Whether you follow her radio show or not, chances are you have an opinion on Dr. Laura, meaning Laura Schlessinger, who is in Salt Lake City today to promote her latest self-help book, "The Proper Care & Feeding of Husbands."
During a lively phone conversation from her California home, Dr. Laura conceded she is controversial — "Callers know if they need a slap upside the head, they'll get that. And if they need a hug, they'll get that. I'm functioning in their best interests — I'm not exploiting them. Some people have complained about my technique, but usually I can win them over. They can't believe my honesty. They're probably stunned until they get it."
What she means is that a caller may be interrupted before finishing a question by a tough Dr. Laura comment such as this one, excerpted from the book, to Nikki who is worried about her fiance's manners: "Nikki, if you are ashamed of him, get rid of him." Nikki says she is "totally in love with him." Dr. Laura says, "Nikki, get a different man. Stop beating this one to death . . . if you want an exercise maniac who reads Ms. Manners, get one of those."
Dr. Laura is heard on 250 stations across the country as well as some in Canada and Armed Forces Radio. Her show can be heard in the Salt Lake area weekdays on KNRS (AM-570) from 1 to 4 p.m.
She says when she is home with friends and family she is different. "I keep my mouth shut off the air. If you breach a healthy boundary with friends, it might change the relationship. My friends don't expect me to be 'Dr. Laura.' Only one in 10,000 people who meet me at book-signings ever ask me a question. Instead, they express gratitude, and I like that. I want to know how I have changed their lives."
And apparently she is changing lives. "This book has been an incredibly humbling experience. There is a faster, more profound response to this book than any of the others. Marriages that were in the toilet have gone to being like newlyweds. I get 50 faxes a day from people who say the book has changed their lives. It has changed marriages overnight. Amazing!"
And because she is criticizing women for the way they treat their husbands, she says, men are buying the book in droves.
When she started in radio in her 20s, she was attracted by the woman's movement. "But I've been on the air for 29 years and now I say I'm a recovering feminist. Feminists are women who are angry, starting with fairness and employment. Every human being should have that, but the movement was co-opted by women who didn't love either men or femininity. They rant about all this patriarchal nonsense. Women don't realize how angry they are."
Even though she works full time outside the home, Dr. Laura is critical of other women who do. "One of the horrible things women have done is burn candles at both ends. It's a myth that two people in the marriage have to work. It's true that only one person working will produce a more moderate life style."
Will there be a sequel to this book — "The Proper Care and Feeding of Wives"? No way, says Dr. Laura. "What would I do in a sequel? There's nothing there. Men are breaking their backs doing the hard work and making the living. Women are more emotionally complicated, sensitive and difficult. Men are pretty simple for the most part. When men get affection and approval, they jump through hoops!"
Dr. Laura also believes that most women do not cultivate men sexually or appreciate them enough.
Asked if she isn't embracing a 19th century concept of women's domestic role — subordination and submission — she says, "If anyone was subordinated in the 19th century, it was men. Men do not put women on pedestals now. Women are subordinate now. The average guy doesn't imagine giving a woman a seat or putting his coat over the mud for her. Men think women don't need them. Women went from elevation to the outhouse!"
Dr. Laura advises women to treat men better so that they will once again become chivalrous. "I don't touch doors! I wait 'til a man opens it and then I say, 'Thank you!' "
A mother of one child who is 18 and now out of the home, Dr. Laura says, "The empty nest is fabulous. All that child care and homework and suddenly you're free again. My husband and I have had a blast since our son left. I like to read or watch movies in the evening. I'm not a workaholic. I spend time with my husband.
"I work. I'm very proud of what I create and do. It has not been horrible."
But when her son was young, she worked "around him," rising early to do her writing, getting him off to school, then returning home before he did. "He never even knew I was gone. I was not a super mom but I was a committed mom. I always said, 'The day my job gets in the way of my kids, my job is done."
Schlessinger has written "a companion volume" to her book, entitled, "Woman Power," which will reach bookshelves in August.
"You know," she adds, "I'm the only woman in the history of radio to win the Marconi Award — it's like the Academy Award in movies — and no women's magazine ever did a story on it. Why did they ignore me? Because of my traditional viewpoint. The left is not interested in diversity."
If you go
What: Book signing
Where: ZCMI Deseret Book
When: Today, 6:30 - 8:30 p.m.
Phone: 328-8191
E-mail: dennis@desnews.com