We are in the midst of a violent backlash againist feminism that uses images of female beauty as political weapons against women's advancement.

What editors are obliged to appear to say that men want from women is actually what their advertisers want from women.

The last thing the consumer index wants men and women to do is to figure out how to love one another: The $1.5 trillion retail-sales industry depends on sexual estrangement between men and women, and is fueled by sexual dissatisfaction. Ads do not sell sex--that would be counterproductive, if it meant that heterosexual women and men turned to one another and were gratified. What they sell is sexual discontent.

Of course a woman who decides to work full time as a mother in the home can be happy and deserves full respect from us. Motherhood is one of the most challenging and creative jobs anyone can do. The goal is to remake the world so that our choices are not so stark.

'Beauty' is a currency system like the gold standard. Like any economy, it is determined by politics, and in the modern age in the West is is the last, best belief system that keeps male dominance intact.

When people like Glenn Beck throw around the word Nazi without taking that kind of care, they are engaging in demagoguery. I am doing it with a concrete footnoted historical context.

When women are pessimistic about their political strength and feel hopeless about changing the conditions of their lives, it is almost as if they do not believe that democracy means the country belongs to them. But it's true.