The Journal of College and University Student Housing - Volume 41, No. 2 & Volume 42, No. 1 - 36

Most respondents believed that their supervisors had almost no difference in expectations for male and female RAs (= 4.39). When
this response is contrasted with the perceived
similarity in student expectations for male and
female RAs, respondents had lower expectations for receiving gender equitable treatment
from this group (= 3.66), which suggests that
female RAs are expecting to be held under a
gendered lens by their students. The belief of
female RAs about their students' expectations
is noteworthy when we consider that many
respondents reported that the situations they
were most commonly called upon to handle
involved peer counseling or advising (e.g., "As
a female I felt most students were comfortable
coming to me to get advice on situations and to
have someone who would listen, no matter the
situation" and "She would just need someone
to talk to, or in some cases I would have to
calm her down and bring her back from the
brink of self-harm").
There is evidence that female RAs maintain the expectation that male and female
leaders will be treated equally by the students
they supervise, even when confronted with
personal experience to the contrary. In fact,
55% (from wide-ranging institutions) agreed
with the statement "I am often treated like a
mother ﬁgure by students." According to Eagly
and Steffen (1984), as well as Cook-Gumperz
(1995) and England (1988), the stereotypic nurturing, mothering space is inherently unequal
and gender-speciﬁc. Therefore, if female RAs
recognize and report being treated as mother
ﬁgures by their students, they are occupying a
gendered leadership space at work that could
affect their ability to lead or gain agency with
some students.

Finally, one question generated strong
disagreement. The statement "I sometimes
have difﬁculty accessing authority with students"
received a "disagree" or "strongly disagree" response by 71% of the respondents. Presumably, this means that the female respondents
interpret their level of authoritarian practice as
both adequate and appropriate within the residence but does not speak to whether or not this
authority is gendered in nature.
The purpose of the open-ended questions
was twofold. The ﬁrst was to establish similarities between the duties of resident assistants at
each of the participating institutions. This was
done by asking respondents for a description
of their basic resident assistant duties. Their responses were then compared with job descriptions provided from participating institutions.
Job descriptions were very similar from institution to institution, with common responses:
"maintaining the house as a safe place," "advising students-recognizing and referring," "conducting x number of rounds shifts per week/
month," and "enforcing standards." There were
no outliers in responses from participants, indicating that positions were comparable. Descriptions of duties were followed by an inquiry
into the most common situations addressed
by female RAs. Respondents were then asked
to relate a typical scenario faced in their role as
resident assistant. Many gave similar responses;
in identifying which situation they needed to
address most frequently, 70% listed times when
disciplinary action was required. In addition,
almost 50% of respondents listed advising other
students as an important part of their work. Mediation did feature in some of the responses of
individuals for this question, but it did not make
up a major portion of the responses.

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The Journal of College and University Student Housing - Volume 41, No. 2 & Volume 42, No. 1

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