The Susan G. Komen skirmish gave us a week of high drama -- the stunning denial of Planned Parenthood funding, the furious backlash, the capitulation and apology, the scramble to assign blame.

It was an eye-opening example of how expediently women's health can be held hostage to conservative ideology....

The world has seen the terror and confusion on the porcelain face of eight-year-old Naama Margolese, who was insulted and spat on by ultra-Orthodox men as she walked to school in the Israeli city of Beit Shemesh. The Haredi, to use Israeli term, found her bare arms so immodest that...

As the United States begins to tidy up its affairs in Afghanistan, I have a bad feeling about the women we'll leave behind.

We're already confronted with reports -- and horrific images -- of attacks on women and girls: noses and ears sliced off, acid-ravaged faces, beatings, whippings, honor killings....

Even assuming that the Mayan calendar got it wrong, and the planet will not end in cataclysm -- 2012 still figures to be a tough year.

We're going to live through the bizarre primary of C-list choices, and a general election that is likely to leave us all feeling like...

Donald Trump wants to get behind the wheel of what Real Time's Bill Maher has wonderfully called the "Republican clown car."

Since only Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum elected to climb in the back seat for the surrealist ride-along, Trump has cancelled the trip. His stated reason: he wants to...

A friend runs a small, successful, consulting business. His daughter, who is in finance and starting to get the big bonus checks, had just returned from safari in Kenya.

He said: "It dawned on me. She planned this trip to Africa as casually as I plan a trip to...

Once you get past family, friends, health, the troops, freedom and a few other obvious and heartfelt points of gratitude, you have to dig a little these days to find things to be thankful for.

It's very tough, for example, to be thankful for political leaders compressed into inaction by...

It's hard to imagine our world without Stuart. That's ironic because 15 years ago, it wouldn't have been hard to imagine our world with Stuart.

But he's getting to the age where you don't buy dog food in bulk. And it's time to start thinking about nature's course -- even...

Regardless of where you fall on the scale of feminist ideology -- great progress to stubborn inequality -- in the arena of women and work, big shifts are afoot. The direction is clear. The destination is not. But by all indications, work and families have some adjustments ahead.

First...

There's an old joke. What's the difference between ignorance and apathy? Answer: I don't know, and I don't care.

Old, but is a nice summary of the current state of political involvement. Each makes real change difficult. Together they make it impossible.

There's a line between ignorant and stupid --...

I was at the kitchen table Sunday morning with my New York Times, each section separated, coffee poured, ready for my ritual immersion in one of my favorite two hours of the week. My daughter walked in.

She looked up from her iPhone, eyed what was obviously a puzzling scene,...

I keep hearing about authenticity. It seems to be the go-to description for all who would be bonafide; a self-sticking seal signifying that what you see is what you get, and what you get is worthy.

Anderson Cooper has made it the lynchpin of his daytime persona. I watched Anderson...

Note to Michele Bachmann. Here is a suggestion from someone you will never invite to lunch.

There's another debate tomorrow, and it's time to face the facts.

The only room to the right of Rick Perry is the well-greased slope of the lunatic fringe.

He ambled in, and...

It's ten years later. Like most of us, my feelings about 9/11 seem to change with the latest event or tribute.

I'm crushed when I hear someone talk about their search for a loved one. I jumped up from the table and yelled, "yes!" so loud the dogs ran when...

I was having one of "he can't connect emotionally" conversations. A friend was telling me about her relationship angst over his inability to understand her needs and to talk about his. Even though I'm in research and not therapy, as a psychologist, I get that a lot.

As I...

And so, the recession drags on. Nobody feels it more oppressively and relentlessly than the men who have been cast out of all those industries they called their own.

In downturns past, there was always the certainty that, as nasty as things are right now, this too shall pass....

Sure, Michele Bachmann might look a wee bit scary on the Newsweek cover that launched a thousand blogs.

Liberal bias? Maybe. But I've seen that gaze -- like the one my dog has when there's a deer in the yard -- in her own campaign material. And maybe the "queen...

I was watching a news report about a mother who had just returned from Iraq after many months away from her three small children.

It was a heartwarming reunion. Watching the hugs and tears, and with deep respect and admiration, there was still a small voice deep from the reaches...

Last week I posted a piece about how men are changing, closing with a question: are men less masculine today, or simply more liberated?

The piece drew over 1,250 comments; a bit unusual, I thought, for the middle of the summer and a topic that has nothing to do with...

Every study, it seems, brings another assault on the masculinity of the American man.

As I read about how men are thinking more like women, and women are filling the space vacated by declining masculinity, I have to wonder: Is it a shift in gender roles, or an easing of...