Female student Minnie Zilch has a satirical article published in the 1934 edition of Dickinson’s Microcosm. Zilch writes with a keen sarcastic wit and in her article, lists seven humorous reasons why she decided to attend Dickinson College.
"The Dickinson Dorcas Society" was featured in the 1898 Microcosm that made fun of some of the female students. It included 14 female "members" along with an interpretation of their names, what they are famous for, what committees they are apart of and what their "good work" was. Each category is a satire on the individual, poking fun at their traits, both positives and negatives.
For the past few years, the Microcosm had published a section with bogus definitions of various words or phrases from the college life. This time they decided to define the word, "co-ed." In the Microcosm they defined a "co-ed" as a "female student at college, so called because most of her beauty is artificial." This statement, of course, would have caused quite a stir on campus, so a side note is included. The "N.B." affirms that, "this meaning has become obsolete since the present ladies have entered college."
Hattie Spangler Shelley wrote this poem to try to make men and women think about if their roles were reversed. Men should "get to the kitchen and cook!" instead of having "politics aching [their] brain." This is because it is "the new woman's hour to reign" and take over the male lifestyle. The poem pretty much describes how life would be like if the man was performing all of the "standard" female roles and if the women in turn had their roles. The woman in the poem now "buys fishing tackle and books" instead of managing the household.
The 1896 Microcosm tried to predict what the future would be like in 1921, even though these predictions are not without some teasing of the co-eds. Among the "advancements of the college during the past year" apparently the female students will have outnumbered the male students. The essay pokes further fun at the females by declaring, "Who would have dreamed of this twenty-five years ago?
Max Shulman writes "The Many Loves of Thorwald Dockstader," a humorous story of a male student's dating escapades, to double as an advertisement for Marlboro cigarettes in The Dickinsonian. Thorwald decides to "take up" girls, and instead of selecting the first girl who comes along, "he sampled." He dates three different girls: an English major who writes a poem for him, a physical education major who exercises with him, and a "non-major" named Totsi who loves to eat.
Max Shulman writes another humorous piece in The Dickinsonian that doubles as a cigarette advertisement. Shulman tells that story of Blossom, an "impecunious freshman at an Eastern girls' college," who would not date due to lack of money.
In "The Unparalleled Men's Magazine: 'Vogue,'" David Bedick refers to an article in the previous issue of The Dickinsonian and uses it as a springboard for a satirical piece on Vogue as a men's magazine. Bedick jokes that Vogue "does away with mere pretentions to literary-philosophical offerings and concentrates, instead, on presenting page after page of the most beautiful women in the world."
In the 1891 Microcosm, there is a dedication page with a satirical poem that is dedicated to girls. This poem is clearly mocking them by stating that to men they are "the creators of his happiness and the destroyers of his peace" and that this book is "affectionately dedicated" to them. On the following page is a drawing of a suggestively dressed female, again mocking women.
"Dreams and Realities" was a poem published in the Microcosm in 1890. It outlines the tale of a female Dickinsonian who leaves her home and "beau" in the country to pursue an education at Dickinson College. After arriving on campus, the female student is struck by the academic and social cultures at Dickinson. In particular, she is torn between her boyfriend at home and the male students she meets at Dickinson College. However, as the years pass, she finds that she was disillusioned by the grandeur of the institution and longs for home.