Mother-daughter Tigers

I was excited to see Catherine Rampell ’07’s article about mothers and daughters who both went to Princeton (feature, April 6). I was in one of the first classes that included women undergraduates, the Class of 1976. While I don’t have a daughter, I was interested to see how Princeton — and women — have changed since I was at ­Princeton.

Sadly, it seems that despite all our progress over the last 40 years or so, women still are obsessed with clothes and boys! The first two profiles were about what women wore, then and now, and whom they dated, and how they found their husbands! I’m sure that these women did other things besides get dressed and go out on dates.

Luckily, Linda Brantley Bell Blackburn ’71 and her daughter Akira ’95 did talk about academics in their profile, and Arlene Pedovitch ’80 and Rebecca Kaufman ’11 also mentioned other aspects of campus life besides clothes and dating.

I hope this article doesn’t send a message to prospective women ­students that female students at ­Princeton mainly are worried about how they look and whom they are going to marry. You can think about those things anywhere. The reason you should think about going to Princeton is that you will get a first-class education there.