The Journal of College and University Student Housing - Volume 41, No. 2 & Volume 42, No. 1 - 40

Failure to discuss the care-giving aspects of the
position indicates a possible devaluing of these
aspects. It is also possible that, because caregiving is more often carried out by female RAs,
these contributions are not considered important aspects of the position by male authors
of training manuals or texts. Without this acknowledgement of the potential challenges
faced by female RAs, training manuals provide
women with few resources, and they are thus
forced to work through professional challenges
on their own while working as student leaders
in residence.
The high variability in responses suggests
the possibility for further discussion and research. If young women, each doing very
similar jobs, have such disparate experiences
and understandings, there must be other
social factors at work within postsecondary
institutions and beyond. If women have experienced difﬁculty as student leaders in residence simply because they are women, much
work remains to be done in educating young
men and women about leadership and ability.
A starting point for potentially improving the
working lives of female RAs is to provide training materials for potential RAs that acknowledge difference and prepare women for the
particular challenges they may face.

Implications for Residence Life
Professionals
As residence life professionals, it is the responsibility of managers and supervisors to ensure
that students who undertake the role of resident
assistants are properly prepared for their roles
during the school year. Although this preparation cannot possibly address all potential
issues and scenarios that a resident assistant
will encounter, major themes and principles
40

must be covered. It appears that gender, both
as it affects the work of individual RAs and
the social inﬂuence it exerts, plays a role in
the RA experience. If residence professionals are not discussing and addressing gender
issues and inﬂuence with their RAs, above and
beyond student-centered sexuality and genderidentity-based topics, then they are ignoring
an inﬂuential force that can drastically alter
the RA experience. With the topics addressed
here, residence life professionals have a stepping-off point to explore gender issues within
their teams and to evaluate whether male and
female RAs are having different, gender-speciﬁc experiences. If this is occurring within
their teams, there is an opportunity to develop
gender-based training that will help male and
female RAs interpret, understand, and engage
with gender and leadership issues within their
residence halls. The advantage of doing so is
that more equitable gender spaces can exist
within the residence and the leadership space,
whether traditionally male or female, and these
spaces can open to more students. The danger
of not engaging with the topic of gender and
leadership roles is that we continue to perpetuate, even silently, gender and leadership norms
that differentiate what is appropriate for males
and females, devaluing and discounting those
who do not ﬁt that framework.

Limitations
Results of this study revealed some limitations in its design. Although the sample size
for this study is sufﬁcient to make preliminary assertions about women in the resident
assistant position, the response rate fell just
below 20% of the estimated eligible population (where total potential participants were
estimated at 235 for the eight participating

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

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