Unfortunately, way too many women learn it the hard way. Even a guy with everything going for him – a high paid sports career, pop stardom, a governorship, the Nobel Peace Prize – can turn out to be a disrespectful/lying/cheating/hypocritical scumbag. Hence the WTF?! Wall of Shame.

As the young generation, we’re optimistic about love, and we’re re-defining the rules of courtship and relationships, but around every proverbial, pop-cultural corner there’s another failed marriage, another woman scorned, another embarrassing sexual revelation, another tragic fall.

So what to make of the idea that – maybe – we don’t need men at all?!

Jennifer Aniston said as much while promoting her new movie – THE SWITCH – about a single mom who has a baby on her own (inadvertently with her Ego Booster, but that’s another blog post).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9-7HaVKHaE

Her exact quote:

“Women are realizing it more and more knowing that they don’t have to settle with a man just to have that child…Times have changed and that is also what is amazing is that we do have so many options these days, as opposed to our parents’ days when you can’t have children because you have waited too long.”

So how about it? Statement of scientific fact? Or portent of the apocalypse? I mean, I’ve already replaced my dah with my iPad, so we know where I stand on the need for a flesh and blood male. Most of them are emotional wrecks anyhow.

But to hear Bill O’Reilly on his Fox News Show, you’d think the four horsemen were galloping up the road from Aniston’s Beverly Hills home. O’Reilly blasted Aniston for setting a poor example for young ‘uns and expressing ideas that are “destructive to society.”

Say what? You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to observe that single moms can do just fine by their kids (hello, President Obama!). And even this dude realizes that Aniston was speaking in the context of adult women of appropriate age to be having kids (NOT teenagers). Furthermore, the morbid statistics about homicide, incarceration and suicide bandied about by supporters of O’Reilly (in this case the Fatherhood Educational Institute) don’t take into account obvious mitigating factors – like poverty, poor education, and racism, all of which are more likely to be direct causes of the above societal problems than absentee fathers. I don’t have to dredge up my notes from Statistics 101 to remember that correlation does not equal causation.

So what’s really going on here? My 2 cents is that O’Reilly & Co are desperately jumping on Aniston to hog some of her mega-movie-publicity. Joke’s on them, since the controversy is only helping her film get valuable exposure. Aniston’s the kind of gal (my kind of gal) who gets the last laugh in life and love. To the tune of $7 million. Yeah, that’s how much more $$ she made than Brad Pitt last year.

But amid the hub-bub, an important point is lost. On a very basic, simple level, Aniston is right. Women now have more options and more choices when it comes to child-bearing and child-rearing than we ever have had before. Whether you happen to like it or not, single motherhood – by choice, by tragedy, by abandonment – is increasingly here to stay. As it goes in the post-dating era, so it goes in our post-modern era. Traditional expectations no longer hold sway.

But don’t take my word for it. In her pitch-perfect response to O’Reilly, Aniston defended modern women everywhere:

“Of course, the ideal scenario for parenting is obviously two parents of a mature age. Parenting is one of the hardest jobs on earth,” said Aniston to PEOPLE in an exclusive statement. “And, of course, many women dream of finding Prince Charming (with fatherly instincts), but for those who’ve not yet found their Bill O’Reilly, I’m just glad science has provided a few other options.”

I knew there was a reason I’ve had 17 versions of the Rachel haircut since 1994! (Jess can attest to that fact.)

All the many ways I’ve admired Aniston over all these many years feel summed up in her statement. We hope for love. We command respect. We strive to build our own, full lives, on our own, singular terms. Through it all, we have dignity – and a sense of humor.

I’d now wax poetic about how – in being empowered to create the lives we want – we are forging new and stronger bonds of family and support.

But WAIT! Aniston’s already done that. Way back in the original PEOPLE article from the beginning of the controversy.

“The point of [the movie The Switch] is what is it that defines family? It isn’t necessarily the traditional mother, father, two children and a dog named Spot…Love is love and family is what is around you and who is in your immediate sphere. That is what I love about this movie. It is saying it is not the traditional sort of stereotype of what we have been taught as a society of what family is.”

Take a cue from Aniston. Build the life and family you desire. Hold out for a love that is sustaining and real. Don’t be that hot chick with that douchebag.