Making the Personal Political

The Feminine Mystique is 50 years old; do you know where your equality is? Here’s a hint: if you’re a woman living in America, it’s still pretty far out of reach. Because for as far as women have come in the ol’ US of A, the fact is that the state of affairs here–compared to […]

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Enough Already With The End of Men

Something has been nagging at me ever since I read Christina Hoff Sommers’ Opinionator piece in Sunday’s New York Times. Did you catch it? It’s yet another essay lamenting the disconnect between today’s school system and, well, the nature of boys. Her piece, which links declining male achievement with grade school culture, is pegged to […]

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Repeat After Me: Just Say No.

If we want to close the ambition gap, a good first step might be learning how to shake our heads. There’s this great quote from Feminist icon Germaine Greer: When we talk about women having it all, what they really have all of is the work.”  She was being somewhat facetious.   But then again, not […]

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The Year of The Woman, and The Hefty Burden of Making Choices

The Year of the Woman? Oy vey. It’s a phrase that’s always struck me as ridiculous. It would be one thing to declare it the Year of the Short, Redheaded, Left-Handed Woman, or the Year of the Unmarried, Urban-dwelling Thirtysomething Woman, or the Year of the Woman Who Doesn’t Want to Have It All, but, […]

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Hurry, Hurry! Shop, Shop! A Metaphor for Life?

Santa, make it stop! My inbox, which has exploded exponentially every day since Thanksgiving rolled over into the Season of  Shopping, has sent me on the fast track to crazy town. Among the fifty-odd messages that popped up since I went to bed last night are emails from everything from Bloomingdales to the Stanford Wine […]

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Moving On…

Lest you thought feminism‘s battle was over, let me reassure you, we’ve only just begun. And, despite all the work we’ve left to do, many facets of feminism, facets that are, by all proper measure, actually settled by now continue instead to rerun, like so much sitcom syndication. Consider: How is it that, in the […]

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One More Reason Women Are Undecided?

I frequently hear from former students – usually bright, idealistic twentysomethings — long after they’ve exchanged their college dreams for, you know, reality. Often, these women are more than a little shell-shocked when they come face to face with the disconnect between their high expectations and life out there in the real world of work.  […]

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On Presidents, Apron Strings, and Second Shifts.

I’m starting to wonder if this presidential election might hinge on apron strings. In the wake of the last debate, we’ve all been caught up in binders and trapper-keepers and funny Facebook memes – along with some hijinks on Amazon, where a bunch of smartypants hijacked several binder pages.  I think we’re missing the point. […]

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Air(Brush) Apparent

The other day, in the midst of a meeting of my paper’s editorial staff, I found myself waving my Feminist card in a manner reminiscent of when I used to referee kids’ soccer games, and had to deploy the whistle-yellow-card combo. (More often than not, the recipients of said cards were not kids at all, […]

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The Glorious Gloria Explains It All

It happened again the other day:  I was being interviewed by my introductory journalism class when I got The Question: Are you a feminist?  Of course, I shot back.  Beat.  Are you? The young woman was the tiniest bit flummoxed at being put on the spot.  Well, she said.  I guess it depends on how […]

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