Tricky wrote:I was not saying at any point that a lower level of education is a shameful thing. Pardon me for saying so, but that's an argument you are having with nobody but yourself.
I'm sorry, but you are reading too much into my statement that there's nothing "shameful" about what Rosalyn Carter and Barbara Bush chose to do with their lives. I was not making an argument; I was merely stating how I felt about the information I had just presented. You had asked us how we felt about their educational backgrounds. I did not make any assumptions about your reactions (and then proceed to argue with them). I just wanted to make it clear that the choices those women made were fine with me, in case anyone happens to think that I'm liberal elitist scum.
I probably shouldn't have kidded you about "not knowing what you're talking about", and I'm sorry I did that. But for what it's worth, I made that joke because I don't see how you can call the last few Republican First Ladies (and Cindy McCain) "uneducated" if you are familiar with their backgrounds. Prep school and two years of college (Barbara Bush), Masters degrees (Laura Bush, Cindy McCain), and a Bachelors degree followed by a 20-year career in the same field (Nancy Reagan) seem a bit contrary to the assumption that those ladies are "uneducated". You yourself mentioned Elizabeth Dole (Doctor of Law, Senator), and it's also worth pointing out that Joanne Kemp, the wife of Bob Dole's running mate, has a college degree. Other Republican First Ladies prior to Jimmy Carter's presidency had varying levels of education. Betty Ford attended a well-reputed dance school after high school and became a professional dancer and model, so I suppose you could say she had vocational training. Pat Nixon had a Bachelors degree and teaching certificate in merchandising, which was considered the equivalent of a Masters degree. Mamie Eisenhower had a high-school level education from a private school just like most women of her class and background. If you want to look at any Republican First Ladies before that, you'd have to go back to the 1920s to Herbert Hoover and Calvin Coolidge. I can't remember anything about their wives, and that was sort of a different world than the one we live in now, anyway.
Tricky wrote:Anyway, you want to know how my line of thought went once I noticed that difference in education. I wasn't at any point suggesting it was a solid argument, it may well be a coincidence and all. It's just that there's a specific group of men that can feel quite intimidated by intelligent women. I picture these men as dominant and conservative within the household. Conservative in the sense that they probably weren't raised much differently when they were younger.
Since you brought up the issue about men being intimidated by "intelligent women", I wonder if you are calling those women's intelligence into question. I don't think it's fair to judge a person's intelligence by their educational level, and when you look at examples of "well-educated" people like George W. Bush, I think it's clear that even an
MBA from Harvard does not necessarily guarantee the presence of high intelligence and/or intellectual acumen.
Tricky wrote:I don't have much of a sense of what a 'beta family' would be like, where both parents have an academic degree. I wasn't raised in one but I know of people who were. Not many though, so they are probably a bad example. The three I know seem more narcissistic or prone to elitist attitudes than others, but I probably wouldn't even have been friends with them if I wasn't so incredibly charming myself.
Both of my parents have an academic degree, and so do my brother and I. Ever since I was little, I always expected to go to college because I thought that's what "everyone" did and I never had any doubts that I would. I don't think that makes us "special", and my parents would laugh in your face if you called them "elitist". In some respects, they're still a lot like the average American uneducated yokel. I know quite a few of those, and I get along with most of them very well. Perhaps my own charm has something to do with that, but I think it is more accurate to attribute their good will to my own commitment, generosity, and good will.
Tricky wrote:Like I said, not much of a point. Probably moot. But you wanted to know and were accusing me of something that doesn't quite become me.
I hope we got that issue cleared up.
Although I've made the case that most Republican First Ladies in modern times do in fact have a fairly high level of education, there's also something else you can glean from their personal biographies. All of them have stated that one of their greatest desires was to meet a good man, get married, and raise a family. For example, Nancy Reagan was a pretty good actress (the reviewers said that she did very well given the limited material she had to work with, which means that she didn't really have a chance to shine as much as she could have), but she said that her heart was not really in it because she wanted to get married and raise a family. Betty Ford said pretty much the same thing about her dancing and modeling career. Those two women, along with Pat Nixon, Rosalyn Carter, and Barbara Bush are from an earlier generation than Hillary Clinton, Michelle Obama, Sarah Palin, and Cindy McCain. Prior to the 60s and 70s, most women did not try to have both it "both ways" and raise a family and pursue their own career at the same time. A lot of younger women go to work out of necessity these days because it takes two wage-earners to raise a family--times have changed in more ways than one. If their husbands had sufficient income, perhaps many of them would choose not to work. For example, Laura Bush chose to "stay home with the kids" after she got married to the grandson of a Senator, and Joanne Kemp, who married a professional quarterback, does not even have a biography of her own on Wikipedia.
The point I'm trying to make is that educational level is one thing, but a woman's decision about whether or not to pursue a career might actually say more about her. I think in the case of Hillary Clinton, Michelle Obama, Sarah Palin, and Cindy McCain, all of whom have had notable careers of their own even though their husbands (or parents) could have supported them, it says that they are ambitious, modern women who want to raise a family and pursue a career at the same time. That's not easy to do.
