"The essence of Vassar is mythic. Today, despite much competition, it still figures in the public mind as the archetypal woman's college. […] It signifies a certain je ne sais quoi; a whiff of luxury and the ineffable; plain thinking and high living. […] For different people, in fact, at different periods, Vassar can stand for whatever is felt to be wrong with the modern female: humanism, atheism, Communism, short skirts, cigarettes, psychiatry, votes for women, free love, intellectualism. Pre-eminently among American college women, the Vassar girl is thought of as carrying a banner. The inscription on it varies with the era or with the ideas of the beholder and in the final sense does not matter — the flushed cheek and tensed arm are what count."
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Novelists from the United StatesWomen authors from the United StatesCritics from the United StatesWomen academics from the United StatesPlaywrights from the United States
Original Language: English
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"The Vassar Girl", pp. 195–196. First published in Holiday (May 1951)
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Mary_McCarthy
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Mary McCarthy
Mary Therese McCarthy (21 June 1912 – 25 October 1989) was an American author and critic.
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