When I write about Parker, it's almost always hard for me to choose which inflammatory quote to begin with — and indeed, today I'll start with two.

When a happily pregnant woman loses her pregnancy, she says she has lost her baby. Casting that painful episode as of no greater consequence than missing a lunch date should repel any beating heart.

And:

Regardless of one's moral position, it can't be convincingly argued that abortion and miscarriage are mere medical conditions like any other, as Trunk asserts. They both can involve medical procedures, but there's a life force at work that no woman who aims to give birth will deny.

From these lines, it appears that Parker is either being completely disingenuous or has not done as much research into her subject as I did to write a snarky blog post about it. Because if you read what Penelope Trunk has to say on the matter, you will learn that she has herself had:

• 2 miscarriages
• 2 abortions
• 2 children

Imagine if Kathleen Parker had read those two old posts — one about the painful and tragic miscarriage of a wanted pregnancy, one about Trunk's belief that her reasons for having abortions were ill-considered — without knowing about the infamous tweet. Except for the fact that Trunk expresses no shame about her abortions (or even regret, precisely), Parker probably would have approved. Trunk believes miscarriage is a tragedy! She's advised her numerous working female readers that career concerns are no reason to have an abortion! Two for two!

So here's what Penelope Trunk really did "wrong": She had the nerve to feel different about each one of her six pregnancies. She didn't automatically regard each embryo as a wanted child, as a blessing from a god she may or may not believe in, as a lifetime obligation she contracted to fulfill by choosing to have sex. She looked at each pregnancy in the context of her own body and her own life at the time it occurred, and made the decision that felt best for her. Three times, she chose to continue the pregnancy, and when one of those ended in miscarriage, she grieved. Three times, she chose to end the pregnancy, and when one of those ended in miscarriage, she was relieved. And tweeted about it.

The possibility that the same woman could have different feelings about being pregnant at different times in her life — that this is one of the reasons why so many people are pro-choice — is not something Parker allows for, even as she's writing about a woman who has experienced the joys of motherhood and the grief of a lost wanted pregnancy as well as the relief of terminating and losing unwanted ones. In Parker's universe, it seems, there is only one way to feel about pregnancy (happy), one way to feel about miscarriage (bereaved), and one way to feel about abortion (appalled). If you have what she considers the correct feelings about only 50% of your pregnancies, screw you. There is no partial credit.

According to the Guttmacher Institute (PDF), "About 60% of abortions are obtained by women who have one or more children." And that's not even counting the ones who, like Trunk, will later go on to have children when they feel ready. Which means, as reproductive rights activists have been saying forever, the majority of women who choose to end pregnancies at some point will also choose to continue them at other points. Now, take this with a grain of salt, since it's well-known that I'm a murderous, baby-hating feminist, but to me, that suggests that a hell of a lot of women feel different about different pregnancies at different times.

Parker's having none of it: "One might wish that Trunk were an anomaly, but one would be disappointed. To those for whom abortion is a correction, miscarriage is just a messier month."

Penelope Trunk is a woman for whom abortion has been "a correction," a woman who publicly tweeted that miscarriage was a relief. Penelope Trunk is also the woman who wrote this:

I am four months pregnant. But the baby is dead, inside me, and must be removed. I am devastated. I always knew this could happen, in the back of my mind. But you are never prepared for something like this to happen.

When I first heard the news, I did nothing. Cancelled every plan I had. Sat in chairs staring at walls, laid in bed hoping for sleep, and cried.

Unable to reconcile those two things, Parker simply leaves out the second part, placing Trunk squarely in the category of those too selfish and heartless to appreciate the "life force at work that no woman who aims to give birth will deny." Never mind that Trunk did indeed aim to give birth three times. And never mind that when her body had a different idea one of those times, she wrote publicly about her devastation. Penelope Trunk is the self-styled "brazen hussy careerist" whose tweet trivialized "not only the miscarriage but what little remains of our humanity" — ergo she could not possibly be the same woman who wrote, "On the day I found out the baby was dead... at the doctor's office, when I was crying so loudly that I was taken to a room farthest away from the waiting area so as not to scare already jittery expectant mothers, I didn't care if the interviews got done." That would suggest that women are complex human beings who feel different things at different times or something. The facts just don't fit!

And yet, they are the facts. Facts that take about 30 seconds to find if you ask yourself one question: "What does Penelope Trunk have to say on the matter of her own body, choices and feelings, in more than 140 characters?" Kathleen Parker, to her credit, must have asked that question, since she links to Trunk's blog more than once, including to the post that refers back to the previous miscarriage story. Nevertheless, she completely ignores the answer, because it doesn't support her casting of Trunk as the other kind of woman, the kind for whom "miscarriage is just a messier month." If you can only be one kind or the other — and clearly, that's the prevailing wisdom on Parker's planet — then any woman who's ever felt relief after a miscarriage, or after an abortion, is that kind of woman. The kind who doesn't get motherhood, who doesn't get loss, who doesn't get humanity — no matter how much personal experience she has with all three.

Regardless of how you'd characterize The Tweet, condemning Trunk as a woman who simply can't grasp the gravity of a lost pregnancy, some "grotesque" and "freakish" monster who misrepresents how real women feel about miscarriage, is the height of intellectual dishonesty. And it does a disservice to the millions of real women who have felt conflicted about unintended pregnancies (which about half of us will have before we're 45) and/or felt different about one pregnancy than another, by propagating the myth that wanting or not wanting children is a constant in each woman's life, never subject to her particular circumstances at the time. That there are "bad" women who choose abortion and "good" women who choose to be mommies; "bad" women who are grateful to miscarry, especially in states where obtaining an abortion is difficult, and "good" women who grieve for their lost pregnancies. It's pure bullshit to discuss Penelope Trunk's body, life and use of social media without acknowledging that she is all of those women in one. And she's far from alone.

Image from Penelope Trunk's blog.

A Miscarriage Of Propriety [Washington Post]
You Can't Manage Your Work Life If You Can't Talk About It [Penelope Trunk]
Sometimes Work Is A Welcome Distraction [Penelope Trunk]
What's The Connection Between Abortion And Careers? [Penelope Trunk]

Earlier: What Was Penelope Trunk Thinking Twittering About Her Miscarriage?
A Reconsideration Of Penelope Trunk, The Miscarriage-Tweeting Career Advisor

Today Penelope Trunk, CEO of brazencareerist.com and self-styled career advice expert, posted the video of her appearance on CNN on Tuesday, in which she defended her controversial decision to tweet about her miscarriage in a board meeting last week. While I haven't changed my mind (even a little) about the wisdom of announcing such private information in a professional setting (and, yes, her particular Twitter account was a professional setting and she framed it as career advice from an expert — this was not a woman venting to her friends; this was, essentially, a press release), I now believe that if this highly unusual exchange is what resulted, maybe the whole weird thing was worth it.

Aside from the entertainment aspect of watching Rick Sanchez basically throw up his hands in defeat here, Trunk's matter-of-fact way of talking about abortion is so unheard of that it's jarring even to the ears of a die-hard pro-choicer. I've heard women talk about abortions this way with their friends, of course, but never on national television. And honestly, it's refreshing. Sanchez starts the interview by calling Trunk "young lady" and asking if she has any shame. Trunk takes it from there:

"Whether or not you believe women should have the right to abortion, they do in this country." Wow. While I still think I would find it difficult to respect a boss, male or female, who announced the details of his or her bodily functions in the workplace, and while I firmly believe that it was terrible career advice, if Penelope Trunk had to lose some people's respect to get us talking openly about abortion access on national news, then more power to her.

My Miscarriage - On CNN, ABC And AOL [CNN]

Earlier: What Was Penelope Trunk Thinking Twittering About Her Miscarriage?

When a friend told a group over drinks this past weekend that Penelope Trunk had "tweeted about having a miscarriage in a board meeting," everyone's first response was to ask if she meant it as a metaphor. I mean, we've all been in those kinds of meetings, right? But no, she sent this tweet last week:

"I'm in a board meeting. Having a miscarriage. Thank goodness, because there's a fucked-up 3-week hoop-jump to have an abortion in Wisconsin."

It seemed like a joke, but apparently it wasn't, because when people started blogging and emailing about it, Trunk took to her blog to defend it...or try to. After claiming that "most miscarriages happen at work" (based on the number of miscarriages, the number of working women, and the length of the average miscarriage), she gets into, uh, this?:

"To all of you who said a miscarriage is gross: Are you unaware that the same blood you expel from a miscarriage is what you expel during menstruation? Are you aware that many people are having sex during menstruation and getting it on the sheets? Are you aware that many women actually like period sex?"

Trunk ultimately tries to put herself in some kind of martyr role, arguing that we should be talking about this because women will never be truly equal until we can talk about our miscarriages in the workplace. Except, no, because do you want to hear about your male co-worker's hemorrhoids in the workplace? Or the details of his wife's miscarriage? And, unfortunately for everyone, now that this has gone national, the context and way in which Trunk framed this confirms the worst and most fantastical ideas of the anti-choice movement: that women (especially career women!) who have abortions all do so casually and callously on their lunch breaks, the way one might get a manicure. If Trunk thinks she's done anything to help women in Wisconsin get better access to abortions (her defensive post asks readers to donate to Planned Parenthood), she obviously doesn't know anything about how the anti-choice movement works.

I'm trying to be sensitive here, because it seems like she's is going through a difficult time, but I don't think most people have a problem with Penelope Trunk's inner thoughts and complicated feelings about her miscarriage. We just can't fucking believe she fucking Twittered them.

Here are some gems:

SmackurFavRappa: #urahoe if u have known me less than 7 days & u already want it

Because someone who is attracted to you and want to have sex with you must be a "hoe." Nice girls are reluctant and require extensive convincing.

jCOOP30331 #urahoe if u wear them stretchy pants where u can clearly see ass cheek division and camel foot in front!

Ah yes, the time-honored wisdom that you can determine a woman's sexual proclivities by the way she dresses. So useful in rape trials.

hoecop #urahoe if plan B is really plan A

This is where #urahoe and the Christian right intersect. If Plan B is readily available, women will use it for regular birth control. And become hoes.

womanmarine206 #urahoe when ur phone never stops ringing and u no everyone

Popularity now = hoeness.

EllieLuvVP #urahoe if you have sex on ur period

This one reveals to anyone who still doubted that perceptions of female promiscuity and ideas of ritual purity are linked.

sartastic #urahoe If you're a guy and having an affair with a cougar.

Here's a stereotype we didn't know existed! Apparently guys who have sex with older women are hoes now. Sorry @aplusk.

But this one is the best:

PeteOMalley #urahoe if you are an agricultural tool used to agitate the surface of the soil around plants to remove weeds

As we believe a commenter pointed out last week, ho as in "skanky slutty woman" as in "the kind of woman who would have sex on her period, take phone calls, wear stretchy pants, and use emergency contraception," should really be spelled without an e. A "hoe" is a gardening implement, and we appreciate PeteOMalley's helpful tip for determining if we fit the bill.

#urahoe [Twitter]

Earlier: "I'm Pregnant," And Other "Lies" Twitterers Say Women Tell

#liesgirlstell surfaced earlier today, perhaps as an offshoot of the also-popular and also-icky topics #3wordsaftersex and #3breakupwords. The "lies" seem to fall into three basic categories.

— Scary

It's not the lies themselves that are scary here, it's the mentality of someone who assumes — or behaves as though — these are lies. Like this one:

I_SEYMORE_CAKE #liesgirlstell i dont give head

Even if this is a lie, and she has, in fact, "given head" to other guys, aren't you obligated to take her at her word here? Call us bonerkillers, but we think a woman's statement of what she will and won't do in bed should be taken as gospel. After all, just because she's done something once doesn't mean she'll consent to do it again, or with every partner.

sabret00the RT @ThreeWaysIn: #liesgirlstell I don't want to try anal sex

Um, how did you find out this was a lie? By assuming no meant yes? Creepy.

— Insulting

The insulting category paints women as lying bitches who are out to trap men. To whit:

itsjay_yadigg #liesgirlstell im pregnant

Or, in longer form:

ShivFrost RT itsjay_yadigg #liesgirlstell I'm pregnant .... preach it jay...only suckers get fooled...i wanna see the test turn positive infront me

"I'm pregnant" isn't a liegirlstell — it's a liebadpeopletell. And trust us, ShivFrost, most women are as afraid of getting unintentionally pregnant as you apparently are of being lied to about it.

causticbob #liesgirlstell I'm on the pill

Don't believe her, causticbob? Use a condom!

— White

Many of the liesgirlstell on the list are white lies, meant to make guys feel better about their — usually sexual — deficiencies.

MicaDsGirl #liesgirlstell its not too small

First of all, women say this truthfully all the time. And second, is MicaDsGirl really advocating that women laugh uproariously every time we see a member that's not up to our standards? Or that men second-guess every compliment about their penises? What good does it do to add more insecurity to the world?

causticbob #liesgirlstell I love the way you taste

Again, quite possibly true. And even if not, why look a gift horse in the, um, mouth?

Nicki_Diamond #liesgirlstell "No! I don't think your mom is overbearing"

This is a classic white lie, one intended to keep the peace and avoid insulting a partner's loved one. Obviously honesty in relationships is important, but so is diplomacy. If women uttered every single uncharitable thought they were thinking, they wouldn't have any friends, let alone boyfriends. And the same, of course, is true of men. Probably the smartest tweet on #liesgirlstell is this one:

sarahinrainbows #liesgirlstell - the same bloody lies that boys tell; this is the 21st century,! What's with all the misogyny, and girls joining in too!

While women may not tell exactly the same lies men tell (men can't say they're on the pill — yet!), the sad truth is that people of both genders lie to each other from time to time. We lie to make people feel better and we lie to cover up our bad behavior. Anyone who thinks lies are solely the province of women is not only a misogynist but a poor student of human nature. Current.com cites a twitterer who says, "the topics #liesguystell and #liesboystell exist but funnily enough neither are as popular as #liesgirlstell." We're not sure it's all that funny, and maybe the relative unpopularity of #liesguystell is just an example of men getting a pass while women get criticized, but one thing's for sure — both sexes tell lies, and no one Twitter tag could ever list them all.

#liesgirlstell [Twitter]
#liesguystell [Twitter]
#liesboystell [Twitter]
Twitter Outs All Lies Girls Tell [Current.com]