To audiences spanning single Yalies to grown adults on reality shows, Yale alum Pepper Schwartz GSAS ’74 advises: “Don’t be afraid of love.”
Schwartz, a renowned sexologist and sociologist, has published countless books and papers on women’s well-being and notably developed Perfectmatch.com’s dating algorithm. She became widely respected for her role in Lifetime’s reality television show Married at First Sight as a counselor to newlyweds who agreed to arranged marriages with people they had never met.
Outside of television, Schwartz maintains a long career in academia. As a graduate student at Yale, Schwartz served on the Student Committee on Human Sexuality and co-authored the 1971 book Women at Yale, detailing the experience of the first women on Yale’s campus. She went on to obtain her PhD in sociology at Yale in 1974, hold a professorship at the University of Washington, and conduct research funded by the National Institute of Mental Health. Her research has been used in many court cases and even helped legalize gay marriage.
Schwartz attributes some of her focus on gender to her time at Yale. “As a graduate student in sociology, I was really conscious of being one of a very few women on campus before Yale admitted female undergraduates,” Schwartz said. She chose to attend Yale because she knew its name carried weight compared to other institutions. “I was a woman at the beginning of Women’s Liberation, [and] I was thinking, ‘I’m going to need everything I can for people to take me seriously. Just as Yale can be snobby about itself, other people will go, “Oh, Yale!”’” Schwartz said.
After leaving Yale, Schwartz continued her prolific career, becoming one of the first of two tenured women in the sociology department at the University of Washington. She branched out to reality television through Lifetime’s Married at First Sight. She shared that participants were filmed six days and nights a week for nearly three months. Some of what she found most interesting about her role counseling couples on the show—which she clarified was neither “therapy” nor “confidential”—was the novelty of the dataset. “There is no other data like Married at First Sight. Not that I can write it up as a scientific experience because it’s a commercial one, too. Scientists often talk about drowning in data. Each couple has its own production team. They have to have a lot of desire and commitment to follow through,” Schwartz said.
Schwartz’s approach to reality television is refreshing: she is careful and sensitive to the humanity of participants, genuinely seeking to provide them with insights. “I’m surprised by how burnt out and desperate young people are. Dating apps shouldn’t be needed on a college campus. There are people everywhere,” Schwartz said. She explained that one of the problems with dating apps is that they don’t allow users to meet people they are not initially attracted to—an issue that doesn’t apply to college campuses, where students are constantly running into their peers. To Schwartz, this process where individuals “grow on us” is fundamental to learning about ourselves and fostering healthy relationships.
Schwartz suggests that students shouldn’t be afraid of opening up their hearts. “Judge people on their character. That should always be your primary focus. Is this person an honorable person who has the empathy to care about other people?” she said. Though it’s been a while since Schwartz was a graduate student at Yale, her observations about the difficulties of intimacy and the gendered dynamics that permeate relationships hold true as ever on campus today.