The reason women go to university

Gawd... when I went to university I didn't really imagine ever getting married or having children....

I am married (met DH at 29) and pregnant (at 36) but I still don't define myself solely as 'wife' or 'mother-to-be'. There's a lot more to me than that.

Bit much for Boris J to say this when his wife is a barrister (although I am not sure if she still practises - Marina Wheeler).
60% of those going to university are female now.

It is very sexist to say that is why all women go. Most go to study and then to get a good career. Plenty of us would like to be London Major even if we are female. We would ilke to be Prime Minster and own hedge funds. Women can be extremely ambitious and adore money and power. It is sexist to suggest that women want home and hearth and childcare and cleaning and have no interest in succeeding at work.

My husband went to university and found a wife. As many men do.

Or is it irrelevant to their point to consider it that way round?

Factually you are correct, but we are dealing with Boris' mind here...

Nice sidestep though

I met my husband at university- my reason for going is that you need a degree to do my job! He earns less than me, was he looking for a wife?

There's far too many of the great unwashed at university nowadays for that POV surely?

Okay then, instead of getting pissed and dancing at the local nightclub which in truth would be more fun, I choose to invest my £45k in taking up rugby, polo or sailing.

Wuldric you'd need to factor in the cost of moving to a university town if you don't already live in one... Preferably a Russell group one- don't forget Boris' point is mainly totally about type class of man.

Actually, I've just done the maths. For 450 nights out at a local night club, spread over three years, you can have the cost of a university education. You can have a job during this time, because you are only going to be clubbing 1 night in 3.

I really do think I've cracked it.

I think it is very muddled thinking to go to university to bag a man. The costs of a university education are £9k a year for fees and £5k a year for living expenses. Let's just say £45k all-in.

Whereas the cost of a night at a local nightclub, where man-bagging is almost obligatory, are unlikely to be more than £100.

Do the maths

I didn't go to university.

still bagged a man though, Hey Boris? guess I just got lucky

Allegra I don't think there is anything wrong or particularly unusual about what you are saying.

It's Boris and other chauvinists suggesting that that attitude is unique to women that I find abhorrent.

As if men don't do things in the pursuit of women. It is only women out there tricking men into fancying them. Even pretending to like higher education- how implausible! They must be after a man..

FreedomOfTheTess, you don't need to 'imagine' a woman who would go to university to find a husband. I've already said that I did!

Boris is wrong to generalise about women and belittle the meaning of their education but I see a lot of women generalising about each other too! I think I was unusual. I think I was a bit silly - but there we go, let's not in the name of equality try to suggest that women don't/shouldn't have the freedom to do whatever they want - even if what they want is misguided.
Actually finding my husband (at the ripe old age of 28 and not at university) was and remains one of the best things I've ever done. For me - not talking about anyone else - love is what makes the world go round, not academic honours and career success (they're important too but I won't be pressured into pretending they mean more to me than people).

I did meet DH during my last year of university. However I didn't go to university with a plan to find a husband. I can't imagine any woman would.

In a similar vein, I didn't go to university to plan on getting pregnant during my first year, have my then boyfriend do a runner faster than Usain Bolt and end up taking a year out of my studies to have the baby. Things happen though!

I certainly didn't meet DH at university, it was in a completely different country. When I did my MSc I was already married. There was no way I would have found a husband on that course even though it was 95% male. I intimidated the lot of them with my (apparently) effortless acquisition of all the top grades.

Gah!
For me, the worst bit about this kind of comment is that it confirms the (often unconscious) beliefs of many people but is also one of those comments that, when complained about, can easily be dismissed as a joke and the complainer dismissed as over sensitive, humourless etc so it plays into both sexist, anti-female stereotypes and the anti-feminist 'earnest, can't take a bit of fun' stereotype (does that make sense?)

I met DP while doing a PhD.

I do not recommend doing a PhD to find a man.

I do recommend it for getting to use a gender-neutral title on all of your correspondence though :o

but the men who married uni friends, they didn't go to university to "find" their wives?

Boris is being a sexist twat. But I totally let the side down on this one. I'm afraid the truth is that at the tender age of 18, having gone to an all-girls school and struggled to meet boys with whom I had much connection, I most certainly did have men on my mind when I went to university. I wanted to meet like-minded men I could talk about ideas and poetry with and for whom my intelligence would be an attractive quality rather than something to hide. I was also aware that my parents had met at university and so had many of their friends and I felt ready to embark on my own great love affair. I even cited the 'favourable' (ie shocking and disgraceful) male-female ratio at my Oxbridge college as a reason for selecting it. Of course the reality was that most of the entitled (indeed some of them actually titled) public schoolboys I met were as attractive as a dirty nappy and not a lot of them wanted girls to be intelligent or to talk about ideas anyway. Not only did I not meet a husband there but I endured pretty much the worst romantic drought in my life. Of course I'm still glad I went and, even at 18, I knew deep down that the real opportunity I was so privileged to receive was one of education and the freedom to steer my future in a direction that I wanted. I really can't say now how much of the 'I'm looking for a husband' thing was just a joke for me - but I was lonely and I definitely wanted some action. I was enthused about the whole package: the course, the independence but the social side loomed large for me. Don't we all most crave and value what we most struggle to find? I'm a privileged middle class girl. I never had to fight for education like Malala or the millions of girls in developing countries driven out of education by poverty and societal expectations. I didn't know how lucky I was. But I did struggle with boys who made me feel that being clever was a lot less desirable than being pretty and being fancied. I'm not proud of those attitudes - and they've certainly changed now - but teenagers are allowed to get things wrong, aren't they? I think as higher education today is threatened by cuts in funding to once again become the preserve of the wealthy few, modern youngsters seem to have a much more mature take on the whole thing than I did. Globally women's education is so essential to the betterment of mankind but life decisions aren't all about increasing one's personal wealth (although sadly the debts foisted upon this generation of students teach them that that really is all it's about). We are social animals. I think that hoping to meet people you'll click with - intellectually and socially - isn't a terrible reason to pursue HE. But of course Boris is a knob for generalising about women - clearly I was in the minority - and for belittling their intellectual achievements and capabilities. If a few women in the student library are more interested in the man sitting next to them than the book in front of them, I think one thing is undeniable - this isn't restricted to the females! What about the men going to university to meet a wife?

Oh, forgot to say I left school at 16 and still managed to bag a husband, wonder what Boris has to say about me then?

I actually know someone who did just this. Having heard her mother say to my then toddler DDs "what do you want to do when you are bigger?Marry a Rich man" I can't say I was surprised that her DD dropped out when none of her fellow students fancied her.

She is the only person I know who did it though. All my freinds who went to universaty did so to further their own careers, mostly in the fields of engineering or accounting, which are going rather well.

I already had my man at home, but decided to leave him behind and go to university to get myself one of them fancy educations.
We are still together after 26 years - so I needn't have bothered to get a degree!

This is the thing about Boris - we love his buffoonery - but underneath the buffoonery, there's a total twat in waiting.

Well I did marry my uni boyfriend and he does earn more than me.

Wasn't why I went, though. I went to study the subject I loved and still do love! Dh was a nice bonus.

Bugger.

I'm married and doing a BA. Should I divorce DH now?

Gosh.

I am married and doing an MA. Dh may not be impressed. My course is also about 95% female students, so finding a husband could be tricky.

Still, I'm glad he put me straight, silly old me was trying to improve my career pattern.