Comments

1

To have total equality, both sexes (and assorted variants) need to learn to have an orgasm in 10 minutes or less.

This we must do.
2
I love your grandma!
3
SRotU: It's possible - just that not EVERYONE has met me yet.
4
It sounds like Susan Patton doesn't really have any concept of how many people there are in the world, with how many different preferences and interests. And why would she think men are the key to women's happiness while holding men in such low regard? "Men suck, but GO GET ONE HURRY BEFORE YOU GET OLD."
5
My wife has four post-baccalaureate degrees and tenure, I just have the lonely MD. And we got married when she was 19 and I was 21.

We not only discuss the Bayeux Tapestry, we've seen it, but we do not discuss Chomsky. Still, I'm with grandma, Patton sounds Mad Men addled.
6
This deranged woman is projecting her own wrong-headed insecurities. I feel badly for her that someone scrambled her brain like this -- likely her own mother/father/upbringing. But my pity for her subsides in light of the damage she can do by saying these things in prominent forums. And that the Wall Street Journal would publish this insubstantial psychobabble trash is sad, but no surprise.
7
Your grandmother is a very wise person...
8
holy shit yer grandma's rad.
9
new column? advice from Danielle's grandma?
10
My apologies to #5, but I look askance at anyone who marries before they're 25. Sure, a very few people can make that work, but most can't. There's a reason why red states have such high divorce rates.

Also, educated women, while they tend to marry later, also tend to *stay* married.
11
The Wall Street Journal has become just another Newscorp rag, a home to rightwing idiot commentators. It's sad.

When I used to read it, back in the old days, it was mostly for the market quotes, but they had some decent business-analysis articles now and again. They weren't hardly as politically activist as they are now, and they never dabbled in conservative sociological drivel.

Since Newscorp's assimilation of it, all that would be left for me would be the market quote pages, but now that we have all that from the internet, it deserves to die.

If anyone needs a financial newspaper, get the Financial Times. RIP WSJ.
12
That last line had me laughing out loud, Danielle. Nicely done.

Also, a required retort to this idiot woman's ideas: Girls Who Read
13
Dear Susan Patton,

The 1950s called. They want their placid housewife back.

Thanks,
The women's lib movement.
14
Jumping on the lovepile for your Grandma.
15
PS: Danielle, your grandma is way cooler than mine was.
16
@10, Well, we've been married for 45 years and fuck most every day, so, I guess we are among those who make it work.
17
@1, we've made that work, too.
18
Princeton's a top drawer. Really top drawer.
19
"If you spend the first 10 years out of college focused entirely on building your career, when you finally get around to looking for a husband you'll be in your 30s, competing with women in their 20s."

This "advice" speaks more about what she thinks of men than women. Men just want young, dumb, pretty child-bearers. Really? Not true.

A woman, educated and with a career, in her '30s, not a girl anymore, strikes me as pretty good marriage material.

To put this kind of nonsensical worry into girls heads is nothing short of criminal.
20
Seems to me that her sons are playing the field and aren't ready to settle down, because duh they're college boys, but they're telling their mom that it's the *women* who don't want to settle down yet because it's the only way to avoid her nagging. And she's buying it like the fool she is and writing moronic op-eds in the hopes that some women will wise up and marry her sons already.

Of course, her sons will eventually get married. When they're in their 30s. And their brides will likely be about the same age and social rank as themselves. Because that's how marriage is done nowadays. But until then, they need to keep spinning bullshit excuses about how all modern women are career-oriented sluts to explain to Mom why they aren't married yet.
21
There are some aspects and assumptions of Susan Patton's advice that horrify me . . . but she has one valid point. Choosing the right partner (and becoming the right partner) has been the cornerstone of my happiness.
22
@21, Amen
23
@Brooklyn Reader: Yes, totally agree with you on the sad declension of the WSJ. I would only add that the FT features regular commentary by excellent female writers whose existence and expertise disprove everything Ms. Patton is saying--Henny Sender (markets), Gillian Tett (banking), Jancis Robinson (wine), and Lucy Kellaway (business life).
24
My grandma's only advice was, "Hover! Don't let any part of you touch that seat!" Gave me a life long fear of public restrooms.
25
@19 ftw. It's her low opinion of men more than women which has provoked this insane philosophy.
26
Wow, so all the men worth settling down with are in their 30's and only interested in women in their early 20's? Where to begin...
I think the problem here is that this lady is only attracted to immature bro's whose emotional maturation ended in high school. Its true, they suck, but they aren't the only fish in the sea.
27
When I was 20, I married a man in his late 30s. We divorced two years later. When I finally hit the age my ex was when he married me, I looked back on it, contemplated briefly the notion of wedding a 20-year-old man, and shuddered. What was he thinking???
28
Your grandma's right.
This "Susan Patton" dimwit is a propagandist of the lowest order.

"Those men who are as well-educated as you are often interested in younger, less challenging women."

Speaking as an intelligent, well-educated man I can say:
Like hell we are! There is no way in the world I would marry a "less challenging woman", what a waste of life *that* would be. To say nothing of the money wasted in the inevitable divorce.

Good lord, what dumb advice.
29
That turd-in-amber (her comment from a year ago) had zero comments? I guess you either had to be a registered Princeton alum to comment, or they deleted all the original knee-slappers.

@24, I'm guessing it's probably too late for your grandma to learn the V-pull. (Stop staring. I once had to write up a compendium of advice for newbies working in the field on science projects.)
31
I want to give gamgam a high five!
32
I'll admit that as a highly educated man I sometimes fantasize about being with a 27 year old woman content to loll around the house all day in her underwear looking cute and smoking weed.

Now that I think about it, the fantasy works just as well with a highly educated woman my age.

Alas, half-dressed cute female weed-smoking house-lollers seem to be in short supply at any age.
33
@32: Well we have to go outside some time you know.
34
@33, not if we have confiscated your shoes, woman!

@20, you have planted the horrifying image in my mind of winding up with Susan Patton as my mother-in-law. Barf.
35
@9: "new column? advice from Danielle's grandma?" <------- THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS!!!
36
@29: If I were paranoid, I would favor the what my college friends and I called the "femmie funnel" (used for winter backpacking trips) over that bizarre ritual you linked to.
Here's the modern rendition, but of course as a granola-head, mine was reusable: http://www.amazon.com/UriFemme-Day-Pack-…
37
It's sad that the first reaction isn't "what does this HR consultant really know about what life is like in college now vs simply pining away for what she recalls from nearly 40 years ago when she was in college" ? I
38
@35: Point/Counterpoint with Danielle's Grandma and Hulk!
39
@Lissa: Well of course you have to go outside, if only for basic needs like pedicures, massages, yoga, new underwear, eating sushi, and scoring bud.
40
Not that I agree with Susan Patton, but I don't think you actually read her letters. She urged well-educated women to find a husband in college because that's where the well-educated men are. She urged well-educated women NOT to settle down with a man who was her intellectual inferior--and that's why well-educated women need to get cracking, because there aren't a lot of guys who are smarter than Princeton women.

In other words, she agreed with Grandma. She never urged women to date "dummies." She said, in effect, that well-educated Princeton women will find a hell of a lot more men who are as smart as they are (and worthy of them) at Princeton than they would at Starbucks, or the gym, or the office. And she may be right about that.

She certainly never said anything like "burn your degree." That's just inflammatory bullshit. If you have a beef with her advice, you might as well be honest.
41
Thank you, @40. If we're going to critique what someone says, it's best to critique what they actually say.
42
I read her letters carefully. She sounds both dumb and shallow.
43
I want a life guide questions column written by your grandma! Like for your next college special or something :)

44
@32 Actually cute females that would be content to loll around the house wearing just underwear (or less if preferred) and smoking weed are quite easy to find. They just don't come cheap (read that either way and it is still correct). And I am not even talking about illegal trafficking of girls for this.
Gold-diggers have a long history and with the advent of the internet are surprisingly easy to find. Just have a lot of money available.
45
This is just old-timey "Get your MRS degree at the same time you get your BA" nonsense. And it's the same sort of wrong-headed advise countless girls get from well-meaning relatives every day. But that advice is usually being given to girls who are going to some state university or Bible college. This is cloaked in the trappings of Princeton - an institution that, lest we forget, educated the Bushes.

I suspect that what this all comes down to is that Mrs. Patton "married beneath her" (to a -horrors!-) non Princeton man, who traded her in for a younger model, and she never got over it. It's kind of embarrassing that the Wall Street Journal would print such Ladies Home Journal level of advice.

46
@Romial: Gold diggers? Nah, too ambitious for the role. My fantasy woman is the rare gem who has inoculated herself against our culture's obsession with getting ahead in life.
47
@40 "and that's why well-educated women need to get cracking"

I object to the idea that finding a mate is something you need to "get cracking" on, like it's studying for mid terms or something.

Being goal-oriented toward marriage for the sake of marriage is how most failed marriages start.
48
wtf with the dude's greasy product hair in the photo?
49
1) All this shit she's spewing rests on (among other assumptions) believing Princeton turns out intelligent, well-educated people. I've met lots of Princeton folks and some *are* intelligent, but, I suspect they were so already before they entered the Dining Clubs and Stanhope Hall. (Truth in advertising: I'm currently middle-aged and very well-educated and pretty happy with someone who went into the Marines at 18, stayed until he was 38 and then went to Rutgers. Fuck the Ivy League.)

2) Assumes that Happiness comes through The One. Usually it doesn't. That's a lot of responsibility to put on one person's shoulders.

3) Assumes heterosexuality.

4) Assumes intellectual attainment is a clue as to how much common sense someone has. News flash: It's not.

5) Assumes intellectual attainment is a clue as to how enlightened a person is. News flash: It's not.

6) Assumes intellectual attainment is a clue as to how sexy, hot, and affectionate a person is. News flash: It's not.

7) Assumes intellectual attainment is a clue as to how well a person manages their finances. News flash: It's not.

I don't understand Ms. Patton. I *do* think I'd understand Danielle's Grandma.

50
Oh, yeah, and

8) Assumes the parchment is correlated AND caused by intelligence. News flash? I think not.
51
@LaSargenta:

1) Are you disputing the author's claim that the proportion of smarty-pantses at Princeton is substantially higher than that of the general population? Um, ok.

2). You're right, marital satisfaction has absolutely no relationship to happiness and fulfillment.

3) Yeah kind of biased for a heterosexual woman to refrain from advising lesbians and gays on finding a mate.

4) - 7) Really, she just assumes that smart women generally prefer smart men. Preposterous!

8) You're right - academic achievement and intelligence are totally unrelated. Every man is a genius in his own special way.

Sarcasm aside, she's wrong about men generally pairing up with younger women, and she greatly exaggerates the difficulty of finding a good match after college. But your critique didn't exactly hit it out of the park, either.
52
This advise is as antiquated as the notion once held that girls went to college to get their MRS degree.
Once upon a time most young women were convinced that the basic occupation of every girl was choosing a man to marry and college was the best place to snare a man while college courses were set up to help Betty-Coed in that matter.. Take a look at some vintage college images as dated as this idea..
http://envisioningtheamericandream.com/2…
53
"Those men who are as well-educated as you are often interested in younger, less challenging women."

As a man as well educated as this type of woman, this is a load of fucking shitty bullshit. No, actually, I'm not interested in someone "less challenging" because I'm not a fucking low-standards-having, brittle pansy who needs his fucking ego stroked by some nimwitted Barbie doll. I'm a fucking man who's taken a few shots in life and managed to stand back up again without a mewling sycophant pumping absurd self-mythology into my ears 24-7. Fucking Christ. Listen to yourself. You're insulting the men you supposedly advise these women to rush out and lay claim to.
54
You would think that by now fiscal conservatives would realize that they really cannot relate to the inner psyche of the vast majority of modern American women -- not their wants, their needs, their values, their goals or their ambitions.

And yet these self-absorbed Wall Street social neanderthals can't help but put both feet in their mouths and share their antediluvian views and arcane advise.
55
@46 Seandr

I'm your fantasy woman then. Did I mention I meow and purr in bed ?
56
I want an advice column from your grandma !

I'd add : "don't feel pressured to enter in a relationship with a guy just because he kissed you".

Maybe not a useful tip for American educated girls, but for European educated ones it is. Being nerdy and inexperienced doesn't mean one has to settle for the first guy that crosses your path.
57
@sissoucat: I've long suspected you were. :-)
58
My dog has a more nuanced view on gender roles than this woman. And she's dumb even by dog standards.
59
Your grandma sounds a lot like mine. She died a long time ago but not before advising me not to smoke the marijuana because when she used it back in the 1920's, it made her fall asleep no matter what was going on around her. She was right and I repeated her mistakes 40 years later. And, she said that cocaine was the devil. She was right about that too but failed to mention that it would steal my camera and humidor as well. At least I'm still enjoying the repeal of prohibition.

As for this Susan person, she is simply trying to find a "hook" to make her marketable- to make money. As a man, I feel completely incensed at being objectified in this manner. And, thankful.
60
I also second the "new column? advice from Danielle's grandma?" suggested by contributor @9
61
She continues to get published because of linkbait like this. Continuing to give her pagehits isn't going to get her fired or improve that crappy rag.

Please wait...

Comments are closed.

Commenting on this item is available only to members of the site. You can sign in here or create an account here.


Add a comment
Preview

By posting this comment, you are agreeing to our Terms of Use.