The War On Men

Remember how I earlier I talked about researching for that essay I was working on? Well, I did a lot of research. And during my research, I managed to stumble upon the work of Suzanne Venker, author of 7 Myths of Working Mothers, How to Choose A Husband, The Flipside of Feminism, and her articles called "The War on Men" and "To be happy, we must admit women and men aren't 'equal". To be honest, I had never heard of her before I found her articles online, and when I first read her articles I read them completely unbiased (It wasn't until I was done reading until I realized I was on FOX). I read "The War on Men" first, and when I was done, I was pretty uncomfortable---and not in the way that something that's true and gets to the root of the problem but you don't want to face it because it's too painful is true, but in the way  of watching someone make a fool of themselves is---- plainly speaking, I suffered extreme second-hand embarrassment after reading Venker's article.

Here, let the article speak for itself.

"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. Now the men have nowhere to go."

What? Is she implying that women being successful and independent is bad for men? Take what they were taught to believe was rightfully theirs. Who says it can't be rightfully ours? Are men the only ones entitled to being successful? And what is this about having our 'own' pedestal? As if success for a woman means not infringing on the success of a man?

Ugh, I can't decide what else is a good quote---so I'll just post the rest because there is so damn much too say on this.

"Contrary to what feminists like Hanna Rosin, author of The End of Men, say, 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. But modern women won’t let them."

Oh, lord. Sweeping generalizations about men and women is prevalent throughout the whole thing. Be warned: through the whole article, Venker continues to reinforce detrimental stereotypes of what women and men should want, claiming that they are a "good" thing.

It’s all so unfortunate – for women, not men. Feminism serves men very well: they can have sex at hello and even live with their girlfriends with no responsibilities whatsoever.
It’s the women who lose. Not only are they saddled with the consequences of sex, by dismissing male nature they’re forever seeking a balanced life. 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.

So if men today are slackers, and if they’re retreating from marriage en masse, women should look in the mirror and ask themselves what role they’ve played to bring about this transformation.
Fortunately, there is good news: 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.
If they do, marriageable men will come out of the woodwork."

I am so sorry, Paperblog and readers. I will come back to this as soon as I am not swamped with finals with a presentable argument.