Media memes are usually not worth reading, let alone commenting on. But the one generating the most buzz over the past few days is worthy in both respects.
It stems from a letter by Princeton alum Susan Patton (published on Friday in The Daily Princetonian) advising female students to, in effect, be as serious about finding a husband (aka a MRS degree) as they are about getting a college degree. Her letter provoked so much interest, if not outrage, that the newspaper’s website crashed over the weekend and, as of this writing, remains offline.
Here, in essence, is what she wrote, courtesy of the April 1 edition of USA TODAY:
If I had daughters, this is what I would be telling them: For most of you, the cornerstone of your future and happiness will be inextricably linked to the man you marry, and you will never again have this concentration of men who are worthy of you. Here’s what nobody is telling you: find a husband on campus before you graduate.
The backlash, mostly from her own peers, has been so indignant (and personal) that you’d think she were advising all women to aspire to be nothing but stepford wives. Never mind that Patton would probably be the first to assert, correctly, that feminism is all about giving women the choice to engage in such traditional pursuits.
Except that, given the myriad ways girls are socialized these days to pursue careers – even at the expense of family life, Patton’s letter will probably strike most of them as nothing more than the ranting of a female troglodyte.
But here in a nutshell is the fatal flaw in Patton’s advice:
The surest way to turn off any college boy, even at Princeton, is for any college girl to give him the slightest hint that she’s trying to make him her husband. Although, if this desperately seeking girl is hot, like most boys, those at Princeton would probably have no scruples about promising even marriage to have their way with her … until graduation day.
To be fair, Patton asserts that she is merely promoting intellectual compatibility as the bond that seals enduring marriages. Really? Tell that to Hillary who snagged Bill when they were both students at Yale, but whose marriage has been distinguished by his serial infidelities and their symbiotic career ambitions.
But Patton seems oblivious to the specious elitism inherent in assuming that every boy at Princeton (and other Ivy-League schools) is intellectually superior to every boy at other schools.
After all, the number of boys who get into Ivy League schools like Princeton based primarily on their (family’s) bank statements is probably in direct proportion to those who get into Big Ten schools like Penn State based primarily on their (own) athletic prowess. What else explains George W. Bush getting into Harvard?
In any case, it seems foolhardy for any girl to limit her pool of potential husbands to boys at her school, even if that school is Princeton University.
After all, she would have a far better chance of finding a more suitable husband in the real world where she can try her wiles not just on Princeton boys, but on those from all Ivy-League schools, no? Not to mention that, in the real world, a Princeton grad hell-bent on finding a husband would find a thirty-something Ivy Leaguer far more receptive than any undergrad on campus.
Finally, the underlying premise of Patton’s letter is that her marriage failed because she failed to snag a boy while she was at Princeton. But her ex-husband might counter that her willingness to offer this unsolicited, misguided, and embarrassing advice to girls, in their son’s college newspaper no less, demonstrates why their marriage failed.
NOTE: Apropos of purportedly intelligent women making fools of themselves, why on earth would Mary Steenburgen, Katie Holmes, Vanessa Williams, Cindy Crawford and others agree to lecture women about aging gracefully as part of a promotional campaign for a special issue of Allure magazine on anti-aging products?