"That was 20 years ago," has been the rallying cry of McDonnell's supporters.

Well, fine. 1989 was ages ago, even if the fashions are still with us. But then, how do you explain what you've been doing for most of your career? As the Washington Post article states:

The 93-page document, which is publicly available at the Regent University library, culminates with a 15-point action plan that McDonnell said the Republican Party should follow to protect American families — a vision that he started to put into action soon after he was elected to the Virginia House of Delegates.

During his 14 years in the General Assembly, McDonnell pursued at least 10 of the policy goals he laid out in that research paper, including abortion restrictions, covenant marriage, school vouchers and tax policies to favor his view of the traditional family. In 2001, he voted against a resolution in support of ending wage discrimination between men and women.

Wait a minute. That time frame just shrank from twenty years to eight years. What's up with that?

Then McDonnell tries to play the "I can't be sexist, I have a wife and a daughter" card. Through a statement, McDonnell explains:

[H]e is "fully supportive of the tremendous contributions women make in the workplace. My wife and daughters work. My campaign manager in 2005 was a working mother. I appointed 5 women to my senior staff as Attorney General."

His website even runs with this idea even further, listing testimonials from various women who have worked with McDonnell to explain that he really supports strong women.

Judy Ford Wason, Williamsburg says:

"I know and have confidence in Bob McDonnell. He respects and surrounds himself with strong working women. His daughter served our nation in Iraq. His campaign manager in 2005 was a working mom.

And Janet Polarek, Richmond says:

I speak with direct experience when I say unequivocally that Bob McDonnell supports and champions working moms. He is a true friend to the working mothers of Virginia."

So I guess being a "true friend" doesn't extend to advocating for equal pay.

DNC Chairman Tim Kaine ran in to kick McDonnell while he's down - in an email sent to his core base, Kaine writes:

All people are entitled to their personal beliefs. After years of working with Bob, I believe this article is an accurate reflection of his sincere and long-standing views. But I do not believe that this philosophy, which Bob has worked strenuously to implement as an elected official, is the right direction for Virginia. In fact, I think it would take us backwards and jeopardize much of the success we have achieved in the Commonwealth in recent years.

Creigh Deed's basic governing philosophy is simple – what is best for Virginia. That has been his hallmark during his legislative career and no one voting for Creigh would have to wonder whether he had another agenda.

Burn. But we rolled right into the hard sell, so I wouldn't count this as a TKO.

Ultimately, it is important to maintain a solid grip on the facts presented. I'm sure most of us would say that our views on certain topics do change as time goes by and life goes on. Many of us would not want to be judged on something we wrote twenty years ago.

But it's a little hard to advocate that kind of position when you have a public voting record that demonstrates just how similar the 1989 vision matches the 2009.

'89 Thesis A Different Side of McDonnell [Washington Post]
Virginia Women Respond to Latest Deeds Attack [McDonnell for Governor]
Kaine: McDonnell thesis an 'accurate reflection' of views [The Politico]

Ex (let's call him Marc) had a conversation with another lifeguard, Ally. Now, he and Ally had started at the same time, with the same rate of pay - a flat $7.00 per hour. Over the years, they had consistently taken the same exams and the same accreditation, both ultimately obtaining their pool operator's license. One day, Ally complained to Marc about her low rate of pay. After being with the same company for close to five years, she was still making only nine dollars an hour.

Marc was dumbfounded. He was making $13.00 an hour. He ended up coaching Ally on how to forcefully ask for a pay raise (flash credentials, threaten to leave, cite a competing companies offer) and she renegotiated up to $11.00 an hour. He concluded that women just weren't forceful enough when asking for money.

"You all are too nice," he groused, "you need to learn to ask for what you want."

But are all asks considered equal?

Over at Broadsheet, Tracy Clark-Flory spells out the tricky road women walk when negotiating for pay.

The same explanation for the gender pay gap has been put on exhibit, again and again: Women aren't as aggressive as men are about asking for raises. But, according to a new study, the reason may not be so much that women don't know how to haggle as it is that they perceive consequences to being seen as the not-so-nice girl.[...]

Oh, and there are consequences.

[I]n a related study, the researchers asked 285 volunteers to evaluate videos of job applicants either asking for higher pay or agreeing to the offered salary. "Men tended to rule against women who negotiated but were less likely to penalize men; women tended to penalize both men and women who negotiated, and preferred applicants who did not ask for more," reports the Washington Post.

While much is often made of how women never ask for more money (which also stems from societal conditioning), less is made of the social penalties facing a woman who has decided to step outside of what is acceptable and have the nerve to request the amount that she is worth. I can remember my first few encounters with negotiations, and how differently the process went with bosses who were invested in my development as a person as well as an employee and how it went with bosses who were ultimately more concerned with their bottom line.

By the time I got my first salaried job, I thought I was pretty skilled in negotiation. I routinely made counter-offers to my job offers and generally received a pay upgrade. I was realistic in evaluating my strengths and what I could bring to an employer. And I was good at surveying and understanding the market I work in (after all, one of my former gigs was in market research).

However, what I was not prepared for was irrationality from employers. How you could do everything "right" - have a solid work history, be a team player, work up to a performance review, prepare a lot of documents on your own behalf, make an offer that is in keeping with your production and market value - and still receive push back about a promotion or a raise.

So, I learned a couple things about negotiating at work.

The first one, I notice, is in a lot of the career advice for men, but not in the career advice for women guides.* It's the simplest thing in the world - be prepared to walk. Sometimes we aren't in the position to walk. And I understand that. But sometimes, it's the only way to signal to an employer that you are serious. At my first salary position, there came a point in time when I was managing $1.7 million dollars worth of business partnerships. My employer paid me less than 30K. So, I buckled down, redoubled my efforts, made sure my partner recommendations were glowing, made sure that I upped my productivity time, and came into the performance review prepared.

Still nothing. The company had the money to pay me, and chose not to, saying that they could only give me an extra $500 bonus. The worst thing about it? I had only asked for an additional $3,000 a year. I started looking for a new gig, quit the job, got a new one paying me an additional $4,000 and through that job, landed the next gig that both doubled my salary and thrust me into the world of self-employment.

So, in sum, if there is any way possible you can leave once your company indicates they are unwilling to negotiate, do so.

The second one is to try to have as much negotiation leverage as you can when making this decision. Ally walked in with the knowledge of Marc's salary and was able to negotiate a much higher raise than the initial fifty cents an hour offered to her. And I made the decision to quit the job I did armed with information about what other departments in my organization were paying their employees. It quickly became clear that our department was eating the salary increases for all the other departments - the next lowest paid employee was another 10K ahead of me, the highest paid person in my department. And the best way to gain information isn't using websites like Salary.com (though they can be helpful if you are trying to switch industries) but actually talking to people, and earning enough trust where they are willing to have the ever awkward "what I make" conversation with you.

However, these two tips are not fool-proof. As comfortable as a I am with negotiating, there are still many times when I crash and burn or have to walk to make a point about what I am worth. But in order to have intelligent conversations about women in business and the wage gap, I think we need to have a more honest conversation about what we are up against.

*I'll take a deeper look at those later this week.

The Costs of Asking for a Higher Salary [Broadsheet]
Salary, Gender, and the Cost of Haggling [Washington Post]

The 40th day after a death is significant in Islamic tradition, and 40-day cycles of mourning for martyrs were a key part of the 1979 Iranian Revolution. Today protesters are gathering at Neda's grave and several other locations in Tehran. "At least 2,000" people have come together at a prayer location called the Grand Mosala, despite being denied permission to hold a rally there. Witnesses report that Iranian police are using tear gas, arresting Moussavi supporters, and smashing car windows in an effort to quell the protests. Reportedly among the protesters is Neda's mother, Hajar Rostami Motlagh, who spoke with the BBC in an interview published today.

Of her daughter's motivation for joining the gathering at which she was shot, Motlagh says,

It was all about being young and feeling passionate about freedom. She wasn't political. She didn't belong to any party or group. She didn't support any faction. Every other young Iranian was there - and she was one of them. [...] You can't blame young people for going out and wanting to feel free.

Throughout the interview, she seems to take care not to ascribe political motivations to Neda, or to reveal them herself. When asked if her daughter's death politicized her, she says,

No, not really. No. I can't tell you if her death has turned me into a political person. I am still in shock. In pain. I can't think about anything except her.

And when the interviewer asks if it's important to her that Neda's death be investigated, she answers, "Yes, because Mr Ahmadinejad has ordered an investigation." She does mention that while she has not spoken to opposition candidate Mir Husein Moussavi, "Mr Karroubi - the other opposition figure" has visited her. She says, "he was very supportive and I found that comforting." Despite her general avoidance of political statements, Motlagh does say,

knowing that the world cried for [Neda] … that has comforted me. I am proud of her. The world sees her as a symbol, and that makes me happy.

Today, Neda is a symbol of Iranians' outrage at an unfair election, and at Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who will be officially approved as president in a ceremony Monday. But for Motlagh, today's mourning will obviously be personal as well as political. The most heart-wrenching part of her interview is when she talks about meeting with the mothers of other young people slain at postelection gatherings. She says,

Emotionally we are all broken. What can we say to each other? Our loved ones were too young to die… what can three mothers in the same situation say to each other? All we can do is just sit there and cry.

Interview: Mother's Tribute To Neda [BBC]
Iran Election Protests: The Dead, Jailed And Missing [Guardian]
Updates On Post-Election Protests In Iran [NYT]
Iran Protests To Honour The Dead [Guardian]
Iranians Gather In Tehran To Commemorate Unrest Victims [Reuters]
Iran Police Clash With Mourners [BBC]
Ahmadinejad To Be Approved As President August 3 [Press TV]

To recap Hirshman to date: Back in April, she wrote that focusing on the abusers isn't nearly good enough: we had to start embarrassing the victims.

Shouldn't we be focusing on the abusers? Well, not exactly. Old-style feminism would say "the personal is the political," as long-time columnist Katha Pollitt put it in her own tale of personal sexual betrayal, Learning To Drive: And Other Life Stories. A social movement that passed political judgment on a subject as intimate as domestic violence may be tough on the victim, but, as Pollitt concluded, "at least it offered a perspective."

According to Hirshman, it was feminists' duty to ask individual victims how it is they could be so stupid and anti-feminist so as to stay with an abuser, all but ignoring the well-documented psychological effects of abusive relationships.

When called out on on that steaming pile of victim-shaming bullshit that in no way actually helps women leave abusers, Hirshman got all defensive.

I implied that women are natural victims, and I was just using battered women as a battering ram against "choice" feminism. If there's one take-away message in my piece, it's that women are not natural victims. Which means there must be a way to reduce or arrest battering. Silent sheltering and waiting isn't enough-that leaves between 600,000 and 2,000,000 women battered right now.

Now, no feminist — choice or otherwise — would call women "natural" victims. What we can and have pointed out is that there is a vast body of research into how some women do become victims and what methods are useful for helping them exit abusive relationships and, moreover, that the blame for the abuse should fall squarely upon the abuser and not his victim. We also suggested that stopping abuse means providing means for women to exit relationships and better means of detection, prosecution and education for men about abuse. We just disagree that shaming women who are being abused is in any way, shape or form helpful to the end goal of helping women exit abusive relationships, what with one of the major causes of abused women's isolation being the shame they feel for either bringing the abuse upon themselves or being unable emotionally to leave.

Obviously, Hirshman still isn't keen to hear that part of any explanation. Her apparent takeaway from the discussion is that "choice" feminists believe women choose of their own volition to stay in abusive relationships and we should support them in their decisions. And so she's so very surprised that us "choice" feminists aren't attacking President Obama for his NAACP speech in which he encouraged African-American men and women to raise their children to work hard and do well in school, rather than succumbing to circumstances that might make them believe they can't succeed. (It's a little like Hirshman forgot Obama's speech on the same topic last June, actually).

In fact, because so little has been written by particularly white, feminist commentators (who, I don't know, might not feel quite right criticizing a speech by the first African-American President to African-Americans about raising African-American children for some odd reason), Hirshman thinks Obama's getting a pass in a way she wasn't.

Are women different from African-Americans when it comes to writing their own destiny, as the president powerfully expressed it? Apparently.

In other words, Obama suggesting to African-American parents that they encourage their children to dream of being scientists is exactly the same as suggesting that feminists try to shame women out of abusive relationships by telling them that it's their fault (and a betrayal of feminism) for staying.

It is difficult to imagine the same writers suggesting that President Obama is interfering with the freedom of choice of black parents when he tells them to prepare their children to be scientists rather than rappers.

If anything, the argument for leaving an abuser should be an easier one to make, no? But a few months ago, after reviewing Leslie Morgan Steiner's memoir of her four years as a victim of domestic abuse, I took a pounding for asking: Why didn't she leave?

Now, again, not a single feminist who disagreed with Hirshman argued that women should stay with abusers because it's their "choice" or that feminists shouldn't do what they can to reduce domestic violence, punish abusers and engage in productive measures to help women leave abusive situations. What we all collectively argued is that just asking women why they stayed or didn't leave is asking a woman suffering from psychological trauma to explain or justify themselves isn't fucking helpful to the end goal of enabling them to leave. But, obviously, Linda Hirshman knows better than silly "research" and we're all just obsessed with "choice."

Hirshman, though, has an explanation for her behavior.

[Her question was] Maybe not accusatory, but yes, the question is and was intended to be judgmental.

In other words, Linda Hirshman feels entitled to sit in judgment of victims of domestic violence. She wants to judge victims of domestic violence — in the same way that she judges sexual assault victims — because, like many people, she thinks herself immune. Like most people who've never been the victim of a crime — particularly a violent crime — she believes the world is a rational ordered place where if you just do the "right" thing, nothing bad will happen to you. Linda Hirshman lives in a fantasy world in which just being a good enough feminist protects you from domestic violence, or infidelity or sexual assault, because women aren't "natural victims." The problem is that crime isn't natural — no one is a "natural" victim.

Hirshman ends her piece with an appeal to the school of feminism that has declared the personal, political.

True, some of the oppression of women is imposed in private, emotional relationships, as opposed to on a bridge in Selma, Ala. or at a lousy crumbling inner-city school. But such manipulative emotional relationships do involve political oppression, just like the political oppression that produces those awful schools and the lack of job prospects upon graduation. That's what the old feminist insight "the personal is the political" was intended to illuminate.

Ah, let's do get back to the oppression Olympics! Jim Crow laws are just like individual cases of domestic violence! It's good to know that Hirshman can so reliably drive that wedge down in between white feminists and womanists of color again. And, again: how does what Hirshman is saying actually help individual victims of domestic violence? That the personal (for instance: rape, domestic violence, wage discrimination or freedom of sexual expression) is political is not an anathema to so-called "choice" feminism; the idea that the political should inevitably trump the expression of the personal, including the ability to use empathy and other, non-political tools to help enable women to exit abusive relationships, is.

In science Linda Hirshman probably should — but likely won't — look at, social scientists Jennifer Hardesty and Lyndal Khaw at the University of Illinois have identified the 5 discrete stages women go through when trying to distance themselves from an abusive relationship. Why is that important?

"Leaving a relationship is much more complex than just deciding to change, and it involves more than a woman's prioritizing her safety. Other actors are involved. The abuser makes decisions that affect a woman's movement through the stages. And children can be a powerful influence in motivating a woman to get out of a relationship and in pulling her back in," Hardesty said.

In other words, it's not just telling someone they need to get out: quite often, they know, but there are also reasons they see to stay. She adds:

"Discouraged friends and family members have to learn to view leaving as a process and realize that there's little they can say to speed it along. It's important for them to reinforce the risks the woman is facing by asking such questions as 'Has he become more abusive? Does he have a gun?'

"When talking to an abused friend or family member, you should always emphasize safety, but for your own sanity, you should realize that leaving is a process and she has to work her way through it herself," she said.

In other words: asking "Why don't you just leave?" does nothing to contribute to the process of emotional and physical disentanglement that a woman has to go through in order to get out, including finding shelter and the financial wherewithal to leave as she is emotionally disengaging. "Tough love" doesn't help most women who find themselves in abusive relationships, as personally and politically satisfying as Linda Hirshman might find it to dish out.

Talking Tough Love [double x]
Crazy Love, Crazy Choices [Slate]
Sheltering Women: Linda Hirshman Responds to Hilzoy [Slate]
For Abused Women, Leaving Is A Complex And Confusing Process [EurekAlert]

Related: Obama's Father's Day Speech Urges Black Fathers To Be More Engaged In Raising Their Children [Huffington Post]

Earlier: Writer Implies We Can Collectively Guilt Rihanna Into Leaving Chris
Former Victim Counselor Takes On Assumptions That Leaving Abusers Is Easy
Linda Hirshman Won't Let Domestic Abuse Victims Off The Hook
Who You Calling A Bad Feminist?

[In case you're wondering, the image of Linda Hirshman in a crown is her own head shot at double x]

First off, Dean thinks that bipartisanship on health care reform is bullshit.

I think it's a very good thing [that the Democrats might not get bipartisan support for their bill]. I think the Republicans have correctly diagnosed that the way to stop Obama is to stop the health-care bill. They're determined not to have a bill. In the long run, we're going to have to do this on our own.

In other words, since the Republicans have now announced their intention to kill the bill for political reasons regardless of what it contains, fuck 'em. They had their chance.

Besides which, if Obama wants to take credit for it in 3 years when he's running for reelection — let alone the House and Senate members who are up for reelection next year — they've got to be able to have something to show to their constituents that they, and they alone, are responsible for. And Dean's got the best idea this underinsured freelancer's heard all year.

Put in guaranteed issue and community rating at once, so people cannot be turned down for insurance in the private sector, nor can they have their insurance taken away because of an illness. He'll get huge credit for that and there's no budgetary cost.

It's so rare that constituents' personal interests and legislators' political interests align so nicely.

Dean's got another suggestion that I would have loved when I was just a tiny bit younger.

You say the federal government should provide free coverage to everyone under 30. That's pretty radical.
It's incredibly cheap. Statistically, only two expensive things happen to people under 30: one is a malignancy and the other is an accident. Everything else is mostly preventive maintenance and it's very inexpensive. But this is not what's going to be passed.

Sigh. Guess that's what we get for not voting as much as the oldies.

Anyway, although Dean doesn't use the word "market failure" to counter all the Republican arguments about how the free market ought to be allowed to "work" in the case of the health insurance market, he's got a pretty good handle on why it never will.

Everybody talks about preventive medicine, but almost nobody does it because there's no payback. A private practitioner invests money in preventive care and the hospital benefits. They're not connected. Second, pay people - particularly primary-care providers - for taking good care of patients without rewarding doctors for doing more and more and more. That's what the system is currently based on. The more you do, the more you get paid, which is an incentive for inefficiency.

In other words, the market that functions the most efficiently in terms of cost-incentives functions the worst in terms of caring for people's health. That's because the health insurance market has become the de facto health care market, rather than an addition to it.

In a speech to Campus Progress, Dean offers a potential — but politically untenable, which is why he's so beloved — solution to the market failure problem. Bonus: it's one the government has already implemented in other industries and which, until relatively recently, was the model the health insurance companies were often forced to abide by on the state level until they successfully lobbied for full privatization.

If you ever want to save costs, it can never happen in the private sector. ... Switzerland and Netherlands treat their private insurers like regulated utilities. Our private insurers are not going to want to do that.

No kidding! Providing health care to their insurance customers might cut into insurance companies' profit margins... and they wouldn't want to do that.

Howard Dean On The Politics Of Health-Care Reform [Times]
The Ever-Quotable Howard Dean [The New Republic]

Related: GOP Focuses Effort To Kill Health Bills [Washington Post]

Lesson #1: Women across the country are hungry for their strength to be acknowledged, without sacrificing their femininity.

Martin writes,

The image of a pit bull with lipstick will go down as one of the most memorable images in American electoral rhetoric thanks to Sarah Palin's first populist performance at the Republican National Convention [...] Feminists across the country were still recovering from the shock of McCain's pick when Palin made that now-infamous quip, so we may have missed the deeper meaning. She was signifying that, though she's tough, she's still feminine.

Uh, yes, we got that. Martin continues,

Sarah Palin appeals to a broad need among contemporary American women who want to be leaders and demonstrate their intellectual strength, but also maintain their allegiance to traditional notions of femininity. Both her RNC address and her resignation speech were filled with this subtle duality and bold permission for women everywhere to flex their muscles while painting their fingernails.

I am typing this post with bright red (albeit badly chipped) fingernails, and I really do not need Sarah Palin's permission to do so. It's hardly news that some women want both equal rights and "a perky ponytail," and the stereotype that all feminists are braless Birkenstock-wearers is a pretty outdated one. Martin rightly says that feminism opens the door for "self- and societal analysis that leads to conscious choices about self-expression — male or female, conservative or progressive, hockey mom or butch dyke." But Sarah Palin is now such a celebrity that her pretty hair and makeup seem less like unbridled self-expression and more like a job requirement, as they are for A-list actresses. And, as evinced by this amusing edit of her resignation address (along with the address itself), she's hardly a role model for any sort of analysis.

Lesson #2: Defending women against sexism means defending all women against sexism.

This is Martin's smartest point. She writes,

As feminists, we must defend the right of every woman — progressive or not — to be judged on the quality of her ideas and the integrity of her experience, not the curve of her figure or the shape of her face. Whether it's a former beauty pageant contestant running for vice president (you know who) or a wise, old woman who has covered the White House since 1961 (Helen Thomas), we must advocate for unbiased treatment in the media.

Even though Palin's "politics are sexist," Martin says, we must "defend her right to nonsexist coverage." This is true — like Carrie Prejean, Palin deserves criticism for her ideas and the lack thereof, not her looks, her gender, or her family life. That said, Palin shouldn't get to hide from substantive criticism by calling it sexist, or lump all her critics together into one big ball of unprincipled, prejudiced Sarah-hate.

Lesson #3: We've succeeded in so many ways!

Martin says,

It may have made feminists squirm to see that the movement's fight produced a moment ripe for a soldier like Sarah Palin, but from another vantage point, her candidacy (and more importantly, Hillary Clinton's) prove we've won certain battles. Women are taken seriously as political candidates. Plain and simple.

It's true that the very idea that it might be politically expedient to have a woman on the McCain ticket speaks to the electoral power of women. But the choice of a woman whose beliefs are, as Martin says, sexist, shows that political operatives, at least on the right, are still pretty cynical about what women want. Luckily, the strategy of "take away their abortion rights, but give them a lady to look at" didn't work, but the fact that the McCain camp tried it — and with a woman who is inexperienced, incurious, and often inarticulate — shows that they valued symbol over substance. Palin's "maverick" reputation may have meant something to the Republican Party, but her vice presidential bid still had a whiff of tokenism. The right's not taking women seriously if it fields candidates who are anti-woman.

Martin closes her piece with the lines, "Ultimately, our discomfort with Sarah Palin is more about us than it is about her. No matter who she claims to be, we need to keep pushing ourselves to clarify who we are." The second statement makes sense, but the first? Sorry, it really is about Sarah.

Lessons For Feminists From Sarah Palin [The American Prospect]
Palin's Resignation: The Edited Version [Vanity Fair]

Alvarado and another woman, L.R from Mexico., have been seeking asylum in the U.S. for 13 and 5 years respectively solely on the basis that they were battered by their partners and subject to a legal system that could not and did not seek to protect their rights. In Alvardo's case, she was actually granted asylum in 1996, only to have the government appeal the disposition and an appeals court rule against her. The Bush Administration was equally hostile to the claims of both women that injustice and possible death await them in their home countries, and refused to put into effect draft regulations establishing conditions under which domestic abuse could be considered in asylum cases. According to the New York Times:

Any applicant for asylum or refugee status in the United States must demonstrate a "well-founded fear of persecution" because of race, religion, nationality, political opinion or "membership in a particular social group." The extended legal argument has been whether abused women could be part of any social group that would be eligible under those terms.

The Obama Administration's filings in L.R.'s case says explicitly that domestic abuse could qualify women for asylum in some cases, a bold reversal of Bush Administration actions in which they attempted to deport such women anyway.

Changing U.S. asylum policy in this way is not just more humane and less blindingly idiotic, it would resolve a conflict with existing law covering foreign women married to American men. In order to resolve situations in which American men would abuse their foreign-born wives and yet be able to blackmail them with their immigration status into remaining in a relationship, the Violence Against Women Act allows foreign-born women in abusive relationships to qualify for green cards without having to stay with their abusers. Changing asylum policy would grant foreign women seeking escape in our country a similar opportunity.

Of course, the change in policy doesn't mean either woman will get to stay in the United States — and the courts have been increasing hostile to asylum applications since 9/11. But at least it's a start.

New Policy Permits Asylum for Battered Women [NY Times]

Related: Documents and Information on Rody Alvarado's Claim for Asylum in the U.S. [Center for Gender and Refugee Studies]

First up, former General Electric CEO Jack Welch (who, notably, left the wife and mother of his children after 28 years of marriage, during which she raised his kids), who told a room of mostly women not to expect to get to have time for their families and shit if they want to ever have the corner office. According to Cari Tuna and Joann Lublin of the Wall Street Journal:

"The women who have reached the top of Archer Daniels, of DuPont, I know these women. They've had pretty straight careers," he said in an interview with journalist Claire Shipman, before thousands of HR specialists.

"We'd love to have more women moving up faster," Mr. Welch said. "But they've got to make the tough choices and know the consequences of each one."

Taking time off for family "can offer a nice life," Mr. Welch said, "but the chances of going to the top on that path" are smaller. "That doesn't mean you can't have a nice career," he added.

So, ladies, unless you can get a wife — 'cause, God knows, a husband won't be doing for you what Carolyn Welch did for Jack before he left her for a younger woman — better get used to having a nice little career or not taking time off to spend time with your children.

In Welch's mind, of course, women can make those decisions in a judgment and consequence-free vacuum — you know, like men do all the time! Because, of course, there's always someone else to take care of those kids and no one to judge you for staying at the office every weekend shooting the shit about sports with the boys.

Unsurprisingly, there are some women CEOs that think Jack Welch is full of shit.

But one female CEO disagrees with Mr. Welch. Nancy McKinstry, CEO of Dutch business publisher Wolters Kluwer NV, took a five-month maternity leave when her now 19-year-old son was born and four weeks off after her daughter's birth 13 years ago.

Ms. McKinstry, who has been Wolters' CEO since 2003, says women can "take a couple of years off" to raise children and still become CEO. "But if you take a decade off, you probably aren't going to make it to the top," she says.

She says reaching the top of an organization requires sacrifices, for men as well as women. An American, Ms. McKinstry uprooted her family when she became Wolters' first female and first non-Dutch CEO. Her husband, an anesthesiologist, now splits his time between his job in New York and staying home with their children in the Netherlands.

"I have been successful in business and been successful with a family," she observes. "It requires prioritization."

McKinstry is right: if a woman takes several years off in the midst of a career, studies show that she'll, at best, catch up with her age cohort several years later in terms of income and status attainment but that, in most cases, she's likely to not catch up at all. But McKinstry obviously had an understanding and supportive spouse and enough money (one assumes) to hire people to take care of certain life details that two high-powered people with intense careers would have to have done for them.

Author Pamela Stone has a different solution than having a spouse that is as supportive of your career (and willing to shoulder more of the child-raising burden): she thinks employers should just have everyone work less, so that women's unwillingness or inability to work more isn't as noticeable to employers making advancement decisions. Because that'll totally insure the equality of outcomes! She says:

Reduce hours for everyone.
I think that the husbands are captive by the same forces of an idea worker model that their wives are. That is why my solution is always to get rid of the ideal worker model and find a way to reduce hours. Because these were not guys who didn't want to be involved with their families. And all studies show that younger generations of men want to be more involved and there is no question that they are, hours-wise, more involved than before.

So, rather than encouraging models and systems that promote gender equity in individual relationships and allow men and women to make those decisions for themselves, the role of the feminist movement should be to reduce the hours men feel obligated (or are allowed to work).

And why, you might ask? Because allowing women to have choices in a society that isn't equal means we're not really capable of making them! That's right: a feminism that allows women to choose is really at fault.

The problem with choice feminism is that it always puts the burden of change on individuals and overlooks the need for social movement. It overlooks the need for change in the workplace and forces people to tailor their lives to workplace realities rather than see themselves as part of a larger group. Choice feminism reinforces the sense that it is "your problem."

I think there is a shortsightedness in ignoring the larger structural inequalities and the larger social realities that still, regrettably, exist. I'd like to say, as a woman of the second wave generation, that we solved all the problems. But we didn't. I think it is sticking one's head in the sand if you don't recognize that choices are constrained.

Hmm, I guess we really should get off the pole and stop believing that our choices are one of the benefits of the feminist movement and recognize that feminism is about denying women the choice to live as they individually see fit and rather proscribing a particular manner of living.

Welch: 'No Such Thing as Work-Life Balance' [Wall Street Journal]
Is The Current Women-Heavy Workforce Sustainable Without A Major Overhaul Of The System? [True/Slant]

Related: Balancing Work And Life The Jack Welch Way [Boston Globe]

Thirty-two-year-old Marwa al-Sherbini, a pharmacist of Egyptian descent working in Germany, had gone to court to testify against a man who called her a terrorist and tried to take off her headscarf. According to Time, the accused "ran across the courtroom and stabbed her 18 times." Complicating the case even further is the fact that a German guard shot Sherbini's husband, mistaking him for the attacker. The shocking attack has turned a harsh spotlight on anti-Islam sentiment in Europe, which some believe is also behind Sarkozy's suggestion of a burqa ban in France.

Of Sherbini's murder, a columnist for Daily News Egypt wrote,

Had the Muslim been the aggressor as the guards initially thought, the story would have made headlines ... It would have perfectly fitted into the promoted image of Muslims being aggressive, barbaric and uncivilized.

Others, however, believe that Islamists are making opportunistic use of the Sherbini case. Journalist Hossam el-Hamalawy says,

The Islamists in Egypt have already [begun] using this as a card to mobilize for the veil - not for the right of women to wear whatever they want, but in defense of the veil. [...] The government is also trying to hijack the campaign and trying to present itself as patriotic in defense of Egyptians abroad. What do they do for the Egyptians who are in the Gulf and who actually face similar treatment, if not worse?

While debate rages over whether Sherbini's murder was an isolated incident or part of a pattern of European racism, Muslim women in France face their own set of prejudices. Student Ikram Es-Salhi says, "If you wear the veil, you get insulted and attacked all the time, you get called a terrorist." Members of the French parliament have denounced the burqa and niqab as "degrading," called them "walking prisons," and said that wearing them may be "a submissive act." Sarkozy's urban policies secretary, Fadela Amara is in favor of banning the garments despite her Muslim faith. She says, "I am for the banning of this coffin which kills basic freedoms. This debate has to clear the way to a law which protects women."

But some question whether the debate over the burqa ban is really about protecting women. Es-Salhi says, "The real reason for this is Islamophobia." Perhaps bearing out her view are the words of French Member of Parliament Jean-Francois Cope, who says, "Make no mistake, the burqa is a political debate, not a religious one. Extremists are once again testing the Republic." Despite strong emotions on both sides, some take a moderate line on the burqa issue. One of the wisest voices in the debate is that of Suraya Pakzad, executive director of Voice of Women, who says,

I am against the burqa being imposed by force. But what Mr Sarkozy is saying is another type of enforcement on women. No one should be able to compel someone to dress in a certain way.

Tragic Symbol: Egypt's Headscarf Martyr [Time]
French Row Over Burqa Ban Unveils Contradictions [Reuters]

Like Dina McGreevey and Silda Spitzer before her, in the first episode, Margulies stands by her man during a press conference in which he denies allegations of trading political favors for financial and sexual ones. (He also has a penchant for prostitutes.) Eventually he gets locked up, and his wife has to pick up the pieces and go back to work to support her family. She's a lawyer — just like Hillary! — who goes to work at a firm run by Christine Baranski, a ball-buster who brings her lapdog to the office.

It's kind of amazing that this is such a seeming trend that it warranted an entire series. Maybe it could even work its way up to becoming a genre, like mob movies?

Earlier: Top 10 Ways Male Politicians Confess To Extramarital Affairs

Having read both profiles, I think it's possible that Todd Purdum is just a jerk obsessed with politicians' reproductive organs, an itchy finger on the "narcissist" trigger (project much?), and a love of wallowing in anonymous sources. Not convinced? Let's look at the evidence.

Their sex lives

One would think, based on reputation alone, that there wouldn't be much to dissect about Sarah Palin's sex life... and, yet, Purdum's fascination with Bill Clinton's cock carries over to the Alaska Governor's reproductive tract.

Even though Purdum conceded that there is no evidence that Clinton has been anything less than faithful to his wife lately, he couldn't resist speculating about it with absolutely no evidence.

But among the not-so-small cadre of Clinton friends and former aides, concern about the company the boss keeps is persistent, palpable, and pained. No former president of the United States has ever traveled with such a fast crowd, and most 61-year-old American men of Clinton's generation don't, either. "I just think those guys are radioactive," one former aide to Clinton who is still in occasional affectionate touch with him told me recently, referring to Burkle and (to a lesser extent) Bing. "I stay far away from them."

Another former aide, trusted by Clinton for his good judgment, said, "On the sort of money, women, all that stuff … I'm the bad guy. All this stuff is kept away from me. Whatever they're doing, they definitely view me as somebody you cannot confide in."

A longtime Clinton-watcher, who has had ties to the former president since his first campaign for governor of Arkansas, said of Clinton's sometimes questionable associations, "I don't know what to make of any of that, if it's a voyeuristic experience, or if he's participating in it."

See? Aides who are so close to Clinton they know (or think they know) what he does with his dick are concerned that he might be doing something with his dick, so he must be doing something with his dick!

On Palin, Purdum professes himself amazed that a pre-menopausal — and attractive — woman could ascend to political heights.

The clouds of tabloid conflict and controversy that swirl around her and her extended clan-the surprise pregnancies, the two-bit blood feuds, the tawdry in-laws and common-law kin caught selling drugs or poaching game-give her family a singular status in the rogues' gallery of political relatives. By comparison, Billy Carter, Donald Nixon, and Roger Clinton seem like avatars of circumspection. Palin's life has sometimes played out like an unholy amalgam of Desperate Housewives and Northern Exposure.

Another aspect of the Palin phenomenon bears examination, even if the mere act of raising it invites intimations of sexism: she is by far the best-looking woman ever to rise to such heights in national politics, the first indisputably fertile female to dare to dance with the big dogs.

Hmm, well, off the top of my head, I would guess that former beauty queen and Michigan governor Jennifer Granholm and New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand might object to Palin being called the best looking (or only fecund) women elected to high political office, if Congresswoman Stephanie Herseth Sandlin didn't qualify as only one of 435.

But Purdum likes to dispense with sexytime early in his pieces, so he can get straight to the projection psychoanalysis.

Narcissism

One might think that a reporter who has spent much of his or her career covering politics and political figures would be less quick to diagnose abnormal narcissism in politicians, but Pardum is practically making a career of it. Surprise! People that seek elected office and/or believe they can make a difference in the world hold themselves in high regard!

First up, Bill Clinton, who's a narcissist for thinking (like nearly everyone who's ever cheated or committed a crime) that he could cheat and not get caught — or, like every President before him, not get outed to the American people. Purdum says:

It is also possible that all these influences have combined to make the cavernous narcissism that has always driven Clinton, for better and worse, at last consume the man almost completely. It was Clinton's political genius to position the Democratic Party, for the first time in a generation, as the champion of those who "work hard and play by the rules." In his own life, he has always followed only the first half of that dictum, and has never been fastidious about appearances, in ways charming and not.

So, Clinton's a "genius" (in Purdum's judgment) with too high regard for himself? Maybe because everyone keeps calling him a genius?

Sarah Palin, too, is an apparent narcissist for seeking to obtain higher public office and screwing people over to get there, just like almost every politician has done since time immemorial.

More than once in my travels in Alaska, people brought up, without prompting, the question of Palin's extravagant self-regard. Several told me, independently of one another, that they had consulted the definition of "narcissistic personality disorder" in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-"a pervasive pattern of grandiosity (in fantasy or behavior), need for admiration, and lack of empathy"-and thought it fit her perfectly. When Trig was born, Palin wrote an e-mail letter to friends and relatives, describing the belated news of her pregnancy and detailing Trig's condition; she wrote the e-mail not in her own name but in God's, and signed it "Trig's Creator, Your Heavenly Father."

Right, I'm sure a bunch of politicians in Alaska keep psych texts in their offices. And goodness knows no mother or father has ever written an overly cutesy email about their child to friends and family — she obviously thinks she's God Herself.

Anonymous Sources

If I cited every anonymous source used by Purdum to allow him to publish rumors and gossip about Clinton and Palin, I'd have to go on for days. Suffice it to say, Purdum is a lot less interested in what people will say off the record when they've no fear of reprisal — like the postpardum depression comment about Palin that Kristol links to senior McCain adviser Steve Schmidt or the many "close" Clinton associates who suspect him of still fucking around — than finding people to say too many interesting or enlightening things on the record. When the only "news" a long profile like this makes is that McCain adviser Mark McKinnon — who famously dropped out of the McCain campaign because he said he wouldn't work against Obama — helped with debate prep, either one is rehashing really old stories (which Purdum does in both pieces — does anyone care that Clinton went jogging with Mondale's hot daughter once in the nineties?) or indulging in sensationalistic rumor-mongering.

Although Palin-haters will no doubt cheer the piece and Palin-fans will decry it as a piece of left-wing journalism, I hope that no one ignores the fact that Purdum took the template he used for his Clinton hatchet-job, filled it in as though it was an Alaskan-themed Mad Libs, and published it. That might make him a hack, but it doesn't make him a partisan one.

It Came from Wasilla [Vanity Fair]
The Comeback Id [Vanity Fair]

Related: Kristol: Liberal Media and GOP Hacks vs. Palin [Weekly Standard]

Earlier: Sarah Palin: Just Call Her "Little Shop Of Horrors"

Perhaps it's because no one has argued the case against the talk show host - and his writers - in a way that truly resonates with me. Or maybe it's simply because I really like Dave and really dislike Governor Palin; proving, sadly, that my East Coast, liberal prejudices are hard to shake, even in the face of misogynist, questionable verbal assaults against women. Perhaps it's because the protestations of Governor Palin herself seem more a way of scoring political points and press attention than sincere repudiations of misogyny in the media or eruptions of her protective, inner "Mama Grizzly Bear". (I couldn't put my finger on why I wasn't more viscerally offended on behalf of Palin's daughter - Willow or Bristol - but a commenter on the blog Reclusive Leftist summed it up nicely: "What's really annoying about the last two videos is that he's just using Palin's daughter as a prop to make jokes about notable MEN (Spitzer and A-Rod). The effects are that she ends up being portrayed as a prostitute or a rape victim, but those effects are secondary to the punchlines about the men in the jokes." At first glance, this seems to absolve Letterman and his band of merry, mostly male, comedy writers of some responsibility: The jokes were about widely-mocked men! But of course, this also means the Palin daughter(s) become pawns, faceless, nameless vehicles with which to score comedic points. Yes, not cool.)

Speaking of jokes: I suspect my tepid defense of Palin and her brood it has a lot to do with the difference between "comedy" and, well, rhetoric. David Letterman, however unfunny or inappropriate, was making jokes when he went after Palin and her daughter(s) earlier this week. With assertions that cracks like his directly contribute to assaults on young women and an epidemic of low self-esteem, however, Palin, whose relentless verbal assaults and insinuations during the presidential campaign are hard for me to forgive or forget, bypassed reasoned disagreement and went straight into rhetoric-land. Take her appearance this morning on Today (clip above). Host Matt Lauer questioned the Governor on the Letterman flap, pressing her on some of her more provocative statements about situation, asking, "Are you suggesting that David Letterman can't be trusted around a 14 year old girl?" Her response: "Take it how you want to take it." Later, she sarcastically made mention of "the candidate who must be obeyed," i.e. Barack Obama.

There was more where that came from. Last night on Sean Hannity's Fox News hate fest, conservative columnist S.E. Cupp placed the blame for Letterman's remarks squarely on Obama.

"This is the enduring legacy of the Obama campaign. I'm not saying this to be inflammatory, I blame Barack Obama because he allowed his surrogates in the media and Hollywood and everyone else on the left to do this dirty talking for him," she said, adding, "I want Barack Obama or Michelle Obama to come up and say, this kind of rhetoric will not be tolerated."

Leaving Ms. Cupp's strange definition of "rhetoric" aside, it seems to me that coming to a passionate, spirited, coherent defense of a United States Governor and one or more of her daughters regarding a late night comedy show bit is well below President Obama's pay grade at the moment. Sadly, considering my obviously muddled feelings on the subject, it's also below my current cognitive, critical abilities...or sympathies.

Conservative Columnist Blames Obama For Letterman's Palin Joke [HuffPo]
David Letterman, The Voice Of Dude Nation [Reclusive Leftist]
Palin Forces America To Become Aware of Her Once Again [NY Mag]
Did Letterman Get A Free Pass? [Salon]
Palin, Letterman, Still At Odds Over Comedian's Joke [AP]

Reading the site is an emotional experience: contributors hold up a sign reading "I Am Dr. Tiller" in order to cover their faces (for safety purposes, though a few contributors have chosen not to hide themselves) and tell a bit of their story, and why they continue their work, in spite of the threats and dangers from anti-choice individuals, in order to give readers a more human, honest view of what really takes place in clinics. As the site explains:

Here you will find stories of individuals who have dedicated their lives to making abortion safe, legal, healthy, and accessible to women and girls. These people may be nurses, counselors, escorts, volunteers at abortion funds, or abortion doctors themselves. You will not see the faces of these providers to protect their safety. What you will see is the story they decide to share - how they came to abortion work, what their function is at their abortion clinic, or their personal abortion story. We want to humanize these individuals to convey the kindness, courtesy, justice, love, and respect they have for women and the health care choices women make. We share our stories in hopes of ending clinic violence, to alleviate the shame associated with the abortion experience, and as an homage to Dr. Tiller's outstanding and courageous life work.

The shared stories are quite moving and inspiring, and a testament to the importance of Dr. Tiller's work and legacy. "I now have the opportunity to show those who would intimidate me into hiding, who would force me to abandon women and girls in need, that my conviction is stronger than theirs," writes one contributor, "I will not be ashamed. I will not be scared. And I will not ever forget the people who made these opportunities possible. I am Dr. Tiller." And we are forever grateful for it.

[I Am Dr. Tiller]

Most of the women who have shared their experiences online — even anonymously — are married, and sought late-term abortions because of fetal abnormalities. Though their decisions were heart-wrenching — these were planned, wanted pregnancies — their stories may be more socially acceptable because they don't fit the pro-life profile of thoughtless sluts seeking "abortion on demand." But Tiller treated unmarried women and girls too, with no less compassion. One woman, who terminated her pregnancy because of a rare fetal blood abnormality, remembers Tiller's commitment to all his patients:

My husband and I found Dr. George Tiller to be a caring, sensitive, and compassionate man who truly believed he was helping those of us who were desperate and had nowhere else to go. While we were at his clinic, he was very concerned about an 11-year-old child raped by her stepfather. And, when we were tormented by Operation Rescue protesters outside his clinic, he put on a bullet proof vest and personally drove us out of there while we hid in his van.

And a husband recalls:

I remember being puzzled about a T-shirt he was wearing, which said "Happy Birthday Jennifer from team Tiller!" or something similar. Turns out it comemmorated the birthday of a fifteen year old girl who was raped, became pregnant, and came to Tiller for an abortion. As luck would have it, she was in the clinic the same week as her birthday. So the clinic threw her a party.

A Heartbreaking Choice, a website for parents who terminate planned pregnancies due to fetal abnormalities, has a section called "Kansas Stories," dedicated to Tiller's Women's Health Services Clinic, one of only three in the nation that will perform abortions after 21 weeks. The stories don't mention Tiller by name, but they paint the clinic as a safe haven for women with few options, beset on all sides by critics. One woman writes,

I was 27 weeks by this point. I was terrified. The moment I met the doctor, all of that ended. He was a wonderful and loving man. I came in on Monday and gave birth to our baby girl on Friday. We were able to hold her after, and say our goodbyes. That doctor will always be in my heart.

Another says:

The reality is that abortion in the late second and third trimesters is extremely rare. The reality is that finding a doctor to do this procedure in the late second or third trimester is almost impossible. For me, the reality was that at the most painful time of my life I had to travel out of state, stay in a hotel room and face hostile protesters in order to carry out this most personal of choices. [...]

My only advice is don't let "them" define this for you. It is still your choice, your child and your life. I started to react as if the protesters were talking to me personally and indeed felt like everything they said was directed at me. In truth, they never see the real people behind the rhetoric.

A third adds:

The following morning the protestors were there again but this time with a twist. They had a huge group of kids with them. These middle- to high school-age kids were out there on the street corner hollering at us. These children didn't have the slightest understanding of what we were going through but they were taught they had the right to judge us.

A Kansas pro-lifer, writing to Andrew Sullivan, lays part of the blame for Tiller's death at the feet of such protesters:

This had been going on for years now. When these people said that Tiller's practices must be "brought to an end" or whatever, I truly believe that the vast, vast, vast majority of them (including the OR president, whom I've talked to about this before) do not have homicide on their minds. However, it doesn't matter. Operation Rescue or Bill O'Reilly do not qualify every statement about Tiller with a parenthetical stating "oh, by the way, killing him is not the way to stop him" for obvious reasons. But even if they did, they can't stop someone from thinking that more drastic measures are "necessary."

Pro-life advocates have the right to protest in front of abortion clinics, just as advocates for choice have the right to criticize them for making a difficult time all the more painful for women. But rhetoric that targets abortion providers themselves, rather than abortion as an issue, always runs the risk of inciting extremism and violence. After Tiller's death, Operation Rescue president Troy Newman said,

Operation Rescue has worked for years through peaceful, legal means, and through the proper channels to see him brought to justice. We denounce vigilantism and the cowardly act that took place this morning.

His denunciation is commendable, but why the focus on "bringing Tiller to justice?" Why can't the debate over abortion concentrate on laws and courts, rather than on individuals who perform a service that is legal and considered by many to be morally acceptable? William Saletan at Slate says, "If unborn children are morally equal to born children, then Tiller's assassin has just succeeded where the legal system failed: He has stopped a mass murderer from killing again." He says that the fact that pro-life groups have denounced Tiller's murderer shows they don't truly equate unborn children with born children, or abortion with murder. But there's another argument here, one that says if you truly disagree with abortion, you should seek to remove the laws that allow it, not the people who operate according to those laws. If the death of George Tiller shows us anything, it's that if there must be a battle over abortion, that battle should be fought at the polls and in the courtrooms, not in doctor's offices — and the weapons should be words, not bullets.

Kansas Stories [A Heartbreaking Choice]
Patients Remember Dr. Tiller [Feministe]
It's So Personal: A Tiller Patient [Daily Dish]
Another Memory Of Visiting Dr. Tiller [Double X]
A Pro-Lifer From Kansas [The Daily Dish]
Kan. Abortion Doc Killed In Church; Suspect Held [AP, via Yahoo News]
Tiller's Killer [Slate]