I was a long time coming. It's my blog's five year anniversary!

Talk about committment. Jeez.

I haven't decided yet how I want to "celebrate," so check back here for updates on this "momentous" occasion.

That just my baby daddy. You don't get a lot of marriage advocacy going on these days outside of the Religious Right, but here's a controversial suggestion from Emily Yoffe: Get married, then have babies. Wow!

The rate of out-of-wedlock births among women 23 to 29 is now higher than the teen pregnancy rate. Yoffe argues that women who find themselves pregnant and don't marry the father are putting themselves and their children at a disadvantage both economically and psychologically. Part of what contributes to this problem is the lack of foresight and committment displayed by both men and women. Some of it is a class issue: College-educated men and women are significantly less likely to get divorced than their high school-educated peers.

I would take this a step further and say that a big part of this problem is that people do not use contraception. Whether it's because of a lack of affordable and available family planning services, lack of proper sex education, or discouragment from their social and religious communities, women aren't choosing to protect themselves. Consequently, the rate of unplanned pregnancies among poor women rose 44% from 1994 to 2001.

The problem isn't that people aren't getting married. The problem is that people won't buy condoms. Honestly, I know they're not so comfortable, but it's so much cheaper to buy a bunch of condoms than to raise a kid.

It's freezing in the corner of my mind. There's been a lot of man-hating going on in the wake of the Spitzer scandal. It seems like every woman who writes a blog or talks to you at the gym has used this as an opportunity to spew some serious anti-man vitriol. Really, I think that the Spitzer scandal is just a catalyst for releasing women's pent-up romantic anger. Of course, women are also upset because the governor of New York committed a crime and everything that entails, but there's a personal level to it as well.

To speak in generalities, I think that women look at Silda Spitzer and see themselves in past relationships: They were deceived, mistreated, taken for granted, and in some cases cheated on while they stood by being loving and supportive. Case in point: Silda is a phenomenally talented and beautiful woman, and her husband chose to fuck uneducated whores from New Jersey. To most women, this simply does not make sense. Most talented women who have been treated like doormats by men find their lovers' actions incomprehensible, and Spitzer's decisions are no exception. Modern women posses all the characteristics that are socially valued in men--intelligence, education, ambition, earning potential--as well as the feminine virtues of beauty and warmth, AND YET this sort of shit happens.

I do think that men are the problem. Most of the women I know have managed to find a balance between the masculine and feminine virtues, yet men seem more laddish than ever. You can say that our society is hopelessly Puritanical, and that's why Spitzer's shenanigans are being so derided, but I disagree. I think that women simply refuse to accept this sort of behavior anymore and are more vocal about their shock and disgust. Or maybe women simply haven't learned to accept that men are callous and selfish creatures who will always disappoint them and treat them like trash.

Here's where you go wrong, boys. It's time to grow up.

They don't know it but I'm here to stay. In your face, crappy Lilith article! According to a new Elle/msnbc.com study (my college mentor helped with the research. Pride!), men don't care if their wives make more money. In fact, just 12 percent of men surveyed said they'd mind if their wife earned more than they do, and in general men seemed happy to share the breadwinner role. Furthermore, of the approximately 75 percent of men whose wives did work, only 5 percent wished she was at home because they are "irritated by a wife who is frequently bored or boring."

Huzzah for womanity! I feel there is hope for us smart, ambitious ladies afterall!