Somewhere between the name calling and the admonishments to “Google it” lies an interesting argument about the future of marriage, and it kicked off today between Amanda Marcotte and Wall Street Journal columnist James Taranto. The two were battling over Marcotte’s piece in Salon analyzing a mother’s letter to the Princeton newspaper encouraging female students to look for husbands while attending college. In part, Susan Patton, a mother of two sons at Princeton, wrote to the Daily Princetonian:
Here’s what nobody is telling you: Find a husband on campus before you graduate. Yes, I went there.
…
Smart women can’t (shouldn’t) marry men who aren’t at least their intellectual equal. As Princeton women, we have almost priced ourselves out of the market. Simply put, there is a very limited population of men who are as smart or smarter than we are. And I say again—you will never again be surrounded by this concentration of men who are worthy of you.
Marcotte interprets the letter as evidence that casual sex on campus isn’t necessarily for young men’s benefit, but “often more a strategy young women use to delay commitments that they perceive as obstacles to their personal and career goals.” But does Mrs. Patton have a point?
Note that @AmandaMarcotte doesn't show, or even claim, that Susan Patton's letter is untrue. http://t.co/pfzf4vcylJ
— James Taranto (@jamestaranto) March 30, 2013
https://twitter.com/AmandaMarcotte/status/318052940516573185
.@AmandaMarcotte Mrs. Obama is much closer in age to Susan Patton than to today's Princeton students.
— James Taranto (@jamestaranto) March 30, 2013
https://twitter.com/AmandaMarcotte/status/318087225717977088
.@AmandaMarcotte I'm afraid you're spinning too quickly for me to keep up.
— James Taranto (@jamestaranto) March 30, 2013
https://twitter.com/AmandaMarcotte/status/318095673964765184
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.@AmandaMarcotte You are emotionally tone deaf: for in truth I have been laughing all afternoon.
— James Taranto (@jamestaranto) March 30, 2013
https://twitter.com/AmandaMarcotte/status/318103144586416128
.@AmandaMarcotte To what claim of mine is that contrary?
— James Taranto (@jamestaranto) March 30, 2013
https://twitter.com/AmandaMarcotte/status/318104468661100544
.@AmandaMarcotte Whom do you suppose they'll marry when colleges are turning out 3 female grads for every 2 male ones?
— James Taranto (@jamestaranto) March 30, 2013
Who are you going to believe? Marcotte’s mom or the statistical facts?
https://twitter.com/AmandaMarcotte/status/318105121152176129
.@AmandaMarcotte I'll accept "Beats me!" as your final word. But if you'd like to know more, see http://t.co/vraWsjc89G
— James Taranto (@jamestaranto) March 30, 2013
https://twitter.com/AmandaMarcotte/status/318106548968751104
Marcotte claims a triumph with her statistical facts, but it wouldn’t be a victory lap without a shot at male privilege.
https://twitter.com/AmandaMarcotte/status/318106908374482944
What? When did anyone claim that?
@AmandaMarcotte I just don't understand why people get so obsessed with when and how people get married demographically.
— Rowan Kaiser (@RowanKaiser) March 30, 2013
https://twitter.com/AmandaMarcotte/status/318111908618203136
@AmandaMarcotte I dunno, it seems more like anxious flailing than anything rational.
— Rowan Kaiser (@RowanKaiser) March 30, 2013
https://twitter.com/AmandaMarcotte/status/318114697759047682
https://twitter.com/AmandaMarcotte/status/318111622218526720
@AmandaMarcotte That's just a sexist article. The idea that men are forced by culture to say they like educated women but really don't? Ugh
— Peter Sterne? (@petersterne) March 30, 2013
@AmandaMarcotte Even apart from the empirical problems, the framing of that article is disgusting (and retrograde) gender essentialism.
— Peter Sterne? (@petersterne) March 30, 2013
Retrograde gender essentialism? Could someone please translate into terms those of us who didn’t attend Princeton can understand?
https://twitter.com/AmandaMarcotte/status/318114870090407936
Um, thanks.
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