I wouldn't believe anything in a women's magazine.

Most of the articles are fabricated, and Marie Claire magazine is running a competition with a $250,000 1st prize in handbags and shoes.

But a recent national survey in the UK found that 50% of children born outside of marriage lost 1 parent before ther reached the age of 5.

It is probably very similar here, but I have not heard a single feminist object to that type of family.

Boy howdy! The umpteenth article blaming feminism for every problem in the world bar global warming. It seems Danielle's life choices actually were not really her own but Simone De Beauvoir's or Germaine Greer's. Whatever happened to personal responsibility?

Maybe the men she met in her twenties were complete losers. Danielle still made the choice to seek a partner elsewhere. She also made the choice to have an abortion when she knew she'd have a Downs Syndrome child. I support access to abortion but Danielle and other women have to live with that choice - not me. And now she's choosing the miserable, backward looking choice of living through her regrets.

Well, Danielle (if you're out there) how about choosing the joy of childlessness like I have? How about pursuing other options in life?

And as for idea that feminism fails women, let's look at countries where feminism is non-existent such as Sudan or Mauritania and see what female paradises places like that are.

So... is this article criticising feminists/feminism, or critiquing them/it then, or now - or both?
The first, they don't deserve (a movement that had to happen, if I could bastardise Keating), but the second is always worthy of a few lines...

You know what I object to most in this? The tag line:

"Feminists have never seriously interested themselves in questions of how women might successfully marry and become mothers."

It infers that that's the only thing women are around for. That's completely wrong.

Mark is attacking this poor woman for meeting the wrong person(s) when she was younger (and for making the reasonable decision not to have kids with the wrong person) and now regretting not having achieved something that she wanted.

Mark is famous for this (I've debated him a number of times) and his view is that women are only there to support women and to spit out babies irrespective of whether that's what they want or not. It's a disgusting view

The author is on cloud cuckoo land with this article. By advocating CHOICE for women to have and independent income stream, (most important given about 50 % relationships fail with children), by no means excludes child bearing – rather makes it more secure for most women. Giving people choice does not mean everyone will make the right choice – but that is life. Better the freedom to choose your own path than to spend a life as directed by others. Blaming feminists for the failure of both the medical community and education system to educate young people fully about reproductive health, (conception, fertility, STI’s contraception etc), it ludicrous. It is blaming the same women who have advocated quality child care, paid parental leave, baby payments & child endowments etc… Reproductive health education is something that feminists have argued in favour of for decades now.

It is interesting given all modern access to information that infertility is still considered a “female” condition when statistically 50% of couples presenting at IVF clinics are there to be treated for male infertility, (poor sperm motility, degraded sperm DNA etc), and yes – male infertility increases with age too.

Survey after survey show the main reason why child production is delayed in Australia is not due to women wanting to endlessly delay – it is due to men not wanting that level of commitment until they are much older, (and by then it is often too late for them as well). The reasons for this “male child commitment phobia” are many. But I suspect that men are not pre-pared to do this until they are financially secure in themselves and this is a matter of socialised male pride. It has become harder for both men and women to achieve financial security now than ever before with record housing prices, interest rates, petrol prices and low wages.

Rather than blaming feminists for all the ills of the world, like the witches were of old, perhaps the author should look past his own blind opinions and study the facts.

Feminism didn't fail women; the failure of a mature, unbiased discussion on male and female fertility fails women. The fact is that she was behind the eight ball with the man she fell in love with. Male fertility, or natural aging thereof with the resultant lower fertility and degraded sperm, also impact on a woman's ability to have a healthy baby. The story may have been different if she'd partnered with a man nearer her age, or younger.

When are men going to be told the truth about andropause, and that they are playing russian roulette with their fertility. 50% of infertility problems are with the male; aged sperm causes birth defects. Grow up men and face the fact you are not fully charged ever-ready batteries until you die.