O'Beirne, Kate

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O'Beirne, Kate
(Katherine Walsh)

PERSONAL:

Born as Katherine Walsh; married James O'Beirne (a military officer), 1976; children: two sons.Education: St. John's University, J.D, 1976.

ADDRESSES:

Office—National Review, 215 Lexington Ave., New York, NY 10016.

CAREER:

Journalist. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Washington, DC, deputy assistant secretary for legislation, 1986-88; Heritage Foundation, Washington, DC, deputy director of domestic-policy studies, later became vice president of government relations; National Review, Washington, DC, Washington editor, 1995—. Regular contributor to CNN's The Capital Gang and political analyst to MSNBC's Hardball. Also practiced law in New York; and served as a political aide for New York Senator James Buckley. Board member of the Catholic Leaguefor Religious and Civil Rights and senior fellow with the Independent Women's Forum.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Received honorary degree from St. John's University, 1997.

WRITINGS:

Women Who Make the World Worse: And How Their Radical Feminist Assault Is Ruining Our Families, Military, Schools, and Sports, Sentinel (New York, NY), 2006.

SIDELIGHTS:

Kate O'Beirne is the Washington editor for the conservative journal National Review, where she began as a contributing editor in 1995. Prior to her work with the journal, she solidified her knowledge of Washington life at the Heritage Foundation. O'Beirne was a regular contributor to CNN's The Capital Gang,a political debate show. In 2006 O'Beirne publishedWomen Who Make the World Worse: And How Their Radical Feminist Assault Is Ruining Our Families, Military, Schools, and Sports. The book names several women from throughout U.S. history who O'Beirne feels have created more problems than they have solved.

Reviews for Women Who Make the World Worse were sharply mixed. Christina Hoff Sommers reviewed O'Beirne's book in the National Review, saying that the author "brings wit and common sense to bear on the weird and rancorous world of orthodox feminism." Jamie Malanowski also reviewed Women Who Make the World Worse in a Washington Monthly article. Malanowski stated: "The whole book is filled with examples of O'Beirne extrapolating generalities from specifics and explaining specifics with generalities and generally leaving nuance, context, and inconvenient facts out in the street." Ana Marie Cox, writing in theNew York Times Book Review, found that "O'Beirne's endnotes lack much in the way of citations of original research, but they are an excellent bibliography for anyone interested in the history of modern (or not-so-modern) antifeminism." Concluding her review inBooklist, Vanessa Bush remarked, "Readers interested in different perspectives on women's issues will appreciate O'Beirne's strongly held viewpoint."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, January 1, 2006, Vanessa Bush, review ofWomen Who Make the World Worse: And How Their Radical Feminist Assault Is Ruining Our Families, Military, Schools, and Sports, p. 35.

National Review, February 13, 2006, Christina Hoff Sommers, review of Women Who Make the World Worse, p. 41.

National Right to Life News, May, 2006, review ofWomen Who Make the World Worse, p. 26.

New York Times Book Review, January 15, 2006, Ana Marie Cox, review of Women Who Make the World Worse, p. 21.

Washington Monthly, March, 2006, Jamie Malanowski, review of Women Who Make the World Worse, p. 42.