comic says.

It's interesting to note that although one student in the comic is at first complaining about the prevalence of these discussions on campus, by the last frame of the comic it seems that the other student disagrees; being in "the real world" where these conversations don't take place much isn't very appealing to the dark-haired Mawrter, who declares that they're going to move back onto campus "as soon as possible"!

[Click on the comic, and then click the picture under 'Files' on the next page to zoom in on the image and read the comic.]