Are you single? This is Susan Patton and she reckons you should blame 'the feminists'.

Calling all the single ladies: if you spent Valentine’s Day this year hanging out with your mates and having a blast, or getting drunk and watching rom-coms while yelling obscenities at the screen – then you’re doing it wrong.

Basically, according to Susan Patton, if you’re not in a relationship now – you’ve already failed.

Yep, Susan Patton – she who wrote the letter in the Daily Princetonian last year, urging ladies to spend their university years finding a husband – is back.

This time, she has gifted the world a Valentine’s themed gospel, urging women to stop concentrating so much on their careers, dammit, and find a man. Also, to stop watching Downton Abbey.

She writes:

Another Valentine’s Day. Another night spent ordering in sushi for one and mooning over “Downton Abbey” reruns. Smarten up, ladies.

Despite all of the focus on professional advancement, for most of you the cornerstone of your future happiness will be the man you marry. But chances are that you haven’t been investing nearly as much energy in planning for your personal happiness as you are planning for your next promotion at work.

What are you waiting for? You’re not getting any younger, but the competition for the men you’d be interested in marrying most definitely is.

Youch.

Patton explains that if you spend your first 10 years out of university focusing on your career (and learning valuable skills that will be with you forever), instead of marrying a man (which has a roughly 50 per cent chance of ending in divorce), then you’re irreversibly ruining your life.

Because if you wait to marry, then once you finally do start looking for a husband, you’ll be in your 30s (GOD FORBID) and competing against women in their 20s.

By this point, of course, your “biological clock will be ticking loud enough to ward off any potential suitors”. And you’ll be screwed.

Now, although Patton does not seem to be troll of Katie Hopkins proportions, the internet predictably responded with a fair amount of mocking.

Slate said that Patton’s piece was, “full of the absurd generalizing, medieval gender roles, Ivy League snobbery, and general wrongheadedness you might expect.”

Alexandra Petri in the Washington Post satirised Patton, writing, “Feminists are covered in lies. I know they say that thing about women needing men like fish needing bicycles, but let me tell you, one time I saw a bicycling fish, and I have never seen a fish look happier… Let’s get real: Every day that passes, you move closer to the grave and your womb shrivels.”

Huffington Post‘s Emma Gray, defended single women the world over, writing, “We single women choose not to define our ultimate worth by our relationship status. Yes, we are single. Yes, we are spending Valentine’s Day without a romantic partner (probably not crying into our takeout sushi). We may or may not feel satisfied with those things. But we are also so, so much more.”

But it’s unlikely that any of this would sway Patton. In her Valentine’s Day dose of “straight talk”, she closes with this gem:

Not all women want marriage or motherhood, but if you do, you have to start listening to your gut and avoid falling for the P.C. feminist line that has misled so many young women for years.

There is nothing incongruous about educated, ambitious women wanting to be wives and mothers. Don’t let anyone tell you that these traditional roles are retrograde; they are perfectly natural and even wonderful. And if you fail to identify “the one” while you’re in college, don’t worry—there’s always graduate school.

By ‘PC feminist line’ I assume Patton means the catchy phrase, ‘a man is not a career plan’. And while I know that many like to claim that feminism, as a movement, is attempting to bring about the end of marriage and/or the world, that’s simply not the case.

In fact, the only one of the 10 Pop-Feminist Commandments that occurred to me after reading Patton’s scripture for single ladies, was the one that reads: Thou shall not waste any time dating a dickhead who is not supportive of your career ambitions, or a man who would rather pursue “less challenging” women.

Feminism hasn’t banned dating. Or outlawed marriage. And I’m pretty sure that it is possible to be married AND have a job. It’s not like the concept is some sort of heretofore unheard of utopian ideal. Having a career and having a marriage are not mutually exclusive states of being.

Yes, both can be challenging. And take a lot of work. And it won’t always be easy. But deciding to put aside your career development until after you’ve successfully got someone to put a ring on it? That won’t make life any easier, either.

Do you think women should be able to concentrate on their careers, while enjoying their romantic life, without having to worry about marriage? Or do you agree and think that modern women don’t place enough importance on finding the right man early on?