elissa-schappell

Leslie Bennetts' "Feminist" Mistake

Emily · 04/12/07 10:31AM

At Leslie Bennetts' "debate" with Elissa Schappell about her book The Feminine Mistake at the New York Public Library on Tuesday night, there wasn't a lot of dissent in the room. After all, to most of us, Bennett's thesis—that women risk their financial wellbeing and that of their children by becoming "stay at home moms"—seems like the purest common sense. But there was dissent out there, Bennetts told us: She was getting "beaten up by the blogosphere." It turns out that stay at home moms don't like it when you seem to imply that their life plan is a "mistake," and the thing about stay at home moms is, they have a lot of spare computer time (see: UrbanBaby). But despite the fact that the idea of a "debate" between Schappell and Bennetts (pals, moms, Vanity Fair contributing editors both) was as contrived as the latter half of Dana Vachon's novel, we did learn some things from their conversation. First thing: Leslie Bennetts is a badass.