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Sure, one can get intellectual stimulation from other men, but having an intellectual partner means one can have intellectual stimulation around the clock – if

Sure, one can get intellectual stimulation from other men, but having an intellectual partner means one can have intellectual stimulation around the clock – if you think of something interesting at any hour of the day, you have someone to share it and discuss it with. I value my male friends, but you can't reasonably expect to see them more than a few hours a week, and many gradually fall away as they e.g. get bogged down in childrearing that no longer leaves them time for the intellectual things that once bound us together. Your feeling that the woman won't have time to provide companionship doesn’t necessary hold in this day and age when more and more people doing knowledge work are working remotely, so you might be sitting together most of the day. Also, if one's particular interesting in learning extends to longterm travels, immersing oneself in foreign countries to study the languages or aspects of culture there, your male friends are probably not going to accompany you for more than a brief time. When people go on longterm travels, it is their partners that they rely on for companionship. (That holds, of course, for non-intellectual people traveling, too, as anyone in the bikepacking or overlanding scenes can tell you.) For a bookish person, being in a relationship with a partner who merely has "good qualities", but who doesn't share that basic context, can mean feeling like one is not truly understood and there is a barrier between you. There is nothing worse than being in a relationship yet feeling alone.

ravenstine 5y ago
I agree with most of you're saying, but I don't believe this requires a woman needs a college degree or hold down a "job" to be a good companion or that a college degree likely helps her at all in that context. I would even argue the same for men. The thing I'm arguing for is that it shouldn't be surprising that most men are indifferent to women's college education. Yes, some men on the edge of the bell curve are going to require a woman of a university background. The rest of the time, it doesn't add anything to a man's experience with a woman and can even potentially detract from it.
- shkkmo 5y ago
  A college degree is not at all mandatory (or always sufficient) to be educated. However, people, regardless of gender, that aren't educated just don't tend be that interesting. Do you really want to spend your life with someone your found uninteresting? I personally think that the more educated people a society has, the more interesting people there are to meet.
  - nullc 5y ago
    Of course there are dull people out there but do you think that most people without college degrees are dull? While you were in college all the non-dull non-college people were out there having different life experiences than you-- learning things you don't know about. In many ways education makes us more homogeneous. To an extent this can help make each other seem more interesting because it gives us common language and intellectual frameworks to have discussions, it dispenses with some boring preliminaries. But beyond that point, I think sharing common education makes people actually less interesting, not more.
    - shkkmo 5y ago
      You are very presumptuous and should consider changing your rhetorical style as it is very off-putting. > Of course there are dull people out there but do you think that most people without college degrees are dull I meant precisely what I said. I don't intend to make a broad statistical statement based on my limited personal annecdotes. > While you were in college all the non-dull non-college people were out there having different life experiences than you-- learning things you don't know about. I don't have a college degree. There are many thing I don't know about, which is why I like talking to educated people. > In many ways education makes us more homogeneous. I strongly disagree. ”Education” only creates homogeneity to the degree to which educational institutions focus on indoctrination over education. I strongly support enouraging education for people of all genders, ethnicities, intelligences and socio-economic backgrounds because I think it will make the world a more interesting (and better) place.
    - rdtwo 5y ago
      There is a huge social stigma to non college educated folks. Many feel ostracized and inadequate their while lives even when monetarily they are as or more successful than most college folks.

ravenstine 5y ago

I agree with most of you're saying, but I don't believe this requires a woman needs a college degree or hold down a "job" to be a good companion or that a college degree likely helps her at all in that context. I would even argue the same for men. The thing I'm arguing for is that it shouldn't be surprising that most men are indifferent to women's college education. Yes, some men on the edge of the bell curve are going to require a woman of a university background. The rest of the time, it doesn't add anything to a man's experience with a woman and can even potentially detract from it.

shkkmo 5y ago
A college degree is not at all mandatory (or always sufficient) to be educated. However, people, regardless of gender, that aren't educated just don't tend be that interesting. Do you really want to spend your life with someone your found uninteresting? I personally think that the more educated people a society has, the more interesting people there are to meet.
- nullc 5y ago
  Of course there are dull people out there but do you think that most people without college degrees are dull? While you were in college all the non-dull non-college people were out there having different life experiences than you-- learning things you don't know about. In many ways education makes us more homogeneous. To an extent this can help make each other seem more interesting because it gives us common language and intellectual frameworks to have discussions, it dispenses with some boring preliminaries. But beyond that point, I think sharing common education makes people actually less interesting, not more.
  - shkkmo 5y ago
    You are very presumptuous and should consider changing your rhetorical style as it is very off-putting. > Of course there are dull people out there but do you think that most people without college degrees are dull I meant precisely what I said. I don't intend to make a broad statistical statement based on my limited personal annecdotes. > While you were in college all the non-dull non-college people were out there having different life experiences than you-- learning things you don't know about. I don't have a college degree. There are many thing I don't know about, which is why I like talking to educated people. > In many ways education makes us more homogeneous. I strongly disagree. ”Education” only creates homogeneity to the degree to which educational institutions focus on indoctrination over education. I strongly support enouraging education for people of all genders, ethnicities, intelligences and socio-economic backgrounds because I think it will make the world a more interesting (and better) place.
  - rdtwo 5y ago
    There is a huge social stigma to non college educated folks. Many feel ostracized and inadequate their while lives even when monetarily they are as or more successful than most college folks.