This past Sunday, “Fox & Friends” brought on anti-feminist and sometimes Fox News pundit Suzanne Venker, herself the niece of right-wing matron Phyllis Schlafly. Venker was part of a “Fox & Friends” segment intelligently titled, “You Do Need a Husband!”
By the way, at the same time, you could have flipped over to “Meet the Press,” which was running a thoughtful roundtable on the legacy of Nelson Mandela, or “CBS Sunday Morning,” which was providing a similar roundtable as well as interesting commentary on the future or art and design in America. No matter, let’s get back to how feminism is a pile of crap.
Venker was appearing on “Fox & Friends” to discuss her recent article, “Why Women Still Need Husbands.” The article appeared Friday on the Fox News website. Read her whole article here.
Venker writes: “So why not let husbands bring home the bulk of the bacon so women can have the balanced lives they seek? There’s no way to be a wife, a mother and a full-time employee and still create balance. But you can have balance by depending on a husband who works full-time and year-round.”
The on-air interview lasted only a few minutes, presumably because Venker had to go make her husband a sandwich. Towards the end, “Fox & Friends” co-host Anna Kooiman asked Venker for her advice, woman to woman.
Kooiman: I fit into that category perfectly. I’m single. I’m 29 years old. I’m very career-oriented. What is your advice in just a couple sentences?
Venker: My advice is, as the years go on and you find that you want, if you do, to get married and settle down, to understand time is going to be your greatest enemy. Not your husband, not men, not the government, not your employers. It’s time, there’s just not enough time in the day to do everything. So if you learn to embrace that side of yourself that isn’t about work — in other words, the nurturing side, the motherhood, all of that — it’s OK to let your husband bring home that full-time income so you can have more of a balanced life. And we should really be thanking men for this, not saying they’re in our way or not doing enough.
Ouch.
Watch it here:
This isn’t Venker’s first controversial statement. Last year she published a similar article entitled “The War on Men.” In it she tells women that they would get further in life and indeed be happier if they weren’t so darned angry and annoying all the time: “In a nutshell, women are angry. They’re also defensive, though often unknowingly. That’s because they’ve been raised to think of men as the enemy. 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.”
I find Venker’s commentary entirely divorced from reality. I know that single women are sometimes battling it out with gay men as to what group earns the top spot of their lengthy enemies list, but let’s face it: her arguments are tired and nonsensical. What I’m curious about is if she also favors raising wages and salaries, not to mention public programs and benefits that might make it easier for women to stay at home with their children. I’m guessing we all know where she stands on that.
