Tom Burns is happily married to a woman, but he thinks Suzanne Venker’s assertion that women need husbands is complete BS.
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Earlier this week, FoxNews.com published an “opinion” article by self-appointed pundit Suzanne Venker titled “Why Women Still Need Husbands,” a piece that chides the female sex for embracing baby boomer values and not accepting the fact that women clearly were not built to have children or careers without a dutiful man standing by their side.
And, after reading Venker’s article, I think that one can clearly see that women do not, in fact, need husbands. They don’t. And I’m saying this as a husband.
Don’t get me wrong – As a husband of thirteen-plus years, I want to feel needed and wanted and valued. I do.
But Venker’s article is so ass-backwards and wrongheaded about why husbands are truly valuable that, even though I’m always eager to accept a compliment, her praise for men comes across as patronizing and dismissive to both genders. I feel like I’ve been handed a participation ribbon and given a pat on the back for something I didn’t really deserve and that’s not a great feeling.
So, let’s get to work debunking Venker’s article and see about giving men some praise for things they really do deserve.
For starters, the title “Why Women Still Need Husbands”…. Um, who has actually suggested otherwise? Is this a veiled jab at gay marriage, an institution which, if anything, actually, promotes the importance of spouses? Or is it just a weird, out-dated piece of fear-mongering that suggests women might one day become asexual and have no need for men at all? (Which is lame even by sci-fi standards.) Anyway you look at it – the title makes no sense.
Even though I’m always eager to accept a compliment, her praise for men comes across as patronizing and dismissive to both genders.
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Next, Venker points an accusatory finger at Jennifer Aniston (of all people) for claiming, in 2010, that “women needn’t ‘fiddle with a man’ to have a child.” While, yes, I’m sure Aniston actually said those words, has Venker actually looked at the context of Aniston’s remarks? Because, if you do, you’ll see that Aniston made the off-handed comment while promoting The Switch, a comedy about artificial insemination, a movie where she does, in fact, end up with the sperm donor in the end. So, perhaps with five seconds of research, one could see that the “fiddle” comment was an innocuous, makes-sense-in-context press conference aside and not some militant feminist screed.
After that, Venker throws out a lot of soundbite nonsense that lambasts so-called “empowered” women from the past forty years. Comments like “Fortunately, most women come to the realization that they do, in fact, need a man—at least if they want a family.” (Actually, they don’t “need” men. They just need sperm. When have women ever argued that male sperm wasn’t a requirement for reproduction?) Or “there’s nothing empowering about being beholden to an employer when what you really want is to have a baby.” (Because women only exist to reproduce? Because no woman is complete without a baby? Because no woman with a job has ever been able to happy balance her work life with her home life?)
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Venker then gets to the heart of her article – her assertion that what women really want are balanced lives and, the way to do that is to, and I quote:
“Lean on your husband. … 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.”
As a husband, I’m here to tell you – that’s a piece of insulting, moronic, half-thought-through garbage.
First, who doesn’t want a balanced life? Who doesn’t want it all? Family, a successful career, free time. I’m a man and I want all of that. Who ever said that they didn’t want a balanced life? That’s like turning down free money.
Venker tries to hide behind “research,” i.e., a small handful of surveys that make broad generalizations about career-women valuing flexibility over salary. In Venker’s mind, that “research” (air quotes emphasized) PROVES that all women want to work part-time, all men want to work full-time, so just let’s just have the men bring home the bacon while the ladies make a few extra bucks selling candles while they’re waiting for the kids to come home from school.
What an inane reading of a few innocuous pieces of social data. In a survey, women said they value flexibility at higher levels than men did. So what? I’m a man with a career and a kid and I value both. I didn’t walk into my marriage, expecting that my wife would let me pursue my “linear career” (Venker’s term) with blinders on while she did whatever she needed to do to care for my offspring. That’s ridiculous.
Marriage, above anything else, is about partnership. It’s about two people, regardless of gender, coming together and saying, “We are in this together forever.” And “together” is the operative word there. Marriage is all about two people working in tandem to make the happiest life possible for each other. Sometimes that partnership focuses heavily on career, other times it focuses on children. Sometimes, it focuses on something completely different because, dear lord, there are other things in life than jobs and kids.
In that partnership, married people take on different roles. One partner might cook the meals, one might pay the bills – there are a million variations on how the marriage roles can be split up amongst two people. But here’s something very important to realize – gender plays a very, very small role in deciding who does what in a marriage.
Yes, if you have kids, the woman has to carry and deliver the baby and, if you’re breast-feeding, they have to do that too. But that’s about it when it comes to gender-imperatives in a marriage and those don’t even come into play if you’re adopting or using a surrogate or choosing to have a kid through the million other wonderful ways that two people can decide to have a kid today.
I don’t care what Pew Research says. I personally know amazing career-women who have conquered the world of finance and still come home to read to their kids at night, and I know inspirational stay-at-home dads who have embraced the role of care-giver as well as anyone ever could.
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I am a husband and my value doesn’t come from the fact that someone at Fox News tells a woman that I have value.
As a husband, my value is determined solely by my words and my actions and how I function in my partnership with my spouse. It doesn’t matter if I’m the bread-winner or if my wife is. All that matters is that my spouse and I have come up with a partnership that works for us, works for our family, and works for our kids.
So, don’t tell me that women need me because of some bullshit biological imperative or some revisionist take on antiquated gender roles. Acknowledge my value as a man and as a husband based on what I actually do and what my life is actually like. Let’s give the role of a husband some accountability and judge me based on my performance in my partnership and not on some hacky “boys do this, girls do this” standards.
My wife should need me because of the value I bring to our partnership, not just because I have a penis and like making money. Oh, it also helps that she loves me, a concept that never makes an appearance in “Why Women Still Need Husbands.”
Ironically, at bottom of Venker’s original article, she notes that she’s the founder of “a news and opinion website committed to improving gender relations and to providing much-needed support for the American male.”
Ms. Venker – as an American male, if this is the support you’re offering us, please keep it to yourself.
Photo: Flickr/Ryan Somma
Tom B, you and I have found a common ground on this subject. I do hold men accountable for their walking away from their responsibilities. It bugs the shit out of me. I work with adolescent males in a residential facility. All too often we’ll get young boys who have kids or have girlfriends who are pregnant. The way I deal with these guys is a heck of a lot different then the ones who are not in that situation. All the more reason to get these guys on track in that they are now or soon will be responsible… Read more »
You know the ones that I would like to hear from are the widowed mothers. The reason I bring them into this is because of an associate of mine who was widowed about 6 years ago. She has two children, a boy and a girl who are now in their teens. She’s been struggling for some time now and to quote her, “it’s not supposed to be this way.” Although she has a lot of support from friends and family, she very much feels alone where it relates to her kids and her life as a family. It has nothing… Read more »
Again, can we please hold men just as accountable for stepping away from their family obligations as you’re holding women? What a double standard.
Tom, all society does is hold men accountable for not being there. It doesn’t matter if the dad is a violent abuser who has walked out, or if the dad is a good father and been reduced by the court system to a paycheck that never sees his kids. Maybe the father never even knew the woman was pregnant. Regardless, the societal narrative is that they are all “deadbeat dads”. So forgive us for using this as one of the few spaces to actually defend the men that would love to be there for their kids.
@Mr. Burns Like Tom,I grew from puberty to manhood hearing from black AND white women, liberal feminists types, how husbands specifically and men in general were not needed anymore by women.That conversation hasn’t stopped.I mean how many damn “men are obsolete articles are there in circulation.”It is an industry onto itself.How dare they?! My worth and value as a human being was established by a greater power than them.If men stopped making the selfless contributions to soceity,the planet would cease spinning. Yohan,Erin Prizzey is the greatest!!!
I really, really don’t know where this “men are no longer needed” message of persecution is coming from. I’m a man and I’ve never heard it.
And, yes, the world would stop spinning without men. And it would stop spinning without women. And both sexes have got to get along and stop playing the victim if we’re ever going to accomplish anything as a species.
Real quick, did you read the article Tom B? High profile Jennifer, one of the Hollywood elite said it herself.
I wrote the article, Tom. Did you read it? One of Venker’s dumbest points is the Aniston remark. Venker took is completely out of context. Aniston said it offhandedly while doing a press conference for a movie about artificial insemination. It was an aside that makes sense in context. It makes no sense at all to label it as a feminist declaration of war. And, even if Aniston was declaring war on men (which she very clearly wasn’t), she’s one person who made one remark three years ago. That is, in no way, indicative of a HUGE trend of women… Read more »
I wrote the article, Tom.
Venker’s argument about Aniston is the dumbest part of her article. One actress made one comment about artificial insemination that was completely appropriate and in context. She made it offhandedly at a press conference three years ago for a movie that flopped at the box office. It wasn’t a militant screed or a call to arms. There is no vast Hollywood conspiracy to promote the obsolescence of men. You know why? Because there’s no money to be made in it.
Sorry for the double response. I thought my laptop ate my original comment.
Put into context “‘Women are realizing it more and more knowing that they don’t have to settle with a man just to have that child.” This reiterates what I said about fatherlessness. Jennifer was simply an example of how some women view males. Jennifer, as with countless high visible elite, single motherhood is glorified. Men are not using that one comment. Do you deny the fatherless rate in America? Do you deny the stats that clearly show a high percentage of women who have children without having an active dad in the childs lives? Do you deny that we have… Read more »
Tom – you’re very well spoken, but, c’mon, single motherhood is NOT glorified. Even on horrible shows like MTV’s Teen Mom, the moms are always shown struggling, scraping by, and looking for a mate. Off the top of my head, I can’t even think of one major TV show, book, or movie that GLORIFIES single motherhood in a way that makes it seem so much EASIER and more attractive than having a partner. That’s a neo-con myth. It’s not reality. And, yes, there are far more unwed mothers today than there used to be. And do you know who plays… Read more »
@ Tom B “maybe who wants to keep the kid ” That part is extremely understated. When liberal / feminist / progressives fought for a woman’s right to have an abortion they said every child should be wanted when they really meant that every child should be wanted by their mother. This is precisely what they got in many cases. Then they go back and vilify men for not taking responsibility for the child they didn’t want. That doesn’t even count the men who wanted the child that the woman chose to abort. So being wanted wasn’t the issue. Being… Read more »
Soooo… basically woman = good, man = bad. Got it. Nothing more to see here folks. 50 years of feminism simply didn’t happen and Sen Daniel Patrick Moynihan was wrong all along. smh.
@ Tom B
I think that there are two distinct groups that are being mistakenly conflated. Single mothers and single mothers by choice. Single moms as a group will get pounded in the media. There will also be supportive articles. SMCs are generally not the people the media points to when blasting single mothers and sometimes has articles specifically supportive of them.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/19/single-motherhood-by-choi_n_127669.html
http://www.singlemothersbychoice.org/
John Anderson, I had no clue that there was an organization called “singlemothersbychoice!” Kind of shoots holes in a lot of arguments.
@Mr.Burns You are being redundant and dismissive…though I am not offended.I don’t mind getting to the heart of the matter.Just because you haven’t had the experience don’t invalidate someone else’s.There are millions,probably billions,of women around the world, who feel like they need men.They feel incomplete without a man.There is probably a similar number of men who feel the same way about women.To have conquered biology,you must be a truly great wizard. I tried that magic,but like Bullwinkle,I guess I had the wrong hat.I remember a time, not too long ago,-you probably missed it,even though you,admittedly,are a man too-when some feminists… Read more »
Happy Thanksgiving Angel … I have a couple of minutes before the crowd arrives so I thought I’d take a gander at what’s going on here. I’ve skimmed through Tom’s responses and wish I had more time to respond. Thankfully Ogwriter knows of what I say. Perhaps it’s our age bracket that brings experience and knowledge along with living the history. Happy Thanksgiving to all. If things quiet down and I shuffle the people out early enough, maybe I’ll return and move on. BTW, I am the chief cook for all our Holidays. Though I am the proverbial breadwinner, I’m… Read more »
To look out for a serious man as future husband who is economically secure for creating a family with children is not wrong. It is difficult to create a family with children while on welfare or paying off debts while being jobless. This has nothing to do with dependency.
Suzanne Venker’s article is not so clear causing misunderstandings obviously. Financial issues cannot be simply ignored when considering a longterm relationship.
You shouldn’t get a man to be “economically secure”, that isn’t what marriage is about. That is also reinforcing the gender role of “dependency on men”.
Finances are the number one cause of marital problems. Being fiscally responsible simply allows the couple to be taking care of other business and can enjoy life.
Yes, but Venker is using shoddy research to claim that men are more suited for being the breadwinners than women are. And her evidence that backs up that claim is weak. If she said, two parent families are important and someone MUST be responsible for the finances, etc…. I’d totally agree with her. But she’s making a BS argument about “men should do this and women should do this”, which has been proven wrong over and over and over again.
I read it and didn’t see anything particularly wrong with what she said. She is effectively arguing for a two parent family and suggests that women who choose to raise children by themselves are unable to provide the children with the best care and simultaneously are increasing their own stress. I think children are better off with two parents. I think children are better off when their parents are in a loving, committed relationship and cohabiting. I should get used to the double standard, but it still sucks how men are viewed in the mainstream media. A woman who claims… Read more »
John, you’re correct where it relates to main stream media’s portrayal of men. We still live in a society that if a man and women are married without kids, the wife being a homemaker is still an accepted choice where a man who stays home and the wife works, he’s a lazy bum. GMP always recognizes and with good reason promotes the SAHD but with more couples not having kids, where do the readers of GMP stand with respect to the stay at home husband? Let’s be honest, adult women, in part, size up men as to what they do… Read more »
John – But Venker ISN’T arguing for the importance of two-parent families. She is very, very clearly drawing a gender line down the middle of a marriage and saying, “Men want work, women want family time.” I full agree that, ideally, having a two parents can making juggling life with a family much, much easier. But Venker is saying “hey, ladies, quit fooling yourself that you can work and raise a kid and sit back and let your man take care of bringing home the bacon.” Which is really insulting to both men and women. And, while I’m sympathetic to… Read more »
@ Tom I disagree. She uses enough “hedging” language to indicate that some men may prefer and excel at child care. “That’s how MOST (emphasis mine) men feel a sense of purpose” The article is written for women who have chosen to raise a family without a man “Fortunately, most women come to the realization that they do, in fact, need a man—at least if they want a family. ” The operative part being “at least if they want a family” That is going to mean discussion of men will be sketchy. I think people see “but you can’t take… Read more »
Nice self-immolation.
THANK YOU. Someone needed to write this, and you did a fantastic job.
I also don’t think humans should be reduced to their ability to make money- that’s a dumb thing to put onto all genders.
Her approach and her assumptions are not all that positive towards men. The way she writes about men reduces them to sperm banks and paychecks. In her article, men are necessary instruments that women need to have to get what women want out of life. That’s hardly an empowering, praise-filled view of the male gender. She’s still stuck in the paradigm of thinking of men only in terms of their usefulness, only in terms of men as things that are needed or unneeded. It would be enormous progress if we could move beyond defining men in terms of how useful… Read more »
Sorry, should say “compliment,” not “complement.”
Wellokaythen, you said “Her approach and her assumptions are not all that positive towards men. The way she writes about men reduces them to sperm banks and paychecks. In her article, men are necessary instruments that women need to have to get what women want out of life. That’s hardly an empowering, praise-filled view of the male gender.” The article was obviously written from a women’s perspective which addresses the idea that husbands can provide the balance that many women are looking for. I’m a man that fit the role as she described. Although my wife is well educated and… Read more »
Exactly. Personally, I would much rather be wanted than needed.
Might be that not everybody appreciates articles written by Suzanne Venker, Christina Hoff Summers, Dr. Helen Smith, Erin Pizzey, but these brave women are indeed willing to listen to men and their problems and are actively trying to help men who are badly treated by women and the legal system in USA and in some other countries. I am very supportive to their writings and otherwise activities.
I’m with you Yohan. What hit me was Tom Burns, your statement “For starters, the title “Why Women Still Need Husbands”…. Um, who has actually suggested otherwise?” Where have you been for the last three decades? Worse yet are the numbers of fatherless kids = “I not only don’t need a husband, I also don’t need a daddy for my kids.”
I’m going to read the article before I comment any further.
All that aside, Hope everyone has a safe and happy Thanksgiving.
I don’t understand this comment at all – “Worse yet are the numbers of fatherless kids = “I not only don’t need a husband, I also don’t need a daddy for my kids.” You don’t actually believe that, right? That our nation’s fatherless children are a result of women deciding that they don’t want any involvement from a father? I’ve never seen an ounce of research to suggest that and it doesn’t even make anecdotal sense. I’ve never heard of waves of women using men to get pregnant (or getting pregnant by “other” methods) or making a conscious choice to… Read more »
The ‘lean on your husband’ line is the one we’re all reacting to. I’d personally edit it to say ‘lean on your husband a bit more IF you have chosen to have children and want significant time at home with them’. I feel that the original article is designed to be quite inflammatory, possibly to incite debate and attention, which has clearly worked. Its core ideas seem sound and in my opinion are expressed in a more balanced way here: http://brw.com.au/p/brw-lounge/french_women_mireille_guiliano_selling_6fRlIzMfGBQhMtAQEoEIwI
THANK YOU for writing this much-needed rebuttal to that heinous article that amounts to financial suicide for many women who “leaned on their husbands” only to wind up divorced, without child suport.
I also like this line: “Sometimes, it focuses on something completely different because, dear lord, there are other things in life than jobs and kids.” Because, YES, there are actually people out there (some of them women!!) who are fulfilled without having children.