My latest: I went inside Turning Point USA's conference for conservative young women
— Madeline Peltz (@peltzmadeline) June 18, 2025
To get a sense of what I saw, watch this video of Charlie Kirk telling a 14-year-old in braces that she should only go to college to get an "MRS degree"
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And I don't think you can ignore the smile that broke out on that girl's face at 0:30. You can want more than one thing, and you don't have to pretend to yourself that you don't want those things that are not your career.
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I am certain you can also find tape of Kirk advising boys not to go to college, because they'd have a better life in so many ways if they went to trade school, apprenticeships, enlisted military, etc. And there's even indirect reference to that in this clip. So it's not like he's saying college boys do serious academics, while college girls look for husbands.
There is kind of a logical flaw, though: what do either the boy or girl do after four years when they have a spouse and no useful skills?
JSM
Given that around half of all who enter college will drop out without a degree (all colleges; more graduate from the elite/competitive group), what's the harm in using college as a dating filter? People select schools based on interests, ideologies, income, and grades -- colleges can have the most homogeneous culture one will ever encounter in life.
Colleges have always attracted dilettantes and wishful thinkers with no viable career path. And today, some colleges and degree programs have become female-heavy social clubs and convents. The MRS degree is a step up from that.
The MRS degree stands a chance if it brings women next to men who want actual careers and who want to be with them. I doubt whether many (anxiety-producing, doom-and-gloom ideology-heavy) colleges do that today, especially with woman-focused degree programs that feed their natural anxieties.
It doesn't help that the left's obsession with free money for students corrupts both the schools and the students -- saddling the students with mountains of debt for useless degrees because the $500K admins, alumni association directors, and DEI officers want more more more money.
Send them all to trade schools?
Today we'd have to call it a Ms. degree and women have that already.
I don't think he said only.
The first thing she will learn in her political journalism class is to misquote what people said and take accurate quotes out of context.
I'll repeat something I've said before in these comments. Every generation is shocked to find the following generation(s) have different values, dreams, and aspirations than they do.
i've noticed,
NOTHING angers women more, than seeing other women happy.
Mean Girls was a documentary
He’s right. That was true even at Creighton. I met my wife in college and she’s a doctor. Mrs. Doctor.
The author has spent the bulk of her young career as a 'researcher' for Media Matters. She is a muckraker for the muckiest of rakers in that cadre of bottom feeders known as 'journalists'.
And here's what she doesn't know yet, but will come to learn.
We, as a nation, are getting married less, and having fewer babies. I'm sure she thinks thats great and according to plan right now, but when she gets older and there are fewer people to pay into social security or tend to her needs in basic daily services, well...she may wonder where all the young people went.
But more than that. She's of a generation of women who are getting to middle age in a miserable state. They see their lives getting lonelier, their jobs plateauing, their friends either married or boring at this point as all that is left is work or going out to the bars again and God...who wants to do that anymore?
And so she'll be an angry middle aged woman, living along with a cat. And it'll be Charlie Kirk's fault. And that of other smiling conservatives. Because as we all know, conservatives are typically happier, more optimistic people. Progressives are miserable by design.
Sororities and fraternities used to funnel young people toward each other. Getting pinned was a big event. But now KKG lets transwomen join and sit in the front room with a stiffie.
I don't mind girls seeking an MRS degree, I just don't know how they go about getting one. There is another person involved in the decision, after all, and mostly he doesn't attend college anymore.
Enigma said...
"around half of all who enter college will drop out without a degree"
and WHAT is the ONLY thing Worse, than becoming deeply in debt to get a "useless" degree?
becoming deeply in debt and NOT getting a "useless" degree.
Of course, if you stipulate, that THE POINT of college is to provide money and jobs for colleges and administrators; then you'll see that It Just DOESN'T Matter if the stupid little kids get their stupid little degrees, or not.
College is a SCAM.
43% of all first time marriages end in divorce. Second and third marriages actually fail at a far higher rate, though, with 60% of second marriages and 73% of third marriages ending in divorce. I would advise any young woman to obtain an education and skill set to be able to financially support herself.
Worth noting: Charlie Kirk is a dropout. I think there’s a little projection in there.
Charlie Kirk thinks little girls just want to go to college to find a husband. It is baffling Charlie Kirk even has an audience
“You can want more than one thing, and you don't have to pretend to yourself that you don't want those things that are not your career. “
I wish I had had those words when my daughter was 14.
I want to encourage my daughters to think that way when they head to university given the struggles people have dating today. Work hard to find a desirable partner when you are in that crucible, where many others are trying as well.
Girls hobble themselves by their common insistence on enabling bad boy culture. It takes them to long to understand that this is a side track that is going nowhere.
Every generation is shocked to find the following generation(s) have different values, dreams, and aspirations than they do.
I think it might be just as true that every generation is shocked when, over time, it finds itself gravitating to the dreams, values, and aspirations of the previous generation.
Didn't Gruesome Newsum talk to Charlie Kirk/pod-cast/interview?
Oh no Kak - cooties!
I had to google MRS degree.
One thing is for sure - potential husbands should not be looking for wives on most American campuses.
Charlie Kirk thinks little girls just want to go to college to find a husband.
Madeline Peltz, is that you?
lonejustice @6:43, seems to me your divorce stats might be a symptom rather than a stand-alone.
Yes, certainly young people should take care of themselves and ensure that they can keep doing so - that's wise regardless of whether you're also looking at your post-high school years as a marriage market. But a healthy understanding that marriage is about more than "being in love" would probably provide some insurance against divorce (she says as someone whose brief youthful marriage lasted just two years).
Well, I've been told that one cool thing about the MRS degree is that it often leads to the graduate version, the GMA...pronounced "Grandma!" by a lot of tiny, excited faces.
"Mean Girls was a documentary."
Mean Girls actually WAS a non-fiction book, which Tina Fey read, recognized for its comic potential, and bought the film rights to.
When it comes to divorce stats, remember that they're an aggregate. A Harry James who marries eight times plus eight marriages that last a lifetime makes up a 50 percent failure rate.
And some women don't need encouragement to get their MRS. My son went to college and met at least one woman who achieved her goal.
I think the biggest shock is that each generation, if they're smart and observant, realize that previous generation's restrictions were there for a reason, and the promotion of pleasure for its own sake is a recipe for future disaster.
Joeblow (AKA Josephbleau...very cool), I think your mention of bad boy culture merits a lot more attention. It continues to amaze me how so many intelligent, accomplished, beautiful women are hopelessly and perpetually addicted to "bad boys". Even after becoming fully aware of it, whether through therapy, multiple ugly breakups, beatings, or family interventions. They seem unable to stop themselves from pursuing that attraction.
That's another conversation that should be covered with your 14-year-old. Make that with your 10-year-old in today's culture.
As you can see, it's not just my take that progressives are the most miserable people in any room. And the beauty is, they cannot understand how other people can be happy when they are so miserable. Be happy.
One very real sort of "Mrs degree" is when it facilitates social-intellectual sorting. Compatible people get the chance to find each other. Our daughter, the spacegirl, found her whiz graphics engineer beaux there.
Seriously, if I were in college now I'd seek out the College Republicans, or Turning Point USA. Excellent place to find True Love! And always short on women.
My Dr also has a Mrs certification and native children.
Worth noting: Charlie Kirk is a dropout.
No. It's not worth noting. It's an irrelevant fact. It's a monkey wrench intended to disrupt the discussion. It's a Leftist tactic to imply something untoward without saying it. It tells me you're envious of Kirk and his influence.
But I'm sure the multi-million dollar income makes Charlie happy with his decision. Us conservatives are generally happier people anyway, uninterested in throwing monkey wrenches into Democrat discussions.
Kaka Phony said: “ Charlie Kirk thinks little girls just want to go to college to find a husband.”
Make me laugh. There’s only one person of note who thinks about “ little girls”. That would be Sniffer Joe.
Maybe Kirk is merely trying to revive the deliberately suppressed assumption that marriage and family is the central component of a woman’s successful life script. I have known many young women, friends of my kids, who have sheepishly confessed to me their desire for marriage and family, as if it were something that could not be said aloud. What a disservice we do to them.
Maybe Kirk is merely trying to revive the deliberately suppressed assumption that marriage and family is the central component of a woman’s successful life script. I have known many young women, friends of my kids, who have sheepishly confessed to me their desire for marriage and family, as if it were something that could not be said aloud. What a disservice we do to them.
"I don't think he said only. And I don't think you can ignore the smile that broke out on that girl's face" Althouse being reasonable. Which nicely contrasts with actual prog "reporting": of course you want to stress "only" and of course you can ignore the smile. To be expected, but nonetheless another useful data point: even something quite minor, with a publicly visible record, they distort.
Meeting people might be easier at a smaller school.
“ A prevalent myth about divorce rates in the U.S. suggests that 50% of first marriages, 67% of second marriages, and 73% of third marriages end in divorce.
However, these statistics are not based on any verifiable data, and their origins are untraceable, as highlighted in Shaunti Feldhahn's book The Good News About Marriage.
This misleading information has been widely quoted, including in reputable sources like Psychology Today and Forbes. It is important to acknowledge that these figures are inaccurate and should not be perpetuated.”
https://divorce.com/blog/divorce-statistics/
He's exactly right on the Mrs. degree. I remember being counseled by much more mature guys in the dorm Hall that cautioned about women who were just looking to get their Mrs degree. We got married after my junior year in college. She had to drop out during her year because our son was born. What Kirk is fatally wrong about how serious it is to highly educate our girls. Your children's intelligence depends much more greatly on the mother's intelligence. He has the look of a frat boy who likes the girls majoring in speech and communications.
The absolute hugest advantage to being young parents is that you have the opportunity to be a young grandparents and if you do the math you figure out you get to spend more time on this planet with the people that actually count. This is why I wholeheartedly agree in the Mrs degree
Charlie Kirk is a dropout...
Well, so was I. Then I worked for 3 years, clerical and at a tech startup, then went back for an EECS degree.
So was my son, who took three tries to get a degree, and is now working in that field.
My daughter, who finished a science degree in four years, was seriously injured by the experience.
So what should I conclude from this?
The divorce rate has been steadily dropping for years, with the current rate being around 2.5 per 1,000.
The highest divorce rates are found among the Me Generation; younger generations have lower rates. Younger generations are more cautious about getting married, getting married at a later age, or not at all.
https://stories.avvo.com/relationships/divorce/numbers-breakdown-divorce-generation.html
My view might be influenced having experienced college life at UC Santa Barbara who attracted the most intelligent, beautiful athletic and outdoorsy girls from northern and southern California.
As newly minted Marine Corps Second Lieutenants just starting flight school in Pensacola, the senior Marine officer at the training command (Pat Conroy’s father) told us, in a basement room with a concrete floor painted enamel green, that the best way to meet wife material girls was to go to a local church. We were instructed to save money on dates with those girls by splitting a meal at McDonalds and going to the NAS base movie theater which, he said, cost $.25 for a ticket.
For a bird Colonel with a distinguished career with a DFC and an Air Medal, the Great Santini was remarkably tubby as he impressed upon us parsimony and dating church girls. At the time, it didn’t strike me as a way to get laid, but maybe I should have tried it.
- Krumhorn
Women have more or less total freedom these days. Want to focus on your career now and get married later. OK. Want to get a MRS degree now. OK. Want to stay single and be a cat lady. OK.
But ultimately, society will have to do something when women are only averaging 1.6 or 1.0 (south korea) child each. Because you can't keep a country going with that sort of birth rate.
Freeman Hunt said...
“Meeting people might be easier at a smaller school.”
I attended both the University of Cincinnati (40+k undergrads and 13+k postgrads as of this year) and Xavier University (5.5k undergrads, 600 post), and it was a lot easier to meet people at XU. OTOH, UC had a much more prominent Fraternity/Sorority system than XU, which may have impacted social connections. I was a commuter at both schools, so that also had a significant negative impact on my socializing with my fellow students.
Statistically -- women continue to outnumber men in college enrollment and graduation....
'The enrollment gap reflects a gender difference both in high school graduation rates and the percentage of high school graduates who go on to college.'
https://nces.ed.gov/ipeds/use-the-data
There is a Mrs degree, a Miss preparatory degree, a Ms ambiguity, a Mx degree with social progress, and an IR (immigration reform) degree to do the work that Americans are unwilling to do at a lower price.
The cynical male teenager in me says that now is a good time for a guy to study math in college, specifically, ratios.
I find it funny that saying something like this is controversial considering that's precisely what so many of her generational feminista forebears started going to college for decades ago to begin with.
It wasn't just for an education, it's because that used to be where the boys were.
A huge SEC school strikes me as one of the harder places to meet someone. I wonder where Kirk got this idea. But then, I wonder where he got a lot of his ideas.
Ha, that's funny. Back when I was in college, 70-75, one of my friends was a really pretty, and very rich, Jewish girl (the kind of pretty regular guys can be friends with because they're so far out of their league). I asked her why she was going to U Houston instead of one of the Ivy League schools. She said "I'm not going to waste my trust fun on college when all I'm really doing is working on my M R S degrees." Julie was always amusing and fun to talk to.
This is Charlie Kirk's MAGA. College is primarily valuable to young women because it’s a great place to look for a husband.
Kakistocracy said...
... It is baffling Charlie Kirk even has an audience
A closed mind will do this. An open mind would ask, "Why does Charlie Kirk have an audience?"
its sensible advice, so it won't be considered,
a good time for a guy to study math in college, specifically, ratios.
That's a cyanide... snide remark in light of progress, perchance liberalization of Planned Matrimonyhood under Democratic law.
Make no mistake, boys go to college with a similar ambition: learning, dating, marriage with children are a life fulfilled.
Met my wife in college. She didn't attend primarily for an Mrs. degree, but after undergrad and an MBA (again, we attended together), she was happy to work for ~10 years and then retire to raise our family. Dual degrees: Mrs. and MOM.
An MRS degree is better for society than a DEI one.
It's a funny thing about the MAGA movement though something I never would have expected, you see guys like Charlie Kirk and he gives off this really weird Dobie Gillis vibe, like the 50's are coming back or something, a feeling strangely reminiscent of Back to the Future.
"Statistically -- women continue to outnumber men in college enrollment and graduation...."
When it was the reverse, it was a crisis, and a lot of energy and money was put into fixing it, but now a sex-based discrimination is a good thing, because of a sexism that's more institutional and damaging than the original flavor, but that's the long running M.O. of progressivism. Don't level things. Discriminate different. Solve a problem with a new problem.
It would be nice if universities actually supported young marriage and childbearing. Not even the so-called Catholic universities do it. The Mormons seem to manage it.
It wouldn't take much. College is already the most flexible time of one's life. A student couple could plan their classes so that one or the other is always available to take care of the kids. All the university would have to do is make more married-student housing available, either in dorms or by charging low rent in some of the civilian apartment buildings they all own. Maybe some legacy-style admissions for student spouses, too, so they don't have to choose which one's career to put first.
JSM
"I remember being counseled by much more mature guys in the dorm Hall that cautioned about women who were just looking to get their Mrs degree."
They were called the Highway 101 Debs in Santa Barbara.
I met the woman I should have married my freshman year of college. The only problem was that I was a dumb fuck at age 18 and messed up the most important decision in my entire life.
I'm with you Yancey. Especially in the era of Dolphin shorts and Ditto hip huggers.
It's happened to many of us Yancey, in my case several. God gave man a penis and a brain and not enough blood to run both at the same time, per Robin Williams..Ain't that the damn truth.
Even after you link up with forever, you still think about those few that got away.
My single 31 yr old daughter mightily wishes she had landed a husband in college, when she was surrounded by men of good quality that she disregarded for what she belatedly realizes were stupid, self-centered, superficial reasons.
There was a time when most people would meet their spouses at school or at work. But times have changes and now most people meet their spouses online.
Especially in the era of Dolphin shorts and Ditto hip huggers.
Oh. Yeah. Dolphin shorts on a pretty young woman of athletic inclinations and proportions....oh my. I well remember convincing a few to remove them.
Those were the days, my friend, we thought they'd never end.....
I for one wouldn't advise anyone to spend thousands of $$$s (and foregoing possible earnings) to find a spouse, if it results in a useless degree. Kind of a mild form of "If you go to war you'll make friends for life!"
I am a bit skeptical that he just says these things to get more clicks and screen time. His brand is catering to the crass, petulant, emotionally fragile and stunted MAGA young male.
They are told if they have money/power they can do whatever they want to women and that having compassion or empathy is "woke".
Charlie Kirk isn't very articulate or interesting to me. But the motives for going to college are. He's speaking, rather stupidly, about college only as a social life.
You can go to a crappy, leftist college and still get a good education. Even the navigating needed to do this is useful in itself. College is useful in gaining insights deeper than one-night stands into the men and women you meet. It reveals character and work ethic and values. It imparts appreciation for Western Civilization, maybe even more so if you have to fight to get it.
You want these things to pass on to your own children. You want to be prepared for unexpected crises that may force one spouse or the other to take on the role of bread-earner. You want to tap into the wisdom of the ages, and you may also want to find a compatible husband and also persue a career. What's wrong with any of this? Only slapping a reactionary label on it.
Tina might be right about Kirk being shallow, however he was instrumental in Garnering the youth vote for Trump.
With Tina Trent 100%.
Also, these young people should probably be asking for life advice from someone else, especially concerning college, something Kirk doesn't know anything about.
Feminists told women that going to college, getting a degree and competing with men in the workplace would make them happy and fulfilled.
Judging from public opinion surveys, that has not been the case. Women seem more miserable than ever, and the further left they are politically, the more unhappy they seem.
To be sure, it's not just feminism and the workplace making them miserable. :Social justice" and the sort of media they seem to prefer consuming (Sex in the City, etc.) have a big hand as well.
But the end result of all this, and hypergamy, is that what women actually succeeded in doing was radically shrink the pool of men they find as acceptable mates. Survey after survey shows that women want educated men that earn than themselves, are taller than them, and, oh yeah, now they have to be woke.
All this is a recipe for unhappiness for most of them.
To be sure, there are a range of woman, from Madam Currie to Ayn Rand Helen Gurley Brown, who would likely not be more fulfilled by marriage and children than their careers.
But there is a much vaster number of women who would almost certainly be happier and more fulfilled by the path that feminists decried as "letting women down" than the lonely one they're on now.
Met the wife at work, and then she quit work (her choice) and has not gone back to work. No choice for me. Put on the Big Boy pants and go to work all the damn time. Women have more options.
Ah, Ye Olde MRS degree. If you've attended one of the 5 service academies, or any of the other military colleges in the US, no longer all male bastions but mostly male bastions, you're quite familiar with women seeking that degree. And as a male, you have a pretty good selection to choose from.
Choose wisely.
A lot of, as in a LOT of, enlisted women from Small Town USA are looking for that in their first and only enlistment- figuring the supply of good men they're going to find is going to be better there then in Podunk. Again- choose wisely. That applies there to the seeker and the sought after.
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