Dismantling the 'Jewish American Princess' Trope
"I’m not sure why this ZBT guy thought I was a 'princess.' Was it because I was an only child, close to my dad, and lived in the suburbs? Or could it just be that I didn't want to go out with him..."
By Debbie Weiss
I was first called a ‘Jewish American Princess’ in 1981 by a fraternity boy at a ZBT party at Stanford University. I’m not sure why he thought I was a princess, but it seemed to be because I was an only child, was close to my dad, and lived in the suburbs. But it might have been because I didn’t want to go out with him.
That was also the party where a girl from my own school, Mills College, sustained injuries after being dunked in a fountain by ZBT members, leading ZBT to be evicted from the Stanford campus. The investigation revealed that ZBT had a tradition of dunking guests who were “unresponsive to the attentions of one or more Zetes.” So judgment was clearly an issue.
I’d read Phillip Roth’s Goodbye Columbus, published in 1959, where he supposedly personified the Jewish American Princess stereotype in the character of Brenda Patimkin, but I never related to Brenda. I wasn’t concerned about getting married, although I’d heard boys joke that girls who went to Mills, which was a women’s college, wanted to get “their M.R.S.” Never mind that going to an all women’s college means that you’re less likely to meet your prospective husband on campus.
I’ve also read that the princess stereotype came about because gentiles were uncomfortable with American Jews’ upward mobility. She embodied the fear that Jewish newcomers were gaining economic power. The princess was a nouveau riche paradigm, materialistic, shallow and, worst of all, mouthy.
But I’ve also read that she was a stereotype that mostly resonated with other Jews. Just being unapologetically Jewish was enough to anger prejudiced gentiles without getting into the nuances of allegedly spoiled young women. Secretly, I liked the princess. She knew what she wanted, she spoke up for herself and, in later incarnations, she was educated and ambitious.
I even used the phrase to refer to myself, joking “What does a Jewish American Princess make for dinner?” — since I wasn’t into cooking. The answer is “Reservations.” But why should a princess have to cook? Just because she’s a girl?
I’m guessing that the old jokes about the princess being disinterested in sex were written by the boys she’d rejected. They seemed to originate from the same tradition as the ZBT boys’ dunking girls who’d “refused their attentions.” Clearly, discerning young women deserve to be punished.
I thought a lot about the Jewish American Princess stereotype when I started dating again in 2014 as a 50-year-old widow. George, my high school sweetheart and partner of 32 years, had been gone for over a year, and I still missed him beyond description. But I was tired of eating dinner alone every night, so I joined J-Date, the self-proclaimed premier Jewish dating site, in search of my second bashert.
Not having dated since 1980 as a high school junior, I was completely unprepared for what passed for modern dating. Back then, at least in my small Northern California town, if a boy wanted to ask you out, he called in advance, offered an activity he thought you’d both enjoy, and often showed up wearing a sweater his mom had picked out. He made sure you got home safely.
When I started dating again, I didn’t expect things to be that different. The product of a long marriage, I considered myself a feasible candidate for a second love. My online profile was upbeat, not overly long, and full of Google-approved words like “friends” and “family.” I even used professional, but not overly retouched, photos after listening to a Ted Talk by a woman who found her husband online using the mantra: “men are visual.”
Then I started meeting the actual men.
My first dinner date was with a cute mortgage broker, an Alec Baldwin lookalike with a gym fixation. We went for a romantic dinner and walk through downtown San Francisco holding hands, returning to my place afterward to sit by the fire.
But just as I was anticipating my first real kiss post-widowhood, he launched into a monologue about the hot ex-girlfriend who’d ruined his life. Worse, she was apparently one of several. His ending salvo, “As a widow, I knew you’d understand pain.” Professional pictures aside, I’d never realized that was my main selling point.
Odder still, when I turned down a second date, he became angry — despite acknowledging that other women had also complained about his obsession with his exes. He ranted about my alleged transgressions, from failing to offer him refreshments to not being adequately sympathetic about his past. Notably, he did not take responsibility for turning our date into a eulogy to his poor romantic choices.
My next prospect was a wealthy artist with anger management problems who told me I reminded him of his emotionally withholding mother. He too complained about my perceived faults — I was apparently failing at meal preparation and picking up the check – yet appeared surprised when I didn’t want to see him again. Then again, who wants to hang out with someone who yells at you?
Eventually, I went off J-Date and tried some other sites, but my dating life didn’t improve. Chivalry was not only dead, it had taken courtesy with it.
So I received last-minute offers to meet at some guy’s local watering hole that night or asked when I might be passing by their way. Or some guy I’d just met was already sniffing around my bikini line even though my profile clearly stated I was looking for a long-term commitment. "C'mon over and hot tub" is not a good offer for a second date.
Perhaps because I was a long-married widow with little experience, many guys seemed to think I could be manipulated, from agreeing to ill-defined relationships to paying for things I never asked for to settling for minimal scraps of time and lots of ego. My own mantra became: “I’m a widow, but I’m not a moron.”
In this environment, being a princess seemed like a good thing. Princesses don’t have to settle for toads. Nor are they obligated to stroke toads’ egos. Even if the princess in question is a middle-aged widow who’s supposed to be grateful for any iota of male attention.
The Jewish American Princess may be a trope created by the men who didn’t measure up. But speaking up about badly behaved boys shouldn’t get us thrown into fountains.
DEBBIE WEISS is a former lawyer, essayist, and the author of Available As Is: A Midlife Widow's Search for Love.
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