But at least O'Beirne is talking about it. The right is talking about it.

Where is the discussion in the left? Did Kerry address it?

This assertion that the gender-based wage gap doesn’t exist because single, never married women make more money than single, never married men seems a bit trite to me. Over the past several weeks, there have been articles and discussions on Salon about the difference in demographics between single women and single men. If my memory serves me well, the consensus seems to be that single women tend to be more highly educated and earn higher salaries than single men, who, with women being the money-hungry, gold-digging bitches we all know them to be*, are likely to occupy a lower income bracket. At the extremes of the marriage bell curve then, my assumption would be that one would find undereducated, low-earning men on one end, and relatively better-educated and financially stable, not to mention ugly and hairy*, women on the other. Since I base my earnings expectations on a lot of things, my education first and foremost, it would be more alarming to me that women make less than similarly educated men working the same jobs. I could hardly care less about making more money than a single man who works at McDonald's.

I'd also like to point out that a woman is no more aware of the moment of conception than a man is. If she thinks she's more likely to have gotten pregnant while sleeping with her regular partner than with her one-night stand, she certainly shouldn't be thrown in jail for miscalculating. If you're so concerned that a woman may "fraudulently" name you the father of her child, exercise some initiative and get a paternity test done before you put your name on the birth certificate. While I certainly wouldn't abide such distrust and disrespect in any relationship into which I was considering bringing children, a woman who'd be in a relationship with a person who thinks that misnaming the father of a child is fraud must surely have lower standards than I.

* I hate that I have to do this, but give the level of discourse, I feel compelled to indicate those instances where I’ve used sarcasm.

The entry of millions of additional women into the workforce in the 70's lowered real wages across the board. It's a very simple fact, but neither conservatives nor liberals are willing to say it. Not only did the influx of millions of workers lower wages for everyone, but women took the lower-wage jobs and made them even LESS well-paying by accepting them at those lower wages. Women do not negotiate salaries as agressively as men, and they are often willing to take lower pay in exchange for flexibility when "balancing" kids and work.

Prior to feminism's encouragement of these millions of women to work, one man with an average education and job could support his nuclear family in some semblance of middle-class comfort. Now that women have entered the workforce in such huge numbers, it is a catch-22: women have to work because you can no longer support a family on one income, but they can't survive on only one income because there are so many women working and lowering real wages. It has been decades since this trend started, and though there are many complicated factors that go into what makes an economy, you simply cannot ignore the negative impact of millions of previously non-working women flooding the job market. It had to have made some impact, and a basic understanding of economics dictates that their impact on real wages was negative overall.

You can't argue with the market. If the majority of women stayed home with their kids or employed themselves in ways that weren't competing directly with men, the economy would improve and once again, one wage-earner could support one middle-class family. Feminism's insistence on women being able to work as much and in the same way as men has basically made it "neccesary" for women to work even when they would rather be staying home. Then again, people don't need as much money as they think they do. Many double-income couples COULD make it with only the man working, but one or both of them wants that second salary for vacations, new gadgets and (ironically) childcare so that the woman can work.

I am not condemning women who currently work just to keep their families afloat, but am rather pointing out one of the hidden causes of this situation. You can thank feminism for lowering real wages and telling women that it's more noble to be a hack worker bee in an office somewhere than raising the next generation properly, and society as a whole has paid a heavy price for it.

Divamom, you say:

"But once again, I'm talking about most women, not the privileged few."

Do you know most women? My parents (baby-boomers), split housework evenly. And my dad is very conservative about many issues. My husband and I split evenly (he did more when I was having health issues), and most people I know split evenly.

And yes, statistics show that women do more housework, generally. So, you don't like this, and then blame feminism. Um, why not think that men still just have a long way to go to change?

I think its also funny when people say "all women WANT to say home." If all women wanted to stay home, how in the world did the feminist movement even start? If this were the case, the whole movement would never have happened. There would be no argument at all. Everyone would just stay home. If all women want to stay home, why do some women not? The very fact that a lot of women don't want to be full-time caregivers for their entire lives shows this statement to be false.

Anyway, life is complex. I'm working now, I may stay home while my kids are young. My husband also said he'd like to stay home while the kids are young. He said partially because he thinks it would be interesting, but partially because he feels that men generally don't put in enough effort around the home and with child care, and he personally wants to make changes to typical behavior in his own home.

That was one big thing for me when dating/deciding who to marry. I wanted a man who would partake equally in household work/child care. I was willing to stay single and childless for life rather than marry a man who wasn't feminist, even though I very much wanted a family and children. I would be interested in staying home for a few years, if possible, though.

What does this mean? I only wanted to marry a feminist man, yet I'm willing to stay home for a few years. How could this be? Obviously, if I self identify as a feminist, I must hate men or some such. But I got married. Then I must want do dump my kids at a daycare center and be crazy ambitious. Oh wait, I would stay home for a few years.

People are complex. Life is complex. I'm not sure why we try to pigeonhole everyone, or make sweeping generalizations based on personal experience.

I know my personal experience is unique, and not applicable to everyone. But if I were to talk the way people do here I should say "Well, obviously men want to stay home, because my husband and a few others I know do." Just because I experience something a certain way doesn't mean it holds true for everyone else.