Anti-Feminism Writer Suzanne Venker: Feminism Has Eliminated All Of Men's Incentives To Marry

War on Men

Longtime critic of feminism Suzanne Venker claimed in a recent column that feminism and contemporary sexual mores have eliminated men's incentives to marry.

According to the Pew Research Center, the share of never-married American adults (ages 25 and older) has increased to one-in-five; double the percentage of never-married adults in 1960. The study also found that the gap between never-married men (23 percent) and women (17 percent) also increased during this time period.

In a May 5 FoxNews.com op-ed, Venker blamed feminism and changing sexual attitudes as the reason men don't want to get married. Venker asserted that “men used to marry to have sex and a family,” but argued that “when more women make themselves sexually available, the pool of marriageable men diminishes.” Later Venker added that feminism has made marriage unappealing to men because “there's nothing in it for them”:

Men used to marry to have sex and a family. They married for love, too, but they had to marry the girl before taking her to bed, or at least work really, really hard to wear her down. Those days are gone.

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What exactly does marriage offer men today? “Men know there's a good chance they'll lose their friends, their respect, their space, their sex life, their money and -- if it all goes wrong -- their family,” says Helen Smith, Ph.D., author of “Men on Strike.” “They don't want to enter into a legal contract with someone who could effectively take half their savings, pension and property when the honeymoon period is over.Men aren't wimping out by staying unmarried or being commitment phobes. They're being smart.”

Unlike women, men lose all power after they say “I do.” Their masculinity dies, too.

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There was a time when wives respected their husbands. There was a time when wives took care of their husbands as they expected their husbands to take care of them.

Or perhaps therein lies the rub. If women no longer expect or even want men to “take care of” them -- since women can do everything men can do and better, thank you very much, feminism -- perhaps the flipside is the assumption that women don't need to take care of husbands, either. And if no one's taking care of anyone, why the hell marry?

Venker has a long history of attacking feminism in what she calls society's "war on men," claiming “women pushed men off their pedestal” since the sexual revolution. Venker has also claimed that “the so-called rise of women has come at men's expense. Men have been disempowered.”