When I spoke to Princeton Mom Susan A. Patton — whose advice to Princeton women to "find a husband" before graduation has gone viral — she bent over backwards explaining why she was "not anti-feminist." In myriad subsequent statements, she defends herself against charges of sexism — but never against elitism. As she dons black-and-orange outfits to discuss the "good judgment and great fortune to marry a classmate," one of "a very limited population … smart or smarter than we are," Patton provides an unusually stark portrait of modern elitism. This is the elitism of meritocracy: a reflexive belief that, not only are the best and brightest at the top, but outsiders are lesser and duller. Everyone else "just isn't as smart," "you will meet men who are your intellectual equal — just not that many of them." Based on these assumptions Patton, the Bronx-raised daughter of immigrants, finds herself promoting marital exclusivity among the elite. And at the same time of year that high school seniors are driving themselves to hysteria over college acceptance and rejection, no less.
Princeton Mom's ostentatious allegiance to a pecking order defined by U.S. News rankings will sound familiar to anyone who, like me, has spent time at an institution as simultaneously enlightening and enraging as Princeton University. Patton matters because she did what the snobs of her social set are too afraid to do in public: speak as they do when they are alone with each other.
Via: Forget Sexism, Princeton Moms Offense Is Raging Elitism
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