unfortunately for my own personal world view and sense of authenticity as a feminist, i found what this woman had to say painfully relevant, unlike cosmicmojo. for many of us women who grew up as career-oriented achievers and sufferred the backlash from our friends and colleagues when we decided to stay at home with our children, O'Beirne's comments resonate. i grew up adamantly believing that there was no difference to be had between men and women when it came to parenting but then you have a kid and you realize that's just not the case. mothers and fathers have their own unique talents and gifts to give to their children but to think that there are no inherent differences and that both would be perfectly capable and content to stay at home with them is to never have had to make that decision for yourselves.

i thank our great feminist forebears for their sacrifices that allowed me to make the choice whether to work or stay home. i choose to stay home. what makes me the saddest though and i'm not sure how this can best be addressed in our society is that there are many families where women can't easily stay at home, and from my experience, the women who want to go back to work and leave their children in day-care are far outnumbered by those that want to stay at home. i know too many families who live off of their credit cards and sacrifice absolutely every tiny luxury to make a one-income existence possible. that's a situation that i wish our feminism could rectify, or at the very least acknowledge.

D. Jain, you forgot something important in your letter. Women with the resources should be able to stay home. All other women? O'Beirne fairly shrugs at the idea that not all women can afford to stay home and raise their kids.

I think all y'all are saying about the challenges in childrearing, marriage, work, communication, cooperation, life are valid. Been through some of it myself, seen and helped my friends through most of the other.

I just don't see how any of that detracts from feminism?

Maybe since my Mom worked from the 1960s til she retired at 65, I saw the reality, feminism in action instead of from the white tower? I never thought feminism was a rose garden any more than June Cleaver's life was.

I think we fall victim to the conservative's brainwashing when we think problems in our modern lifes proves feminism failed. LIfe is always going to be full of problems, confusion, contradiction, whether you're staying at home or working.

Of course O'Beirne is socially conditioned, whether she feels it or not. But what Traister (and you) don't seem to appreciate is that women are half of society. So who's doing the conditioning? To some large extent, women are conditioning women to want to stay at home. And men are conditioning men to work. So what's wrong with that?

I would argue that a lot of the socialization to care for children comes from biology. The fact is that, like all mammals, humans produce three sex hormones during pregnancy which connect us to our offspring. The level of this production of oxytocin, prolactin and cortisol determines the amount of parental involvement with children. In humans, the female produces more than the male; in lions, the male produces none and in New World monkeys, the male produces more than the female (and is the primary caregiver to the offspring). So some (perhaps a great deal) of what you and Traister identify as "social conditioning" may be physiologically based.

<<"If Feminism is so great, why are most men AND women highly miserable and depressed?"

Speak for yourself. Even if that were true, which it's not, it would be silly to blam it on feminism.>>

Fine, live in your isolated feminist nirvana.

To tell anyone with a straight face that feminism has not been the single largest social movement in this country in the last fifty years is beyond the pale.

To further insist that everything is grand. That there is NO epidemic of divorce and that marriage is NOT down is only ignorant and reflects on YOU more than anyone.

Sorry, I do not want to bring kids into this world to be raised fatherless, like gypsies. And, as a father, I'd refuse to act like some manic charicature of male expectation, walking on constant eggshells, just to remain on the good side of a hyper entitled immature woman's whims.

And guess what, no matter HOW MANY TIMES you or anyone insist I have no right to speak my mind, I will anyway. The world needs some honesty.

"That's not what she said at all; one of the major points she is trying to make is that feminists have insisted that choosing the traditional path of staying home with children (even just until they are in school) is weak-minded and a cop-out."

The problem with that is that it's not true. It's a strawman. At best it's an exaggeration. What about the feminists who are SAHMs? Sure, some women occasionally criticize others choices (SAHMs, WMs, Childfree, Single, Married, etc) but so what? There's nothing unusual about that.

"What she wants is for it to be okay for women to make choices--even the choice to stay at home--without being belittled by anyone, especially by other women."

It already is okay. I believe that's what feminism is about (choice)? The "belittling" thing is silly.

What a joke this woman is. Like all good conservatives, she never directly answers a question. Ms. Traister should have been a little more aggressive in her questioning and responses to Ms. O'Beirne - as when O'Beirne questioned why a man would want to stay home - Traister should have responded why wouldn't he? O'Beirne spouts absolutes and my 67 years have taught me that anyone who speaks in absolutes has no concept of the realities of life. I was educated in the same manner as Ms. O'Beirne in a Catholic girls high school and was introduced to feminism by the good nuns - God Bless Them. So I was ready for the feminist movement. I was also a stay-at-home mom for 13 years while raising my 6 children. (Back then, the company I worked for wouldn't let you work beyond your 6th month of pregnancy.) The feminist movement helped my convince my very 50's-minded husband that I could go back to work and still care for my family. And he became very much a supporter and cheerleader for all of my accomplishments because, despite being a "50's kind of guy", he considered me an equal. Because of the feminist movement, my 7 granddaughters will feel free to pursue the same opportunities as my 5 grandsons. Because of the feminist movement, women today have choices about their futures and won't be expected to choose marriage and a family as their primary goal. If people want to know what good the feminist movement did, they need to talk to the middle-class working women of the 50's, not the upper-class "kept" women like Ms. O'Beirne.