The normativity of Ivy love: The things we are not told, but taught

Susan Patton’s letter to the “young women of Princeton,” like most unapologetic assertions of privilege, has made many a liberal squeamish.

Some have repudiated her advice as elitist and sexist, while others have called Patton a mere pragmatist: If an Ivy student wants to find her match in status, power and perhaps intellect, he probably lurks somewhere between the empty stench of hook-up culture and a heftily diversified portfolio.

As Patton writes, “For most of you, the cornerstone of your future and happiness will be inextricably linked to the man you marry, and you will never again have this concentration of men who are worthy of you.”

For most of you.

This seemingly benign qualifier is the piece’s most damning phrase, revealing a worldview that excludes not only some individuals but any alternatives to what people like Patton consider happy partnerships and happy futures.

It excludes a future of nonmarital partners, female partners, younger partners, poorer partners, multiple partners or no partners. In fact, the only future it sanctions is that of straight, rich, white American power coupledom — with the scattered tolerance of a few deviations, so long as they are assimilated into the broader structure.

Patton makes her claim based on the supposition that there are “things that you need that nobody is addressing,” namely, a trusty friend and worthy husband. Right. Because joining a sorority doesn’t imply making lifelong gal pals. Which doesn’t mean going to mixers, meeting the frat boy of our dreams, getting married, having baby geniuses and living wealthily ever after.

Of course, this is a caricature — all relationships are complex. But this is precisely what’s not being addressed: the complexity of a more diverse range of polarities. With their hegemony over ideas and politics, people like Patton aren’t merely assisting us with our life path — they’re institutionalizing it. Her letter isn’t so much about pointing out the obvious than about perpetuating it.

Some are resisting this trend, raising questions, coming together over shared views, acting with conviction, calling on others to join the cause, both in theory and in practice, in mind and body alike.

Indeed, this is the very power Patton chooses not to acknowledge — that even in the privileged playpens of the Ivy League, even if we’ve made great gains in reclaiming our vaginas, our bodies are still sites of contestation, be it when they’re rated by frat brothers while traversing Locust Walk or while following the golden boys to their socials, trading sex for status, possibly yearning for companionship in the longer run, learning quickly that such longings are often elusive desires.

Because, in this system that Patton upholds, we aren’t selecting mates in some unilateral chase. Nor, as the deliberative democratic counterargument would go, does power lie in some bilateral consensus. In reality, oftentimes we’re numbers, like those with which we’re rated, like those we may end up crunching for the banks at which we are encouraged to matriculate.

Ironically, this special location in capital spurs us to identify with the status of prime numbers, hotshots, leaders — leaders, nonetheless, of the norm. Which makes Patton such an appealing role model. She’s a normal case of elite white class privilege, a normativist looking out for all us “daughters” of hers striving to replicate the elite pedigree.

As an alumna and intended heir of this track, here’s my response to Mother Susan: I reckon she’d be fine with one or two gay daughters. Perhaps she’d even champion them as freakish others who can be neutered by the normal. But what if more of us increasingly rejected her traditional views of happiness?

Ladies, let’s use the skills we’ve cultivated in our formal educations to challenge the messages with which we are constantly reified, which are never addressed but pervasively implied. Let’s ride the lesbian continuum — explore a friend’s body, stand in solidarity with a worker demanding her rights, decline the courting attempts of an on-campus recruiter, read some Nina Power, Adrienne Rich, Audre Lorde and the like.

Because, despite Patton’s unspoken agenda, to be queer isn’t to be the odd girl out. To be queer is to think and act critically — to not let anyone dictate what this means for us. It’s to feel that the normal order, as it is continued to be defined for us, represses most of us, mainly for the end of maintaining a hierarchy of power — one enjoyed by the few whom Patton and her circles hope we will become, the few whom they believe are the proper women we should become.

Nantina Vgontzas is a 2011 College graduate. Her email address is nvgontzas@gmail.com.

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