Life

Why Women Should Just Stay Home

by Eliza Castile

Put down the briefcases and pick up the oven mitts, ladies, because some old guy came to a groundbreaking conclusion: Working mothers are ruining society, and everything would run so much more smoothly if women just stayed home all day. This fresh, innovative take is brought to you by vice presidential candidate Mike Pence, whose waxen visage graced our televisions during the vice presidential debate Tuesday night. His running mate, Donald Trump, has also said some things to indicate he shares these views; for example, in an interview in 1994, he noted that when his ex-wife Ivana had a hand in running a casino and the Plaza Hotel, "A softness disappeared. ... during this period of time, she became an executive, not a wife." Since women obviously cannot be both wives and executives, it stands to reason that their place is in the home. Right? Right.

According to CNN, Pence argued in a 1997 letter published in the Indianapolis Star that households with two working parents produce emotionally stunted offspring — which is all the mother's fault for not being home, of course. "Sure, you can have it all, but your day-care kids get the short end of the emotional stick," he wrote. While it's true that he used gender neutral language to discuss the study that inspired his letter, he focused almost exclusively on the mothers and women selfish enough to keep working after they produced a baby or two. How dare they! Those poor, neglected children! As Pence put it, "I am criticizing a culture that has sold the big lie that 'Mom doesn't matter.' These statistics should ignite a national debate about the family and precisely who should be raising the next generation of Americans."

The answer is women, of course! Who else? You might think you deserve to seek fulfillment from a career in the same way that a man does. Heck, you might have even gone to school and forgotten to get married before graduation. But someone has to be home all day to take care of the kids and take breaks from cleaning things to stare longingly at the outside world, and it's certainly not going to be the parent who just spent eight hours at the office. Didn't you know juggling work and family is hard?

But if that's not enough to convince you that a woman's place is in the home, here are six reasons to call the career woman thing a nationwide experiment and go back to the Leave It to Beaver family units. After all, if a privileged man loves them so much, then clearly we all have a lot to learn from him.

Women Working Distracts From A Man's Career

A working wife might outshine her husband (because obviously all women should marry men), and as Donald Trump pointed out in 1994, that can be a "very dangerous thing." What if she starts having interests outside her marriage? Could her husband's ego withstand the blow if her income is higher than his? These are all important considerations.

Men Are Biologically Incapable Of Doing Chores

If you've read about all those studies showing that women still take on the bulk of childcare and housework, even when they have careers of their own, and wondered why men can't pick up a darn broom, I have a theory: Maybe men are physically unable to do chores around the house. Maybe, unless a power tool is involved, their bodies shut down at the prospect and they wake up in the nearest sports bar hours later. Women, on the other hand, are obviously hardwired to pick up around the house. It's a hormone thing, probably.

Women Are Too Pretty To Be Smart

Let's face it: Women are just too pretty and delicate to handle the pressures of a workplace. Unless you are Ivana Trump, that is, because as Donald Trump put it, "the combination of beauty and brains" Ivana has is "almost unbelievable." For anyone other than Ivana, though, it is impossible. Also, women's periods would make them super hard to work with sometimes.

Men Might Have To (Gasp!) Cook For Themselves

If a woman's schedule differs from her husband's, she might not be home in time to have dinner ready and waiting at the end of his day. He could be forced to learn to cook for himself, and it's a slippery slope from there to having dinner waiting for her when she gets home. This is clearly against the natural order of things and must never, ever come to pass. Mr. Trump had it right when he said, "When I come home and dinner’s not ready, I’ll go through the roof, OK?"

Think Of The Children

When a mother works, she has less time to take care of her children, and her husband obviously can't pick up the slack. What, do you think marriage is a partnership between equals or something? As Trump once noted, there is a very clear divide: "I won't do anything to take care of them. I'll supply the funds and she'll take care of the kids." This is the natural order of things.

There Are Lesbians Out There

Pence's policies certainly don't favor LGBTQ people, which, combined with his stance on women's rights, suggests a compelling theory: The more time a woman spends in the outside world, the greater her chances of running into a lesbian, who would then magically turn her gay. That's the kind of risk we just can't take as a society.

Editor's note: This piece is satire. What you look like has nothing to do with how smart you are, and men are obviously capable of doing chores.

Images: Giphy (6)