
American culture is based on the automobile, and any young man of promise
is going to own one and want to travel great distances in it.  Consequently,
any young woman of aspiration should expect to spend most of her vacations
in a car, probing into unfamiliar corners.  She is not required to know how
to drive but she will certainly be expected to read the road map while her
husband drives, and if she can't, or if she's abnormally slow in giving him
help, she's bound to cause trouble.  Therefore, you'd think that colleges
which train the bright young women who're going to marry the bright young
men who are going to own the Cadillacs that roar back and forth across this
continent would teach the girls to read maps.  None do. They teach a hundred
other useless things, but never a word about the one that will cause the
greatest friction.
		-- James Michener, "Space"
