Suzanne Venker is a Dolt (Battle of the Sexes Edition)

Hi, Suzanne. May I call you Suzanne?  Wait, is it unmanly for me to ask you how you want to be addressed?

Anyway, wanted to talk with you about your provocative Fox News website opinion piece, “The War on Men“. As a Man who doesn’t feel particularly Warred Upon, I’m curious as to what sort of thing you might be talking about.  Certainly there’s been lots of talk about a “War on Women” from the Right, so is this that sort of thing?  Let’s find out.

The battle of the sexes is alive and well.

Really?

According to Pew Research Center, the share of women ages eighteen to thirty-four that say having a successful marriage is one of the most important things in their lives rose nine percentage points since 1997 – from 28 percent to 37 percent. For men, the opposite occurred. The share voicing this opinion dropped, from 35 percent to 29 percent.

Believe it or not, modern women want to get married. Trouble is, men don’t.

Sounds like a “difference of opinion of the sexes.” Why is this a “battle”?

(Since you didn’t link to it, the study from Pew is here.)

Also, it sounds like the woman/man ratio for this used to be 28/35, and now it’s 37/29.  Was it a “battle of the sexes” when women were the same amount less interested in marriage as “one of the most important things in their lives” as men are now, and vice-versa?

Also, women being more interested in marriage than men? Inconceivable! I mean, I’ve never heard of an era when women were striving to get men to propose to them, and men were feeling more interested in feeling footloose and fancy-free! Imagine!

And, in either case, it’s roughly a third of each gender feels that way.  Is that really such a difference?

And I note that “modern” (18-34) men considered being a good parent and having a high-paying job/career as less important than women, too.  Maybe they’re just slackers about everything.

Might it also be that, as marriage has declined in both absolute numbers and been entered into later, that men are simply growing more comfortable in their 18-34 ages at being bachelors than used to be the case?

So what is behind that that change in answers?  Oh, wait — I’ll bet you’re going to tell us.

The so-called dearth of good men (read: marriageable men) …

The only “good” men are “marriageable” men?

… has been a hot subject in the media as of late.

Not in media I’ve been reading.

Of course, the “dearth of good/marriageable men” has been a hot subject in (some) media and (some) circles for, well, forever. “All the good men are taken” is a lament as old as the written word, and the addendum “… or gay” has been au courant since before 1997.

Much of the coverage …

Somewhere.

… has been in response to the fact that for the first time in history, women have become the majority of the U.S. workforce.

Because women have been working more but, more importantly to the “balance,” men’s jobs were more likely to get cut during the Great Recession, due to the sorts of industries they work in.

They’re also getting most of the college degrees.

For a variety of reasons as well (including that same “nature of jobs” one).

The problem? This new phenomenon has changed the dance between men and women.

Why is this a problem?

As the author of three books on the American family and its intersection with pop culture, …

“Someone thought I wrote well enough, and my ideas were popular enough, to get three of my books published.”

Those books are (in case anyone wonders about where you’re coming at with this particular article): The Flipside of Feminism: What Conservative Women Know — and Men Can’t Say (with Phyllis Schlafly), 7 Myths of Working Mothers: Why Children and (Most) Careers Just Don’t Mix, and the coming-soon How to Choose a Husband: And Make Peace With Marriage.

… I’ve spent thirteen years examining social agendas as they pertain to sex, parenting, and gender roles. During this time, I’ve spoken with hundreds, if not thousands, of men and women. And in doing so, I’ve accidentally stumbled upon a subculture of men who’ve told me, in no uncertain terms, that they’re never getting married. When I ask them why, the answer is always the same.

Women aren’t women anymore.

So there’s a nebulous “subculture of men” who don’t care for modern women.  Now there’s an attitude we’ve never heard before.

How large actually is this subculture, out of curiosity, since I don’t see it anywhere in the “culture of men” that I associate with?

To say gender relations have changed dramatically is an understatement. Ever since the sexual revolution, there has been a profound overhaul in the way men and women interact.

That’s a broad generalization, but I’m willing to accept that.  The introduction of legal and woman-centric contraception is probably the most profound and obvious trigger for change, since it substantially freed women from pregnancy, as well as freeing both genders (especially women) from associating (as much) sexual activity with marriage, which meant marriage could be a matter of equals between women and men.

Ah, but therein lies the problem!

Men haven’t changed much – they had no revolution that demanded it – but women have changed dramatically.

Wait, I thought men had been made all unmanly and demasculinized by all the rough, crude, competitive women who objected to being slapped around and kept silent?  Wasn’t that the previous conservative meme?  Now you tell me that men haven’t changed?

Also, wait — was the Sexual Revolution just about women?  Really?

Also, wait — if women have changed and men haven’t, why is this a “War on Men”?

In a nutshell, women are angry.

I don’t notice women being angry, or any more so than men.

They’re also defensive, though often unknowingly.

Bless their little unknowing hearts.

(By the way, Suzanne, should that be “they” or “we”?  Are you defensive, though often unknowingly?)

That’s because they’ve been raised to think of men as the enemy.

Probably by people who refer to “battle of the sexes” a lot.

Armed with this new attitude, women pushed men off their pedestal (women had their own pedestal, but feminists convinced them otherwise) and climbed up to take what they were taught to believe was rightfully theirs.

We should have separate but equal pedestals! It’s the Natural Way of Things!

Now the men have nowhere to go.

Women have all of our pedestals!  Greedy, greedy, women!

It is precisely this dynamic – women good/men bad – that has destroyed the relationship between the sexes.

Because, of course, in the Good Old Days, women and men were always treated as being fair and equal parts good and bad.

By the way, I seem to have a relationship with a woman.  While it is true that she is good (“and when she’s bad, she’s better!”),  I don’t get the sense that she treats me as “bad.”

In fact, as long as we’re waving around unsubstantiated anecdotal evidence, I know a number of couples. I don’t see an authentic “women good / men bad” dynamic at work there.

I can certainly believe, though, that someone, of either gender, who thinks that the opposite gender is by nature cruel and dominating and vain and pedestal-stealing is likely not to be interested in marrying one of them, unless they have, say, some societal and/or legal dominance that allows them to compensate that other gender’s natural “bad” inclinations. Fortunately, we’d never tolerate such a social/legal system, right?

Yet somehow, men are still to blame when love goes awry. Heck, men have been to blame since feminists first took to the streets in the 1970s.

Because in the Good Old Days, men were never blamed with “love goes awry.” And, certainly, today, women are never blamed.

Um, how large is this subculture you’re extrapolating from again, Suzanne?

But what if the dearth of good men, and ongoing battle of the sexes, is – hold on to your seats – women’s fault?

Well, that certainly sounds more fair!  Let’s not stand for blanket statements about men! Make them about women, instead!

You’ll never hear that in the media.

Yes, there are no sexist diatribes in modern American media that blame women for their part of the “battle of the sexes.”  Indeed, there never were! I’m sure of it!

All the articles and books (and television programs, for that matter) put women front and center, while men and children sit in the back seat.

Yes, women are in control of everything!  They own all the pedestals! They are in the driver’s seat! They are in charge of everything! They dominate corporate management, the seats of government, the police and military! They run all the media! They earn more than men, they commit sexual assault with impunity against men, and they spent the last election cycle talking about how all those “slutty” men just wanted hand-outs from taxpayers to fund their irresponsible sexual habits!  Outrageous!

But after decades of browbeating the American male, men are tired. Tired of being told there’s something fundamentally wrong with them. Tired of being told that if women aren’t happy, it’s men’s fault.

Well, at least the “subculture of men” you’re talking about is “tired” of unhappy women blaming them for their unhappiness.  Those darned women ought to be happy, and happy to be happy, with whatever they get. And give back that pedestal!

Contrary to what feminists like Hanna Rosin, author of The End of Men, say, the so-called rise of women has not threatened men. It has pissed them off.

Oh, well, as long as (that subculture of men) isn’t threatened, just pissed off, we should definitely change things to make them, um, unpissed. Because clearly the pissing off is women’s fault.  “Madge, shut up and get me a brewski!”

Wait, I thought the problem wasn’t that men are pissed off, but that women are “angry” and (unknowingly) “defensive” (something about Pedestal Envy). Perhaps, if men and women are both angry, they need to get together and talk about it, like adults. Surely that’s the mature and wise thing to do. You’re not going to suggest, Suzanne, that, oh, women should just swallow their “anger”, and surrender to those “pissed-off” men, are you?  (SPOILER: You are.)

It has also undermined their ability to become self-sufficient in the hopes of someday supporting a family. Men want to love women, not compete with them. They want to provide for and protect their families – it’s in their DNA. But modern women won’t let them.

Evil, wicked, naughty modern women, taking all those jobs so that men are unable to bring home the bacon! It’s not just wrong, it’s un-DNAish! It’s an insult to men and what men really want.

It’s all so unfortunate – for women, not men. Feminism serves men very well: they can have sex at hello and even live with their girlfriends with no responsibilities whatsoever.

Aha! See! Men get theirs back by having consequence-free sex. No wonder they don’t want to get married! Wait, I thought that was  bad thing for men that was pissing them off.

No, wait, I thought men didn’t want to get married because feminist women are shrews who are taking their jobs and their pedestals. So … I guess … that means they get to have angry sex whenever they want! And it’s all women’s fault!

(Apparently women having sex “at hello” doesn’t “serve” them as well as men. Also, for some reason, it causes them to have their boyfriends live with them with no responsibilities whatsoever. Sounds like those women are kinda dumb.)

It’s the women who lose. Not only are they saddled with the consequences of sex, by dismissing male nature they’re forever seeking a balanced life. The fact is, women need men’s linear career goals – they need men to pick up the slack at the office – in order to live the balanced life they seek.

Poor women.  By stealing sex, jobs, and pedestals, they’ve left themselves miserable! Plus, those women have magically become “not women”, so no wonder they can’t find a “man”!

Yes, if only a big strong Real Man could come along, with a well-paying factory job and a fedora and a regular bowling night, and take nurturing care of them. Then those not-women could give up all that “career” and “respect” and “sex” thing and reach true, “balanced” fulfillment as Real Women, i.e., wives and mothers, as God intended.

So if men today are slackers, and if they’re retreating from marriage en masse, …

Wait, I thought we were talking about an (unquantified) “subculture.”  Now it’s “en masse”?  Eep!

… women should look in the mirror and ask themselves what role they’ve played to bring about this transformation.

It’s all your fault, women! Er, not-women! Uh, pedestal-stealing feminist shrews!

Fortunately, there is good news: women have the power to turn everything around.

But using their womanly power is what caused them to become not-women in the first place!

All they have to do is surrender to their nature – their femininity – and let men surrender to theirs.

Ah … it’s not in their power, it’s in their giving up power — surrendering ….  If they just stopped struggling, if they laid back and thought of pedestals, if they just let their Real Womanhood through, then all would once again be right and just and manly and the two sexes would live in peace and harmony and fulfillment and complementary equality and two chickens in every pot once again, like they used to in the Good Old Days.

If they do, marriageable men will come out of the woodwork.

By which I think you mean, Suzanne, “If they do, then the subculture of men who doesn’t like women who behave as women do today will like those women and will be more interested in marrying them.”  Which, um, makes sense, in terms of tautologies.

Not that you’ve actually demonstrated that particular subculture of men really needs or deserves to have its interests catered to, or that marriage to such men is what (average) women really want (I’m sure that some do), or that this is more than mere anecdotal bloviating from a writer whose ideological goal is to return to the yesteryear of June Cleaver when everyone was happy and the sexes didn’t battle and nobody had to be concerned about men and women being unable to find compatible mates of their choice.

Nor do I feel particularly warred upon, even after reading your essay, Suzanne.  I don’t see a “War on Men.” I do see more blaming of women for the problems of (some) men who, as you say, haven’t changed.  That seems to constitute a “battle” or “war” from your perspective, Suzanne.  Me, it just makes me think you’re a dolt.  And, from a liberated perspective, I’d say that to any man who wrote the same thing.