Does everyone remember the Judith Warner piece Broadsheet posted on this topic a couple of months ago?

http://warner.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/01/03/outsourced-wombs/?ex=1200286800&en=28bf71f40059f51f&ei=5070&emc=eta1

I don't understand how anyone can equivocate with respect to the complete moral quagmire this issue represents after reading her piece. I still can't help but laugh at the '— feels like a step toward. . .insane dehumanization' line, from the same woman who wrote:

". . .the money (Indian women) were earning for their services — $6,000 to $10,000 – might have been a pittance compared to what surrogates in the United States might earn, but it was still, for their families, the equivalent of 10 to 15 years of normal income."

Can we just linger on that statistic for a moment:

The equivalent of 10 to 15 years of their normal income.

You're given the "option" of grotesque, grinding poverty if you go about your day-to-day life versus an unimaginable financial windfall if you gestate, carry, and hand off a living human being. "Feels like"? A "step toward"? How can this be construed as anything but the most appalling exploitation?

"I hate to rely on this hokey notion that there's some woman's way of knowing, and that I just fucking know. But I do. I just know."

When I was growing up, I watched my dad go ballistic whenever a female politician, spokesperson, or authority figure of any kind was interviewed on television. If the woman's remarks didn't make him particularly angry, then he would comment on her shrill, annoying voice. Or her ugly face. Or her stupid hair. It took me a long time to realize it didn't matter who these women were, or how much they had accomplished, or what profession they were in. They all had only one thing in common--and it was the one thing my dad never overtly acknowledged. Second wave feminists talk about that 'click' moment where you understand immediately and intuitively that sexism is real and is shaping and defining your very life--this realization was mine.

Point being, it's pretty heartbreaking when a daughter realizes her father just doesn't like women, and this election has brought a lot of those feelings back for me. The foaming irrationality(dare I say hysteria?)of the vitriol directed at Hillary--not just from dino-republicans, but from the very factions progressive women imagined were on their side all along--is manifest. This isn't some kind of airy-fairy women's intuition, it's obvious to anyone with open eyes and an attention span.

But it helps if your upbringing has already taught you what to look for.

It's not just women's studies departments that are struggling, it's the humanities in general--particularly the more peripheral departments like comparative literature, french, interdisciplinary studies, etc.

Can I just say most of the posters on this topic have no idea what they're talking about. There's been nothing but windy, utterly uninformed rhetoric about what goes on and is taught in WS departments, and why someone would want to study the topic. (For one thing, there seems to be an assumption that all those someones are women--not so.) It's no different than any specialization. WS is often where philosophy or sociology or interdisciplinary students will head when they want to pursue research in more woman-specific areas of their field. For example, a sociologist wanting to study the effects of poverty on rural women or something along those lines.

Whatever you think about WS (and I'm not necessarily declaring for it one way or the other) it doesn't have anything to do with--sigh--'studying how bad men are'. Jesus christ, in 2008, do I really I have to say this?

And to Genghis Can who sez:

"Personally I think it is a swimming idea for colleges to start Men's Studies Departments. Run by men for men, just like the women's programs."

The standard answer to this hoary chestnut is that, traditionally, the teaching of the humanities has entailed NOTHING BUT Men's Studies up until very recently.

How many Salon readers post responses to reviews and interviews solely to assert their own moral and/or intellectual superiority to the person under discussion.

. . .more blogs. I don't want to be negative--you guys get enough of that--and I'm glad to see you're exploring ways to actually pay all these writers for the content they provide, but it seems to me this is the reason print journalism is becoming obsolete. So many people are giving away so much substandard (sorry) content for nothing or next to nothing that no one thinks decent writing that adheres to basic journalistic standards is worth paying for anymore. It's a vicious cycle, and it's what's killing the quality of newspapers and magazines--both online and off.

"For those who are criticizing the content over on OS -- if you would like to see it improve, try posting over there. We'd be glad to have you educate the rest of us."

D-Knit, it's like this. I don't publish anything (well except this stuff) for under a dollar a word, not because I think I'm smarter than anyone else, but because that's my profession, and I'd starve if I did. I'm sure lots of OS writers are good at what they do. But they're never going to make a career of it if they keep giving it away for free. Meanwhile, the careers of others in print media are rapidly eroded and devalued as a result. No more meaty investigative features and 5000 word think-pieces--it's off to the corporate salt mines where you're actually well-paid and treated like a professional for your abilities. What are we left with? Insta-punditry where once there was journalism but a whole lot of extremely articulate ads for soap.

How did a such a glib, lazy colloquialism like: "Hello? What century is this, Woody?" get past the editors, to say nothing of O'Hehir's self-editor. Dude! Whatever.