In praise of single-sex dormitories

I live in a female college dorm where men are forbidden. And I wouldn’t change it for the world!

I feel safe, I have great friendships with both men and women, and I feel supported in my relationship with Christ. I would never settle for anything else.

Despite the “liberation” that most colleges promise their students—including most religiously affiliated colleges today that long ago abandoned their own principles, establishing co-ed residences or late-night visitation rules—my experience is that keeping men out of girls’ dorms creates the happiest living space for women. It upholds the safety, community, and integrity of college campus life.

The majority of college campus sexual assaults in the U.S. take place in residence halls. A 2019 study by the Association of American Universities revealed that 67% of sexual assaults occur in student residences. Another study, from the same year, revealed that 79.4% of the incidents at Harvard occurred in on-campus housing. Colleges should be aware of these dangers and take these facts into account when making decisions about campus life.

Women’s safety needs to be a top priority. One concrete way to combat these risks is to offer women a place where ill-intentioned men can never enter.

At my college, I have experienced the benefits of setting boundaries around sleeping areas, which helps make the community free to flourish. Every year, in the freshman dorms especially, girls are always out in the hallways, chatting or doing homework or just enjoying time together. They are out there until late at night, sometimes even falling asleep in the hall! The freedom to build these tight-knit friendships is largely because we never have to worry about a guy coming along. Even if the guy had the best intentions, it would still feel like a breach of the vulnerability that girls can have with one another.

Of course, some men do have ill intentions, and women should always be protected from that. Because my school actively and successfully keeps men out of the dorms, we have a space where we can fully let our guard down.

For men with integrity, socializing outside of the dorm rooms is a worthy sacrifice. Giving up the convenience of gathering in student rooms for an entire building of ensured security? Yes, please! The rest of the campus is available to spend time all together. This sacrifice by men on campus uplifts the whole community in mutual respect, and it sets a cultural standard of reverence for the well-being of women.

Beyond safety, community thrives in a single-sex dorm. Though it may not seem intuitive, separated residence halls enhance the community throughout campus, both among women and across the broader student body. In my experience, there is something about having relationships with other women that is irreplaceable. This has surfaced in moments like those at “Chick-Chat,” an event on my campus where girls get together and discuss topics that are most important to them as women, so we can help one another as a community. The separated halls offer a perfect environment for this event and encourage the conversations to continue beyond just one evening. And these conversations help all of the students in our relationships!

The culture today insists that college students need to live with the opposite sex in order to learn how to socialize well with them. In what world? If the idea is that a woman has to live with a man in order to be friends with him, the whole concept seems self-defeating. By living in a separate dorm, the particular gift of who I am as a woman is fostered every day. Because of this, I am more able to be myself in my friendships with guys, and they in turn can share their own unique experiences. I get to hear what they have to bring to the conversation without living under the same roof. I think this will serve me well in life after college.

Finally, separated residences support the integrity of a college campus, especially a religious one. The Christian life is hard. As a young Catholic, I find it important to be in a college that supports my faith. I want a college that consciously makes decisions that support the whole student body in a deep relationship with Christ. There are plenty of challenging things I have to deal with as I make my way through school. Balancing classes, papers, reading, sleeping, work, eating, and social life—that’s enough!

I don’t need the added pressure of living in the same building as my boyfriend. That situation would bring temptations similar to cohabitation, which are incredibly difficult to surmount. While there are certainly young people with the strength to stay virtuous, I highly value that the college I attend doesn’t force me into such a hard situation to navigate on my own. Living in different dorms doesn’t do away with the need for strong virtue while dating, but it helps to avoid temptation, which seems like a healthier environment for discerning with love.

Setting healthy boundaries, instead of living on the edge, helps me focus on loving others genuinely through Christ. The integrity that single-sex dorms demand from students has offered me a far greater foundation for an integrated community than shared sleeping areas ever could.

Living in a women-only dorm provides safety, community, and integrity to my college experience. The relationships formed on campus seem to be the real “stuff” of life: the friendships we long for so much. Given our fallen human nature, no place can be a paradise with the best friendships guaranteed. Each person’s choices impact the community, for better or for worse, and policies can’t change that. However, I’ve seen how building campus culture on the bedrock of safety and integrity has offered an environment where my community can flourish in genuine trust and delight.

With separated dorms, we are enabled to cultivate deep friendships in and out of the residence halls. Why have so many colleges taken this away from their students? From spontaneous swing-dance nights to study groups to small communities of faith, the men and women on my campus strive together toward healthy and wholesome relationships.