Letters to the Editor
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re: 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?
Significantly, you moron.
You've received too much attention already.
Your intention (and mine) was not to initiate dialogue.
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Out of wedlock cases
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<<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.
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I don't think jail is a good solution... but certainly compensation for child support or other expenses the "father" paid for would make sense. Plus some extra.
But in any case, 29.9% of the tested children is probably a small percentage of the total children... because they wouldn't be testing unless there were grounds for suspicion to begin with.
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Just another book written by a noisy, oblivious baby boomer.
Reading the article just showed me that O'Beirne's book is simply yet another self-absorbed, preachy book written by a clueless baby boomer. I think we'll be seeing tons of these types of books, articles, and tv shows over the next few years... sorta a baby boomer "death rattle". O'Beirne doesn't sound like she knows anything at all about what it's like to be a young woman today (or young man either for that matter.) Her arguments are pointless because they don't have anything to do with the real world that I experience as a young mother, career woman, and former military officer. O'Beirne is like so many other baby boomers I know... they are so busy spouting off every thought that comes to their head that they don't ever see what's going on around them. They very rarely listen to anyone else. (My apologies to the few lovely baby boomers out there... but you have to admit most of your peers are really self-absorbed and destructive!)
My strategy is to pretty much ignore all the baby boomer posturing about what's right and wrong because I need to save my energy for cleaning up this huge mess they are leaving for us and future generations! Unlike most baby boomers I think GenX actually would like to quietly & with no fuss leave this world a better place than the condition that we will be given it by our elders. So seems to me O'Beirne's book (like so many others) just is not relevent to our lives or the future of womanhood.
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Fantastic Claims
You fall into the trap many Democrats currently fall into with Republicans--that is allowing the Republicans, or here Kate O'Bierne, to define the issues that begin the conversation. After that, there is no way to engage in discussion because the very premise of discussion is faulty.
Feminism is not a univocal, monolithic movement. There is not one set of beliefs that fits the world over. Feminism is culturally specific and differently situated in different contexts. Kate O'Bierne is so completely wrapped in her privileged whiteness, she doesn't even understand that staying at home and raising children is not an option for many women. Her claims of what ALL women really want are disembodied, unmediated, ephemeral and fantastic. In other words, her claims are meaningless.
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I don't get it...
She acts all butch, went to school and had a career... how is she NOT a feminist? I mean, she doesn't strike me as a sweet, cuddly June Cleaver type...
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still on planet earth
>>my husband is an active and loving father, and he helps with the housework...but I speak from observation and experience that more responsibility for housework still falls mostly on women.
And if you think that's controversial>>
I never said it was controversial.
I said it was NOT representative of all of the working couples I know.
And I said it is NOT evidence of feminism's failure, but only evidence of your own unique marriage arrangement.
We have to stop using unique individual's situations and characteristics as proof of broad political, cultural, or social theories. Everyone is different.
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HOW ABOUT NO
<<I don't think jail is a good solution... >>
men go to jail for fraud, so can women. of should there be two standards, one for nasty brutish man and one for angelic holy woman?
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jamartinjr
do you have a point?
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Contradictions.
So the crime rate has fallen, but the world is worse because it is "more feminized".
Another mother of sons who has become a misogynist.
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Calm discussion is the idea
>>men go to jail for fraud, so can women. of should there be two standards, one for nasty brutish man and one for angelic holy woman?>>
Legally, fraud has to include monetary loss. DNA testing is usually done at a child support hearing BEFORE any payment, so if it ends up being someone else's child, there hasn't been financial loss yet. If the husband did pay child support and it was later proven it wasn't his child, sure he could sue for repayment. But if your wife lied to you and slept with another man, no she wouldn't be jailed for that alone, nor would a man.
Women are jailed for fraud all the time. Check kiters, etc.--is just one example. We just had a woman charged with frand for claiming she was sick and taking monetary donations.
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Waste of space
LOL! Rebecca, why did you give this woman's blather any ink? And it certainly didn't rate feature story position.
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if your read nothing else today, read cynical's post
>>Its great that she had the option of choosing not to work because her husband made enough money to support their family. However,for the vast majority of women, having both partners in the marriage work is not some feminist social statement, it because in our low wage economy it takes two working people to pay the bills. Conservatives like Mrs. O'Beirne simply refuse to believe this because its easier to blame feminism than to take on the corporate economy. And I'm holding my breath waiting for Kate to defend those welfare mother's staying home to bond with their children instead of being forced into government work programs only weeks after they have had their children to keep their benefits.>>
brava cyn
it's not about gender, it's about economics
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I want to win!
"I never said it was controversial.
I said it was NOT representative of all of the working couples I know.
And I said it is NOT evidence of feminism's failure, but only evidence of your own unique marriage arrangement.
We have to stop using unique individual's situations and characteristics as proof of broad political, cultural, or social theories. Everyone is different."
Cosmicmojo,
I do agree with that statement as far as one-on-one discussion goes.
But I'm thinking of elections, the right-wing, and why the left can't win.
The right is very smart in that it defines its target demographic and addresses their issues. So when O'Beirne says that most women want to stay at home, in terms of her reading audience, this is true. And unfortunately, the Christian right is defining terms faster than we can debate them.
And our failing in the left is that we don't look at demographics, what do people want, what are the real issues that can help us win elections? We desperately need "broad political, cultural, or social theories."
BTW... as a black woman, I know plenty of black women who would love to spend more time at home with their kids, either as SAHMs or part-time workers. But finances don't allow many of them to do so. (Their is a growing movement of black SAHMs and homeschoolers. These are mostly educated moms who can afford to stay at home, but a different topic.)
It's no secret that many of the commercial childcare and schooling options open to women of color for their children are less-than-satisfactory. There is a whole host of historical reasons for that, which I won't go into.
It's kind of strange when a black progressive mother has more in common with the republican rightwing pundit than the liberal left in our thoughts about childcare.