O'Beirne may be articulate, but an unsubstantiated opinion is not convincing, no matter how eloquent or forceful the speaker. When confronted with intelligent questions, Obeirne's response was essentially "you're wrong because I say so." E.g.: Traister traps O'Beirne about the her inconsistencies on the wage gap, O'Beirne gives a stock answer about innate gender differences ("we want to stay home"), Traister calls her on it by calling that social conditioning, and O'Beirne laying out a true gem: "I did it, and I did not feel I was socially conditioned." So, social conditioning doesn't exist because you don't feel it? How is that persuassive? It's clear that O'Beirne hasn't been a practicing lawyer for some time.

Of course I read this article. Not entirely though because I just thought it was a bit trying.

They used to say rock and roll was sexist, in the 70's, and racist and being a big rock and roll fan I was sensitive to that. However it seems more important who is going to stay at home and do the laundry.

Back in the 70's a lot of women used to do pyschedelic mushrooms and hang out naked wherever they could. Those women are a lot older now and I wonder how the feel about someone making the world over in a more uptight image.

There had been said something about inhibitions that these women related to. They might choose not to stay home but to own a home if they could and have all night parties there. What do you think of that?

Bhagavan Rajneesh, someone whose writings I deeply respect, referred to places like these all female universities as homosexual environments and I wonder if we are ready to allow for homosexuality as we encourage these all female or all male institutions. There already are the dorms and the fraternities and sororities. Has anyone declared them unconstitutional? I really wish they would, but then it has been years since I attended a university.

Maybe in an ashram like the one in South Fallsburgh, N.Y. it could be banned. Oh boy, wouldn't that be WILD!!!

I hoped there would be a discussion/refutation of O'Beirne's ideas here. Instead, I'm appalled to see the fangs sink into the writer instead of the buffoon with the ideas. It's all about armchair quarterbacking the interview. Why all the animus for Rebecca? You'd think she was going to elementary schools promoting this O'Biernian ideology in her spare time. These angry letters seem emblematic of one of the biggest problems in liberalism today: we attack ourselves, not the outer opponent. We spend all our energy debating fine points and shades of meaning with people who fundamentally agree us with us. That's fine in a university setting or over cocktails to refine your arguments, but why not show a little solidarity in the public forum? The other side does; they're all in lockstep. The personal attacks on the writer are really unbelievably harsh. The problem is Kate O'Beirne, not Rebecca Traister. For the record, I found O'Beirne's arguments pretty ludicrous for a lawyer - with Swiss cheese punts like "opinion data shows...." or just flat out personal generalizations like "We (women) WANT to stay home!" as if that just came down from the mountain engraved to Moses. Oh, yeah? Who says? Anyway, thanks to the writer for attempting to point out the obvious: Kate O'Beirne inhabits a nice high stool in life courtesy of feminism.

I don't recognize any of these so-called "feminists" she's describing.

She's erected a "straw woman" based on misconceptions and stereotypes -

as such it has little to do with reality and is easy to ridicule.

The attitude O'Beirne projects reminds me of a perfectly dreadful dragon of

a home-economics teacher I had in middle school: patronizing, self-satisfied,

and blinkered. She too dispensed lectures about what sorts of women we should

become, and what we *really* wanted in life. I sensed she disliked all of us,

and that is what I feel from O'Beirne as well. Why listen to - or read -

such pathetically awful stuff?

...and then proceed to attack the entire group for the policies and actions of a few, and Ms. O'Beirne fits that pattern to a "T." This type opf rhetoric is intellectually lazy, and it's similar to an "ad hominem" attack--something that is logically invalid.

Not all conservatives agree with Ann Coulter. Many (most?) Christians--even the ones who identify as fundamentalist--would be insulted to be lumped in with the likes of Pat Robertson. Jews casually and routinely get accused of every evil in the world from Stalinist mass-murders to the excesses of capitalism run amok. People who don't agree with the way that the Iraq war is being run are being accused of being against our soldiers and of supporting terrorism (shades of Jane Fonda!). Environmentalists don't all support Earth First! or the "Meat is Murder" radical vegans. Males commit most of the violent acts in the world, but don't you dare mention it, because men-in-general take so much offense at the thought of being lumped in with the batterers, bar-fighters, rapists, and molesters that they'd rather deny that the violence even exists anywhere other than in women's imaginations. And so it goes with most feminists, who are routinely called to task for the excesses of others who embrace that label.

Anyone who's been active in the feminist movement(s) knows that we feminists have never been able to agree with one another about what is best for women-in-general or the best means to achieve our goals. The only thing that we can all seem to agree on is that no one should be limited to a particular role in life on the basis of his/her gender. Ms. O'Beirne would have us all believe that women-in-general wish to embrace traditionalist gender roles, and we feminists somehow won't "let" them do so.

One thing that a lack of choice does for some people is that it gives them a strange sort of comfort. They know that they are doing "the right thing," and that they will automatically receive societal support for doing it. Having ones lifestyle choices limited means that it's not your fault if you did "all the right things," and yet something still went wrong; it means that you don't need to take full responsibility for your choices in life; someone else has done all of your thinking for you.

Feminism helped to ensure that women could have a full range of choices in their lives. But having viable choices means that one has to think for oneself, that one can be in the uncomfortable position of defending oneself against criticism when ones choices are challenged by others, and that one cannot entirely blame "society" or some other authority symbol if one fails in achieving ones goals.

Furthermore, I've always found it ironic that the most well-known anti-feminists, such as Kate O'Beirne, seem to disparage the very feminist principles that have enabled them to become prominent and respected political pundits. If we were back in the mindset of, say, the 1950s, would Ms. O'Beirne have been a stay-at-home mom--one who used her ambitions and talents to take over her local PTA? Or maybe she'd be a copy editor at "Good Housekeeping"--instead of being a major voice at "The National Review"--because "everyone knows" that politics is "men's business", and women don't have the mental strength or agility to compete in that sphere of influence?