Brigid Daull Brockway is technically a writer

Brigid Daull Brockway is technically a writer

A blog about words, wordplay, and etymology, with slightly more than occasional political rants.

Saturday, December 1, 2012

She Stayed at Home, She Did Her Wool


Earlier this week, a bunch of my ugly-shod Facebook compatriots in the feminist sisterhood rage-reposted* a link to The War On Men, a Fox News opinion piece by anti-feminist author Susan Venker. Which I am now dignifying with a response while rewarding the site with more web traffic in an act of re-rage-reposting**.  
In the article, Venker exposes a chilling statistic. Men are 6% less likely to say that a successful marriage is important to them. SIX! That's as many as three twos! Or six ones!
Maybe if women were still women, Lex Luthor wouldn't have to
steal cakes. You ever think of that, feminazi? 
Venker has talked to hundreds, if not thousands of men, some of whom say that they don't want to get married because women aren't women anymore Venker tells women that we're doing themselves and all other women a great disservice with our blaming and browbeating and job pursuing and college degree getting. If we keep on emasculating men by competing with them in the workplace, well then, nobody's going to marry us and we're going to be old maids. 
...and that's terrible.
And that got me thinking: what defines a Woman? When were women Women, and what, when women were Women, was a Woman supposed to be? She doesn't think it's okay that women are getting more than half of college degrees or that they make up more than half of the workforce. Don't worry, Suz, women are still earning less than 80% of what men do!**** 
She says that non-Woman women are undermining men, what with our mannish competence and our lesbian-esque work ethics. That a Woman doesn't compete with her man, she lets him care for her. We need to stop brow-beating our men. We need to stop being so defensive and angry, and give over to our feminine natures.
Well I have to call shenanigans on you, Miss Venker. I'll have you know that I have, many times, selflessly offered to quit my job and let my husband take care of me. In fact, I make this selfless offer nearly every morning when the alarm clock goes off. He keeps saying that we need "enough money" to "pay our bills." And I never compete with my husband, because I have a vagina, making me superior to him in every way - competing with him would just be rubbing it in.
And I wouldn't be so angry, Miss Venker, I wouldn't be so defensive, if my husband wasn't such a male chauvinist pig. Do you know he expects me to help him with the housework? What century does he think this is!? Everyone knows that because men have subjugated women for millennia, it is men's turn to be subjugated. Everyone knows a man's place is in the kitchen, and when he and I get home at the end of a long work day, I expect him to make up my chocolate martini and then cook dinner while I'm communing with my online Wiccan coven about our vaginas and the new world order in which we crush men under our combat boots. Really, Susan Venker, is that too much to ask?
Also, I would never beat a man's brow, whatever that means. Like a true feminist, I only beat men's genitals. 
Oh, and Jeremy would totally back up my opinion if he weren't cowering behind the couch right now.  

This article actually did get me thinking some interesting things about Women and women, and over the next couple of days, I will be featuring some women who are most certainly not Women by Venker's definition. Women whom no man would ever want to marry.

*A new term I've just coined to refer becoming so enraged with a website that you are viewing that you must share it with everyone you know. Which I guess sort of the Internet equivalent of sniffing sour milk and then shoving the carton at your spouse saying "Ew, smell this."
** A new term I've just coined that is awfully fun to say.
*** Yes, I know that the gender wage gap is based on a number of complicated factors, and is not based on simple discrimination. 

And there it is, an entire post on feminism that doesn't mention Birkenstocks once. Oops.

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