Caroline Currier, a junior writing major, recently wrote an article titled, “Oh The Woes of Being a TCU Girl”, which provided a “reason” for why so many women on campus cannot find mates among the male student population.

Currier began working as an intern last summer for “The Odyssey”, a news source for members of the Greek community around the country.

The article began by saying, “at some point in every TCU girl’s 4 years of college, she has have (sic) stopped, looked around a party or a bar, and thought to herself, ‘Where are all of the guys?’”

Currier’s article asserts that being single on campus is “due to statistics,” because there are far more females than males.

Currier also wrote, “another factor that affects the view of the uneven male and female population on TCU’s campus is the uneven ratio of attractive females to attractive males.”

“In ‘TCU land,’ the increment of 3 is added to the ‘attractiveness’ ranking of every male, while it is subtracted from the ranking of every female,” Currier wrote.

“For instance, if a male is a 5 in real life, they are considered an 8 on TCU’s campus. This is what us girls call ‘TCU cute’…On the other hand, if a female is an 8 in real life, she is considered a 5 at TCU,” she wrote.

Currier spoke directly to male TCU students in the article’s conclusion.

Currier wrote, “You will never again be surrounded by so many beautiful women. Take advantage of these ridiculous odds, because after your four short years at TCU, most of you will be docked 3 points again, and for us girls, well—we will win an addition of 3 points for the rest of our lives. Who’s laughing now?”

The article was posted Thursday afternoon and, within hours, Currier said she was already receiving emails and texts messages from her male friends jokingly asking her what their “attractiveness” rating was.

Quinton Gregory, a senior philosophy and English major, said he discussed and joked about the article with his friends late Thursday night. Gregory said at 2 a.m. the next morning, he rolled out of bed and drafted his response to Currier’s article, titled, “Oh, The Woes of Being a TCU Boy…”

Gregory’s response mocked Currier’s logic in her article, which subsequently went viral. Gregory wrote in an email that he wrote the response “to point out how ridiculous “The Odyssey” article was.”

Gregory said his response did not have a malicious intent.

“What I really hoped everyone would understand is that I didn’t mean a single word of what I wrote,” Gregory wrote in an email. “I think [Currier’s] article did have a good message; it just got a little buried in her rant about guys. The girls at TCU are generally pretty phenomenal, not just in looks, and I appreciate that she tried to reassure them of that. And again, if you took anything I wrote seriously…stop it.”

Many students took to other social media to weigh-in on the articles.

Alana Harp, a senior biology major, felt Currier’s article was degrading toward the TCU female student population.

“I actually have priorities higher than finding a ‘mate’ to settle down with in college. I am in college to get a degree, not a husband,” Harp said. “The entire article assumes that all of the student body is obnoxiously superficial, but hey, apparently we don’t need to use our brains if all we are looking for out of college is a mate.”

A large point of contention in Currier’s article was the “Rule of Three”, which claims that a person’s “level” of attractiveness would go up or down depending on whether they were female or male.

Currier said the “Rule of Three” was a matter of supply and demand.

“Because there are fewer men on TCU’s campus, they are extremely valuable. That is where the extra three points of quality derive,” she said. “On the other hand, when there is such an abundant supply of women…they lose ‘value.’”

Elliot Trejo, a senior strategic communications major, brought up what he believes to be an important point in the controversial discussion. Trejo said he felt that the assertions made in Currier’s article about the male TCU students were unfair.

“I think the problem is that there’s that double standard. A girl can talk badly about guys, but when a guy does it, [they’re] a jerk,” Trejo said.

Roberto Herodier, a junior finance major, disagreed with Currier’s article. Herodier said attractiveness is based on perception and it cannot be objectively analyzed in the way Currier’s article attempted to.

Herodier said if women at TCU are looking for mates in the way Currier’s article claims, “The DFW area is larger than the TCU bubble so maybe exploring areas that are not West Berry and Bottom on the weekends would be good for girls to find guys, if that’s what they’re looking for.”

Currier said she is still in shock by the amount of responses to her article. She said that as of Sunday, the article had received over 20,000 views.

Currier said she has received a mixed response from readers, including a lot of “hate mail”. However, many TCU students have personally reached out to her to show their support of her article.

Joseph Tumminello, a junior finance major, said that both Currier’s and Gregory’s articles were well written, given the context.

“I do not believe [Currier’s] opinions were meant to attack either gender,” Tumminello wrote via email. Tumminello wrote that Quinton’s response was a “satirical rebuttal” to Currier’s article. “Quinton… attempted to write as the voice of all men at TCU.” Tumminello wrote.

Sydney Sanford, a film, television, and digital media major, defended Currrier’s choice to write the article.

Sanford wrote via email, “I think it’s fair for us (involved in Greek life) to have a voice in our own joke,” and described Currier’s article as, “lighthearted and trivial and not aimed at inciting controversy or injury.”

After the initial shockwave of emails and texts from readers, Currier maintains her position that her goal was to uplift women at TCU and to encourage male TCU students to “put themselves in a [TCU] girls’ shoes”.

“In a pool of so many beautiful girls, the standards are higher. Not just guy’s standards for girls, but [girls’] standards for themselves,” Currier said, “Girls are already stressed out over the way we look as it is, so the pressure to be perfect on this campus is spiraling out of control.”

Currier said she was offended by the “Oh, the Woes of Being a TCU Boy” article by Gregory because she feels that the response was aimed “personally” at her.

Currier said she felt she is being held to a higher standard than what she should be. Currier explained that she has no formal training as a journalist.

“I bleed purple,” Currier said, speaking about how she is disappointed that her article was perceived so negatively by many at TCU.

“Everyone’s lucky to be a student at TCU, and we all know that. But none of us (female students at TCU) are here to get an ‘M.R.S. degree’. Why else would we apply to one of the most expensive colleges in the nation, and take hard classes, and fight for good grades, if all we are is future wives?” Currier said in response to claims that Currier was supporting the motivations of an “M.R.S. degree”.

In the end, Currier said she makes no apologies for her article.

“A lot of people were thinking it, and I was the one that said it,” she said.