October 27, 2007 8:19 PM

Revenge of the fembots: happy to be child-free
Posted by Diane Danielsonat 8:19 PM

First the Today Show hit a new low a few weeks ago with their episode on “Fembots.” Apparently, if you don't have kids, and instead, focus on your career, there is a good chance that you are "emotionally unavailable" and therefore a fembot.  But, wait, these "working women" (an editor from Marie Claire, a psychologist and a Today Show interviewer), didn't mean "fembot" in a negative way ... huh?  While if you really listen, they don't classify "all" working women with no kids as fembots, but you really have to listen to figure that out. 

Unfortunately there are too many bad inferences in this piece including the fact that "unmarried" is a mental illness; and that men who don't marry are simply "bachelors," but women who don't marry are either spinsters or fembots?  Neither one is flattering.  I'll have to admit, after watching this, I'd have a hard time ever reading Marie Claire or watching The Today Show again.

Where's Elizabeth Hasselbeck on this one?  She loves to throw other women under the bus.

http://video.msn.com/video.aspx?mkt=en-us&vid=73e42da6-7131-47d0-bc91-e3f0e3784bfe

But, wait, life as a fembot might not be that bad …I caught this other story on the Forbes website about a survey where childlessness seems to bother men more than women.

Koropeckyj-Cox speculated that some women may not be choosing motherhood because of the burden of how difficult the dual roles of mom and working women are. "Other studies have documented that men tend to experience pretty strong economic and social rewards from being a dad, whereas women experience more of the pressures and more of the demands of the immediate day-to-day reality of parenting and juggling work."

Click here to read the full story.

This is not too surprising coming on the heels of all the "happiness gap" stories. But, hey at least if you’re going to be a fembot, at least you get to be happy about it!