(FORTUNE Magazine) – Question of the month: What do American women think of the American women's movement? Actually, we had not formally identified that as the QOTM until the New York Times lengthily raised the question, boldly responded to it on page one, and then responded all over again on the editorial page. And -- would you believe it? -- the paper gave the wrong answer. The one it gave was quite positive. There is not a negative peep about the movement, either in the editorial or in any of the lengthy reports that began on page one on three successive days. We rate the omission significant at a + high level, as it required the Times to ignore a detail that some of its readers -- we can't be the only one -- must have spotted. They could have found it lurking in one of the many charts and tables that summarized responses to the paper's own survey data and festooned the articles. The survey was based on telephone interviews with 1,025 women and 472 men. To be slightly fair here, there were two questions about the movement. One was loaded and ambiguous. It asked you to agree or disagree with this statement: ''The United States continues to need a strong women's movement to push for changes that benefit women.'' Since everyone is in favor of benefiting women, it was hard to answer no, the more so in that a yes answer did not logically require you to believe that the existing women's movement is the one we are talking about. So majorities of both women (67%) and men (51%) weighed in on the affirmative side. These answers were then leaned on heavily in the reporter's lead, and again in the editorial, to support the view that (as the editorial put it) ''feminism . . . has put down deep, strong roots.'' The other question was unloaded and unambiguous. It asked whether the women's movement had achieved anything that ''made your life better.'' This time the question clearly referred to the existing women's movement -- to outfits like the National Organization for Women -- not to hypothetical benefit-providers in the future. Addressing this question, only 25% of the women -- and 15% of the men -- answered in the affirmative. These answers went oddly or possibly not oddly unnoticed in the editorial commentary. The editors also averted their gaze from the portion of their survey that indicated a high level of opposition to abortion among American women. Evidencing minimal attachment to the feminist creed, only 45% of women support existing laws on abortion, while 52% want substantial restrictions. The 52% is broken down into 13% who want no abortions under any circumstances and 39% who would allow it only in cases of rape, incest, or threats to the mother's life. This abortion news did not make it into the Times at all, not even in tabular form. (We learned about it when the paper gamely sent us a copy of the entire survey.) Possibly it is not rated fit to print. It would certainly be tough to print if you are committed to the view that women are enamored of the women's movement.