A decade ago, Laurie Strongin and her husband, Allen Goldberg, lived on the edges of reproductive technology. Their son Henry was born with a rare and fatal disease, Fanconi anemia. They used a method called preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) to try to conceive another child who would not have the disease and be a bone marrow donor to Henry. The ordeal, chronicled in the New York Times Magazine, made them objects of fascination and sometimes horror: Was it OK to have one child to save another? Was this a distortion of parental love or its ultimate manifestation?

In her new book, Saving Henry, Strongin answers the question. Her answer is, essentially, how could you not try? She convinces us of this by lovingly recreating Henry’s childhood in its mundane and dramatic moments, making it clear that if you see the picture from inside the intimacy of a loving family, no parent would do it any differently.

Tags: Fanconi anemia, Laurie Strongin, Saving Henry

The prevalence of unemployed, directionless omega males in recent modern fictional works (which Jessica pointed out in her recent DoubleX piece) reflects a real—if exaggerated and overrepresented—phenomenon in today’s men. So what about all the omega females? If the young women come off better than the men, perhaps it’s because we are still in a moment when any sort of female accomplishment is a display of the vastness of women’s choices compared with what they once were.

But in reality, there is no discernible template for how to be an adult, and many people of both genders find themselves fundamentally unsure of what that “growing up” now means. While the mainstream media’s ideal of womanhood is not as suffocating as the one presented to men by classic Hollywood alpha males like Clint Eastwood or Gregory Peck, there are plenty of women who realize that they are never going to represent that ideal—particularly in the realm of caretaking.

There is a persistent stereotype that women are inherently better at or more interested in housekeeping and personal care than men, but just as there are lots of modern metrosexual straight guys ironing their shirts and online shopping, there are also lots of women who are busy doing bong hits instead of laundry.

Omega females can be as slovenly as their masculine counterparts. On 30 Rock, Liz Lemon’s disgusting snack routines strike a familiar note with anyone who has ever lived off of junk food because she was too busy (or lazy) to go food shopping. Charlyne Yi’s character in Knocked Up is as stoned and lackadaisical as her male counterparts. (Jezebel has a good round-up of other stoned potential omega females.) Sarah Silverman’s character on her eponymous TV show is so unable to tend to herself that her older sister basically behaves like a parent.

These women show that retreating into childhood pastimes or elaborate escape fantasies to try and shut out the world when it seems too competitive and brutal to deal with is by no means an exclusively male pursuit.

Tags: 30 Rock, caretaking, Liz Lemon, omega females, omega males

A recent study shows that an alarming number of women undergoing fertility treatment suffer from sexual dysfunction. DoubleX is seeking personal stories from women who are having trouble conceiving and have been dealing with low desire, less frequent intercourse, and lower sexual satisfaction in general. Please respond to reporter Sarah Elizabeth Richards at serichards33@gmail.com if you would like to share your experience. We can use first names or pseudonyms if you want to protect your privacy. Please respond by this Monday, March 30.

Tags: infertility, sexual dysfunction

First the Balloon Boy family fiasco, now this: The reality show Wife/Swap is getting more bad press because 18-year-old Alicia Guastaferro, who appeared on the show when she was 15, is suing ABC, Disney, and RDF Media because she says producers acted "with actual malice towards [her]." According to Courthouse News Service, Alicia says that Wife/Swap producers fed her lines to make her look "bratty" and "spoiled," and as a result she has been humiliated and taunted at school. Alicia also says that she was not compensated for her time and that she never consented to appearing on the show. She now wants $100 million in damages.

I spoke to someone who worked on the show in the past, who says that families are well aware the show is semi-scripted before signing on. And, as this CNN article from last year notes, "from a legal standpoint, it's not the fault of the production company if [reality show participants] ... find the show to be more emotionally damaging than they ever thought it would be."

What complicates all this is the fact that Alicia was a minor when her episode of Wife/Swap was shot. Alicia says only her mother was compensated when they both appeared on the show. It's worth noting that her mother, Karen Guastaferro, pled guilty of a felony last year because she did not report wages. Alicia's father, Ralph, pled guilty of money laundering last year as well. If her mother signed a contract on Alicia's behalf, one wonders if Alicia should be suing her mother for withholding compensation—not ABC/Disney. The timing of this suit is also curious, as it is mere months after both her parents pled guilty to felonies with hefty fines. "Their finances are poor at the present time," Karen's lawyer told the court in November, according to The Buffalo News.

Potential familial grifting aside, boy, were Alicia's brattiness and entitlement pretty epic. In the clip below, Alicia says things like, "I do feel sorry for people that are not gorgeous people." She also berates her mother for serving her the wrong kind of cereal. Don't miss the hilarious script concerning the other family the Guastaferro's are swapping with—the Boss family. "Ultra-feminist Angie homeschools her daughters so she can indoctrinate them with her feminist agenda," says the condescending voice-over. Wife/Swap might not be a reflection of "reality," but it sure is entertaining.

Tags: ABC, alicia guastaterro, balloon boy, Disney, wife/swap

Hanna, I share your fascination with Pelosi. There’s a slide show commemorating health care reform over at Talking Points Memo, and one of the pictures shows an impeccably put-together Pelosi warmly reaching out to grab the hand of Obama as they leave some conference or other. They've obviously just been talking over the intricacies of reform. Except on one hip, Pelosi is also carrying (with no apparent physical strain, though she turns 70 this week) a school-aged grandson with tousled hair. It's a striking image, in part for the rare combination of maternal instincts and raw political power.

She isn't just the second in line of presidential succession, following Vice President Biden (and thus the most powerful woman in American history). She's a mother of five (yes, count 'em, five) kids, a grandmother of seven, and a church-going Catholic, who is still married to her college sweetheart—in many ways the very embodiment of family values. But while older than Hillary, she appears to have suffered none of the battle scars of early feminism and is completely comfortable and confident in her own skin. In the past, the trailblazing achievements of feminist icons often seemed to exact readily visible costs—in the form of an incoherent personal style or a messy/nonexistent love life or family life. (Yes, there are the women of the Supreme Court, but their femininity is cloaked by the burqa of their black robes.) But Pelosi makes combining family, beauty, brains, and political brawn look easy.

She's Lauren Hutton-attractive without looking like she’s been excessively worked over by a plastic surgeon. While she may not push the fashion envelope like Michelle, Pelosi is stylish in an elegant, understated way. (Her outfits throughout reform weren’t the typical red or blue dowdy affairs of official Washington but were instead sleek wool suits in mauve or okra.) She is both ruthlessly effective and quietly feminine. After the House passed health care reform last November in a narrow, difficult vote, Politico reported that Pelosi walked out of the chamber and commented serenely: “That was easy.” Indeed, she's so calm and collected, she makes Obama look like a drama queen. When he was freaking out after Scott Brown's election, she coolly told him to get a spine and helped salvage his top domestic agenda. She never appears to lose it or even raise her voice. (Love her or hate her, no one can credibly accuse her of being hysterical or a harpy.) Indeed, she often seems to talk in a breathy whisper. At the same time, she may be the most able politician and strong-arming vote-getter since LBJ. But far from resenting her power as a woman, her mostly male colleagues in the Democratic House appear to idolize her (in much the way conservative men in Britain used to adore Margaret Thatcher).

There’s just no other woman like her in American life. In this sense, she's the political equivalent of Meryl Streep. But like Streep, Pelosi is less a role model for other women than an outlier: Few women (or men, for that matter) are likely to be able to match her accomplishments.

Tags: Barack Obama; Margaret Thatcher; Nancy Pelosi; Scott Brown; meryl streep

Hanna, I agree that sexism is never going to fully eradicated, and that people will always try to slot powerful women into certain comfortable stereotypes—the witch and the ditz being two. But powerful men also get slotted. George Bush was the rich-boy buffoon controlled by Dick Cheney, the devil incarnate. You mention Pelosi is becoming a Ted Kennedy figure—that is, the personification for the right of the evils of the left. But it’s effective to have everything one side hates about the other embodied in a single person. I’m not sure the image of Pelosi as a power-mad woman with a love for big gavels and Botox is any worse than that of Kennedy as a bloated, drunken reprobate who thought he knew best what Americans should do with their money. And some people just arouse passions: Newt Gingrich did, Dennis Hastert didn’t. The key point with Pelosi is that she is so powerful. So is that more unsettling because she’s a woman? And are the nasty characterizations of women public figures negative in a different, more destructive way than those of men?

Tags: Nancy Pelosi, power, sexism, witch

—The Irish Bishop John Magee finally resigns, over a year after a report revealed that he mishandled reports of pedophilic priests in the 1990s. The Pope sent an unprecedented letter to the Irish church on Saturday, condemning decades of cover-up while admitting no Vatican responsibility. [New York Times]

—Although the benefits and risks of C-sections have been the subject of debate for a quarter century, mothers across the United States are opting in ever greater numbers for the procedure. This year, six states have seen a dramatic rise in the proportion of births by C-section, which now grazes 40 percent. [USA Today]

—Facebook has been linked to a rise of syphillis in parts of England, especially among young women. Health officials say online social networking sites, like Facebook, allow for more random, casual sexual encounters that encourage the spread of diseases. [The Telegraph]

—Sarah Palin may sign a deal with the Discovery Chanel in the next few days for her reality show Sarah Palin's Alaska, in which she guides audiences through the outdoors of her native state. The former vice presidential candidate's asking price is an alleged $1.2 million per episode, which would make the show one of the most costly nature docu-series to ever be produced. [New York Times, NPR]

—The health center of a Seattle high school helped a 15-year-old student get an abortion during school hours without the knowledge of her mother. The County Health Department defends the actions of the high school, as someone can legally terminate a pregnancy at any age in Washington state. The mother feels, however, like her "rights were completely stripped away." [KOMO News]

Tags: abortion, C-sections, Catholic Church, Facebook, pope, priest sex abuse, Reality TV, Sarah Palin, Sarah Palin's Alaska, syphillis, vatican