So, let me see if I get this straight. Plain-looking women are discriminated against all the time in our culture, but especially on television and show business. [And despite the hilarious attempt to hype Campbell Brown's journalistic bona fides, The Today Show is show business. It has been run by the Entertainment division at NBC for years, not the News division.] Also, women with children are discriminated against constantly and held down at work.

However, good-looking women are also discriminated against [even in the entertainment industry!] and so are women without children.

So, let's recap: If you're an attractive or plain woman, you will face discrimination. Also, if you're childless or a mother, you will face discrimination. Does that cover it?

Why don't we just decide that every woman who doesn't get a job she wants lost it because of discrimination -- even when she loses it to another woman and because of women.

And the best part of this: None of it will seem unreasonable to the writers and most readers of Broadsheet. You don't have to go looking for good comedy, my friends. The funniest stuff is all around you.

NBC actually hired the older, experienced, sane-work-life-balance candidate over the younger sexier one, and they’re getting slammed for it now because of some purported bias against childfree female anchors (which can’t be that pervasive since it doesn’t seem to exist at ABC).

The nameless source in the article was most likely describing after-the-fact rationalizations that higher-ups at NBC used to justify their choice, which was probably based in large part on not easily articulable notions of likeability. Reference to Campbell Brown’s childlessness here becomes shorthand for general inaccessibility and unrelatability to the target audience. Whether or not she actually has kids is immaterial. Compare Oprah Winfrey (childless) to Martha Stewart (mother) – who would be better suited to anchor the Today show?

So NBC feels a woman has to have some maternal qualities to be a success in this position. That strikes me as an entirely reasonable marketing decision. Message to aspiring young on-air personalities, both male and female – have kids, or not, as you see fit; work hard to be good at what you do; and hope that the big job that comes along happens to fit your skill set and persona. Not a bad deal.

I like the Weekend Today show because of its anchors, Campbell Brown and Lester Holt. In fact, I think NBC's weekend lineup far surpasses the weekday lineups of any of the networks, but I digress.

How appalling! Campbell Brown is fabulous. She's likable and intelligent, and has great chemistry with her colleagues.

Memo to the braintrust at NBC: mothers can relate to people who don't have children. We find a whole host of issues to be of interest, including politics and current events. Moreover, the acts of labor and delivery don't render us irreparably dowdy thankyouverymuch. We can relate to attractive people without being intimidated. But apparently, we can't watch a morning show without being subjected to insulting stereotypes.

Sound familiar?

For the record, I am neither young, nor pretty, and I am a mother. I just can't bear early morning television. Even NPR is too much for me before 10:00 a.m.

>Again, the notion that none of us can understand motherhood or are qualified to talk about it unless we have experienced it -- when in fact the single thing we all have in common is having been children ourselves -- becomes an ideological trap in which child rearing is the most vaunted and complex of female accomplishments<

Unfortunately, it's not like too many parents themselves don't feel this way. Find me a child- or child-free-related SALON thread that doesn't have a parent retorting, "If you had kids, you'd understaaand" (usually to a perfectly sensible piece of advice.)

It looks to me like Rebecca might not be a parent...

While I agree with most of the analysis/sentiment in the article... This part, "Again, the notion that none of us can understand motherhood or are qualified to talk about it unless we have experienced it -- when in fact the single thing we all have in common is having been children ourselves," makes me think Rebecca is not a parent. Why do non-parents or pre-parents get so offended by the idea that they don't know? I wouldn't claim to know what spaceflight is like because I have a good imagination. I wouldn't claim to know what's like to go though medical school/residency because I have a 4 year degree in Biology.

Just because you don't get it doesn't mean that people who are parents are saying that it, "is the most vaunted and complex of female accomplishments, trumping every other mode of identification." But whether or not it is the most vaunted and complex - if you haven't done it you haven't accomplished it and you haven't experienced it. I'm not saying that you can't report news about it w/o children - but no you don't understand it like a mother.

The idea that because you have been a child you understand parenthood (the single thing we all have in common is having been children ourselves) is quite funny. I guess my wife should listen to me about all things related to childbirth, because I took a trip through a birth canal once…

Because, you can always drill down. instead of just saying, "you won't understand if you don't have kids,"

you could say "you won't understand because you're not a father (as opposed to mother)",

and then "you won't understand because you're not a caucasian father",

and then "you won't understand because you're not a caucasian father who is an investment banker", on and on.

You can always specify to the point of saying, "you won't understand because you're not me, and since you're not in my particular circumstances, you have no license to talk about it."

And that's the end of all discussion.

Experience-based responses are very valuable and interseting, but that is not the only valid input, and parents on Salon boards need to learn to respect other's non-parent opinions.