This is a rush transcript from "The O'Reilly Factor," April 18, 2008. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
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BILL O'REILLY, HOST: In the "He Said, She Said" segment tonight: A new study by the University of Michigan says when a woman gets married, she adds seven hours of housework to her life each week. But a man, when he gets married, he loses one hour of housework. Now I don't know about the gay marriage thing. This is heterosexual marriage. So if I'm doing the math correctly, the ladies are picking up after the men far more than vice versa.
With us now to analyze, Internet czar MarcRudovRadio.com in San Francisco, and FOX News analyst Margaret Hoover in Washington.
OK. Margaret, so, it looks like the housework is falling on the shoulders, the able shoulders of American women.
MARGARET HOOVER, FOX NEWS ANALYST: Well, according to the study, that may be true. I think there is a whole generation of women who probably wouldn't sign up for marriage if they knew that was part of the contract.
Listen, I mean, this is really — what the same study said is that women generally these days do a lot less housework than they did in 1968, and this is the benefit of the women's movement. The women's movement and the result that I get to benefit from and my generation gets to benefit from is that we might be doing housework, but we might not be. And we get to choose, and we get to negotiate and work that out with our prospective husbands or with our husbands. Hopefully, you figure it out before you get married so you're not slapped...
O'REILLY: That's a good point, Marc. Isn't this all about a negotiation? Because everybody's circumstance is different. A lot of families, both the husband and wife have to work for economic reasons. And then they have varying jobs, and they come home at varying times. So isn't this all about negotiation? But if it is, it looks like women are doing a lot more at home than men inside the house anyway.
MARC RUDOV, MARCRUDOVRADIO.COM: Well, that's a good point. And this is a flawed, anti-male, un-academic study — the kind you would expect from one of America's leading gyno-versities. It does not take into account the kind of a marriage there is.
For example, if the man works and the woman stays at home, her job is to do housework while he's out earning money to keep her and keep the house up. She doesn't come into his job. He doesn't complain about all the reports he has to do that she's not coming in to help him with.
And, you know, it also doesn't incorporate all of the tasks — this focuses kind of on dishes, vacuuming and laundry. How about fixing the shingles on the roof? How about fixing the car? How about doing plumbing, electrical work? It doesn't incorporate all of that.
O'REILLY: All right. So the real men — this doesn't sound too fair, Margaret. I mean, if it doesn't incorporate — they should have broken the study out to duel working couples and then stay-at-home-mom couples, because Marc is correct for one of the few times in his life. If you throw in all of the stay-at-home work, that's going to skew the study and make guys look like lazy oafs, right?
HOOVER: Absolutely. You should do all the housework inside and not just outside the house and inside the house. But here's the problem. The reason they did the study is because they're re-evaluating changing of traditional gender roles in the household. Women's role in the household has changed since the women's movement. I don't know if women's role outside the household has changed. I mean, are more women mowing lawns and fixing shingles and doing electrical work and plumbing?
O'REILLY: No, they're not.
HOOVER: I can tell you I sure do. My dad taught me to.
O'REILLY: Hold it, hold it, Margaret. No, no, no. Wait, wait. Wait, wait. When was the last time you mowed a lawn, Margaret?
RUDOV: Send me pictures, Margaret.
HOOVER: I worked my way through college. Oh, I've got pictures for you, Marc.
O'REILLY: Hold it, hold it, hold it.
HOOVER: On my block.
O'REILLY: You were mowing lawns to pay your way through college? You were out there?
HOOVER: And summers when I grew up.
RUDOV: Right.
O'REILLY: Margaret, no one's buying this.
HOOVER: You don't believe that I mowed lawns?
O'REILLY: No.
HOOVER: Bill O'Reilly, I'm offended if you think I didn't work, work, work.
O'REILLY: Margaret, the only way that you would be mowing a lawn...
HOOVER: If you think because I'm a pretty girl I can't mow a lawn I'm offended. You don't think that I mow the lawn and do the housework?
O'REILLY: I was going to say something very, very offensive, but I've decided to let Marc do it.
HOOVER: But this is "He Said, She Said" segment, and you're going to respect the fact that women can mow lawns.
O'REILLY: OK, Margaret, we got it.
RUDOV: Bill...
O'REILLY: Marc, go ahead.
RUDOV: OK. So we have the situation where the woman is staying at home. Let's take the marriage where both people work outside the home, in which case they do have to share the household chores. If the woman is complaining that the man doesn't work enough around the house, it's her fault. And there are two reasons for it: either, A, she said "I do" at the altar and "I don't" in the bedroom, or she married a lazy slob thinking he would become Mr. Belvedere.
O'REILLY: Margaret, you want to have the last word?
HOOVER: The only part I concede to, Marc, is that it's up to women, absolutely, and women to figure the rules out before you sign the dotted line.
O'REILLY: You've got to figure that, right.
HOOVER: Yes.
O'REILLY: But a lot of people are deceptive. You know, they give you this little thing before you get married, and then after you get...
HOOVER: Kind of like you. You don't think I can mow a lawn?
RUDOV: These studies from gyno-versities are just useless.
O'REILLY: Now Marc, I've got to say that I know some guys who are real slugs. You know what I'm talking about?
RUDOV: Well, but again, if a guy is a slug and a woman marries him, it's her fault.
O'REILLY: No, no, but he wasn't a slug. When he got married he looked like Brad Pitt and then afterward he looks like Professor Irwin Cory. Do you know what I'm talking about?
RUDOV: That's because she said "I do" at the altar and "I don't" in the bedroom. She turned the bedroom into a refrigerator.
O'REILLY: As long as the bedroom is neat, I don't care.
Margaret, Marc, thanks very much.
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