Everyone and their mother has decided to make fun of Suzanne Venker, so there is no reason that I shouldn’t jump on the overflowing bandwagon.
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 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.
Ms. Venker gets off to a roaring start by not seeming to know how statistics work. As it happens, “is having a successful marriage one of the most important things in your life?” and “do you want to get married?” are two different questions, and you cannot answer the first question by answering the second. Similarly, “is having a delicious pizza one of the most important things in your life?” and “do you want a pizza?” are two different questions. Unfortunately, since the Pew Research Study doesn’t have the percentage of Millennials who want to get married broken down by gender (possibly because it’s roughly the same and thus doesn’t say anything interesting), I cannot answer that question. I can, however, point you to her source and point out that the girls seem more enthusiastic about everything than the guys. They’re also more likely to think their career is important. Maybe young women are overachievers in everything?
Of course not! That would be silly.
Much of the coverage has been in response to the fact that for the first time in history, women have become the majority of the U.S. workforce.
Okay, the first one was during the recession. Men are more likely to have jobs that follow the boom-and-bust cycle, like construction (which was particularly affected by the construction industry falling apart). Women are more likely to have jobs like childcare where the demand is stable. That is not a big social change Proving That Men Are Failing Forever, okay.
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.
Things I have learned: masculine women who work careers aren’t women anymore. Man, gender transition is way easier than I thought. You don’t have to take hormones or anything.
You know, I really find myself having a hard time getting upset about this. Men are certainly free to marry whomever they want, and if some men haven’t found a woman feminine enough for them they are perfectly free to not get married. I mean, I don’t want them to force themselves to get married to a woman they don’t want to be married to, since that seems like it would end poorly for themselves and the woman in question. And I really don’t think it’s wise to pretend to be someone you’re not so you can marry someone who doesn’t want to get married to you. Everything is, in fact, functioning exactly as it should
Men haven’t changed much – they had no revolution that demanded it – but women have changed dramatically.
Is the solution going to be “so let’s give men a revolution so they don’t have to adhere to outdated gender norms either”? No? …Hope springs eternal.
(women had their own pedestal, but feminists convinced them otherwise)
But I’m pretty sure most women don’t want to be on a pedestal actually. The problem with a Pretty Princess Pedestal is that people get really upset when you start wanting to do things that aren’t pretty and princessy. What happens if you want to fix a car or fight in the army or get muddy and ruin your flouncy pink princess dress? No one will ever let you tell fart jokes! Won’t someone think of the fart jokes! (Also, go tell poor, queer, and nonwhite women that they got to be on a pedestal, they need a good laugh.)
feminists like Hanna Rosin, author of The End of Men
Feminists like… feminists like… like Hanna… Hanna Rosin…
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
The so-called rise of women has not threatened men. It has pissed them off. 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.
Okay, see, the whole point is that you don’t have to be self-sufficient in order to support a family. The career ladies can help! You remember the career ladies, a couple of paragraphs ago you were fulminating about how they were taking all the men’s jobs? See, when you have two people working, one person doesn’t have to provide and protect for their families.
You know, I don’t doubt that the desire to provide for and protect one’s family is in the DNA. There’s some obvious selection pressure for it and a special connection to family is a cultural universal or pretty damn close. What I want to know is why that desire is apparently only in men. If there’s only selection pressure on one sex to develop something, the other sex tends to develop it too: that’s why people with XY chromosomes have nipples. You can’t just explain why evolution would men want to protect and provide for their families, you also have to explain why it wouldn’t make women want to protect and provide for their families. And if basically everyone wants to protect and provide for their families, then men who make less than their wives can do the exact same thing that women who make less than their husbands do: channel the urge to protect and provide into something else.
Feminism serves men very well: they can have sex at hello and even live with their girlfriends with no responsibilities whatsoever.
Weren’t all the guys getting pissed off at feminism literally last paragraph? Do you even have an editor?
No, really, all men can’t have sex at hello. If you want proof, mention the phrase “n*ce g*ys” literally anywhere on the Internet. Feminism isn’t pro-casual-sex, at least not my kind of feminism; it’s pro-people-having-the-kind-of-sex-that-makes-them-happy. No sex? Cool! Wait till marriage to have sex? Awesome! Serial monogamy! Fabulous! One night stand with a dude whose name you don’t know? Great, make sure to stay safe! Adorable poly triad with no sex and lots of love, spiced up with occasional flirtations with hot blog groupies? Wonderful! No sex at all and you’re really fucking horny? Dude, that sucks, but at least we have lots of sex toy sites and ethically produced feminist porn?
I’d say that feminism is actually in favor of guys having responsibilities when they live with their girlfriends, but I feel like by ‘responsibilities’ she doesn’t mean “household chores,” she means “if you like it then you shoulda put a ring on it.”
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.
Or we could give everyone balanced lives because, despite what the Protestant Work Ethic says, most people have better things to do than spend sixty hours a week at a job they don’t love like burning… but, no, that’s crazy talk. This is capitalism! We can’t be having human fulfillment in capitalism! Next thing people will be finding something to enjoy about life other than accumulating cash and then what will happen?
All they have to do is surrender to their nature – their femininity – and let men surrender to theirs.
If they do, marriageable men will come out of the woodwork.
I have literally no idea what this conclusio means. Does ‘their femininity’ mean not working a job? Wearing lots of lipstick? Cooking dinner? Not having sex on the first date? Will a marriageable man literally show up in one’s living room if one puts on a skirt? What if a woman’s true nature is scratching her armpits and watching lots of football? What does ‘marriageable’ mean anyway? What’s men’s true nature? Is it being marriageable? Providing and protecting? Using Axe deodorant? What if he wants to wear lipstick and cook dinner? I’M SO CONFUSED.
All of this is basically Messages From Bizarro Land to me. Because seriously, right now, I know two engaged couples and an engaged-to-be-engaged couple and absolutely zero people who have had sex at ‘hello.’ Is this a poly thing? Are poly people riding in to save marriage from the poor monogamuggles? Please tell me that’s true, the look on Venker’s face…
Photo credit– sustainable sanitation/Flickr. A dude cleaning a toilet.
1. Getting married, for men, is vastly overrated, financially risky and utterly pointless. 2. Men are not monogamous and it’s ridiculous to presume we are. 3. You don’t have to be married to be a good father. 4. Most women use their physical appearance as a weapon, truncheon, to justify their ever expanding girth and weight. It’s disgusting. 5. Most women use sex as a weapon and it’s frequency becomes increasingly less, directly after marriage. 6. Most women would have a child with practically anyone, as long as he pays support and lets her raise the little mistake as she… Read more »
TBH I didn’t get when the article’s author was trying to be serious and trying to be sarcastic. But I watched a couple of Venker’s talks, and I found them really disheartening, but probably not in a way which will win many friends. To my mind she was lamenting how women have “killed the goose that laid the golden egg” by rejecting men as providers, but now want to resurrect that goose so they can play fulltime mommy — the best of both worlds. Besides, it might interest the author, Venker, and the rest of you to know that a… Read more »
Wait, so this woman is claiming that the evidence of a “war on men” is not a pressing social issue, like murder, fallout from the “War on Drugs” in poor and minority communities, stigma surrounding the sexual assault on men, the acceptability of male circumcision in the US, but that… women aren’t being the kind of woman that Venker thinks men want to marry, and that is tantamount to waging “war” on them? I’m imagining that someone at Fox News said “I know what our next big piece will be! *beat* The War on Men!” and someone else said “Hey,… Read more »
yMediaSound:As I am an American ass,I my assumptions are plantly firmly in American institutional dysfunctions.
So you won’t respect me in the morning then! **Sigh**, It has ever been thus!
@MediaHound: You do know of course that I was jesting,I couldn’t the resist the straight line–insert your pun—( no really) you gave me.
You don’t phone – you don’t take me out – no chocolates…..
@MediaHound and wellokthen: One of the missing elements in this discussion that bears recognition is the politics of feminism or of any special interest group trying to achieve power and or access to power for themselves. By definition, from a political science point of view, feminism shouldn’t be and isn’t obliged to be inclusive of anyone needs but those of their own constituents anymore than the NRA is expected to be responsive to the the needs of parents whose children were killed by gun violence.- that what special interest do,they promote narrow interest having little to do with the public… Read more »
Dear OgWriter – You will have to remember that not all things on the planet are US Centric. It’s quite funny how so many go What About Teh Menz ? and assume away! There are men outside of the USA and even Women. Most Shocking…. Feminists have escaped and infiltrated polite society and are working their havoc. I do even recall them causing havoc with the Secretaries at the Palace of Westminster and banner headlines reading “Westminster Secretaries Are Revolting”! They have even forced legal changes such as the full adoption of The Treaty of Rome (1952) and Full Ratification… Read more »
(Sorry for the multiple posts. The Venker article just rubs me several wrong ways.) Let’s get real by being precise. It’s not the simple case that women want to get married to men who don’t want to get married. It’s also the case that sometimes women don’t want to marry a man who is willing to get married, because she does not find that particular man attractive. More specifically, the women that men want to marry may not want to marry them. Rejection for marriage goes in both directions. Also, let’s get real by breaking this down to some basic… Read more »
This discussion is reminding me about another thread about whether whining and pestering someone into having sex is a form of rape. I’d like to be consistent in my approach, so I’ll give a similar reaction here. Is there a war on men? In some ways, yes. But, whining and pestering men into getting married is not an attack on men. It’s just whining and pestering. It’s not warfare or coercion, it’s just bad, self-centered behavior that men largely have the power to ignore. If you regularly agree to submit yourself to pressure to get married, then the responsibility is… Read more »
The war on men is interesting because it’s seen as covert – it’s hidden. Many will attempt to make it all about men not wanting to get married or how men are loosing out in work related areas. That is just the bit’s people see and recognise, the tip of the ice berg. It gets interesting when you look at what governments have agreed to and signed. Made law and made part of the mindset and world view they operate under. As just one example – What about land mines? Not in your back yard? Well it is, because all… Read more »
I see your point. In the case of landmines, “war” on men is not just a metaphor but a literal phrase. I’m reminded of some very unfortunate remarks that Hillary Clinton made several years ago, something along the lines that the main victims in war are women, because, for example, war makes them widows. Umm, Madame Secretary, how does a wife become a widow during a war? The person killed is less a victim than the person who lives, merely because of chromosomal difference? I respectfully disagree. Perhaps you and I are agreeing from different directions. Feeling nagged into getting… Read more »
There are so many issues about getting people to see balance and even consider two sexes/genders side by side – let alone more numbers beyond two…. and as an aside I am still bemused by the protester in Canada who stated on camera that Feminism deals with Both genders equally, the male, the female and those who identify as neither. (#FacePalm). It’s one thing being bad at math, but quite another to be such a bad student of gender studies that you take 2+ and make it 1! There are so many limits imposed by three letter words such as… Read more »
I take issue with her idea that there’s a “problem” if there are more women who want to get married than there are men who want to get married. Just for the sake of argument, let’s say that her interpretation of the statistics is true. The “lack” of “marriageable men” is only a “problem” from the point of view of women looking to have an easy time finding a husband. That is only from the point of view of one part of one gender. This “lack” is not really much of an issue for men. In fact, if you’re a… Read more »
There is NO war on men, period. Our economy and society has changed. Men simply have not adapted to these changes. Women do make up 50% of the workforce. So what? Actually, I have found women to be more consensus driven managers than the top down ego driven approaches of most white males. A big positive in my book. What I don’t get is just what are women suppose to do!? Get their Masters and PHDs and pretend take jobs well below their qualifications so as not to “threaten” men? That’s lunacy!!! We all have to compete on a daily… Read more »
Clearly, this was a question honestly asked and handled fairly…
Do feminists actually argue points anymore, or do they just point their fingers and laugh?
Why are so many shooting blanks and only hitting certain targets?
War On Men? = Never ending gender terrorism.
War On Drugs? = Never ending economic terrorism.
War On Terror? = Never ending access to bank balance to fund anything possible in the name of terrorism.
War On Women? = Blank
War On Children? = Blank
War On Disabled? = Blank
War On Race? = Blank
I say there is a war on journalism. Where do I go to read the news and not some blog full of opinions on a national newspapers website.
The War On Journalism – Oh that old thing. In the US it’s been ongoing since the first Printing Presses arrived and even before any wars and independence and constituting any ideas about a free press. Even then the press had power so they were thrown a bone and told they were free, a bit like Buffalo. Since then it’s been a massacre and all down hill! I heard that if you go out west there is s reserve with a few wild and as nature intended journalist left – but unless you use artificial breeding programs the future looks… Read more »
“All they have to do is surrender to their nature – their femininity – and let men surrender to theirs.”
It’s more fun if you read that as saying that men should surrender to their masculinity.
And the All-Controlling Erection? Because I know I’ve heard taht one before too. 🙂
“Feminists like… feminists like… like Hanna… Hanna Rosin… BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA” Are you implying she is not a feminist? ” Feminism serves men very well: they can have sex at hello and even live with their girlfriends with no responsibilities whatsoever.” Some parts of feminism are helpful to men, some parts are toxic and actually damaging to men. Wasn’t the war on women defined by women havign less rights with reproduction? Would that mean the war on men was already won since men have zero rights post conception? I dunno if you’d call it a war but there is certainly evidence that… Read more »