Yesterday, two of the other lady blogs wrestled over the politics of asking victims of domestic violence why they stayed with their abusers. Are you a bad feminist if you ask someone—say, someone like me—why she stayed with the guy who beat the crap out of her, nearly murdered her, and raped her on a regular basis? The Frisky: Could You Date A Man Who Wasn't A Feminist?

Double X's Linda Hirshman says why? is a question that every feminist should pose to their battered sisters. Jezebel's Megan Carpentier calls Hirschman out for being a … Read More

You may not realize this—but you and Carrie Bradshaw owe Helen Gurley Brown big time! If it wasn't for Helen, the fearless founder and longtime editor-in-chief of Cosmopolitan magazine, and author of the earth-shattering bestseller, Sex and the Single Girl, you might well be TRAPPED!

TRAPPED in a world filled with now absurd-seeming ideas. Ideas like: you're a slut if you've had pre-marital sex, or if you've had sex with more than one partner, or if you're not married... by the age of 21.

So thank God for Helen, her once-revolutionary ideas and her bold determination to relentlessly articulate … Read More

If I read the phrase "You've got to kiss a lot of frogs before you find your prince" on this site one more motherspelunking time, I'm going to spontaneously barf. You don't really believe this, do you? Dudes don't have an equivalent to this creaky, cliché trope. It's not like you'll ever hear one guy comfort another guy by saying "You’ve got to kiss a lot of whores before you find your Madonna." Or vice versa.

Men don't want to date princesses. Maybe there are some who do, and the women who aspire to be princesses deserve the brutes. And for … Read More

My first spanking was at my 16th birthday party. My guy friends tackled me on the kitchen floor and took turns giving me 16 spanks. And maybe one for good luck. I don't remember. Once freed, I was livid. I was mortified.

And I was totally turned on. Read: Spanking For Beginners

In the years to come, I got some playful spankings, during which I was always twisting, giggling, and trying to get out of it. My first serious boyfriend loved to smack me on the ass as a joke, as did my second serious boyfriend. The more I … Read More

A marriage may or may not be a union of love. It is always a union of property. No matter how you conduct your affairs—joint or separate checking accounts; rooms, even homes, of your own—the state regards you as a unit. The day you sign the license, you and your spouse are taxed as one. And if you break up, you become half of one: it divides your wealth in two. Prenuptial agreements can prevent the foregoing, but prenups are not always enforced (and they never supersede child-support laws). Anyway, lots of people find prenups distasteful. Marriage, they … Read More

Since I got engaged early last month and began planning a wedding for this summer, I've been thinking a lot about what it means to be hitched. As someone who already lives with her husband-to-be, I wonder just how much marriage will actually change things, whether I'll wake up the morning after the wedding feeling any different. I've also been thinking a lot about what kind of wife I want to be, what it means to be a "good" wife, and how — if at all — being a "good wife" could compromise my identity or personal needs and interests.I … Read More

When I was in college I bought my first car. The first car I actually owned was a hand-me-down from my parents (a 1988 Nissan Stanza to be exact, not exactly a pimp ride), but it’s life ended my senior year and I needed a replacement. At the time I was in a bit of an extended fight with my dad and we weren’t speaking at all. So when it came time to buy my car, I had to rely on my limited knowledge of automobiles in order to get the best deal on a used car that would … Read More

We like to flatter ourselves as being more worldly than the average bear, which is why it bruised our egos a bit when we saw the words "womyn's land" and drew a blank.

What's a "womyn's land?" We didn't even know such a spelling of "woman" existed. Color us square!

According to the

New York Times article

"My Sister's Keeper" a "womyn's land" is a lesbian-only commune. These clusters are notoriously small (sometimes with only 2 members), and have sprouted up all over rural parts of America since the 1970s. In some communes men aren't allowed on the premises at all, but … Read More

You know you might be a candidate for Dating A Banker Anonymous if you've suffered any of the following:

a. Your Bergdorf's allowance has been halved.

b. Bottle service has all but disappeared from your life.

c. You depend on your boyfriend for the above indulgences.

Such is the premise of the support group and blog that two ex-girlfriends of Wall Street types started after the market—and then their relationships—plunged. When they noticed other women complaining about the enhanced thriftiness, neediness and emotional instability of their banker boyfriends, they decided the girlfriends (dare we call them gold diggers?) needed some … Read More

We're proud feminists. We'd never deny that. But when it comes to large, hairy spider-smushing, we'll happily offer a high-heeled shoe to the nearest testosterone-laden man as we cower in fear and dance the "ick, ick, ick!" jig.

Plenty of women depend on men for even more stereotypically masculine tasks, such as plunging toilets, re-wiring light fixtures, and installing storm windows. Boyfriend, husband, dad, landlord -- it doesn't matter just as long as she doesn't have to do it!

Traditional gender roles are at work here: some women prefer to stick to cooking-and-cleaning and some men insist they're the only … Read More