Backpage's Voyage Through the Annals of History

By Tim Faust and Eric Doctor     1/8/09 6:00pm

Welcome to the Backpage's Journey through the Annals of History! Because the Backpage can't go online each week, we've chosen to dig up an article from the Thresher's past and put it online for the world to rediscover. We've also recorded two audio readings in case all these words get too burdensome on your eyes. Please enjoy and send any comment to backpage@rice.edu.

This week's article comes from the December 20, 1929, issue of the Thresher. All of the original text has been reproduced, including misspellings and grammatical errors.

Use the icons to the left of our cool graphic to choose your narrator.

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Poor Males, They Enter Not! Girls Room Still a Mystery

Everyone knows the value of mystery in enhancing interest. This fact is, we feel, best exemplified by the maintenance of male curiosity concerning the girls' room. Contributing largely to the curiosity-inspiring phase of this mystery is the unwritten law: No male shall enter the girls' room.

Male creatures are usually loudest in denying the possession of that (so-called) feminine characteristic - curiosity. Yet we wager nine-tenths of the male student body will seek enlightenment from this article. Perhaps we will gratify the passion - and perhaps not. After all, only a girl will be able to verify our assertions, and you know how women are about propagating mysteries.

We will begin by disillusioning the student body as to the gregariousness of women students. One glance at Autry House during the morning hours confirms our disillusioning process. The lower library draws a large quota of girls who do not enjoy purely feminine companionship. Then there is the Thresher office - for industrious scribes of both sexes. And cars! There's nothing like a ride to relieve the tedium of off-hours.

The obvious conclusion from these observations is that the above mentioned rule often operates against women students as well as against men.

But this segregation of the sexes is not the only factor which keeps the entire feminine component of the student body from gathering there. Possibly the purity of atmosphere has something to do with it - no loud discourse, no leaping from table to chair and other athletic diversions, no smoking, and, in fact, no depravity of any sort being permitted. Not that other places permit much depravity, but - well, you know how it is.

However, the room is not unpopular. It makes an excellent meeting place. It is also most useful as a place to comb one's hair and apply makeup - if any. It is VERY useful as a place to indulge one's upperclassman vanity, for the girls have promulgated a second unwritten law: No freshman girl shall cross the imaginary boundary which separates the freshman section from that of the upperclassmen.

The room is not particularly conducive to scholarly reflection or the pursuit of knowledge, though some people do attempt to study there. We might mention in passing that if one is so fortunate as to get to the set before anyone else does, it makes quite a comfortable place for a short nap.

Have we told anything of any importance? We hope not. Yet the opposite sex think of us as gathering there to discuss them. Who knows? They may be right.

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