Ladies — especially you, feminists — listen up: If you want to know the real reason men don’t want to get married these days, you have only yourselves to blame. “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,” anti-feminist Suzanne Venker writes in an op-ed for Fox News entitled “War on Men.”

Yes, somehow women not succumbing to outdated and antiquated gender roles equates to a female-led war against men.

The crux of Venker’s piece is that men don’t want to marry women because “women aren’t women anymore.” And by that, she essentially means women are forsaking their “place” at home for a spot in the working world where, instead of baking cupcakes and cleaning all day like they should be, they can earn money to pay their rent and other bills without having to rely on someone else. The horror!

“The so-called rise of women has not threatened men. It has pissed them off,” Venker writes. “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.”

She continues: “Feminism serves men very well: they can have sex at hello and even live with their girlfriends with no responsibilities whatsoever.” Because, evidently, the right to be promiscuous is one of the only things that feminism has accomplished, at least in Venker’s warped view.

But don’t worry, ladies. There’s still hope for you! Here’s Venker’s advice on how you can make men feel more masculine and, in the process, get them to marry you (because we all know that what every woman really wants is to get married and have lots and lots of babies):

“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.”

Or, women could just listen to this alternative perspective that comes to us courtesy of Jezebel:

Ignoring all of her bullshit about “surrendering to their nature and femininity” — as if women somehow were naturally not ambitious and wanting to make money and gain the ego gratification a professional career provides — the rise of women in the workplace is in direct response to direct and indirect oppression, and the fact that working is often just an economic reality for everyone. Also, nice women-in-the-workplace-blaming article from a woman who opens by praising her own workplace experiences. I wonder how emasculated her work makes her (presumable) husband feel? Shouldn’t she be on all fours in the bathroom so that her man can fuck her while she’s scrubbing the toilet and sous-viding a pot roast? Thank goodness she found the time to write this drivel between dusting knick-knacks and perfecting her fellatio skills — you know, the truly important lady business. Read more

In addition to being a staunch defender of GOP Rep. Michele Bachmann, Venker is the niece of anti-feminism leader and hypocrite extraordinaire Phyllis Schlafly. Would you expect her to espouse a view that is nothing less than ridiculous and absurd?

— Posted by Tracy Bloom.