The sweet and bitter life of post-single sex university world

Suitcase in each hand, rucksack on the back, Namwanje staggered her way out of the university premises at Kabojja, some 8km west of the capital Kampala, which had been her home for the previous three years of her course.
The prospect of full “freedom” outside the confines of the campus triggered splattering excitement going into a new world of unrestricted access to the luxuries of life. She looked back at the three-year confined life and looked forward to the new life of free choice and movement; the anticipation was incalculable.

Unforeseen experiences
Two years later, Namwanje now aged 27; the world of plenty weighed her down. She became a single mother after a blind adventure of passion. It’s one of the most regrettable decisions she has taken since she left those confining gates of Kabojja campus.
She says the majority of the regrettable decisions she has made since her graduation, have been a result of naive excitement about the new world of free adventure into self-discovery.

Namwanje’s first taste of off-campus freedom led her into a blind love affair with a one Musa, a handsome, young and rich man or so she thought. He fitted her dream husband. In fact, her friends had an obsession for Musa every time he visited his friends who were working at the Kabojja campus. It’s here that Namwanje first met with Musa. The two began secret communication.
Due to lack of exposure to the outside world, Namwanje testified, she found it difficult to identify a man with the right traits of an ideal husband out of the crowd of men her new freedom had thrown at her.

Wrong choices
“I ended up in trouble just because I was so desperate. I thought he was the right man and out of excitement fell into his trap thinking he is a guardian angel sent from above,” she recounts in painful reminiscence.
Sex for unmarried students is forbidden at the university to-date as per Islamic norms and any close contact with the opposite sex is strictly prohibited.
“My male friends were not allowed to visit me and those that came to see me were always given limited time for us to interact. This denied enough chance to understand the people I would be meeting out after university,” she says.

Namwanje confessed she did not know much about contraception and did not apply any to avoid pregnancy during her relationship with Musa. After learning she was pregnant, Musa started dodging and ignoring her until they eventually parted ways. More painful was to learn that Musa was already married.
Rehema Kiyimba, a lecturer in the Mass Communication Department at IUIU, has a contrary view. She says such a scenario could have occurred due to negative perceptions about her time at the university. “You do not need to first be with men to learn their tricks. Even a child in Primary Two would have heard of condoms. My own little brother once asked his uncle what condoms are. At first, he didn’t get it but when he did, he laughed. That girl is simply living in denial,” Kiyemba says.

A situational factor?
However, Kiyimba admits that overexcitement, naivety and desperation can lead to such situations of blind sexual relations but the single-sex university environment cannot be responsible 100 per cent for her fate.
Although what befell Namwanje is a common experience for many other young girls from mixed-sex universities or institutions, Namwanje insists their situation is different from hers. She says her confinement in an exclusive environment with restricted association with the opposite sex deprived her of opportunity for early exposure to men’s tricks to lure girls into love traps and sexual exploitation.

Besides, she says, such environment can be detrimental to one’s ability to work. She believes that all-female confined-campus life is inhibiting in various forms compared to other universities with unrestricted interaction between the opposite sex and allows students venture out for work.
Namwanje argues that being in such a life, parents tend to provide everything for the girl and she does not need to stretch herself to find ways how to survive on her own. She says ultimately this stifles her attitude towards work. “My graduation to enter a male dominated society of the working class introduced me to a new world of survival for the fittest. This was totally unfamiliar to me,” Namwanje said with a painful reminiscence.

Others share their experiences
Another graduate, Shakirah Nabaseruka, who has also gone through the single-sex university, agrees that it is quite challenging. She says exclusive interaction with only age-mates of the same gender for a long time inhibits development of self-confidence in the outside world. She says it becomes more critical when facing the opposite sex in the post-university life. “We face a lot of challenges, especially when you go to someone’s office asking for a job. Men can easily take advantage of you because you are timid; you have not been used to facing men,” Shakirah narrates.

Zakia Kaggwa, now aged 26, has also gone through a single sex university, is married with two children and employed. She has successfully adapted to the new open life but admits it initially was a big challenge. She says she had been used to doing things with her female friends at campus, but after graduation, it became a different tale.
In this modern life where people find their own marriage partners, Kaggwa tells a different story. She says because of being used to the exclusive all-female life, she was blind about how to live or socialise with men.
However, she has now gradually become adapted to the new social order with the opposite sex and has helped her discover more about human life and behaviour.

An expert shares her view
A gender trainer as well as women equality activist Margaret Wokuri, says it is unfortunate some graduates face gender challenges when they move out of school, but she was adamant that cannot entirely be blamed on single-sex education environment.
“I attribute that to the kind of information and education we expose to our children. The syllabus at the university or secondary level should at least include confidence building skills and other life skills for a child to learn when to say no or yes without feeling guilty,” Wokuri says.
She adds that when the children are growing up the life skills also grow. She says negotiations and confidence are part of life skills that children need when growing up. She encourages people to read self-empowering books or other to build their self-confidence.

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