- New York Times bestselling author Lyz Lenz on Thursday compared happily married white middle-class women to white supremacists
- Lenz, author of This American Ex-Wife, made the provocative comment in response to a viral article advocating women marry older men
- The post was viewed nearly four million times, and Lenz used the traction to promote her divorce memoir
A New York Times bestselling author who has made a career writing about her divorce compared middle-class white women in happy marriages to white supremacy.
Lyz Lenz, author of This American Ex-Wife, made the provocative comment in response to a viral article published by The Cut who advocated women marrying older men.
“When an upper-middle-class white lady says marriage works for her… like yeah, that’s the point of white supremacy and patriarchy bb. It works for you and no one else,” Lenz, 42, wrote on X on Thursday.
The post was viewed nearly four million times and Lenz used the traction to promote her divorce memoir, writing in a second post ‘buy my book and read the entire argument so compelling my inbox is full of women leaving their marriages ‘.
Lenz, who writes the popular liberal blog “Men Yell At Me,” has written extensively about her divorce from her Trump-supporting husband of 12 years, David Lenz, in publications such as Esquire and The Washington Post.
New York Times bestselling author Lyz Lenz on Thursday compared happily married white middle-class women to white supremacists
Lenz, who writes the popular liberal blog ‘Men Yell At Me’, has written extensively about her divorce from her Trump-supporting husband of 12 years, David Lenz (pictured)
Lyz, a self-described “proud divorcee,” argues that divorce is “a practical and effective solution for women to take back the power they are owed,” according to her memoir.
However, many opposed Lenz’s marriage and the comparison to white supremacists, including writer and podcast host Jesse Singal.
“It’s very cultish and maybe five years ago this was just considered a normal way of talking and widely accepted in progressive circles,” Singal wrote about the comment on X.
“I think the pendulum is starting to swing back, but the deadenders are an extremely strange team,” he added.
Writer Mindy Isser also criticized Lenz, noting, “There is a lot to be said about the failures of marriage, the nuclear family, and heteronormativity. But it is also true that some people just manage to be in love and have equal partnerships,” she wrote on X.
“Sorry if this is too nuanced or cancelable,” Isser added.
‘I’m black and so is my wife. Marriage works for us,” writer Adam B. Coleman said of the post.
Lyz (pictured with ex-husband David and their children) says divorce is ‘a practical and effective solution for women to take back the power they are owed’
“This snobbish lady is jealous of successful relationships and lives in a rhetorical bubble that cannot comprehend that non-white people are married AND happily married.”
Lenz and her ex-husband David met in high school and married in 2005 at the age of twenty-two.
“I felt like I had done everything society had told me was right, and yet I never felt happy,” she says told The Times in a recent interview.
‘I’ve had a good life, but it felt like a trap. I had to spend the rest of my life picking up trash bags and telling my husband where to find the ketchup in the refrigerator.”
The couple divorced in 2017. “If something is miserable, you just can’t do it. It is not a failure, it is a success to let go of the misery that holds us back,” she explained.
“If you’re in a situation where you’re negotiating how much misery is too much misery, I think you have the answer.”