The Journal of College and University Student Housing - Volume 41, No. 2 & Volume 42, No. 1 - 38

just more difﬁcult to handle than female students and that the gender of the resident assistant had little to do with it. Some respondents
seemed not to notice that they were highlighting a gender difference. One woman said,
"Generally, when situations require authority,
RAs work in pairs (female and male). Usually,
the males will take the authoritative role in this
type of situation, but not always." Although
this statement is not overt, it does conform to
the idea that male resident assistants take on
the authoritarian role by default. Finally, there
were some respondents who were unable to
engage with the topic at all, attempting to call
into question the very nature of the survey. "Is
this actually relevant?" one respondent asked.

leaders is occurring-and therefore perceive
themselves as second-class citizens-it is possible that they will see little hope of escape and
may not work to effect social change, inadvertently perpetuating this social ideology in the
students they supervise. Conversely, if the RAs
are able to recognize the difﬁculties associated
with being female RAs within a male-ﬁrst/
male-strongest/male-best system, then it is
possible that they are better prepared to counter
an inherent male leadership preference in their
students. Recognition, although potentially
problematic in some cases, provides women
with the ﬁrst tools they require to work against
harmful and degrading work expectations (Williams & Wittig, 1997).

DISCUSSION

The second group of women, those who
claim that emancipation of the female leader
rests solely on the shoulders of the individual
woman and her engagement with the social
norms surrounding leadership, presents a
confounding difﬁculty. This ideology removes
responsibility from the social structures that
limit the female leader and places the impetus
directly on the shoulders of the leaders themselves. The assertion that the individual has
the ability to change his or her status within

According to the survey data, a measured difference exists in the way that individual female
RAs view and understand their role and how
gender affects their ability to do their job effectively. Some believe that gender plays a
signiﬁcant role in the way they must act and
react when they do their jobs, pushing them
into behavioral patterns and a particular leadership status reserved for women. A much
smaller percentage of the sample believes that
the leadership role taken on by a female resident assistant is particular to the individual and
without limitations imposed by gender. These
respondents perceived no difference between
male and female RAs in terms of their access
to power or authority.
The group of female respondents who recognize gender bias as resident assistants may
face additional challenges on top of the original
gender-linked bias. If female RAs understand
that devaluation of female RAs and student

If women have experienced difﬁculty
as student leaders in residence

educating young men and women

THE JOURNAL OF COLLEGE AND UNIVERSITY STUDENT HOUSING

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

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