July 16, 2004

Anthropology Course on Gender Roles Features Simulated Bachelor Party and Bridal Shower

By ISOLDE RAFTERY

It's 9 a.m. at Babcock Hall at the College of Wooster, and two strippers stand in the corner. A game of beer pong is in full swing. Outside, a cluster of young women and a man puff on cigars, some for the first time. It's a bachelor party.

Don't worry, it's not real. It's a simulation, the final project for Pam Frese's anthropology course on gender roles, "Gender in World Cultures." The strippers are cardboard cutouts, and the beer is root beer, not Amstel Light.

Ms. Frese wrote