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"
