Is Work-Life Balance The New Prince Charming?

Ahead of September’s “I Don’t Know How She Does It”–a movie based on Allison Pearson’s best-selling novel about the realities of life as a working mother, which stars Sarah Jessica Parker as the harried “She” in question–this Sunday’s New York Times Magazine ran a story about the film’s screenwriter, Aline Brosh McKenna, whose other credits [...]

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It’s Not About The V; Let’s Hail The Feminine

All of the hullaballoo about Summers Eve’s latest ad campaign (you know, the one that hails the “V”? Ironic, when you consider that the product for which the ad in question shills is one that disturbs a healthy V’s natural, self-regulating biology, one that’s counter-indicated by medicine, and one that carries the implicit message that [...]

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Fly Away Home, Or Eat, Crazy, Sexy, Pray Redux

Oh, contentment. Fulfillment. Happiness. So slippery, so elusive. And yet, we never stop looking for it, do we? A generation ago, women–stuck in the home and driven apeshit by a never-ending list of mindless chores–ran screaming out of those homes (and, sometimes, away from their families), certain fulfillment was waiting for them in the world [...]

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For The Love of Courtney, Or: Goddess Bless The Trainwrecks

Just when you thought it was safe to take a peek at what everyone’s favorite bad girl’s been up to… When I opened this Sunday’s New York Times, flipped straight to the Styles section (as I do when I have a blessed nearly-whole day of couch planned) and saw the headline: “Courtney Love: ‘I’d Like [...]

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Emerging Adultiness: 20-Somethings Are The New 20-Somethings

By now, you’ve surely seen it. The cover story in this Sunday’s New York Times magazine went viral days before it landed on my doorstep. Robin Marantz Henig’s “What Is It About 20-Somethings?” focuses a lot on the work of psychologist Jeffrey Jensen Arnett, who’s trying to get “Emerging Adulthood” identified as an official, distinct [...]

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One Flew Over The Chicken Coop: The Femivore’s Dilemma

What do you think Betty Freidan–or Betty Draper for that matter–might say to the idea that, come 2010, women everywhere would be finding their purpose right in their own backyards? Tending to the chicken coops in their own backyards, that is? Don’t think that would fly? Peggy Orenstein offers an interesting take on the Extreme-Homemaking-as-Feminism [...]

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Sandra Tsing Loh Wants a Wife. Me, too.

So it’s about 6:00 p.m. on Sunday. I just stuffed some lemon, garlic, and fresh rosemary and thyme up into the nether regions of Rocky, a free range chicken, who is now doing serious time in a very hot oven. My husband, casting about for something to do during halftime of the second NFL playoff, [...]

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Holding Up Half the Sky

Yesterday’s New York Times Magazine was devoted to women, and if you’ve not read it yet, I implore you to do so. Granted, it won’t be much fun, but I think the issues it raises are critically important for all women. The cover lines give fair warning of what’s to come, as well as why [...]

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Julie and Julia’s Recipe for Success

You know what I love about cooking? I love that after a day where nothing is sure–and when I say nothing, I mean nothing–you can come home and absolutely know that if you add egg yolks to chocolate and sugar and milk, it will get thick. It’s such a comfort. So says Julie, the modern-day [...]

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Where have you gone, Nancy Drew?

You have to wonder if Nancy Drew was the first feminist role model for generations of young women. She was smart, brave, confident: the leader of her pack who scooted around town to scary places — at night, no less — in her very own roadster, convertible top down, with sidekicks Bess and George, and [...]

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