The Outsiders

Outsider: a person who does not belong to a particular group.

What does it mean to be an outsider? For the women who arrived at Dartmouth in 1972, it meant stepping foot on a campus that wasn’t created for them. How do you find a safe space in a place you’re not wanted? For some women at Dartmouth it was found in a journal, a room, and a shared sense of isolation.

By the early 80s, women still lacked a support system, and despite other schools already having implemented a Women’s Resource Center, Dartmouth still hadn’t given these women solace by providing a place for “organizing programs and speakers for the community, providing information and referrals, centralizing diverse women’s groups, and supplementing academic women’s studies programs” (Womyn’s Review). Despite the absence of support, women used a room in Robinson Hall and considered this the ‘center.

In 1981, the unofficial ‘center’ became a refuge—an outsider’s sanctuary. A journal sat on a table, inviting women to write down their thoughts. In the very first entry of this journal, a student writes:

“This room has become my haven from the madness and cynicism of the world. I come here sometimes when I feel an intense desire to be alone and read a book, or when I’m feeling lonely and introspective…”

Recurring themes in most of these entries were loneliness, pain, and isolation. With the option to remain anonymous, these women wrote about the struggle of being a woman at Dartmouth. One student in particular wrote about her frustration with counseling at Dartmouth:

“I am angry that counselors at Dick’s House aren’t interested in dealing with my pain of being a woman at a place like Dartmouth or listening to me discuss my joy/confusion/pain of being involved with women or my struggle to be politically active. Instead, they would rather ask how many orgasms I had with my male lover and whether I always wanted to be a sex object to my father.”

Throughout my research, I’ve noticed the strong association between feelings of isolation and its negative effects on mental health. For women, this isolation at Dartmouth was both physical and emotional. The lack of support systems—both institutional and social—created the feeling of being outsiders, leaving these women to fend for themselves on a campus not made for them. One woman describes the journal as“a selfish present to myself- I was feeling depressed and came up here to write…”

These reflections by women students during coeducation show how women at Dartmouth were left battling not just with external hostility, but with the internal toll of their isolation. The unofficial Women’s Resource Center—and the journal within it—became a place where they could at least begin to tackle the loneliness and frustration that came with being left outside of the main bubble.

To read the journal, ask for DO-61, Box 6591 at Rauner Library. To read the Womyn's Review, request D.C. History HQ1101 .W6692.

Posted for Arielenny Perez '26, recipient of a Historical Accountability Student Research Fellowship for the 2024 fall term. The Historical Accountability Student Research Program provides funding for Dartmouth students to conduct research with primary sources on a topic related to issues of inclusivity and diversity in the college's past. For more information, visit the program's website.