Betsy Hart, for the uninitiated, is a Puritan woman who mistook a time machine for an outhouse and was dropped off in modern times to become a regressive, anti-feminist, woman hater, with an adoration for the nostalgia when women said little and stayed safe in the confines of a kitchen. The irony is that she has a column with which to spout her nonsense that she wouldn’t have had she been in charge of women’s suffrage. I’m reticent to put her in the Shithead Hall of Fame, although she has had an illustrious career of regressive buffoonery, and I do admire Ms. Hart’s consistency in rhetoric, unlike Hall of Fame-er Kathleen Parker. Her article “Divorcee has a few things to say about Marriage” is another of those fantasy laden tales where an imaginary girlfriend of Ms. Hart prompts a question about how to prevent marital breakup. Ms. Hart, in classic right wing fashion, doubles down and assures the reader that yes, she was proffered advice on this matter, that she was married for 17 years, and then “blindsided by divorce”. Oh, and she’s been single for “half a decade”, which leads me to wonder if she types most of articles with raccoon-eyes, drenched from the acres of mascara on her face, fighting back further tears as she talks to this imaginary girlfriend, who fears that her son will not be able to hold up a marriage. Hey, she’s up for the challenge, let her use a micro fiber towel to wipe away those smudges and compile a veiled list for the modern couple to use…before they are blindsided by reality.
She starts off with: “…at the top of the list for your husband is, likely sex.”. Understatement of the year Ms. Hart; she goes on to rectify this statement by saying that that IS the list. Classic! Of course all men are horn dogs for sex, amiright ladies? Ms. Harper then goes all Inception on us by recalling another fantasy fable of a young mother telling advising wives to find out how much sex your husband wants, then give him more. Ms. Hart agrees fully. It’s regressive in it’s approach at being progressive (or proactive) by saying “yes, fuck the shit out him” because it’s a cornerstone of Ms. Hart’s belief in that sex is only for procreation. Ahh, now you get it. She masks this caveat in that sex is crucially important to men for both their ego…and well…their ego.
Now that you’re fucking the daylights out of your man, you know, for his pleasure, Ms. Hart suggests “…resisting the urge to whine, and instead thanking him on a regular basis…Anything that will build him up.” Wives stop whining and fall to his feet in gratefulness in all his awesome manliness! It’s less a list of help and more of a way for a woman to trick her husband into not being a man, making him eager to care for and please her. Heaven forbid he actually try to take care of the family he reared, or having a meaningful employment, you know he can’t build himself up. It’s a nice slight of hand to get the man to do the bidding of the wife, but think that he’s doing all the heavy lifting. Clever girl, Ms. Hart.
All that “best friend” bullshit, cut it out, Ms. Harper warns. Men are totally incapable of forging bonds of trust and friendship with a woman, he’s not built to comfort you when your stylist doesn’t get your hair to look like Jennifer Lopez’s, he can’t relate to the mocking your scale puts you through daily. So don’t even try, instead get a gal pal. Cherish the thought that you somehow have not yet in life managed to collect a gaggle of ladies to become your support, and incessantly pick your side in any domestic argument. Here’s where the puritanical thought reveals itself. Ms. Hart fails to believe or understand that the modern woman has many “friends” and most of them aren’t other women! What!? A lot of these girls are self-reliant, they were raised by other strong women who believe in the progression of the whole women are equal to their male counterparts. She can’t even be bothered to think that a woman may not want to be shackled with a family, or take care of a delusional husband that needs to be fucked constantly to function as a grown man.
Husband: (Walks in to scene, shoulders slumped, frowny visage) “Oh honey, since you didn’t fuck me enough, I just didn’t have enough balls to be made partner at the firm!”
Wife: (Busoms Heaving) “Oh dear, I’m so sorry…maybe if you would’ve put the JCPenney catalog out and told me to buy that new stove I wanted I could’ve!”
Husband: (Pulls at hair)(Screaming) “Oh no we are ruined!”
…and Scene.
Ms. Hart’s articles always have this twisty, absurd logic to them. Wherein they start out innocently enough, at first blush, but if you start scratching at it long enough, it unveils the cynicism towards the progressive women’s movement.
She’s not done! Husbands, you know what REALLY turns a woman on? Cleaning up around the house, being a father to your kids, it “may be the ultimate aphrodisiac for your wife.”. Key word in the quotes is MAY, and it is such bullshit. You mean husbands have to take responsibility for their actions? No more hot-dogging at the sports bar, secret golf trips, corporate retreats at Vegas, hitting on the cashier at the grocery store (when he’s buying diapers, food, and the box of tampons for his wife)? Ms. Hart also suggest a little seduction in the guise of harping on your significant other.
Another imaginary friend enters the picture with a small anecdote of the time she tricked her husband with a steak placed under a box, held up by a stick. Once the husband grabbed at the steak and released the trap, his wife explained to him: “…I really don’t want to get dressed up to go to a party. I have be talked in to it, sometimes cajoled…” What?! Is it any surprise that Ms. Harper and her imaginary friends are divorced? Imagine every social function you have to TRICK your significant other in to going? “Honey, there’s a bag of diamonds in the trunk of the car, you should come see them. I think they’re blood diamonds!” She comes over to inspect, then you shove her ass in there, grab some shoes and a dress from her closet and then drive like a bat out of hell to the party. How many times can you do that before she either divorces you, or has a restraining order issued? It’s foolishness! I don’t know many woman who would rather forgo a social function and sit at the house alone on a Friday night. Again, I’m not married or old enough to have to go to very many social functions. Hell, I hate social functions, yet I will dress up and go because, at the end of the day, it is worth it in some form, especially if it’s free booze and a cash bar! Ms. Harper agrees with her devious imaginary friend, “So Guys, instead of being impatient or demanding, how about working a little harder to encourage your wife to want to get dressed for the party? You see?” See what exactly, Ms. Harper, the lack of distinction between demanding and impatient with trickery and begging/pleading that she must get dressed up and go to a fucking party? That’s a fine line that I’m sure can easily be crossed when you’re trying to get someone who needs to be “cajoled” to do something for you.
I also wonder how many of Ms. Harper’s articles are less advice columns and more hit pieces on her failed marriage and ex-husband. There’s few throwaway lines of honoring vows and loving their partners even with they don’t do the “right things”. That’s the great thing about people though, Ms. Harper is conflict and compromise, some of the cornerstones of a marriage! She treats marriages like it’s a battle of attrition, where one partner has to have to upper hand to get anything accomplished, or that somehow a relationship with God will smooth rough patches over, again caving in to something with an upper hand. How about you stop trying to list “the right things”? More often than not a partner’s idea of a right thing isn’t going to mesh with the other’s idea. What you care about, and may be a deal breaker, doesn’t even register. That’s typical of life, as well as in a group of people with a common goal.
Let us not forget as the sepia fantasy scene dims, and the curtains close that Ms. Harper has an agenda. A supposed widely held belief that strong marriages with lots of children with somehow pull us away from the perceived moral bankruptcy that threatens to destroy our country.
You know a few things this divorcee should’ve said? How about why her marriage failed, where she came up short, and what her imaginary friends son could do to see warning signs of problems. What if, instead of planting tongue firmly in cheek as a guise to talk down to young women getting married and pushing her puritanical agenda, she offered actual good life advice from someone who was married for 17 years. Surely, she gleaned some information in between patronizing her husband and eating ice cream alone after he goes to a party.
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