The only way polygamy could be a freely-chosen lifestyle would be if women were completely economically and sexually independent. A grown woman with a good job and the right to choose any man (or no man) she wanted who chose to become part of a polygamous marriage would be exercising her own choice.

In any situation in which women need a man to support themselves and/or have their sexual lives monitored and regulated by others, rather than by their own desires--and this is quite definitely the case in these FLDS societies--women/girls don't have a choice.

Even when polygamy is legal and accepted, it is a form of abuse if women are coerced economically or culturally. Hasn't anyone here seen "Raise the Red Lantern?" Legal marriage; definitely abusive to the women.

I read that article and thought it was the perfect example of "argument by anecdote"--which I teach students to avoid.

I'm guessing you could go to just about any major residential college in the US (excepting, maybe,overtly religious schools like BYU or Bob Jones) and find a klatsch of sorority girls in the "best" houses carrying on like this with the "best" guys.

To move from that to the broad generalizations about "today's college students" is ridiculous. I could tell a few stories about some incredibly lazy students at my school, and then tie a bow around it by saying "gee, aren't college students lazy today!"

I think it would have made a better, more informative essay if the author had really looked at how prevalent these attitudes were, and whether the "Core 4" or whatever it was was in any way representative of college students in general. Maybe the author just accepted the assumption of these students themselves that they were the Elite to which everyone else aspired--that the kids who aren't doing this all wish they could.

This is too personal a decision and depends on too many individual differences in women for anyone to make any definitive, sweeping claims.

Just a few points--one poster mentioned a debilitating neurological pain after anesthesia. I believe that would be a "spinal headache," probably caused by a leak of spinal fluid and resulting dehydration in the brain (surely some medical professional will come and correct my diagnosis, but that's what I had after a spinal anesthesia and that's what I was told.) Couldn't sit up or do anything but lie flat without excruciating headache.

As for their being no comparison in recovery time between a C-section and a vaginal delivery, I'd have to agreee--but not how the original poster imagined.

I'm still not recovered from my lone vaginal birth 8 years ago. The resulting urological problems have diminished, but are still there. And the broken tailbone I suffered caused months of agony, and still bothers me if I have to sit for very long.

The 3 c-sections I've had, however, were much less problematic. All I have left to remind me of those are the scar, and I've never heard of the "bikini scar" causing decreased libido as one poster mentioned. Almost every woman I know who has had a baby has suffered some loss of libido for the first 6 months to a year after childbirth, for perfectly understandable reasons.

So, the movement should be to continue to respect the patient's wishes. This is definitely one arena where one size only fits one woman.

Breastfeeding your son for these last few special times is not "spoiling" him, for G-d's sake. It's loving and comforting him. Some kids need that more than others. Geez, do these people who think you're raising a spoiled brat by comforting tell a sick or upset child to "just deal with it, kiddo?"

My biggest regret in raising my children was in forcing my oldest daughter to wean when she was 2 1/2 years old. I listened to all this crap about it being "my" issue, not hers, and about "spoiling" her, and about "keeping her too babyish." It was all crap. Do NOT listen to these people!

I refused to force weaning with my other children, one of whom went, like this child, past his 4th birthday. He's a fine, healthy, well-adjusted 8 year old.

I've considered myself a feminist and proud of it for over 25 years, and it really grates on my nerves when a feminist denigrates another woman's cred because she doesn't act just like the boys.

Maybe the ideal would be not to squeeze women in politics into the male mold, but to stretch the mold a bit to make it more flexible. Maybe a mother-of-five voice is needed sometimes. Maybe it's what works for her. What's wrong with that?

On the other side of the coin, I was told the last time I donated blood that women who have had 3 or more pregnancies are particularly sought-after, since their plasma contains more of something (maybe this immunity stuff?) that hemophiliacs need.

Ms. Malkin conveniently omits her own participation in a blogging hatefest--she obtained the names and addresses of anti-war protesters at UC Santa Cruz from their police permit, then published them on her blog, encouraging harrassment. When called on her vile tactics, she refused to back down and refused to take the names and addresses down even as the protesters were called and tracked down by right-wing thugs responding to Malkin's blog.

Why doesn't someone point that out to her when she whines about being a victim?