in brief: marriage ‘expert’ blames feminism for ruining the modern man

I should’ve trusted my gut and stopped reading at Fox News. The American news outlet and unofficial mouthpiece of extremist right-wing ideology has churned out the likes of Rush Limbaugh and Bill O’Reilly. The former coined the term ‘feminazi’ which lives to plague us all, and suggested earlier this year that feminism is to blame for the statistically smaller genitalia of American males over the last 50 years.

But, curiosity got the better of me and I read Suzanne Venker’s op-ed, ‘The war on men’ in its entirety, a clear allusion to the ‘war on women’ of the recent U.S. presidential election.

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

Venker’s thesis is that feminism has raised a generation of women who demand ‘what they were taught to believe was rightfully theirs’ (absurd things like fair wages, reproductive autonomy, sexual freedom etc.), and in doing so have created unrealistic expectations for marriage.

Namely, that any man will want to marry them at all.

‘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,’ she writes.

‘Women aren’t women anymore.’

The article has received a pretty thorough takedown across the feminist blogosphere already. Ridden with generalisations, convenient statistics, heteronormative bias, gross evolutionary psychology, and complete disregard for social and economic relevance of marriage, Venker does more to demonstrate her ignorance of gender equality than to convince women that we’re to blame for the ‘dearth of good men’.

‘…Women have the power to turn everything around. All they have to do is surrender to their nature – their femininity – and let men surrender to theirs.’

It’s the classic only-nice-girls-get-married argument, with a few numbers and dubious science thrown in. She certainly has a lot invested in this idea: her latest book, How to Choose a Husband (And Make Peace with Marriage) will be published in February 2013.

Venker does get one thing right, however, when she says feminism benefits men. Just not for the reasons she cites: ‘[men] can have sex at hello and even live with their girlfriends with no responsibilities whatsoever.’

The idea that feminism is strictly about pitting men vs. women, or women usurping the male role in society is a lazy one, trot out for articles just like Venker’s for page views (and to her credit, it’s working).

If there is any kind of war being waged by feminists – some of whom are men themselves, though this wouldn’t help her argument – it’s on rigid gender roles and expectations that harm everyone.

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