Suzanne Venker, she of the insipid Fox News "War on Men" op-ed, is back with some sage advice on "surrendering to your femininity." Is this a Samantha Brick-type deal where she's obviously trolling and we shouldn't be paying her any further attention? Almost definitely. (Also, she admits that she's trying to sell her upcoming book.) But let's quickly summarize her follow-up before we forget about Venker forever. (After all, we're pretty busy preparing for the front lines. Are women still excluded from ground combat in the War on Men?)
Venker is amused that women were so angry at her for insinuating that women "aren't women anymore." She was just trying to get the point across into your teensy little lady brains that "women shouldn't let their success in the workplace become the biggest thing in their lives":
If the ultimate goal is lasting love, women are going to have to become comfortable with sacrifice and capitulation. Because those are the underpinnings of a long-term marriage – for both sexes.
1. This goes without saying, but heteronormative, much? Not all women marry men. Not all men marry women. Not all people marry, period! Which leads to...
2. Maybe the ultimate goal isn't lasting love? Because this isn't a Disney movie?
3. Let's say you are a woman whose ultimate goal is to fall in "lasting" love. Why it on women to "surrender?"
Because blah blah something something about how women like to talk a lot and "Males, on the other hand –- in general – are loners. They're content to mill about in their man caves. They like to hunt. They like to build things and kill things."
Therefore, we must be open to some "blasphemous" ideas:
Just because you make your own money doesn't mean your guy can't pay the bill. Just because you value independence doesn't mean you can't take your husband's last name. Just because you can do the same a job a man can do doesn't mean you need to let him know it.
Surrendering to your femininity means many things. It means letting your man be the man despite the fact that you've proved you're his equal. It means recognizing the fact that you may very well want to stay home with your babies -– and that that's normal. It means if you do work outside the home, you don't use your work to play tit-for-tat in your marriage.
But most of all:
It means tapping into that part of yourself that's genuinely vulnerable and really does need a man – even though the culture says you don't.
Ok, we're done here. I need to go fill this big gaping hole I have inside of me.
[Fox News]
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