The Taming of the Shrew vs. The M.R.S and the PH.D.

Posted on February 16, 2012 by trudy.ochere

The parallels between “The Taming of The Shrew” and “The M.R.S. and the Ph. D.” is very interesting because even though the women were to be married, Baptista still employed school masters to provide some level of education to the women. Also, though the article states that over time, men have evolved to desire a highly educated woman, it never points out the fact that most women with college degrees are forced to put their career on hold in order to raise a family. This leads me to
me to question, do men just want a women with a certain level of education so that she can hold her own in a conversation with him and his peers? Or do men believe that having an educated wife is a reflection of who they are? Both Bianca and Katherine are provided lessons in Latin and taught how to play musical instruments, being as they were both destined to marry one way or another, does it not make it appear as though they were provided education so they could entertain and carry a decent conversation with their husband and his peers? In today’s society, even though men rate the importance of education higher than they did in the past, do they actually encourage their wife’s to pursue their professional career and become high earning CEO’s? Or does the average man want a smart wife who will be a good reflection of him to his family, friends and co-workers? Even though there are some families in which both partners have their own degrees, careers and also equally share the household chores, the average family today has a wife and husband both with college degrees and yet the husband is the main bread winner whereas the wife is more of a home maker. Having a degree and using it are two completely different things. Most of the women getting divorced today have a bachelor’s degree and yet with no work experience they are realizing that it is hard to obtain employment in the field they have their degree in. Why is it the woman who always has to put her career on hold in order to maintain the home and raise the children? So yes, the average man do now seek higher educated women and yet he stills expects his wives to cook clean, keep the children clean and run to embrace him when he comes home from work and yells out “I’m home dear.”… (While her college degree collects dust in the attic or hangs on the wall)

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5 Responses to The Taming of the Shrew vs. The M.R.S and the PH.D.

  1. EAllen says:
    February 17, 2012 at 4:35 pm

    I see that this article’s view of women’s education success leaves you a bit restive, since you don’t see the world around as being particularly egalitarian, or particularly respectful of female education. You write “the average family today has a wife and husband both with college degrees and yet the husband is the main bread winner whereas the wife is more of a home maker. ”

    However, the Stephanie Coontz article, which you never cite from — and do remember that you need to cite from the texts you’re commenting on in your blog posts — contests some of the stereotypes you allude to: “In a forthcoming paper from the Council on Contemporary Families, Oriel Sullivan, a researcher at Oxford University, reports that the higher a woman’s human capital in relation to her husband — measured by her educational resources and earnings potential — the more help with housework she actually gets from her mate. The degree to which housework is shared is now one of the two most important predictors of a woman’s marital satisfaction.”

    I’m not so sure that your idea of the “average” family really holds any longer in this country. Have a look at this Times article on the “Reverse Gender Gap,” by my friend Luisita Torregrosa, which came out in December: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/14/us/14iht-letter14.html

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