My husband and I are very different in many ways.

He’s a city boy and I’m a farm girl. I’m Protestant and he’s Jewish. I’m addicted to Project Runway and he doesn’t get it!

Even with those differences, our “mixed” marriage is strong. But I wasn’t sure what was going to happen when it turned out that we had voted for different candidates in our state’s presidential primary.

I voted for Hillary, but he voted for Obama. To say I had Barack Shock would be an understatement.

You see, for as long as we’ve been together, for whatever differences we’ve had, we’ve always been on the same page politically. There has never been an electoral disagreement in our house — until now. (At least he didn’t vote outside the party — now that WOULD have been grounds for divorce!)

Apparently, we’re not the only ones working on this issue in 2008. And someone is trying to cash in on this phenomenon. Read the rest of this entry »

I have long joked that things would be a lot different when I’m King of the World.

Public places would have more “rest” facilities for women since the lines are always so much longer than for the guys.

Men would be required to do half of the child care for their own kids and every employer would have on-site day-care facilities.

And while I’m at it, I’ll hire Clive Owen and John Cusack to clean my house and cook the meals! Hey, it’s my fantasy, right?

I do believe there is plenty of truth to the argument that loads of things would be better if women ruled the world.

Dee Dee Myers has beaten me to the punch in bringing this discussion to the main stream media. Read the rest of this entry »

The women we love in popular culture are the good girls.

Cinderella. Sleeping Beauty. Girls who don’t rock the boat. Pretty, demure and corseted. These are the models we let our little girls believe are the ideal.

And that’s Hillary Clinton’s problem. She’s not the “good girl” in that fairy tale princess sort of way. That makes a lot of us a little uncomfortable.

Hillary is more Princess Smartypants than Princess Aurora.

More Mulan than Madeleine.

For some reason, we can’t get past our lingering, underlying obsession with the idea that girls are for rescuing, not ones to be cast in the role of smart problem solver. Read the rest of this entry »

Buzz is in the air about a new book called How Not to Look Old.

Bit by bit I’ve been “coming out” about my looming big birthday. And as I contemplate what 49-going-on-I-don’t-feel-50 should look like I find thoughts of Botox dancing in my head. And then I feel ashamed.

Aren’t I supposed to embrace myself as I am? I certainly don’t want to send the signal to my eight-year-old daughter that mommy is obsessed with her changing body because soon enough she’ll be confronting her own changes that I want her to embrace. How non-P.C of me to struggle with my bulges and my roots!

Still, I wonder — should I hate this book or run to Barnes and Noble to buy it?

Read the rest of this entry »

Stern. Witchy. The ‘b’ word that rhymes with witchy. Shrill. Scolding.

I suspect that few of us would allow our husbands to use those words to describe us (even if they are thinking them on occasion) when they are in front of our children, especially not in the presence of our daughters.

Yet, innumerable journalists, especially men, have found it perfectly OK to describe Hillary Clinton in those words as she runs for president, plus many others that get used to describe powerful and assertive women. Hateful and prejudicial phrases that convey an underlying meanness and insecurity about females who challenge traditional stereotypes about women in our society.

If these men, many of whom undoubtedly have daughters, paid the tiniest bit of attention to what their children are focused on, they might rethink the vocabulary they are using to pillory Hillary. Read the rest of this entry »

“For her, politics wasn’t so much about being inspirational as it was being practical — about getting something specific done.”

“She can be tough, and even a little steely, an attitude that stems, at least in part from wanting to live up to the high expectations her father set for her. ”

“Politics and policy animate her — like her husband, [after attending Ivy League law schools] she turned away from a lucrative law career to work in public service.

Another profile about Hillary Clinton, you say? Read the rest of this entry »

School cafeteria lunches have been the brunt of jokes since we were all in elementary school — tater tots, milk boxes and mystery meat patties were the mainstays of high school meals if you weren’t brown-bagging it.

For the moment, it’s time to take those jokes a lot more seriously.

We trust that if we send our kids off to school with some money for a hot lunch, that while it may not be as nutritious as something we’d cook at home, that a school lunch isn’t going to give them E. coli poisoning. Or mad cow disease. Or salmonella poisoning. This week, a large California meat packing company recalled close to 150 million pounds of beef after an undercover video was disclosed showing sick and downed cows being dragged to the slaughterhouse. Read the rest of this entry »

Last week, I was pondering the apparent recklessness of my early motherhood by allowing PunditGirl (then merely a PunditBaby) to toddle around with water, juice and milk in brightly colored sippy cups.

I didn’t know then what I know now about the possible chemicals that can leech out of the plastic after many uses and washings. But that doesn’t make me feel any better. Granted, there’s nothing I can do about that now, but how can I be more vigilant going forward? Read the rest of this entry »

I may have exposed my now-eight-year-old-daughter to toxic chemicals when she was a baby that could cause her to develop breast cancer or diabetes or a whole host of other bad things as an adult.

Irresponsible mom, you say? I didn’t think so at the time.

I’m not exaggerating when I say that I got sick to my stomach when I read about the latest on baby bottles, water bottles and sippy cups.

A chemical called bisphenol A (BPA) is a synthetic sex hormone that is used to make many hard plastic products like our trusty sippy cups. Read the rest of this entry »

Or, perhaps more appropriately, your chest!

It’s probably no secret that I tend wear my Democratic politics on my sleeve. But with emotions running high for both the Dems and the GOP in this year’s political campaign, it’s not difficult to find those hawking election memorabilia both for and against all the candidates.

But how to choose something that will best represent your feelings and still be relevant after the election? You know how hard it is to get those bumper stickers off the car! Read the rest of this entry »