I wonder why all these people who are so concerned with children having someone to be s "nurturing force", they never consider the father.

Oh, wow. I love the part where Mr. Tarbor says young women don't relate to Smeal and Steinem anymore, because they are considered out of touch and angry. Thanks for speaking for us all, oh Wise One. What an ass.

"If feminism is dead, why do they have to keep trying to kill it?"

Because it's a man-brain-eating zombie. You have to rekill it every night unless there's a full moon out. Then you have to rekill it twice and tie a voodoo doll with an oversized penis around its neck. This stuff is all in the Anti-Feminist Handbook.

Also, cuddling with the vacuum cleaner is okay, as long as it doesn't bring you to orgasm.

There certainly seem to be a lot of articles written about this topic lately. Perhaps it's a case of, if you shout a lie loud enough, long enough, people will start to believe it.

You think?

why am i starting to actually like david thompson? first, the comment about education=/=intelligence and now this... mad funny.

"Seriously though--since when is 'career life' 24/7?"

For women, it always has been, since they're the ones who go to work all day, and then get to come home to: "raising their children, offering love and support to their husbands"...and cook...and clean...laundry...blah blah.

And kids don't suffer from the parental loss of the father? This is not only insulting to women on several levels, but insulting to men as well, insinuating that they can't be the "home parent," and are only worth the weight of their providing wallets. Why in the world aren't all these forgotten children whining on the phone to daddy too? Oh that's right, Feminism has made men "unnecessary." I guess the only way to make them necessary is to make them foot the bill for the whole family.

Maybe we should not waste higher education on females. That would certainly free up more higher paying jobs for the heads of the household (men).

Maybe we should not waste higher education on females. That would certainly free up more higher paying jobs for the heads of the household (men).

I love when these guys use Dowd out of context. I really do wonder if he bothered to read the whole book or her columns with any regularity.

I sent a nice little email to Mr. Tabor letting him know that according to the Economist article "Womenomics" the increased participation of women in the labor force has contributed more to global growth than the internet revolution, and the rise of India and China put together. So, yes, why don’t we all go back to our 9-5 job of taking care of the kids.

Problem is, the feminist second wave began from so many women growing up watching their moms in the "24/7" homemaker role and sensing some dissatisfaction there (not saying the role is inherently dissatisfying, but certainly it's not perfect for all women!). If Tabor is right, and feminism itself convinces women to go back to the kitchen, wouldn't that phenomenon keep cycling on itself?

Put another way: We should all remember that the families with young children in the 50's ended up producing the teenagers & young adults of the 60's and 70's...

Holy revisionist history, Batgirl! When my mom got home from school in the 50's, there was a black maid to greet her. My grandmother was in school herself so that she could better support two kids on her own as widow. For some of her childhood my mom lived with her aunt so my grandmother could finish graduate school. In the end, she sent both my mom and sister to college and paid for their weddings. Guess they would have been "better off" if she had just sat home and let them starve, or skipped the college educations. My father was largely raised by his grandparents while his widowed mother eeked out a living in sales. Neither grandmother ever heard of Barney or got a break from working for wages until retirement. None of my parents' sisters got out of working for wages, and none of those familes are driving BMW's. My own mom is still working after dad has retired so they can pay off their mortgage and not eat beans in their 80's, AND THEY HAVE GRADUATE DEGREES. But I guess these "working class" people just don't count in the analysis, huh. No one in this entire saga is a serial killer or burden on society. Is this guy talking about ANYONE besides Laura Bush?

You know, this stuff annoys me... especially because there is a certain truth. More and more women my age (20-something) are refusing to call themselves feminist -- even where I work, a mostly male, mostly older, definitely conservative engineering workplace, many of the women here, despite being the only girl in a calculus class or thermo class for most of their lives, would never say we "need" feminism and would not identify with that lable. Its bizarre to me -- how they look around and see the lack of women around their job and not think there is at least some systematic discrimination against women that causes his unbalance!

On another subject, as a child of a bored brilliant stay-at-home mother, it was a nightmare for the first 13 years of my life... and then the "divorce" culture lead me being raised by a single mother who had gone back to law school and suddenly my life was opened to a world of possibilities. It just goes to show you that what works for some families doesn't work for others..

Becca, I retain the label (feminist) no matter what I do because I've found that if I can present myself as both that and whatever else I'm trying to do, little by little, people get over the label and figure out what it really means. When people figure out that my politics don't mean that we can't have a normal conversation, they get over it. I have no idea how to get the women who refuse to reclaim it, but at least for me, it's never occured to me to proceed any other way. I just wish I had a better universal answer.

"So ladies, I guess we’re just going to have to pack it in and get our asses back in the kitchen."

You omitted our barefoot and pregnant arses.

Lurker wrote, "There certainly seem to be a lot of articles written about this topic lately. Perhaps it's a case of, if you shout a lie loud enough, long enough, people will start to believe it."

I get shivers thinking about what this phenomenon of studies and articles is about, and my mind kind of spins with Reagan-era style conspiracy theories, that you just repeat some non-fact over and over again in everyones ear, the general public starts to accept it as fact. That way, when the roll-back of rights happens, we all accept it because women only want to be mothers anyway! It's called hegemony. Conservatives have been setting the stage for years.

I'd prefer to think, em!, that we are hearing the swan song of a patriarchal fantasy. Certain men love the delusion that they are supporting the whole show, and there are always women who are willing to tell them what they want to hear. Truth is, most families CANNOT afford for either spouse to drop out of the workforce, so this is just about how bad we are going to make most women feel about working, not whether they work or not. Also, one thing feminism did not anticipate in the 70's is how must resistance men would put up to taking more responsibility at home. This is a big backlash against having to worry about getting the kids to a doctor's appointment.