The behavior of a woman who appears on the public stage can be counted on to provoke a contentious referendum on the state of women in general. Is this good for women?

"I have a problem with the cover. She looks so young! It's like we're showing favoritism." It was at this point, dear reader, that the whistle was deployed.

Somewhere along the timeline of women's liberation, the message that we can have it all morphed into an oppressive belief that we should be able to do it all.

Often, the mythical mean girls we feared in grade school -- and those we fear now -- may exist only in our own heads. And when it comes to all this leftover adolescent angst, women seem to have much thinner skins than men.

What if the inventories we take of our lives are false, misleading? What if our value as a person has nothing to do with a score on a checklist?

The moments when we feel like we need to make the case that that other road is wrong are probably the moments when we need to look at ourselves.

Is buying Spanx buying into an oppressive ideal? Does dabbling in fillers make one a tool of the patriarchy?

We're convinced mediocre isn't going to cut it and face the pervasive belief that today's women can and should have it all: great career, hot sex, well-behaved children and granite counters.

If we let go of the need to fit ourselves into the brand, the image, the iconic self, maybe we'd have an easier time figuring out who we really are.

For a woman, a job isn't just a job. It's a comment on who she is.

With each choice we make, our life picks up a little bit of steam, until, sometimes, before we know it, we find the life we're living is one that's being driven by inertia, heading off in some direction we never planned.