Can you give a few more details about that book that so riled Rick Santorum?

The situation you point out -- childless women lecturing other women on how to be proper mamas -- is just such a classic case of "do as I say, not as I do."

It's true that if these right-wing women were so committed to family and "family values," they could adopt children or take in foster kids. I personally know some conservative Christians who do walk their talk -- a minister who has six adopted kids, and one abortion opponent who has taken a slew of foster kids into his family, mostly those with disabilities, for example. Not to mention the many liberal-leaning people I know who have adopted kids and taken in foster children.

Loved your letter. . .except for the part that made me think about sex with Dick Cheney!

Care to explain how anything I said is self-loathing? Or is logic one of those things like strength, intelligence, common-sense, self-control, grace and maturity which only a self-loathing woman would admire? Perhaps women are so inherently fragile, weak minded, overly dramatic, overly sensitive, illogical, immature and shrewish that disdaining such behavior amounts to hating what women are. For my part, I would never accept such nonsense from myself or my daughter. If that makes me self-loathing, so be it. Better than being a charicature created by male chauvanists.

Maybe it's the part where you say: "Perhaps women are so inherently fragile, weak minded, overly dramatic, overly sensitive, illogical, immature and shrewish" that leads to the whole self-loathing thing. Which you certainly seem to be.

If you're gonna shit all over your own gender for saying, essentially, "Hey! What the fuck?!" to Summers' claims, yeah, I think self-loathing is pretty fair. Good news: Your daughters will grow up to hate themselves, too, and will probably date men who agree with them on that count.

Perhaps I should have added "Literate" to the list of traits a supposedly self-loathing woman like myself admires. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that I wasn't clear enough. My whole point is that the women reacted to Mr. Summer's statement in a way which did not demonstrate the sort of strength, intelligence, logic, self-control, grace, etc which I admire in people, male or female. Instead they acted like stereotypically illogical, overly sensitive, weakminded, overly dramatic shrews. These are traits which I do not admire in the least. It really bothers me that someone would behave in such a way and try and claim that they are "defending" women. If one wants to defend women, then one should behave like a woman who is to be admired rather than one who is to be dismissed with disdain.

What is so stupid about the whole thing is not only did Summers not say that women couldn't be scientists, didn't make good scientist or weren't capable of being good at mather or science, he didn't even say he agreed with the idea that inherent difference might have a role in the gender gap in the sciences - he just raised it as an item, among many, to be considered. Yet just raising (not even endorsing) such a notion was enough to get some supposed "feminist" to have to rush from the room lest she swoon! Seriously, is this the sort of behavior you would want your daughter to emulate - SWOONING when someone says something she finds offensive?

What is REALLY ironic about the whole thing is that as scientists are figuring out the differences between the way men and women learn, we will be better equiped to teach the sciences to girls in a way which works for them. The very idea which lead some weak-minded so-called feminists to foam at the mouth and reach for the smelling salts probably holds the key to achieving the entirely laudable goal of getting more women involved in scientific fields.

Of course as long as we allow the sort of ninnies who are running amok through academia to claim to speak for us and be looking out for our daughters such achievements are less likely to be attained. So, like I said, if admiring strong, self-confident, intelligent, self-controlled, graceful behavior in women and disdaining the opposite behavior makes me self-loathing, so be it. However, I would say that insisting that I admire immature, illogical, weak-minded overly sensitive and dramatic behavior simply because it comes from a woman who claims to be looking out for our gender makes you a mysogenist. Personally, I would never hold such a low view of women.

Hey Moira, although I detest George Bush and question the sanity of any woman who would marry him....I do believe Laura Bush had several miscarriages and a very hard time carrying the twins to term.

As for Ann Coulter, give her a break on not having children. She's a man!

No, I'm not going to give Laura a break. Her sleazy husband and her sleasy party wouldn't give me a break to save my life. If Laura had been a good Christian woman, she would have had her babies starting in her teens, instead of going to college and getting an education. Like a good Christian woman, she should have been willing to suffer and die, if necessary to bring forth more babies. If the ideology is good enough for the poor, it's good enough for the Bush bitches. And what about Bush? Do you think he used a condom every time he screwed some $5 hooker in West Texas?? How many abortions did he pay for?

I grew up poor in the rural South. My parents had six children - none of them wanted, loved, or well provided for. We were like half-starved dogs left to fight over the occasion hunk of meat. Keep in mind that they did not drink, smoke or swear, and they were in church every Sunday yammering about how great Jesus was, and how bad blacks, Jews, Catholics, Yankees, Democrats - and above all - the Kennedys were. They were determined to outbreed their enemies. None of their children had children - NONE. Two siblings are drunks, and one commited suicide.

I'm lucky. I early on make the connection between poverty and pregancy. From a young age, I knew that I'd never have children. Now in my forties, I own a business, have a masters degree, own my home, and have a life completely devoted to myself. None of this would have been possible without the power to control my fertility - and that is a byproduct of feminism. No wonder the O'Bierne's of the world don't like feminism.

"Mother Nature: A History of Women, Infants, and Natural Selection" is written by Sarah Hrdy, a anthropological primatologist. (If I remember correctly.) It was written about six years ago. She writes in an unsentimental fashion about mothers and their offspring, and how competition for resources shape maternal choices. It is funny, lucid, and very threatening to the right wing. Look for it in your public library.