Suzanne Venker
Some time ago, a friend of mine told me about a woman she knows who was dating a man who made less money than she did. To preserve his manhood, when they went out for dinner she would hand this man her debit card under the table so he could “pay” the bill. In what …
I had a conversation with my daughter about dating back when she was 18, whereupon I (sadly) learned that she was uncomfortable with the expectation that a man should pay on a date. Whaaat? I asked. That’s what men are supposed to do! I know, she said, but you don’t understand how things are today, Mom. …
How are men and women supposed to relate to each other in today’s culture? Despite societal questions concerning gender and masculine/feminine roles, most women still hope for marriage and motherhood sometime in their lives. But too many of them follow the cultural narrative that tells them to put off marriage until they've achieved career success. …
In her 2000 book Ten Things I Wished I’d Known—Before I Went Out into the Real World, Maria Shriver wrote the following: “Even though you think your career is your life and your identity, it’s not and it shouldn’t be.” I used that citation in the first book I ever wrote to drive home the …
What if you could be satisfied with what you have and never again wonder what else is ‘out there’? What if your love life were 100% aligned with your expectations? Unfortunately, we live in a culture that encourages people to search for something better when they’re dissatisfied with their marriage or relationship. This is especially …
This article was originally published at Evie Magazine. When I was 23, I married my college sweetheart. We’d been together since freshman year, although he was two years older than I was and as a result had been out in the real world for two years before I graduated. But he was only three hours …
“I did things backward. I started my career first, and marriage came much later.” Those are the words of my then 36-year-old mother in a 1966 article in The St. Louis Post Dispatch about her career as a stockbroker. After graduating from Washington University in St. Louis, where she was born in 1930, my mother got …
Dear Suzanne, I’m 29 and don’t feel anywhere close to marriage. Part of my frustration comes from the fact that for a large part of my 20s I haven’t been prioritizing the pursuit of romantic relationships at all, and I’m regretting it now, as I have been feeling more and more over the past few …
This past week I discovered entrepreneur Rebecca Lynn Pope who has a You Tube channel called “Life with the Popes TV.” Her most popular post (over a million views) is about modern women’s high expectations, a topic I’ve covered at length in my own work. (Not long ago I posted this on Facebook, and, unsurprisingly …
The following article was originally published at The Federalist. Twenty years ago, I wrote my first book about why women can’t “have it all,” or at least all at once, despite what the culture tells them. At the time, the so-called Mommy Wars were raging. Women everywhere who’d been sold a bill of goods by …
The first indication you’re talking to a married member of the modern generation is when the wife or husband says, “We’re pregnant.” Couples in the past would never dream of saying something so silly—because men do not get pregnant. But to the modern generation, there are no distinctions between women and men. They are one …
A coaching client (and podcast listener) of mine recently sent an email with the following question: How did your husband, a product of divorce, learn to stop fearing divorce or abandonment every time you two had an argument or problem? I listened to your latest podcast where he mentions that, but I would like to …
This article was originally published at the Washington Examiner. Last week, Fox Nation’s Tomi Lahren proved in spades with her “PSA for Boyish Men” why my coaching business is booming. Millennial women may be ’rockin in the marketplace, but they’re shooting blanks when it comes to love. They have no clue how to attract and …
This article was originally published at the Washington Examiner. In the last week alone, I’ve spoken with three millennial women (who reached out for coaching) who are all in the same boat: they’re up to their eyeballs in debt, having gotten degree upon degree due to the pressure they felt from their parents and the culture …
This article was originally published at the Washington Examiner. American culture has done a superlative job of convincing women it’s in their best interest to postpone marriage and family as long as possible and to prioritize education and career instead. This plan, they were told, is better than the way their mothers did things—because women …
More than half of young people in America are single. That may not seem like a social crisis, but its ramifications are profound. Not to mention the fact that the majority of those who are single do not wish to remain so. Millennials, aka Generation Y, have been hit hardest when it comes to this …
This article originally appeared in the Washington Examiner. We hear plenty in America about eligible men, or men who are “marriage material.” But what makes a woman “marriage material”? Seems to me this is a more pertinent question since women are the sex that bows out of marriage the most. Last week, pop star Kelly Clarkson …
In my last post, I wrote about 7 ways men can unleash their masculine core. I wrote it because the relationship between women and men is dying as a result of a complete sex role reversal—in which women have become more like men, and men have become more like women. The result is that both …
The following post is Part 2 of my last post, “The Other Problem That Has No Name.” It’s probably unseemly for a woman to tell a man how to unleash his masculine core. For a long time I didn’t want to write this; I kept telling people that men would rather hear about this subject …
On February 19, 1963, W.W. Norton published Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique, the book that helped launch the 1970s feminist revolution. In it, Friedan identified what she believed was the widespread unhappiness of housewives in the mid-20th century and labeled this malaise the “feminine mystique.” Her underlying argument was that women’s lives were narrowed into …
In the 2010 film Leap Year, the main character Anna (played by Amy Adams) is the quintessential modern woman: career focused and take charge. Toward the end of the film, Declan, her love interest, says to Anna, “Why don’t you stop trying to control everything in the known universe? It’s dinner. Have a little faith …
I don’t know about you, but I used to never collect my thoughts. Rather, I shared them. If I didn’t like something, I’d say so. If I felt frustrated or tired, I’d announce it. If I had an opinion (and I almost always have an opinion), I’d share it. Basically, every thought and feeling I …
Listen, Gentlemen, we need to talk. First of all, obviously as a woman I can’t relate to what it’s like to be a man in the modern world. But I can see, very clearly, what’s happening in modern marriage and relationships—and it’s not pretty. In fact, it’s a downright disaster. I know you want a …
This article was originally published at the Washington Examiner. I know it’s not trendy to suggest women marry earlier rather than later. But just because something’s unpopular doesn’t mean it’s wrong or even a bad idea. Smoking was at one time hugely popular, and look how dumb that was. This also isn’t an argument for …
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