"Who are these women who criticize women for staying at home? I'll tell you."

Yes and single career women without children are lonley bitter harpies and working mothers are neglectful parents and on and on. I'm sure you could find examples of all of the characatures but I suspect they would be more of the exceptions that the rule.

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I'm a mom, with an empty nest, and right now I'm projecting my maternal feelings onto a Boston Terrier.... How come wealthy women throughout history have farmed out their mothering duties, if intensive mothering is no natural? I recall reading a quote from another right wing hypocrit, David Frum,saying how he too felt women (middle class women) should stay home. When someone pointed out his Mom was a world class journalist, he replied, Well, we were rich. We could hire a Nanny."

As pointed out by many, this discussion is only about middle clasw women, well educated ambitious middle class women. Are O'Bierne and ilk so stupid?. She's just trying to keep the power for herself and her projeny in a changing world .Yet, this new knowledge economy will demand that all brains be used to the fullest to compete.

This nature nuture debate to support one ideology or another gets nowhere. If 2 million years of evolution matters we women should all be running around in the wider outside world, in large groups gathering nuts and berries, or whatever the contemporary equivalent. Hard work I'm sure but better than being holed up in a box in the suburbs with baby crying and watching Dr. Phil.

My husband's father in law living in the Bush wrote a letter home in 1910, talking about how he admired the Indian squaws he saw, how they could wield and ax and paddle a canoe with a baby on their back. I take it they weren't back at the teepee making manioc bread for Pappa. They were allowed to take their youngest to work and their other children were being tended in groups somewhere by the elder women of the tribe. That's the normal way, I imagine, if there is one.

That is quite possibly the scariest shit I've ever read. (Not to mention fucked up and weird.) Suddenly the movie Hostel doesn't seem so bad anymore.

O'Beirne is scary. I mean really really scary. I tried to stop reading, I really did, but it was like a car wreck; I couldn't not look. Now I wish I hadn't.

Is there a cure for this?

No wonder you came out of the interview not entirely sure of what went down! Even with editing, I can't seem to pull much in the way of coherent thought out of O'Beirne's statements. Perhaps if I was listening to her speak, I might unravel what she's saying.

Just goes to show that the right-wing method of repeating a point really loudly, no matter how absurd it might be, will eventually convince some people. It's kind of like a female Dr. Phil.

<<29.9% of DNA-tested children in divorce cases turn out to be fathered by a man other than the presumptive father.>>

if women were held as accountable as men for fraud, all of these women would be in jail. but don't ask feminists to defend men.

As a 30 year old stay-at-home mom, who has worked but put things on hold for now, I find O'Beirne's hostility very odd. I don't feel the least bit hostility from women who work and have kids or who don't have children and work. I think now is a great time to be a stay-at-home mom and have ambitions of doing something else on the side or after your children start schools.

It's a shame that this woman hadn't written her book a decade or so ago then I might think it has some actual bearing on my life or my friends'. I see great strides being make for women but always room for improvement. Instead of bashing second wave feminists, why not discuss ways to ameliorate conditions for women who can't stay home because it would create economic hardship.

Incidentally, in Scandinavia (my husband is Swedish) is it common practice for men to take paternity leave, the government funds it and no one (male or female) is allowed to be fired while taking their leave. And I have friends here in the US that work part time and their husbands work part time as well so they share the workload at home. If she wasn't so busy freaking out and hung out for the neighborhood park or saw who was dropping kids off at (pre)school these days, it is just as likely to be the dad as the mom. I honestly feel this woman is very out of touch and totally irrelevant.

how are any of my comments less sensible or reasonable than the typical hyperbolic, exaggerated, nervy garbage SOME women spew everyday trying to defend feminism?

LOL. This is the part of the whole opt out thing that kills me. When the original NY Times article came out talking about the "opt out revolution" a couple of things gave me pause. First the focus on a certain class of women. Namely, the highly educated fast track high end Wall St or Law Firm very upscale types. What those Type A women discovered is something that men long ago knew. That, outside of the huge pay potential, it sucked (e.g. crazy hours, tenuous job security and advancement, grueling work loads, etc.) Apparently this was a surprise to those women. So, they opted out, but, managed to, as they say, "marry well" and become rather comfortable SAHMs. I can't say I'm overwhelmed with symapty for their "plight".

The other thing was that the whole argument is somewhat fradulent. Most PEOPLE (e.g. women, men, single , married, parents, childfree, whatever) can't opt out of working unless they want to opt out of eating, having a roof over their heads and so on.

Too many people latch on to the false notion that what the 1960s/70s feminism did achieve cannot be undone. As another reader mentioned, there was a women's movement in the 1940s. And look at the 1950s! Of course it can, and there are people who are working to do so, whether from moral persuasion, fiscal opportunism or any number of other reasons.

If you look back historically, one pattern that emerges is that war is used as a pretense to squash debates in other areas. We have seen that phenomenon recently in the attacks on our civil liberties and the reframing of what constitutes patriotism.

If HBO's portrayal of abolitionists in Iron Jawed Angels (http://www.hbo.com/films/ironjawedangels/) is historically accurate, one very smart tactic the abolitionists employed was to parry the move to dismiss the issue on grounds that it was an unsuitable distraction in a time of war. They reframed the argument. And won.

Whatever your circumstances are, evolution / revolution / change can at times be a demanding path. And even after so much work, yes, it can be undone. Take nothing for granted.

As cliched as it may sound, eternal vigilance is, still, the price of freedom.