O'Beirne appears to be a first-class bitch, at least in print. She attacks the author with unrelated responses, refuses to discuss obvious flaws in her own logic, and raises the old sexist notion that a man is a dumb worker ant, made for heavy labor and the defense of ladies.

Really, this woman is ridiculous. But her strategy is practiced: fight a false foe, build a bug-a-boo from nothing:

* Liberals are stealing Christmas!

* Jews killed Jesus!

* Feminists are ruining the world!

Unfortunately, as long as the Traisters of the world use forums like Salon to attack men the O'Bierne's of the world will have an audience.

Feminism was necessary in America when women were oppressed. Now the gains to be made in America are outweighed by the potential backlash. Feminists are starting to run up the score, they are the new male chauvinist pigs, and they are losing sympathy with their audience.

More, they've forgotten their sisters abroad. The plight of the American women is hardly anything at all compared to an African mutilated so that she may not enjoy sex, a Chinese girl enslaved in a sewing factory, a Thai girl made into a prostitute at age ten.

In an age of globalization isn't it time for feminists to declare victory at home and move their battles off-shore?

.....is that history has ended. That's what O'Beirne's comments amount to. There are no social problems, only "realities" that can't be changed. The more moderate conservatives will admit that there were problems in the past, and that reform movements of the past were helpful in getting them solved; thus, dead liberals like Martin Luther King Jr. can be admired. But O'Beirne takes the harder line, suggesting that there was no need for reform even in the past. She would have been a lawyer anyway, even without feminism! Oh, sure! It used to be ILLEGAL for women to practice law. But if Traister had pointed that out, I suppose O'Beirne would have claimed (as she did on other points) that a "natural" evolution solved that problem without any push from social progressives.

So: Whatever problems there were have solved themselves; and whatever we're left with today isn't a problem -- it's just "the way things are." And things aren't so bad for the allegedly oppressed; they're taken care of, and they seem happy. Variants of these claims have been made by conservatives in every era of history. Conservatives of another time argued that blacks were born to be slaves and that most slaves loved their masters. Eventually that argument was discredited, so then it became: But you can't stop Jim Crow discrimination, it's just human nature. Then that was discredited. So today, it's: People who live in ghettos have no one to blame but themselves ..... and since women have all the privileges they could want, any moves toward gender equality just "make the world worse." I agree with the writers here who say it's useless to answer these claims. There will always be people like O'Beirne who try to discredit all social and political reform on the grounds that the present state of things is the best that can be achieved. They've said it for centuries, and they've ALWAYS been wrong. They're wrong this time too. But the right response isn't to answer them, it's to put THEM on the defensive. Forget defending the reformers and their ideas; put together examples of "conservatives who make the world worse" (it will be long list) and then attack, attack, attack, attack, attack. Then, get up tomorrow morning and start attacking again.

Kate O'Beirne simply wants to make money and promote herself and her career; in short, she is a feminist in conduct, if not in words. Her perception of the quickest and most effective way to a large pay-off? Promote outrageous and false ideas and information that gain a following among the nutty right-wing of our body politic and create controversy with everyone else. In this way, she gets free press time, book promotion, and book sales. As one of the few females willing to take such extreme positions, she insures that she will be called for television round tables requiring a female (in the name of diversity) right-winger. You can't talk to or reason with such people; they are in the game for money and prestige, not for the sake of promoting a society with "liberty and justice for all."

Just delicious. This was so fun to read. I'm beaming.

It's all so fantastically drag-me-back-to-the-cave and why-didn't-you-fold-my-loincloth-now-come-here-for-yer-beatin'. It was like a conservative amusement park ride.

She's like one of those Japanese soldiers that they find in the woods thinking the war is still on. We haven't won yet, but puhlease, the princess warrior/desegregation/CEO/separate bank account/happily divorced train has left the station. If she wants to tie herself to the tracks with this silliness, mucho gusto. More fun for the rest of us.

I'm still grinning. So fantastic.

Kate O'Beirne is not a very pleasant person to have lunch with.

The stay at home housewife didn't exist in the ancient world until Hellenistic Greece, and it was only possible because the Greeks had enough military power to transfer their textile pproduction over to large scale slave labor.

Before the development of large scale slave labor, all of the textiles produced in an ancient community were produced communally by the women, who worked together at the looms.

It took a lot of weaving to clothe a village, on looms too big to be operated solo. So these women all worked "outside the home" and they worked in what was the highest technology industry of its age.

They also had child care because they took turns caring for each others children during the work day. Ancient child care centers are clearly shown in Egyptian friezes depicting the production of linen.

I think O'Beirne should read "Women's Work: the First 20,000 Years" by Elizabeth Wayland Barber.

It might change her ideas about what is "natural" for women.

Kate O'Beirne doesn't speak for real women any more than does that screeching transexual Ann/Andy Coulter. I don't think she even believes her own statements. Rather, she's like those men who don wigs and dresses (our lovely Ann) in order to mock women and liberals or black right-wingers who disparage affirmative action; i.e., there's a lot of profit to be made in presenting a contrarian image and view to an audience of reactionaries.