Getting divorced from the 'MRS degree'

By Ryan Amante

In my experience, most people come to college to learn, to get their degrees, to become successful lawyers or CEOs or doctors or journalists. But there are also some people that go to college to, well, get married. Hence the advent of the infamous "MRS degree."

"I've seen it happen to my own friends' lives," says sophomore Trish Paik. "Their mothers barely made it through high school, and managed to come out of college married to some rich man."

Paik mentioned that one of the reasons she wants to get a degree and succeed so badly is because of her experience with the MRS degree recipients. She and her friends are very aware of that stereotype.

"We joke about that all the time," said Paik. "We say, 'Oh, we have to find our husbands before we drop out of school.' But we're also partially serious."

This is a strange article for me to be writing, considering that most of the women I come in contact with at Santa Clara are intelligent, attractive and ambitious, and their combination of qualities will take them far in the world. In fact, it was at the prompting of two women that embody all of these qualities that I wrote this article.

At the same time, there are women with no other desire than to squeak through college and earn themselves a wealthy husband.

Now, why am I targeting the female sex? No, it isn't because I'm a flat-out sexist. It's because it's a statistical fact that men earn more than women, and that quite a few people in today's world still have the narrow-minded view of men as breadwinners, and women as homemakers.

But blaming perceived gender spheres isn't the solution. All that does is polarize our society into chauvinists and feminists.

The idea of the MRS degree, and sexism in general, didn't emerge because of men who fear the rise of women or feel threatened by change. I think it is more likely that it arose because there continues to be a number of women that fail to disprove the theory.

Let's be honest -- women are in a disadvantaged position in today's society, whether it be in the corporate world, in the military or even in something as simple as walking home alone in the evening. The only way to break negative stereotyping of women, and thus make a better world for women, is to create a different universal image of women.

It's not going to be easy, and no one ever said it would be. Injustice is easily viewable through the issue of sexism, and even if a small percentage of women conform to the stereotype, that's still enough to keep it alive.

Prejudice will not go away through complaint or activism. What has to happen is a universal change in a population's thought.

Sexism should be treated the same way. Feminists of Santa Clara and America, I salute your efforts. However, I do think your efforts could be reallocated in a slightly different manner -- that of teaching your own sex to strive for their greatness, rather than trying to teach everyone else to respect it.

Much like race, it will not be something that can be instantly accepted as change in American society. People must learn to respect a group or a cause enough in order to overcome its disadvantaged state.

Ryan Amante is a sophomore marketing major.