Finally I read through the comments of Dave Morris, Robert Felty, 
Vishal Soni, and of course of Bethany and Danny to Louise Story's piece 
in the NY Times. What finally set me to enter the fray is Danny's view 
of the article as furthering an anti-feminist agenda because that's not
the way I see it at all.
   Actually, I do not have a satisfactory definition of "feminism". If 
it means removing all historic obstacles to the legal equality of the
feminine gender in all aspects of public life, I'm of course for it. If
it means promoting a new concept of human society in which traditional 
"gender roles" are abolished or suppressed, I am against it. 
   For the foreseeable future, I don't have to worry about reversing 
human biology to the point of males getting pregnant and bear babies, 
although that, or perhaps some mechanism by which females could be 
freed from that also and yet the human race to go forward, seems to be 
the unstated ultimate aim of the second type of feminism. Until that 
distant goal is achieved, this kind of feminism just struggles against 
the secondary consequences that spring from the presently existing 
biological differentiation between the sexes. That of course is also 
an uphill struggle and yields numerous contradictions which are easy 
to see and not at all easy to circumvent. This kind of society has 
been foreseen in Aldous Huxley's 1932 novel, "Brave New World", a best 
seller of its time which seemingly none of you in the "improvetheworld" 
crowd, or at least those who share Danny's view on the matter, have 
read. I would urge you to do so; if you did, you will see the problems 
and unintended consequences that would result from that kind of societal 
restructuring even assuming that it could be successfully done. 
   Actually, some early versions of Communism including the Israeli 
kibbutz system experimented with that kind of idea and it cannot be said 
that it turned out to be a resounding success. The basis of our present 
societal structure, which our beloved President would no doubt call 
"the nucular family" does have some historic roots going back a few 
hundred thousand years, and I am not totally convinced that its origins 
were entirely dependent on our brutish and club-wielding male ancestors 
ramming it down the throats of their unwilling mates. The fact that 
females get pregnant, give birth to babies and nurse them, while males 
are more muscular, more aggressive, can go out and bring home the bacon 
more successfully, does have some character-forming consequences which 
did get built into the human genome over the millennia. I must admit 
that I have a great deal of sympathy with the female type which Louise 
Story depicts in her piece and which Danny has chastised as "anti-
feminist". In fact, my idea of anti-feminism would be almost precisely 
the opposite.  
   It is possible that in the 21st century we are crossing a milestone	
of human evolution although I must say that I would be dreading the 
prospect. In such a system, females would be REQUIRED to enter the work 
force on totally interchangeable conditions with males, pregnancies  
would be pharmacologically prevented except for individually approved 
cases, and child rearing institutionalized. As I am sure you know, 
certain insects such as ants and bees already live in that kind of 
societal structure where the "workers" are actually degenerate females 
whose sexual development was nutritionally suppressed during infancy. 
I would not regard anything resembling that as a desirable future for 
Humankind and if that is your kind of "feminism" then I am afraid that 
we have irreconcilable differences. 
   Danny's Grandpa Andrew