Mailvox: the arrogance of the inexperienced

M writes, presumably from campus:

Thank you for educating all of us poor, confused, 20-somethings… I swear that for a few years I had no idea at all of what to do with my so-far-unused womb! I mean, what with getting a college education and dating, I totally took my eye off the ball. I could literally have missed my opportunity to get married at 16, be barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen for a few years, pop out 4 or 5 rugrats, and get divorced and stuck with mouths to feed on no education by 26!

Ooh, a college education! That’s really impressive! These days, it means one is capable of making it through “See Spot Run” without moving one’s lips. I wonder what M’s major might be, Sociology or International Relations? It will make her very employable, I’m sure.

Inexperienced little college girls are tremendously arrogant about the world until they run smack into the reality that they peaked in terms of their attractiveness to men between 18 and 22. It’s all downhill from there, unfortunately, because unlike women, there isn’t a man on the planet who cares that a prospective mate is an executive at HBO or has an MBA from Dartmouth. In fact, many intelligent and successful men would consider those things to be detrimental to any potential relationship.

But don’t take my opinion for it, because it’s worth noting that Maureen Dowd, the noted conservative and male chauvinist, wrote a column expressing her dismay at how men don’t care about women’s career accomplishments just a few months ago.

Meanwhile, RK doesn’t seem to be terribly upset at having missed her chance to pick up a piece of paper before she hit her mid-twenties:

I just wanted to say that I really enjoyed your article ‘Women! Someday Is Today!’. I am a 26-year-old married mother of 3 young children and blessed to be married to my husband. I had originally intended to go the “get-a-business-degree-apartment-living-suit-wearing-independent-woman route” after school, but the Lord made it clear that He had other plans when at 18, I met my husband at a band practice and he courted me with such gusto, I understood his sincere and self sacrificing love for me in a short matter of time. I never would have imagined myself with my husband per se, as he is not what I necessarily envisioned in my head when I was younger – but I did very much admire his mind, his wisdom, his kindness, his gentleness, talent and his strong faith. In a short matter of time, I also came to see him a romantic light. Fourteen months after we met we were married and have been happily so ever since.

I don’t mean to sound self-righteous. I just wanted to emphasize that as a woman, I get so sick of the all too pervasive “Sex In The City” culture that is rapidly ruining the potential for many women out there to be truly healthy in their natural roles and I’m glad you spoke up about it.

And more from the clueless. AQ writes:

I think your views on marriage and women are perhaps the worst things I have ever heard. Please return those ideas to the 50’s where they belong and leave this generation out of it.

The amusing thing is that she probably thinks she’s well-educated. And while she does manage to avoid drooling on herself – as far as I can tell – it will be interesting to see what she makes of the ideologies of which she has never heard that are vying to supplant the Western cultural tradition once the Equalitarian Society runs its inevitable course.

One thing about which Europeans are completely correct is that most Americans, left and right, are shockingly parochial. (The fact that I happen to be a tri-lingual, soccer-playing Europhile elitist doesn’t make this untrue.) I mention this because few Americans are cognizant of the massive difference that a decline in the birthrate from the USA’s near-replacement level 2.0 to Italy’s 1.17 can make. And that, thanks primarily to the priorities of young women like M and AQ, is precisely where America is presently headed. They may not care about the demographic realities now, but they will once they realize that there is no one to pay their social security or to defend them from those who will force them to wear burkahs.

European fatalism in the face of Islamic expansion is much easier to understand once you’ve walked through an Algerian ghetto in Paris or a German ghost town that was once a prosperous village.