To the man who told me that women only go to college to find a husband,
There are many reasons that I chose to go to college, and I can assure you that finding a husband was not on the list. I went to college to learn. I went to college to earn a degree. I even went to college to make friends but not to find a husband. In fact, at 19-years-old, the idea of meeting someone that I could one day be married to is terrifying. I am attending college in an effort to better myself. I am learning new things every day; in class and in my college community.
Saying that I should only go to college to find a husband shows me that you think that women have less of a right to be at college than men. Let me alert you a few crucial dates in the evolution of women’s education.
The first female professors in the United States were appointed in 1783. The first college degree was given to a woman in the United States in 1831. That means that for at least the last 185 years, women have had the right to attend college and earn a degree for themselves. For these 185 years, women have been fighting for respect and equality, and, in 2016, we should not have to defend ourselves against people like you.
Your statement implies that any degree a woman gets will be worthless since she will only ever work in the home. I understand that your generation was raised with different ideals than mine, but you cannot use that as an excuse to belittle me. Women are every bit as capable of completing any type of degree that they so choose. I know many female science majors that would laugh at you for even suggesting that they are only in college to meet a man; especially because they work so hard, that they hardly ever have time to go out. Heck, my own mother would laugh in your face as she recounted the time her advisor told her “not to worry about choosing a major because by the time you are a junior you will be pregnant and married anyway.” My mother now holds her Master’s degree plus 40 credits.
As a 19-year-old female college student, you telling me that women only go to college to find a husband makes me angry. It upsets me that everything that women have done since the founding of the United States of America has been lost on people like you. It angers me that you only see me as a future wife and an eventual homemaker, not as what I am now. Right now I am a student. Right now I am hard working, Right now, I am a woman, I am in college, and I am not looking for a husband. So while you build houses for a living, I will be here, preparing to be the Editor-in-Chief of Time magazine.
