As a woman who has declined to put her picture on Facebook—my profile photo is a drawing of me by my daughter—I respectfully disagree with Katie Roiphe's assumption that this somehow represents some reprehensible self-effacement on my part as a working woman. I'm admittedly a little late to social networking, and not exactly a devotee. A friend of mine jokes that my status line should read, ''Sara Mosle is now unavailable on Facebook,'' as I almost never check it. I joined out of curiosity and don't dispute its occasional uses: I have happily reconnected with several long-lost and far-flung friends. But generally these days, I'm trying to spend less time—not more—online, so I might actually do the high-powered job that Roiphe wants me to take more pride in and have more actual face time (as opposed to Facebook time) with family and friends.

In one sense, I agree with Roiphe: I don't like pictures of kids as stand-ins for parents—but not for the reasons she says. I don't think any child's photo (especially that of a non-consenting baby or toddler) should be out there for casual public consumption. It's her face, not mine, after all (and a profile picture can be seen by anyone). Also, plenty of men use pictures of their children (or of their dogs or of Bart Simpson). I don't think any of these people—male or female—are necessarily hiding behind their kids or canines so much as hiding, period. Not everyone wants to be a public figure (even if their careers occasionally require them to be one)—hence my own use of a drawing. Anonymity has its uses, too—something Elizabeth Edwards might have done well to remember. (There are recent pictures of me and my daughter on my actual page, which friends can see, but, to me, this is different from a profile photo that can be seen by anyone.)

But to take on Roiphe's point directly: What is it to her if some woman defines herself by her children? I know lots of women—serious, committed career women—who, if they had to choose, would put their children first. Or more accurately, to borrow from Judith Shulevitz's terrific point, would put their kids first for now—when, at other points in their lives, they have or would put themselves, or their jobs, or a friend, or a partner, or their elderly parents, first. To me, the whole point of feminism is not to dictate to women what their self-definition (which is surely forever changing) should be, but to support the full range of women's roles throughout their lives. Maybe the problem is that Facebook, invented by men, forces women to choose a single photo for their profile—when any woman, almost by definition, is a collage.

Tags: childhood, life, motherhood, privacy, Rielle Hunter; elizabeth edwards; marriage and commitment

Today in the American Prospect, Ann Friedman asks a question we've heard from many feminists since we launched Double X on Tuesday: Why do we need a women's web site? Did we kill the "ladies" page in the newspaper only to recreate it online? This is an excellent question, and one we wrestled with ourselves when we decided to found Double X.

One reason is simple. Women have never had a great public interest magazine. We've had magazines with a very narrow understanding of what women are interested in. We've had magazines for the feminist movement. But we've never had a magazine written mainly by women that accurately reflects the range of subjects we think and talk about. Our model here is Esquire, and particularly Esquire of the 1970's. Esquire is clearly a men's magazine but I have read it all of my life. Early on it pioneered new forms of journalism and continues to publish award-winning stories year after year. Growing up, I'd read Esquire, and then a women's glossy, and the difference made me crazy. We don't have nearly the resources Esquire has, but Double X is our small contribution to this historical gap.

Friedman asks whether Slate is signaling that it doesn't want women as its main readers. Definitely not. We don't think of it as either/or, but more! In just our first two days Slate has promoted so many Double X pieces on its homepage, and we've promoted theirs. There's no question that a space dominated by women's voices creates a slightly different alchemy. But it's not instead of a mainstream magazine; it's just another thing.

"Somehow, ‘smart women's magazines' never seem to publish things that influence the national conversation in the way that smart articles in general magazines do," Friedman writes. Exactly! That's what we'd like to change. We are not just interested in changing the direction of feminism. We're interested in influencing many things. The XX factor blog we grew out of is a perfect example: We debated the election, the Supreme Court, torture memos, education policy, and yes, sometimes Michelle Obama's arms and the Real Housewives. This is how we live, and we want a magazine that reflects that.

Tags: ann friedman

Meghan, you posted yesterday on those Gallup numbers suggesting that Americans are less worked-up over the gender of the next Supreme Court justice than the media has been led to believe. I wonder whether Obama read the same polls, because his very short shortlist was evidently expanded yesterday to include a male, Carlos Moreno, the only Democrat on the California Supreme Court. Moreno is regarded as an extremely intelligent moderate-liberal jurist, and if selected he’d be the first Mexican American justice. I wonder how the same women who were incensed at Hillary Clinton’s treatment last year would feel if Obama seated an eighth male on the high court. I think I’d advise Obama to do so before Redding, the case about the strip search of a 13-year old girl. If oral argument was any predictor of outcomes, women are going to be pretty mad about the number of women on the court come June.

Tags: Supreme Court, women

I remember being taught in art history that the Venus of Willendorf, the Paleolithic sculputure of a gloriously zaftig female, was probably carved by a man as a shamanistic fertility figure. Now the New York Times has an article about a stunning discovery of one of the oldest figurative sculptures ever found, another “Venus,” this one dating from 35,000 years ago. She has pendulous breasts, a capacious stomach, and, as the Times puts it (have they ever used this phrase before?) "a greatly enlarged vulva." She was meant to be worn around the neck. Isn't it likely, however, that these sculptures were carved by women as fertility figures for themselves? And that once upon a time women thought the ideal female body required exuberant flesh.

Tags: fat, fertility symbol, women's bodies.

Vanessa, I share your concern that women have limited workplace stereotypes from which to choose: We’re either the nurturing pushover or the demanding bitch. We’re not the only group, though, struggling with how to present ourselves in the workplace. A study out last week found that, among black men, having a “babyface” helps you climb the career ladder. While white CEOs are hurt by being all chubby and kid-like, black CEOs benefit from the “disarming” qualities of a babyface. As Robert Livingston, co-author of the study, said, “anything that conveys to whites 'I'm not the typical black man' can be helpful.”

The same, it seems, goes for women. Be too much the typical woman—too busty, too high-voiced, too sensitive—and you’re deemed by your underlings and superiors, whether consciously and verbally or not, unfit to lead. Both blacks and women in the workplace must fight against the perception of being too harsh, either because it makes us “bitchy” or because it makes us “scary.” But a good boss is demanding, critical, and stern. How can anyone pull off such a delicate balance?

Tags: black CEOs, study on babyfaced black CEOs, women in the workplace

Ever wonder where S&M bondage gear—whips, straps, masks, assless pants—is made? No? Well, you should have. The Times has a fascinating video piece about a company in Karachi, Pakistan that manufactures fetish wear and exports it to the West. (None of it looks quite as fanciful as the colorful, strange lingerie coming out of Syria). "Most of our customers are from New York," one of owners says. "Seventy percent are Democrats." Natch.

Two brothers from a poor family started the company, AQTH, in 2001. It now makes a million dollars a year, employs dozens, and only rarely runs into trouble with the devout Muslims who live next door. Though AQTH is flourishing, manufacturing "the famous spanking skirt" in Karachi ("it has all the back open for the spanking, while lovemaking," one of the brothers explains) is a little more complicated than manufacturing other less outré leather goods might be. The owner's wives haven't been told what the company produces and many of the employees don't know—or don't want to know—what they're making. One man thinks the sex swing he's crafting is actually a black-leather, silver-studded beach chair.

That said, the brothers are refreshingly unembarrassed about their product line, equating the items to the "spices of sex." One of their sales executives, a 25-year-old woman, refuses to pick a favorite piece, admonishing sternly that she has several. "I have a desire to wear some of the items," she goes on to say, "but not all of them."

Tags: Bondage, Fetish, Karachi, S&M, sex

Aung San Suu Kyi's home sits beside Inya Lake, beyond a guarded checkpoint where an armed military officer screens cars, essentially, for the presence of white people. Burmese are allowed to drive on past the house where Suu Kyi has spent 13 of the past 19 years under house arrest. Caucasions are stopped and questioned. It's a line, literally and figuratively, most expats would not even think of trying to cross. But as with most of Myanmar's control apparatus, enforcement relies on fear. A determined person could just swim across the lake and show up, dripping wet, at her back door, which is exactly what some very motivated Missouri man did a few days back, and why Aung San Suu Kyi is now facing charges under the "Law Safeguarding the State from the Dangers of Subversive Elements."

John Yettaw, 53, seems to be a slightly unhinged religious idealist with big plans for converting Myanmar's biggest celebrity to Mormonism. Suu Kyi let him stay in her house for a single night, reportedly out of pity. The junta has taken this opportunity to further characterize Suu Kyi as a dangerous, unpredictable criminal who lacks the discipline to follow rules set by the state. (Anti-Suu Kyi propoganda largely hinges on this theme, noting, in addition to other transgressions, Suu Kyi's failure to pay various parking tickets in the 1990s.) I have long been disturbed by the West's obsession with pretty Suu Kyi and American politicians' resultant inability to consider any diversity of opinion within Myanmar. Now it appears that the same infatuation, confronted with the convoluted logic of a paranoid dictatorship, might help send Suu Kyi to prison for a very long time.

Tags: Myanmar, Suu Kyi

Vanessa, I agree that we don't gain much by adding the office bitch stereotype to the working woman's repertoire. And like you and lawyer-mom, one of our first commenters, who writes astutely about her bullying female boss, I also have a story of an older and more experienced woman who put me down rather than pulled me up. I wonder, though, if we notice these failings more in a women boss or professor or superior more than we do in men. Do we call out the women we look up to because we expect more from them, and then nurse our justifiable grievances, when they turn on us, with especial vigor? I tell my female bullying story more often than I tell one of the many I have about a male former boss, now that I think about it.

Also, even if women bully women more often than they bully men, as the survey stats that Meghan started us out with showed, they're still less likely to bully than men are. If 40 percent of office bullies are women, than 60 percent are men. I suppose women could still be disproportionateloy represented in the bullying ranks since they probably don't comprise 40 percent of bosses and supervisors. But I still wonder if we're extra preoccupied by our disappointment in them.

Tags: bullies, work, workplace

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For most of us, sitting down with our Sunday New York Times is a relaxing experience. But for an unlucky few, it can suddenly turn into a choke-on-my-scone nightmare.

Flipping idly through Sunday Styles, the hapless reader comes to the famous "Modern Love" column, soon to be turned into a TV series. There she reads about "Nick," whose girlfriend broke up with him using a PowerPoint, or Husband X, whose wife no longer wants to sleep with him, or "Froky," the ex-girlfriend who refused to stop the babytalk and act like a grown-up. She digs deeper into the story as her coffee grows cold until at some point she realizes, this sounds familiar. Froky is me!!!

Well, Double X feels your pain. Today, we launch a series of responses written by the subjects of Modern Love columns. The series gives the other half a chance to tell the same story from his or her point of view. If you, or anyone you know, has been written about by an ex-lover or ex-husband or girlfriend of an ex-husband in a Modern Love column, Double X wants to hear from you.

Please send all leads, rants, and long-stored-and-never-sent vicious e-mails to hannarosin@doublex.com. Do it. Revenge is at hand.

Tags: modern love; the new york times; relationships