No one's apologizing for the mullahs. And you can have all the fun you want criticizing them. But one egregious act does (hopefully) not a culture make. Otherwise, considering what is going on at Guantanamo, and in the majority of our own prisons, we're screwed and on the condemnation block. Do you really believe that the majority of people in Iran endorse the killing of a particular gay youth? No one that I talk to does. And I find it fascinating that while we in the U.S. expect to be held in separate account from our own government, we never seem to be able to do that for other societies.

You might just consider that pieces about headscarves might be playing you just a little bit, to get a reaction and justification for activities of the current folks in power that you may not find particularly savory. Just a thought. Societies are by nature a product of averaged behavior. And while it might be fun to pull a particular anecdote out as a justification for hatred, it's not particularly informative.

And while I'm not a believer in moral authority by virtue of inherited position, my father, as an Iranian citizen, directly fought against the mullahs back in the '50s.

Nothing I can say will change your mind that the world isn't black and white-- and nothing I can say will convince you that there are consequences that may not be particularly intended when we do one thing that we believe is righteous, but it leads to another end altogether. That's why my handle is Reality-Based Lefty. I'm not an idealist.

Re: the mullahs/social evolution in Iran. We are in large responsible for the mullahs being in power in the first place-- do you remember the Shah, who happened to torture some of my relatives?

As far as blanket condemnations not being a very effective tool, you might just consider the current fate of Afghan women, and what war has done to their lives-- as well as the moral outcry that was raised over similar issues (far more dramatic and real than anything in Iran) in the '90s did for the cause of our current war.

You also might consider what war, and provoking it (which is the only beneficiary of Western righteousness over this issue at the current time-- dunno if you've noticed, but we haven't exactly set ourselves up to positively influence internal conditions in Iran) will do to the rights of women in Iran. Looking at the historical record, war has always been hardest on women and children.

Self-righteousness and the temporary clarity it provides is a fabulous elixir. But odds are it won't do much to help the very scary situation developing with Iran. And the odds are strong that it's just one more straw on the back of a very rickety camel.

Thanks for the ad-hominem attack. Sorry you feel so disempowered about your effect on the world. Me, having contributed in major ways to large national/international, as well as local change, well, I definitely have my own view of individual action. I didn't realize that I was dealing with such an ineffectual person, by your own admission.

There was a great article in Ms. about 10 years ago, where the author was connecting the two phenomena of teen pregnancy AND later-life infertility as two sides of the same coin.

There IS no good time for a woman to have a child in this society. It's all pretty sad that the idea of something as fundamental as childraising is so messed up in our culture.

Maybe if we adopted a little more compassionate attitude towards women AND children, as well as advantages for people that persist in larger family units, and actually had support services, having a child wouldn't be viewed as such a life-ending, dead-ender possibility for teens. And maybe women who waited to have some degree of financial security wouldn't have to wait quite as long to have their children, saving society and them millions in infertility treatments.

We live in the U.S. in the ostensible world of the 'Just' -- but increasingly, the only thing our justice seems to be associated with is emotional violence directed toward the individual. Facilitating child-rearing, regardless of the age of the parents, might be a good place to start to reverse this nasty part of our national character. Because regardless, the children, the true innocents, did not ask to be born.

Corporate life sucks, but it definitely sucks worse for women than men. Men don't lose their jobs for having babies-- but I see this happen to woman after woman. Granted, it usually happens because of the flawed paternal leave policies we have, where women with a newborn are forced with an inexcusable choice, but it is clearly a sign that we have developed a system where humans are truly cogs in a machine -- not people.

I honestly haven't seen as much discrimination once women get past that critical point. Moving into higher-level admin is tough on both men and women, and the jobs usually go to those that follow whatever cultural incentives exist-- not necessarily the best, brightest or most productive.