Stephen Colbert has a few words on  Suzanne Venker  for repeating the same crap her Aunt Phyllis Schlafly has spewed since the 70s:  if women would just stop trying to be valued equally, they could find marriageable men.  Seriously. (Phyllis Schlafly also thought that a woman’s virtue could be detected in the way she moved her hips.  If she swung them a little too much, she was of easy virtue.

I hate to say this, but my mother thought along the same lines…she had my best interests at heart, but she was the woman of that mindset.  She either implicitly or explicitly indicated that a woman showing she was intelligent would discourage “good” men.  And an unmarried woman…gasp…an unmarried woman…well, there must be something wrong with her if she’s not married, for heaven’s sake.  She still, to this day, some seventeen years later, is trying to get me remarried, bless her heart.

The best quote I’ve ever read in regards to marriage and intelligent women is this:  (paraphrasing) “If a guy breaks up with you because you’re too intelligent and show it, don’t worry too much about it.  He’s just someone you would end up divorcing later.”  Classic.

Here’s another column on Suzanne Venker and not advising her daughter to become a brain surgeon because she will want to have babies.

Okay, I’m mixed on this because I do believe that kids need a parent–not necessarily the mother–to stay home at least the first five years.  I think these years are so very important in the development of the child’s sense of self and sense of security.  I just don’t think putting them in child care from the get-go is beneficial mentally.

But to say that the child should not strive for a career because she might want babies leaves out that the husband may want to stay home if she is the breadwinner.  She may want to have kids first and then go to college.  She may not want kids at all.

And it just is the old crap that has been spewed for centuries…the medical profession (men) actually put forth the idea that women’s uteruses would shrink if they went to college.  They got this *cough* brilliant conclusion after they noticed women who went to college were less likely to have kids or didn’t have as many kids as those who did not go to college.   Oh, yeah, and they also put for the idea that endometriosis was caused by…wait for it…women who delayed childbearing due to pursuing careers.  They were saying this clear into the 80s.  I kid you not.  It’s too much to actually look past biases and prejudice to see the actual cause might be environmental toxins and in my view, the effects of gluten intolerance (autoimmune response=menstrual blood attaching itself to abnormal places).