Surely you must trust Fox News? They’re here to tell us why women still need husbands.
Fortunately, most women come to the realization that they do, in fact, need a man [Lesbians? How about just generally independent women?]—at least if they want a family [Or a turkey baster. It won’t change the diapers either, I know.].
Financial independence is a great thing [Well, yeah. Are you arguing that dependency is fine?], but you can’t take your paycheck to bed with you [Of course not. Because you’ve deposited it in your investment account, are using the revenue to pay your rent or mortgage, and are paying your health insurance and grocery bills with it. You can aspire to financial security and a love life, you know]. And there’s nothing empowering about being beholden to an employer [But being beholden to a man is OK? Why don’t we argue that independence and personal dignity are good things for every human being?] when what you really want is to have a baby [Not everyone does. Argument over.]. That’s dependency of a different sort.
This is the conclusion to which most women have come. Research shows that what women want more than anything else is not to work full-time and year-round but to live balanced lives.
Hang on there. Women want “not to work full-time and year-round but to live balanced lives”…the conclusion is inescapable. I must be a woman.
Brilliant and sensible people, those women. They seem to have come to the same conclusion about what constitutes a good life that I have.
A man needs a maid.
I need me a husband, too! A balanced life sounds nice but it’s rather hard not to work all year around as I have these expenses, rent, utilities, groceries, etc.
Since I get paid in oversize novelty checks, I can and do take my paychecks to bed with me.
(Also, want is this about nothing empowering about being beholden to an employer? I thought that women should have the dignity of getting a job and not being a burden to society. Wait, are poor females and rich females, both considered ‘women’?)
the truth about Eve
balanced life = I really just want to have a baby ? That’s strange cos I really don’t want to have a baby but I want balance in my life.
I have a friend who has 2 daughters via sperm bank and works full time and is completely happy. I guess these men are scared that they will have to work getting a woman to like them instead of making her dependent. I guess it is too hard for these assholes to be nice to a woman
According to the wingnuts, gay is a choice, so you’re all set! Flip the switch to gay and go get a fella!
Apparently, Florida is full of retired women only.
Also, as a recent baby-maker, anyone who has a baby does not have a balanced life. A balanced life includes a few more at least 6 hours of sleep nights and a few less at-three-in-the-morning-where-the-fuck-are-the-diaper-i-just-gave-you-a-bottle-did-you-just-pee-all-over-everything-fuck-now-i-have-to-change-the sheets-the-baby-and-my-shirt-where-are-the-diapers nights.
Among many blithely oblivious pronouncements in that article:
…perhaps because they’ve been raised with that expectation on them, and never questioned it? Assuming the “research” is real, of course, and ignoring those of us who have seen through the scam of traditional gender roles.
And Venker thinks Jennifer Aniston is being stupid? Pot/Kettle/Black.
I’m going to stop now. There’s too much stupid there, and I have work to do. You know, bringing home that bacon that defines my worth as a human being (until I retire and start doing things I care about, more than just evenings and weekends).
I cannot help noticing that the writer of this piece is a -gasp- woman. A working woman. So, what’s the deal here, Suzanne Venker? Why don’t you start practicing what you preach, stop working, stay home, become a full-time mommy and shut. The fuck. Up.
@chigau
Everybody ought to have a maid.
I can think of few things more unbalancing to a life than a baby.
People who don’t know that going in (or don’t figure it out quickly) tend to be shitty parents.
Oops. My bad. New at this. I just meant to post the URL. How do I edit that?
@10: She does say that women prefer part-time work, so it’s OK for her to freelance writing fluff pieces for Faux Noise. Wouldn’t want to do any *real* work, now, would she?
Fox claims that women want to lead balanced lives. Isn’t that an insult, considering that Fox News claims that they themselves are “fair and balanced”? Doesn’t that suggest that, according to Fox News, women want to be in a constant state of delusional rage compared with the rest of society?
Also, doesn’t that article imply that Ann Coulter and her female cohorts in the organization should be submitting their resignation letters soon?
I’m literally slackjawed at the gall of this article.
She finishes with this:
“… there are fewer men these days who seem eager to be primary breadwinners.
But ask yourself why, and I bet you know the answer.”
Um, I really don’t know. Do I even want to know? What exactly is she getting at? Anyone?
So wait….men can have jobs and still lead balanced lives but women cannot?
Working women are not being women?
The douchiness is strong with this one.
@16: I bet it’s because the Feminazis have chopped their balls off. Or mothers are turning lesbian, shacking up with their girlfriends and still expecting child support from the father, so why would any guy in his right mind sign on for a gig like that? Or something like that.
You can if you convert it into vibrators and dildos first.
Wait wait wait.
Is this gendered at all? What about men? Do they give the same answer?
This is actually quite dehumanizing toward men.
But really this is pure corporatism. It’s BS like this that justifies ridiculous working hours and the thrashing of leisure time for the American people. No. People are more than their job, even if corporations would want it different.
@20 It must be something exquisitely vile if she doesn’t dare say it after the horrors of the preceding dozen paragraphs.
One irony is that Western countries are rich enough that we could ALL have that “balanced life”, if nearly all the fruits of increasing productivity hadn’t been going to the 1% all these years.
Ding, ding, ding! WINNAR!
Please head on back to the Green Room, where Doug will present you with a gold-plated internets.
Samuel Vimes #13
You can’t, I’m afraid. For future reference though:
<a href="
Produces: Youtube video
The author of this “piece” is the niece of Phyllis Schlafly, another conservative woman who made a career out of telling other women that they shouldn’t work.
Is Fox prepping to promote polyamory? The more adults in the household, the lighter the load on each individual . . .
That’s just so many shades of stupid I hardly know where to begin.
First of all, you can want to work full time, have kids and have a “balanced life”. It’s just that the balance is different than if you don’t work full time and have kids or do work full time and don’t have kids. Do you always get 8 hours of sleep? Is your house clean? There are a million variations on what you do and don’t do in order to achieve balance.
A woman don’t need a man to have kids, and she doesn’t have to stop working full time because she has a man. Men don’t need to be the bigger salary, and if a man feels that he does, he needs to go have his head candled because he has some issues to resolve.
Of course, this is from my perspective, and I like working full time, have a couple of kids and even earn more than my business partner sometimes – who also happens to be my life partner AKA husband. Sometimes what we call balance might not look like it from the outside (crazy hours, cuckoo schedules and occasional sleep deprivation) but it’s working for us.
There is no monolithic “women”, no monolithic “men”. There are just a lot of individuals with different wants who need to find a way to make it work. If that means staying home full time with kids (whether you’re male or female), okay, so what relevance does that have to anyone else?
Delurking to mention that she’s Phyllis Schlafly’s niece; carrying on the great family traditions, I suppose.
My Lady makes more than I do and although I could make it on my own, a partnership is a nice thing to be involved in. Does that mean she’s really a Man, and I a sweet Lass? I guess that’s fine. Do I have to shave? It doesn’t seem to bother my “Man”. Damn these societal rules are confusing.
I assume that this has something to do with the fact that most married women vote Republican since Fox News is pushing this story.
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/OTUS/put-ring-obama-wins-women-married-types/story?id=16057761
I can think of few things more unbalancing to a life than a baby.
Of course. You need TWO for balance, otherwise you’re walking lopsided.
if this article is deemed necessary to reassure and convince women that it is OK to be a dependent on “A Man” it must be that the “traditional role” of women is being questioned by women.
I wont even suggest that the state if the economy makes it impossible in the first place. The two income household has long been the norm if not an absolute necessity.
How can anyone be so divorced from the reality of modern life to even form the sentences saying such BS.
(I have read this over and hope I have not left out too many words or phrases)
uncle frogy
And there’s nothing empowering about being beholden to an employer.
I guess women will just have to start their own businesses than. Though I am sure the author will have some objection to that as well.
Ya know, the “paycheck” hasn’t been around for very long in human history terms, let alone evolutionary.
I will also suggest that she must have a real lousy male peer group if she thinks that’s true of men in general.
Somewhat related:
Although saying stupid shit about women occurs pretty much daily on Twitter, this douchebro has a check by his name and makes a shitload of money playing a game. And the mini-bros are flocking to show how they view empowerment of women as well. Some of it is snarky but still seems to punch down, so it’s hard to discern motive.
@unclefrogy #32:
And even when a one-income household was the norm, it could still be hard for two people to raise a family. Plus ca change…
Fox news just wants to bring back the 1950s because they were the “golden years” in sooo many ways. First gotta convince them uppity types to get back in their respective places, toot sweet.
.
Fox is to news as giant chrome fins are to modern transport.
Granted, this is due to decades of Republican labor policies, but let’s ignore that while promoting equally effective Republican social policies.
Right, so, when I spent two years working three days a week so I could be at home for two days to raise my daughter, the implication is that I wasn’t being a proper man? And now, as I’m home full-time with lil’ Leeloo Multipass* (we’ve removed her from childcare as we prepare to move interstate and my wife completes her medical degree) I should basically be checking to see if I’ve grown a vagina?
Hands up if you think we’re in a post-sexist post-patriarchal world!
_________________
*Not her real name.
Aw, now I’m disappointed.
@41
Sorry :D.
Samuel Vimes #13 – there is another option. Use youtu.be short form URLs.
http://youtu.be/Ahqu1nd3Zu8
Damn. There USED to be an option. They changed it. NOOOOOO!!!
Lofty @ #38
Isn’t 1950 about 50 or 75 years past the golden age for Fox News and its audience of Republicans, Tea Partiers, Libertarians, and so forth? I could have sworn the peak was 1880 – 1930. The country just went to hell in 1932 when it elected that damn multi-millionaire Socialist/Communist in Demoncrat covering.
zenlike
There is a definite tendency here: the biggest “back into the kitchen” assholes in Germany are women with a career and a big paycheck as well.
well not directly, but they have these stores where you can exchange part of your paycheck for things to take to bed with you… (or what A. Noyd said in #19)
aside from that, I’m a bit unclear on why the options are paycheck or husband; or why I can’t just take my boyfriend to bed without marrying him.
that line of reasoning leads to Marxism, not to traditional gender roles. Just Sayin’.
@zenlike
It’s a family tradition. Her aunt has a full-time job telling women they shouldn’t work at all.
@jeffj
she wrote a previous article about how women’s unladylike ways are turning men into man-children. That’s what she’s referring to.
When the reality is obviously that men are finally catching on to the idea that maybe they could have some work-life balance too instead of being forced to spend their entire lives being worked to death.
robro @45
Well its the golden age that the old white people remember from their personal experience, history being not studied much by this type of goon.
I’m a woman happily married to a woman. We both work full time but when we procreate (sans husbands) we will both be part time workers and part time mothers.
I’m pretty sure I just made the author’s head explode. See how much more “balanced” life is without restrictive gender roles?
I don’t need a husband. However, I really could do with a wife. Any gender.
My generation – men and women were considered lazy when we were looking for our first jobs in the late 1980s/early 1990s because we wanted balanced lives. Work was not the end all. We wanted time with our family and friends and for our hobbies. It had nothing directly to do with having kids. It had everything to do with watching our parents spend their lives working and not getting much time to enjoy the fruit of their labors.
Due to my health problems I’m glad I have a man who can support me but I’d rather be able to work and I’m pretty sure he’d love a part-time job so he could have balance in his life.
Because men are entirely independent and self-sufficient. They can live in vacuum, bathed in hard radiation. They are born Libertarians, self-created from nothing; gods, each and every one.
Why is she telling women “you can’t take your paycheck to bed with you”? Is she implying that men can?
#53, Alethea:
Of course we can. Have you never seen Scrooge McDuck?
Why do Disney Ducks wear coats/shirts/dresses and footwear but no pants?
@ Alethea
I used to be paid in cash. This came to a fair bundle of notes¹. With this I would paper my bed and dive onto – in spreadeagle fashion. I can vouch for it being a fun thing to do.
.
¹The largest denomination in China is the RMB100 note. This to help prevent smuggling of cash out of the country.
chigau
cos disney characters never have sex and it has to be obvious it can never happen.
Ahh bullshit.
People were getting paychecks back in 1776 just after Jesus created the world.
Lofty #57
If they never have sex, where do the new ‘toons come from?
huh?
Answer me that?
eh?
@chigau (#59)
Well, I should have thought it would be obvious, but here’s your answer.
A. Noyd #60
Look Out for Mr Stork – Dumbo (with Lyrics and Additional Scene)
is not available for my mobile device but my imagination is filling in.
Er… no. Because giant chrome fins are COOL! (Although I recognise that I may just have betrayed a tragic side by expressing this opinion, and furthermore by doing so in these terms…)
As for taking a paycheck to bed with you – men do not take their paycheck to bed directly. They give part of their paycheck to a woman in exchange for getting to take her to bed. That’s how it works, amiright?
There was supposed to be a / sarcasm closing tag after that “amiright?”, but it seems to have vanished…
It is true that Disney ducks do not wear pants, but they do wear a swimsuit or swimming trunks when they go swimming.
For how many lower-wage people is it even possible to pay the mortgage and other things if both spouses do not work, at least outside the welfare states (Sweden, Finland etc.) the Fox people hate so much.
chigau @59
They are all immaculately created, by “WALTUS” their chief god, I believe.
I could be Empress of the Moon, leading my Moon-Troops to crush all in my wake, but that society would still prefer to be fleeing from, or kneeling to, a sexy, married, heterosexual, Moon Empress than the likes of me or any other permutation of womanhood outside ye olde patriarchal ideals.
(Or even more ideally, a tall Moon Emperor with “good” hair and the sound moral judgement you can only, only have if you’ve been raised to believe in Space Jebus, praise be upon him).
I don’t respect people who define themselves by how much they earn – being proud of, and even having as a major part of your identity, what you do is fine, but earnings are not a way to meaningfully measure human worth. Don’t get me wrong, money is nice – my life goal is to be one of the idle rich, but I can only seem to manage the first 50% of that goal.