The suggestion that Condoleezza Rice is incapable of understanding the anguish caused by American losses in Iraq because she has never had children has triggered a feminist firestorm.

Dr Rice was confronted during a hostile Senate hearing last week by Barbara Boxer, a California Democrat, who said that the Secretary of State had paid no personal price in Iraq because she had never married.

Asked about the accusation at a weekend press conference in Jerusalem, Dr Rice sighed theatrically before saying: “I think that being a single woman does not in any way make me incapable of understanding not just those sacrifices [of bereaved families] but also that nothing of value is ever won without sacrifice.”

Earlier, in an interview with Fox News, Dr Rice said: “Gee, I thought single women had come further than that.”

Rush Limbaugh, the conservative radio host, was rather more outspoken.

Referring to Ms Boxer, he said: “Here you have a rich white chick with a huge, big mouth, trying to lynch this, an African-American woman, right before Martin Luther King Day, hitting below the ovaries here.” The accusation also ignited the blogosphere, with one blog calling the clash “Womb Wars”.

Ms Boxer’s comments came as the Senate Foreign Relations Committee questioned Dr Rice about Mr Bush’s Iraqi surge plan. “Who pays the price?” Ms Boxer asked Dr Rice.

“I’m not going to pay a personal price. My kids are too old and my grandchild is too young. You’re not going to pay a particular price, as I understand it, with immediate family. So who pays the price? The American military and their families.”

Ms Boxer said her comments were being misconstrued, and that she had been trying to find common ground with Dr Rice.

“I spoke the truth at the committee hearing, which is that neither Secretary Rice nor I have family members that will pay the price for this escalation,” she said. Dr Rice is an only child and her parents are dead.

“My point was to focus attention on our military families who continue to sacrifice because this Administration has not developed a political solution to the situation in Iraq.”

Even the White House weighed in. “I don’t know if she [Senator Boxer] was being intentionally tacky,” Tony Snow. Mr Bush’s spokesman, said. “It’s a great leap backward for feminism.”

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