Writes Newsweek's Dahlia Lithwick,

The impulse to remove innocent children from their stupid parents simply because their parents are stupid is a strong one. But it sweeps broadly and often irrevocably. Was the Octomom showing good judgment when she had herself implanted with eight embryos she had neither the financial nor emotional resources to support? Do the preposterous Jon and Kate Gosselin really believe their children have thrived as a consequence of having their every burp and sniffle broadcast to millions of viewers? A clutch of children's-rights advocates and many outraged Americans argue that any parent who agrees to put a small child on a reality show should be, by definition, a child abuser. But our legal system doesn't agree. Despite data that show what happens to child stars, current laws are concerned only with protecting young celebrities' finances and making sure they stay on the right side of child-labor rules. Being willing to do virtually anything for fame and money isn't a crime in America. It's a vocation.

And so is judging the parents. The spate of shows showcasing stage and pageant moms, multiple kids and trainwreck starlets doesn't just cast a light on these parents (who, one can safely assume, wouldn't, in the absence of cameras, suddenly be parenting paragons) it also allows us to judge them - surely at least as much the point, from a commercial point of view.

The point has been made, and often, that none of this could exist for our censure without an unjudgmental network framework ready to exploit in turn, even if they can make the disingenuous argument that they're merely letting appalling folks hoist themselves on their own petards. In the case of Disney's child-star factory (sausage'd in appalling detail in the new issue of Time) the complicity is literal, and it's not as though the fate of Disney's prior products (Lohan, anyone?) is a secret to the House of Mouse.

As Lithwick points out, though, tossing "abuse" around gets dicey. In Colorado, at least (the Heenes loom large in her piece) to qualify as "abused" a minor must exhibit "evidence of skin bruising, bleeding, malnutrition…burns, fracture of any bone…soft tissue swelling, or death," and emotional abuse is defines as "an identifiable and substantial impairment of the child's intellectual or psychological functioning or development." Kids on TV is not in itself "abuse" - I doubt anyone's calling for child services to intervene on Little People, Big World 's Roloff family- and the truth is the Gosselins would probably have had their issues anyway. But it frequently draws attention to the more unpleasant side of parenting. In a way, it's not our fault: American Idol, Project Runway, various dance shows, have made us all experts on everything - and often literal judge and jury, too. We may want legal recourse, but bad parenting isn't a crime, and that's a very slippery slope. I think it's good - if good there is - that it starts conversations and makes us consider where interest stops and voyeurism ends. Because as Lithwick says, "whether and when to remove a child from the care of his completely nutty parents is a complicated legal question, not one that should be hashed out via online polls. State laws properly recognize that tearing apart a family is an extreme step to be taken when a child faces imminent danger, not when his parents make terrible choices." But we can moderate our own behavior, think about why we watch, and whether we secretly enjoy the superiority a little too much. That's legal.

What Makes A Bad Parent? [Newsweek]
Making New Mileys: Disney's Teen-Star Factory [Time]

"You know her. She's got wild eyes and rumpled hair. At some point she stopped caring about the stains on her blouse. She's hurt, angry, rejected, and she's willing to take the whole damn place down with her. She is Lady Macbeth," Lithwick writes. "She is the oldest literary type around—the bitter madwoman, hellbent on revenge and willing to act against her own interest to win some respect. "

Look, we all agree that Clinton was treated with outrageous misogyny by some detractors. But even Hillary herself asked supporters to get behind Barack Obama, so to me, the P.U.M.A's aren't just perpetuating the stereotype of the "bitter madwoman," they're perpetuating another, more modern meme: one of self-absorption. There's been a lot of decrying of Generation Y narcissism, but the women of Hillary's generation were trailblazers in that sort of age-of-Aquarius "me" culture just as they were glass ceiling breakers.

P.U.M.A. found support in a very 2.0 way — through a Facebook group — so younger, social-networking happy narcissists are likely buying into their mission statement as well. Each one of its members is more concerned with "being heard" than with their own welfare or the welfare of this country. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton had very similar platforms, and they are pro-female. As Lithwick notes, "These disgruntled women—whether they plan to vote for John McCain, sit out the election, or simply gobble up airtime—are tacitly working toward electing McCain; a candidate who claimed last week at a presidential forum at Saddleback Church that life begins 'at the moment of conception' and who voted against legislation ensuring equal pay for women."

Reading what P.U.M.A. spokesperson Will Bower said in an interview on HuffPo really reinforced the utter selfishness of the group's pursuit. "It's amazing," Bower said. "It's been wild. My phone is just attached to me. I'm up always. It's been the most invigorating time of my life." How nice for you. It's the increasing inability to think about anyone but ourselves that is a far scarier trope than the perpetuation of the "bitter madwoman."

The Madwoman In The Blogosphere [Slate]

Brown takes a page from Ralph Ellison and calls over-50 females "invisible women." Younger women aren't voting for Hillary, she posits, because "The very scar tissue that older women see as proof of her determination just embarrasses their daughters, killing off for them all the insouciant elation that ought to come with girl power in the White House." Brown suggests that Hillary team up with Chelsea and hold some mother-daughter rallies in Pennsylvania to appeal to the under-30 set.

And why isn't that generation voting for Hillary? Young Jessica Bennett treads on well-worn territory when she argues that the "universal sisterhood" idea doesn't appeal to 20-something female Obama-philes. In a Q& A with Newsweek, Hillary herself explains why young women do not flock to her: "It's hard for young women to really feel the emotional connection because they didn't live through what we lived through. When I was a young woman, there were colleges I couldn't go to, jobs that I couldn't have ever had, a set of expectations that were pretty much imposed—and so women my age, we have gone through this extraordinary movement ... But the true beneficiaries are our daughters and our granddaughters."

But these 20 and 30-somethings who vote for Obama still feel guilty about not voting for Hillary, perhaps, as Jessica Bennett argues, because "[We were] reared at a time when Hillary was ever present, a sort of surrogate mother to us all."

If the Hillary-as-mother trope makes women feel guilty, it makes men feel a Freudian rage, says Kathleen Deveny. Deveny believes that much of the sexism directed towards Hillary is based in men's primal feelings towards their mothers and these men "mean 'mother' in the nagging, scolding, mom-jean-wearing sense, and not in a reassuring, brave and noble 'founding father' sort of way. Because since our mothers were often the sole authority figures in our childhoods, powerful women can bring back uncomfortable, if not emasculating, memories."

Speaking of emasculating, many have compared Hillary to another powerful old broad, Margaret Thatcher. Writer Julia Baird makes the point that though Thatcher pranced around her home "peeling potatoes" and "baking cakes" to soften her iron-woman image, she's not the only politician to do so. "Like men, women have exploited their gender when it suits them," Baird says.

Anna Quindlen takes the idea of Hillary's gender role throughout this race and puts an interesting twist on it. Obama has been allowed to show a more feminine side to overwhelming praise because "while [Clinton] felt the need to prove muscle and mettle, he has been making human connections. Here's the deal: that's because he could afford to. A male candidate owns all the guy stuff simply by virtue of his birth; he can then go on to show that he's caring and communitarian."

By virtue of his birth, Obama is also a black man. For Allison Samuels, her desire to see someone in the White House who cares about black issues "trumps [her] desire to see a woman in the White House." Samuels continues, "I can't afford the luxury of fighting two battles when one is so clearly a matter of life and death."

Last but not least, Slate's Dahlia Lithwick wonders whether this year's election will settle the question of identity politics once and for all. "Perhaps," Lithwick wagers, "at the end of all these months of peering in the mirror, we can stop looking for the candidate who embodies every slight and insult we've ever encountered, and contemplate which of them is better suited to govern." What might fell Hillary is not her gender, says Eleanor Clift in yet another essay, it's her personality, marred by a combination of "hubris and naiveté". Focusing on the policy and the temperaments of the candidates instead of their genitalia or the color of their skin? Why would anyone want to do that!

Hillary And The Invisible Women [Newsweek]
Am I Betraying The 'Sisterhood'? [Newsweek]
'A Common Experience' [Newsweek]
Leave Your Mother Out Of It [Newsweek]
Still Stuck In Second [Newsweek]
The Legacy Of My Grandmother [Newsweek]
Scenes From a Tea for Two [Newsweek]
Enough About Us. What About Them? [Newsweek]

Earlier: 30 Women Hate On Hillary In 30 Different Ways