The XX Factor: What women really think.

Jon and Kate Gosselin: Separating from Each Other but not Their McMansion

Jon and Kate Gosselin announced their separation on last night's much-hyped episode of Jon and Kate Plus 8. This surprised no one, as tales of Jon sweatily cavorting with coeds and Kate's utter nastiness have been littering the tabloids for months. What did surprise me is that the Gosselins will be doing what Sandra Tsing Loh is doing with her kids: instead of just having Jon or Kate move out, the couple's 8 children will remain in their Pennsylvania mcmansion, while the parents switch off living there.

Celebrity Is Dead, Long Live Uncelebrities

For the sixth consecutive week, Kate Gosselin’s on the cover of Us Weekly. “Mommy You Are Mean” screams the headline, while her husband Jon declares, “Enough is Enough” on the cover of People. In Touch and Star are selling the Gosselins as well. Only the Enquirer has chosen an old standard for its cover, Brangelina, and even the most famous couple in the world had to share the front page, with, you guessed it, Jon Gosselin.

Up until a few months ago, chances were good-to-great that if you picked up a tabloid one of the following subjects would appear on the cover: Brangelina, Jennifer Aniston, TomKat or Britney Spears. But recently, the attractive, famous folk who have dominated gossip for years and years (even when, as with Aniston, the relevant story happened eons ago), have suddenly, ignominiously been shoved to the side by a rag-tag crew whose members include the Gosselins, Octomom, Susan Boyle and, to a certain extent, Michelle Obama... (To read the rest of this post, visit our new website DoubleX.com!) 

The Supremes Edition of the XX Gabfest

Kate Gosselin's Hair Frightens Me

The Death of the Private Life

Compared to what's bubbling up in the culture this morning, Elizabeth Edwards seems positively demure. This morning on the Today Show, Kate Gosselin, star of the one family reality circus, Jon and Kate Plus Eight, went on to flog her new book, Eight Little Faces, but also to talk about whether or not her husband, who was seen walking out of a bar with another woman, is having an affair. (The woman's brother said they've been seeing each other for three years; Jon made a very unconvincing denial on the show.) Kate says she really wants to "weather the storm" and "just focus on the kids." She said this with her usual sweet, wholesome expression. The whole exchange left me feeling not that she was opportunistic, but that she actually believed that going on the Today Show to talk about whether he was or wasn't having an affair was the best thing for her family.

So there really is no distinction anymore in the culture between an actual private life and a private life chronicled on weekly television. The Truman Show, which came out in 1998, would seem like a relic now in an age when it's impossible to believe that the star of a reality show would not be complicit in his own exposure, or that he would be troubled by it in any way. And Elizabeth Edwards, who was blogging about her son's untimely death in a car accident before there were bloggers, is a pioneer in understanding the collapse of these distinctions.

If we need more proof, read this story in today's New York Times home section called "Branding the Family" about the fabulous duo of decorators, Robert and Cortney Novogratz, who will have their own Bravo reality show in the fall. Given that they only have seven children and are much more fabulous looking than the Gosselins, there will surely be a storm to weather soon. So tune in...

I'm Just Not That Into Your Televised Family

I want to welcome Willa Paskin, who comes to the XX Factor from dear departed Radar magazine, where she covered high and low culture with equal enthusiasm. I agree with Willa on the He's Just Not That Into You pheonomenon: It always seemed bizarre to me that the book, and now the movie, are marketed as empowering. Since when does inaction make you feel in control? It's ultimately the same philosophy behind The Rules, just covered in a lacquer of sass.

Elisheva, I sort of disagree with you that no one should judge the Duggars and the Gosselins. They have made the active choice to portray their bulging broods on television. It's the same way I feel about tell-all memoirs. The writers of such memoirs, like the Duggars and the Gosselins, are airing their laundry to a public for a fee, and that puts their choices on an elevated cultural plane. Maybe in an ideal world, no one would judge their parenting choices, but when those choices are broadcast to millions, isn't audience judgment— which is to say, forming an opinion—the entire point?

Octuplet Obsession

What was she thinking, Bonnie? Maybe she was thinking that she'd get a reality TV show. While there's always been some interest in massively fertile women, it seems that in the past few years, more and more of these moms-of-multiples have been getting media attention. First there's Kate Gosselin, who has a set of sextuplets and a set of twins, as well as her own TLC show, Jon & Kate Plus 8. Then there's her network-mate Michelle Duggar (pictured at left), who has given birth to 18 children and even allowed TLC to film her giving birth to number 18.

I've seen a few episodes of both Jon & Kate and the Duggars' show, and they're outrageously banal. Entire episodes are constructed around a single task: Jon makes dinner! Jinger Duggar gets her driver's license! (Side note: All 18 of the Dugger children have names that begin with J). And it makes me wonder why these families are getting more than their 15 minutes of fame. Is it merely the freak show aspect of having so many babies? Or is it something else, something that reinforces the idea that fertility is a woman's greatest virtue? Considering the fact that the Duggars are part of an evangelical movement called Quiverfull, which eschews birth control and promotes the idea that a woman's primary function is to be a mother, I'd say it's the latter.