May 2006 Archives

On Inkwell--the Independent Women's Forum blog--why is it that VP Carrie Lukas' posts get the fancy blue font? And why no comments section, gals?

Just wondering.

The Sioux Falls Argus Leader is running a poll about whether or not the South Dakota abortion ban should be overturned. Right now it's split exactly 50/50.

Why not spend 30 seconds to influence the results?

Thanks to Cari for the heads up!

I just can't wait for all the comments about how "good feminists" don't support pornography. Anyways...

If you're in Toronto today, you can check out Vixens+Visionaries: Female erotic directors revolutionizing porn. The event includes feminist porn producers Tristan Taormino, Dana Dane, Angela Phong, Abiola Adams, and Jen Bowers of SMUT Magazine.

There will also be highlights of new erotic work by female directors and the first ever Feminist Porn Awards.

The South Dakota Campaign for Healthy Families has gotten more than 38,000 signatures on a petition aiming to repeal the abortion ban by putting it on the November ballot.

The petition was filed Tuesday afternoon with the secretary of state’s office. If at least 16,728 signatures are certified as valid, the scheduled July 1 implementation of the ban would be nullified and voters would be allowed to decide the issue in a November election.

“This law is just not feasible and is just very extreme,� Dr. Maria Bell, an obstetrician who helped sponsor the petition drive, said at a news conference.

Thelma Underberg, executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice South Dakota, said “South Dakotans signed up to fight this threat to women's health. It is an attack on the fundamental values of freedom and privacy that we cherish.�

Now comes the work leading up to the vote...

By the way, send an email to the folks at The South Dakota Campaign for Healthy Families and thank them for all of their hard work. They really are doing amazing stuff.

Get ready to lose your shit.

The Abstinence Clearinghouse is hosting a Leadership Conference in Kansas next week with all of the usual misinformation and scare tactics. But this year is a little different. This year has a theme. Wait for it...The Wizard of Oz.

The movie shows a classic struggle of a lost girl and her misfit friends finding their way, against great odds and in the face of risk to reach their full potential. Many of the scenes and themes in this classic movie can be allegories for today's youth.

Ok, you want a cheesy conference theme? Sure. But the wicked witch of abstinence-only ed, Leslee Unruh, is taking it to the next level.

Just check out some of the panel titles:

If I Only Had a Brain: The Effects of Sex on Brain Physiology

A Horse of a Different Color (This is a group of hip hop dancers. Ahem.)

And my personal favorite: Ding, Dong, the Witch is Dead! Which Old Witch? (The "Safe-Sex" Witch)

I couldn't make this shit up if I tried.

Also, there's a jingle. A jingle!

The New York Times reports the ghastly news that petites sections are disappearing from high-end department stores, and some short, older, mostly wealthy (these stores are expensive) women are upset.

While stores may appear to be "long obsessed with that Seventh Avenue archetype, the tall, thin, leggy lady," I can say definitively, as a slender woman who's 6'2", they don't actually make clothes to fit us, either. My inseam is 36 inches. which means the average pair of pants is between six and four inches too short for me. Sleeve length is an even bigger issue-- I've gotten used to bare wrists.

I certainly have nothing against shorter women, but I can't help but get pissed off when I read articles like this. Women who are shorter than 5'3" have more clothing options than many of us on other ends of the spectrum. You can always have clothes taken in and shortened, but you can't magically extend sleeves and pant legs (or expand waistlines or bustlines, for that matter). So some while short women are whining about not being able to find whole sections of clothing tailored to fit them, I have NEVER seen a section of a store devoted to attire for the long-limbed.

But I'll also say that I've never met any woman who doesn't complain about finding clothes to fit her body. The traditional sizing system is seriously flawed. It doesn't work for women of a variety of shapes. Stores that have switched to more specific sizing-- a variety of cuts, lengths, widths, etc.-- have been met with rave reviews.

This is why I learned to sew. I'm much happier for it.

Sonic Youth
Rather Ripped
Geffen Records (2006)

Indie rock legends Sonic Youth burst out of the summer music pack with their latest album, Rather Ripped, to be released June 13 on Geffen Records. Though predictably unpredictable in terms of musical experimentation, the group delivers its characteristic guitar renderings and thoughtful lyricism, appealing to devoted fans and new initiates alike.

The former five-piece has been trimmed to four, as producer and multi-instrumentalist Jim O’Rourke left the band to pursue his film studies. Over the final days of 2005 and into early this year, the band recorded and mixed twelve new songs, each with a touch of sonic splendor and liberation that SY is known for.

Rather Ripped begins with driving tracks “Reena� and “Incinerate� and quickly transitions to curious and midbeat “Do You Believe in Rapture?� The trademark guitar sound is present on “Sleeping Around� and “Turquoise Boy.� Quirky, art-punk verse is found throughout. On “Rats,� a song that speaks of closeness and separation with lyrics such as “You could be my open road/You could be the reason why/You could ease my heavy load/But I’m gonna freeze you out.�

For those familiar with Sonic Youth, the new album doesn’t map much new territory, but for newbies, the only thing you can expect about the noise rock troubadours is their inventiveness. The band’s appearance on the season finale of Gilmore Girls further confirms the group’s status in the mainstream. In sleepy album closer “Or,� co-vocalist Thurston Moore asks, “What comes first, the music or the words?� Thankfully for us, both aspects are present, strong and carry through to the end.

SY+YYYs in an empty Williamsburg pool this August = Y can't I be a New York girl? Presale tix start in mere hours, so get on with it here.

Peep the song titles and lyrics and stream the album here.

We're moving up in the world. The fabulous Angie Vo has just joined Feministing as a Reviews Editor. (Again, we like titles.) So please give her a warm welcome.

Angie, 23, is a Missouri-born, Wisconsin-based journalism grad who focused on Biology and Women’s Studies. Every Wednesday, this pop culture maven will review music, books, movies, you name it. So if you have something that needs reviewing...you know who to go to.

We're super excited to have her on and to defer to her judgment on all things pop.

This is too cool.

Batwoman - real name Kathy Kane - will appear in 52, a year-long DC Comics publication that began this month.

In her latest incarnation, she is a rich socialite who has a romantic history with another 52 character, ex-police detective Renee Montoya.

52 will be published in the UK as a graphic novel by Titan Books in 2007.

I love it. And I don’t even read comics. (Though I may now.)

Random question: Why was it necessary for the above article to describe the new Batwoman as a “lipstick lesbian?�

An Ohio man's domestic violence conviction was voided last week because he wasn't married to the woman he abused. Dallas McKinley was convicted of a fourth-degree felony after he pushed his girlfriend, hit her and threw objects at her. The ruling, as it stands, leaves prosecutors with the option of seeking a lesser charge.

This is all because the state of Ohio would rather allow domestic violence without consequences than let gay couples get married. The state's constitutional amendment banning gay marriage has made domestic violence law only applicable to married couples.

It guess it's a good thing violence only happens in state-sanctioned relationships. Riiight.

The New York Times had an interesting piece up yesterday on Kuwaiti women and their recently-won right to run for parliament.

Elections had been scheduled for summer 2007, the first since women were given the right to vote and run for office in 2005. But on May 21, Kuwait's ruler, Sheik Sabah Al Ahmed Al Sabah, dissolved the all-male 50-member parliament because of a rowdy dispute over election laws and ordered early elections June 29.

Women who thought they had more than a year to plan their campaigns had only five weeks.

''The advantage is that we will be working and concentrating harder,'' said Fatima al-Abdali, who submitted her application to run on the first day of registration last week.

Um, yeah. But damn that can’t be easy--especially when folks are still getting used to the idea of women in politics. 17 women have registered as candidates so far.

"Ex-gay" Janet Boynes in a recent podcast interview:

From what I know I believe there’s 80% of women, between 80 and 85% of women that are struggling with homosexuality were either raped by someone they knew or somebody outside of that normally there’s some type of rape or some kind of molestation in our past.

So watch out gals, rape will make a lezzie out of you.

Brought to you by the fabulous Pam Spaulding.

...but my newly-bought Stella scooter is being delivered this week and I am freaking psyched. And naturally I'm cooking up a Feministing logo decal for it. I have no shame.

A new website denouncing contraception has cropped up, touting itself as part of the Contra-Contraception Movement. But unlike the wacky folks that are “mischaracterized� in a recent NY Times mag piece, Contra-Contraception.com claims that they are a secular group simply pushing the benefits of “organic sex.�

Many women, in an effort to live healthily, who have turned to organic and unprocessed foods. They have come to also realized that artificial contraception isn't very healthy either, and that its numerous side effects should be avoided. They believe that thee [sic] negative effects of artificial contraceptives should not be minimized for sake of convenience, and the truth should not be distorted for the sake of political ideology.

Organic foods have come of age, so isn't it time that "organic sex" comes of age also? More and more couples believe so.

But what exactly is organic sex? Its sex without contraception -- natural sex of course! Pregnancy can be avoided or achieved through the use of Natural Family Planning (NFP).

It’s the Age of Aquarius, didn’t ya know? Advocating natural family planning on this site wouldn’t bother me so much if it wasn’t completely disingenuous. Contra-Contraception isn’t some site run by organic-sex loving folks who are worried about the health implications of hormonal birth control--it’s actually a (very) thinly-veiled anti-choice site run by the same people who created No Room for Contraception. The language on Contra-Contraception is almost identical to that of No Room for Contraception, and all the “news� links lead there. Real slick.

If you don’t remember the No Room for Contraception campaign, it’s run by the extremely non-secular Mary Worthington who compared emergency contraception to assisted suicide and wrote an article, Did contraception lead to homosexuality? So yeah, no free love hippies there.

It never ceases to amaze me how easily anti-choicers--who claim to be in the moral right--will resort to lying and misrepresentation to push their agenda.

From Broadsheet we learn that towns that the Pope will be visiting this summer are planning on banning a number of unholy things--including alcohol, some desserts, and tampon commercials.

Because Catholics don’t have vaginas.

New studies are looking into why lung cancer affects women differently than men; it could be our dear friend estrogen.

Lung cancer will kill 72,000 women this year--more than breast, ovarian, uterine and cervical cancers combined.

[Dr. Kathy Albain] is heading a National Cancer Institute-funded study that is recruiting 720 newly diagnosed lung cancer patients to examine what hormones, genes or other molecular factors explain why lung cancer behaves differently in men and women, smokers and nonsmokers.

"We're learning what's going on in the lung, and whether or not this is a real thing that can be exploited for cancer treatment," she says.

Estrogen already is a leading suspect.

One study reports that estrogen may “act as a fuel for lung tumors just like it does for many breast tumors, and that blocking estrogen with the same drugs that breast cancer patients use might also work in the lungs.� Another study looking at an experimental cancer drug shows that women (who took the drug) with the most estrogen in their blood had the best survival rate. Go figure.

Oh, and stop smoking please.

And Jessica's insane move-out, Feministing is taking the day off. We will resume posting tomorrow.

Thanks!

Madeleine Shaw would never be caught taking a pill to stop her period. In fact, she loves and honors her period. And wishes more women would, too.

Based in Vancouver, British Columbia, Madeleine [below right with business partner Suzanne Siemens] is the founder and partner of Lunapads International Products Ltd. Madeleine, now 38, had a lot of different career ambitions in her life, including being part of the foreign service, a fashion designer, and a social worker. But designing and making washable menstrual products ended up being her calling. And her feminist vehicle for change. Here’s Madeleine…

This is just horrifying.

Since the Turkish government began cracking down on honor killings last year, a new trend is currently being investigated by the UN: serial suicides among young girls and women.

These incidents have been occurring mostly in the Kurdish southeast. An example is in Batman, where 10 of the 14 people who have committed suicide have been women and girls under the age of 23. (A few were as young as 12 years old.)

Activists are saying that these girls and women are being forced by their families to commit suicide because male relatives that usually commit honor killings are being given life sentences under a new penal code. In result, these girls are being told that if they don’t kill themselves, their father or brother will have to go to jail.

Others speculate that some are being murdered and then presented as suicide to the authorities. The UN Special Reporter on Violence Against Women, Yakin Erturk, is being sent to the area to find out exactly what is happening.

Amnesty International estimates that between a third and half of women living in Turkey suffer from some form of domestic violence.

While I must admit I couldn’t help giggling when this columnist told golf prodigy Michelle Wie, “You go, girl!�, at least he pointed out the lack of support and respect that she should be getting from fellow professional golfers.

U.S. Open Champion Michael Campbell was asked last week about Wie being given a sponsor’s exemption to play against men in a European Tour event this coming fall. He replies:

"I can go two different ways with this question. I can be politically correct and say it's wonderful to see Michelle Wie at a European Tour event and promote it. Or I could say she's got to prove herself that she can win on the women's tour before she can have a chance to play on the men's tour. . . Michelle Wie is obviously a wonderful talent, but she needs to prove herself."

Of course, because women need to go that extra mile to prove that they’re “just as good as the guys.� Ugh.

Another article discussing the debate on childbirth was in BBC News today on how despite The Royal College of Midwives’ warning that too many women are having unnecessary caesareans, the rate in the UK has not gone down -- presently, 1 in 4 babies are delivered by caesarean. (Compared to 1 in 5 five years ago.)

While the Department of Health seems to believe that the caesarean rate is not a problem, experts have been trying to decrease the number of women who get the surgery when they don’t really need it, which is dubbed as “Too posh to push.�

Even Deputy General Secretary Louise Silverton noted, "Women may choose Caesarean section due to their fear of the labour, because it is suggested by a doctor, or they see media stars having caesareans as a 'lifestyle choice'."

That just scares me. With this whole obsession with pregnancy and "hot mommies" in Hollywood right now, would women really cut their tummies open because Angelina Jolie did it?? (“Like, that stomach scar is just so hot right now.�)

I’d like to think not.

Nerve pointed out yesterday how the new Ford ad has got the American Family Association’s panties up in a bunch. The new ad is a commercial that features two lesbians kissing. The audacity! Their response:

"Notice the wording at the bottom of the ad: 'Standing strong with America's families...' Since this ad was run in a homosexual publication, evidently Ford considers two homosexuals to be a 'family.'"

And you just figured this out?

You can find all of their ridiculous rants on the new site specifically created just for their Ford boycott. Their latest: “Ford supports polygamous homosexuality!�

According to this new study, people who have traditionally female usernames in chat rooms receive 25 times more threatening and sexually inappropriate messages than people with traditionally male or even ambiguous usernames.

Damn.

As Wisconsin gets tougher on laws pertaining to sex offenders and child molesters, they recently developed a pretty interesting way of tracking and monitoring convicted child molesters.

via UPI.

Wisconsin has enacted a law that requires paroled child molesters to wear a Global Positioning System tracking device for at least 20 years.

"Expanded GPS will help law enforcement know exactly where these people are every minute of every day," said Gov. Jim Doyle as he signed the bill into law Monday in Madison.

Under the system, warnings would be issued if a sex offender gets near a school, park or other places frequented by children, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported Tuesday.

This is an interesting idea, but a little creepy. Like let's not try and help rehabilitate your disorder, instead perpetuate it with extensive monitoring. But then again, I would want to know if there are child molesters hanging out around the elementary school that I work in.

Thoughts?

Thanks to Maz for the link.

Four women were arrested for protesting schools that are turning away poor children that are unable to pay their school fees.

The women were part of a group involved in a community based protest aimed at both Government and Council schools, which have continued to turn away children for non-payment of fees.

The women delivered messages to schools in Bulawayo and Harare requesting that Headmasters stop sending children away for non-payment of fees.
In Chitungwiza, over 200 women visited three schools, namely Fungisai Government, Farai Council and Seke High Schools.

I mean that is pretty low.

via African News Dimension.

In the face of several problematic policies and economic transactions that have taken natural resources and seed ownership out of the hands of female farmers in several third world contexts, the government of India is attempting to give back some power to the very same women that have for many generations been the caretakers of the environment.

With the burden of environmental degradation being largely borne by the women living within and in the periphery of forests, the government has come out with a proposal to empower women to ensure sustenance of natural resources.

“It is essential that women play a greater role in the management of natural resources,� official sources said quoting the national environment policy (NEP), which was recently approved by the Union Cabinet.

They (women) have to bear the burden of natural resources degradation and also have little control over the management of these resources, the sources said.

The policy talks of incorporating relevant provisions of the national policy for the empowerment of women, which provides a framework for addition of elements towards protection of natural resources through women empowerment, sources said.

via Financial Express.

If I'm scarce the next couple of days it's because I'm moving out of my much-beloved Brooklyn loft. Damn building is going condo and I'm moving my ass to the boonies of Woodstock, NY for the summer.

Random fact: they don't have a cell tower there, so my new neat Blackberry will be useless. So depressing.

So please be patient if we're posting a little less than normal over the next couple of days. I'll be acclimating myself to trees, lakes, and drum circles.

As if yesterday's post on the asshats that were dressed like Duke lacrosse players at Beta Breakers chanting "No means yes," was not enough, this just troubles me so much further. The women's lacrosse team of Duke is planning on wearing bracelets saying, "innocent" in their game against Northwestern. The complex system of issues this brings up for me is profound, but when it comes down to it, all I can think is how stupid of them. This is indeed the type of solidarity that often makes our culture intolerable for me.

via AP.

In a show of solidarity with the Duke University men’s lacrosse team, members of the school’s women’s team plan to wear sweatbands with the word “Innocent� written on them.

The university canceled the rest of the season for the highly ranked men’s team because of a woman’s complaint she was raped in March at a team party where she had been hired to strip.

The women’s plan to wear sweatbands on their arms or legs was reported Wednesday by The Herald-Sun of Durham. The teams plays Northwestern in the NCAA semifinals Friday.

The university has no objection to this, but you know damn well if they were wearing armbands reading, "Kill those Nazi rapists," they would. But really, this is not only an example of how (white in this case) women are complicit in their own oppression but also involved in the silencing and vicitimization of women of color. I mean they are making themselves look so stupid to stand in solidarity with accused rapists. Have gender relations in upper middle class white world shifted such a small bit? I mean really?

Would David Usher tell us this is an example of feminism "taking over" Duke? My head spins in horror.

Similar to the trend in California and other parts of the United States, it seems that Great Britain has also found the need to shut down female prisons, to make space for the high rates of male incarceration. Why is this a feminist issue? A varity of reasons. First of all, why is the rate of male incarceration going up in the UK and world-wide? This is a gendered problem where constructions of masculinity are in fact affecting crime rates. Furthermore, as women's prisons are shut down they are forced into smaller, more overcrowded prisons with less resources and less ability to rehabilitate.

via BBC.

But Deborah Coles of Inquest said the news was concerning.

"The pressure this re-roling will place on already overcrowded, poorly resourced women's prisons cannot be underestimated and is potentially life-threatening," she said.

"The recent reduction in overcrowding across the women's prison estate was seen as one of the reasons for the decrease in suicide rates amongst women in prison in 2005-2006.

"It would be a great shame to see a reversal of this trend and suggests the welfare of women is a low priority on the Home Office agenda."

Juliet Lyon, director of the Prison Reform Trust, said instead of putting the women into other "bleak establishments" the Home Office should put the vast majority into the drug and alcohol treatment or mental healthcare they desperately need.

The race and class of women that these regressive policies affect is overlooked (mostly poor women of color), but usually a reason that these types of policies tend to go unoticed.

Unlike Jessica, I'm not very freaked out by the idea of birth control pills that don't create a monthly period. Research is scant on the long-term health effects of using monthly birth control pills versus a trimonthly or no-period regimen, but we do know:

Early oral contraceptive developers selected a regimen of 21 days of active drug followed by 7 hormone-free days to mimic the average menstrual cycle. They believed such a regimen would be perceived as more "natural," thereby making the new product more acceptable to potential users, prescribers, and the Roman Catholic church. [...] Oral contraceptive users have limited endometrial buildup and do not require monthly shedding of the lining. Despite the appearance of being "natural," the OC withdrawal bleed is medically induced and has no proven physiologic or health benefits.

I don't see extended oral contraceptives as "treatment" for menstruation, or an implication that menstruation is a dirty thing that should be avoided. This is just another birth control option. One drawback to never getting a period is losing that monthly assurance that you're not pregnant. And many people have, rightly, pointed out the lack of long-term research on continuous use of oral contraceptives. But that should be a health risk that women can choose to take if they're informed by their doctor. For many women, like those who suffer from endometriosis, their periods are so painful that they're more than willing to take the long-term risk. We shouldn't knock "not menstruating" just because some of us aren't comfortable with that choice.

Interestingly, there's been research done on the costs of having a monthly period versus taking the Pill continuously. Maybe the cost of oral contraceptives (or tampons) has changed since then, but researchers found it was cheaper to menstruate monthly.

Entirely separate from the medical issue, Amanda points out that using the term "natural" to describe monthly menstruation is dangerous territory:

If you buy into the idea that it’s somehow better to bleed than to not, you’re buying into a mythology of the sanctity of feminine “naturalness� that exists predominantly to oppress women. [...] But what’s critical to me is that feminists get as far the fuck away as possible from being swayed by arguments about whether or not something is “natural�. If you criticize the pill or women who resent their periods because they aren’t “natural�, you’re feeding the beast that will lead to contraception bans so that women can return to our “natural� state of having one in you and one on you at all points in time.

Agreed.

Damn.

Experts of South Asia Region (SAR)said that about 100,000 people are trafficked annually in SAR, state-run Radio Nepal reported here Tuesday.

"Majority of the trafficked are young women and girls and many of them are trafficked for the purpose of exploitation and prostitution," speakers said at the three-day Regional High Level Meeting on Human Trafficked and HIV: Sharing of Good Practices Stocktaking and Moving Forward that kicked off here on Monday.

"Human Trafficking in SAR has taken many forms and occur for a variety of purpose like organ transplant, bonded labor, domestic servitude, sex trade, hazardous labor, marriage, illegal adoption and pornography," the radio quoted the speakers as saying.

via China View.

I'll admit to indulging in the occasional game of Dance Dance Revolution or its spinoff, Karaoke Revolution. But the latest in the video game series, Maiden Love Revolution, is truly disgusting.

Players assume the role of 220-pound Hitomi Sakurakawa as she struggles to slim down - mostly by restricting her diet. To advance, Hitomi must count calories and increase her exercise. The game keeps stats on her progress and ultimately rewards her conformity with a boyfriend.

Because thin is synonymous with self-improvement, and a boyfriend is the ultimate reward. Ugh. Why didn't they call it Eating Disorder Revolution?

Sort of. Lynn over at Broadsheet has a great post (and follow-up) on Newsweek's "re-evaluation" of its 1986 story about marriage, Too Late for Prince Charming? (retch), which claimed that college-educated women who are still single at age 35 have only a 5 percent chance of ever getting married. Some researchers now put the odds at 40 percent.

Wonder if the editors at Newsweek sent Susan Faludi a note that said, "Whoops! Sorry! Our bad." Faludi (who isn't mentioned in the "update") debunked the original article in her 1991 book Backlash, which not only illustrated why a feminist movement was still necessary, but also proved that a feminist book could crack the bestseller list. Faludi wrote, "If anyone faced a shortage of potential spouses, it was men in the prime marrying years." Today Newsweek admits that, even in 1986-- before fertility treatments and "Sex and the City" made it OK to be over 35 and single-- a 40-year-old woman really had a 23 percent chance of marrying. I'm no statistician, but that's a bit higher than 5 percent.

I wonder if, 20 years from now, we can expect the New York Times to admit they had it all wrong about professional women "opting out." I'm not holding my breath.

I love me some good news.

The Rhode Island Department of Education ruled last week that schools should stop participating in a federally funded abstinence only ed program:

Last Wednesday, the state Department of Education (RIDE) Commissioner Peter McWalters sent a letter to all school districts stating the program, run by Heritage Rhode Island, had been deemed inconsistent with the Rhode Island’s education standards. "This program should therefore not be offered as part of the public school health curriculum," he said.

McWalters’s decision came partially in response to a complaint filed with the Department of Education last fall by the Rhode Island arm of the American Civil Liberties Union (RI ACLU).

In a letter sent to McWalters, RI ACLU director Steven Brown said the Heritage program used false information about sexually transmitted diseases and conveyed negative stereotypes of homosexuals and women to students. Additionally, the ACLU charged, Heritage invaded student’s privacy by collecting information about sexual activity.

Damn. Sounds real “educational.� I’m glad that the states are taking some action over these ridiculous programs. I’m wondering if there are any parent-led initiatives to put an end to abstinence-only ed. I know if this was going on in my kids’ school, I’d be livid.

According to this new study, women who have a high intake of dairy are five times more likely to have twins than women with a low or no intake. That’s just weird. (As well as terrifying; I have an unhealthy obsession with cheese.)

Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle signed a bill yesterday that will require all sex education classes in the state to put an extra-special emphasis on abstinence.

A spokesman for the governor assured that most Wisconsin schools already take that approach. So why make it mandatory? They probably don’t even have orgies in the classrooms until the very end of the term!

It makes enough sense -- instead of trying to replace sex education with abstinence-only education, the sex-haters thought they might as well just try to change the actual curriculum of sex ed itself.

Sounds like some kind of faux compromise that’s just going to get worse.

Now that the HPV vaccine is in the process of being passed by the FDA and its price has been rounded to the nearest hundred, cervical cancer is already being deemed as “the poor woman’s disease.�

Sigh.

Contributed by Courtney E. Martin.

As long as I’ve been loving hip hop, I’ve also been hating it. Like most female fans, I’m drawn in by the lyricism, good dance beats, protest vibe, and, let’s be honest, the hot rappers. But I’ve also been repelled. The video ho culture disgusts me. The violent lyrics make me want to run right back to the Indigo Girls. Old school music is great; old school misogyny is weak.

That’s why I was thrilled that Byron Hurt’s documentary, Beyond Beats and Rhymes: A Hip-Hop Head Weighs in on Manhood in Hip Hop Culture, was at BAM’s Sundance series last weekend. Hurt was refreshingly earnest, if not a bit overzealous, in his 90 minute exploration of masculinity in hip hop.

The film’s got great footage. Hurt captures Busta Rhymes leaving the interview like a coward the second homosexuality comes up. (To my horror, Mos Def followed right on Busta’s heels.) He’s also got the CEO of BET giving him a pointed brush-off the second he brings up video ho culture and Russell Simmons looking like a fool trying to shrug off his own responsibility. In contrast, Chuck D was so articulate and insightful I wanted to elect him president of something important.

My favorite parts were when Hurt hung around with wantabee rappers outside of BET festivals and the like, recording their tired lyricism, then confronting them directly afterwards about their violent/sexist messages. 17-year-old dudes posing as hard thugs a moment before instantly became sweet-eyed boys admitting that they don’t slang rock, they slang water—that this is the only persona they know will get them noticed. Essentially, a generation of teenage boys has decided that putting on 21st century black face is worth it for a record deal.

Go to www.bhurt.com to learn more. Beyond Beats and Rhymes will definitely be playing on PBS next spring.

No charges. No hearing. No access to an attorney. Incarcerated in isolation.

Nah, I'm not talking about suspected terrorists. This is, apparently, how officials in Akron, Ohio treat 14-year-old sex abuse victims.

A teenage girl was jailed for 12 days as a material witness against the man who molested her. She was released today. But as her lawyer Eddie Sipplen points out, "By no means does this mean it's over. She must now deal with the trauma of being isolated in an adult jail for almost two weeks."

Because the girl failed to show up to testify at her accused abuser's trial, authorities-- and her own mother-- thought she'd be better off in jail. They feared she would try to run away.

The mother said Monday that if it was illegal to jail her daughter, she supported the decision to release her. "I hope she's learned her lesson," she said. "But I will be there for her, support her and love her."

Learned what lesson? That victims deserve to relive or be punished for the crimes perpetrated against them? How is it possible that anyone decided an adult jail was the best place for this girl? It's no wonder she's blaming herself:

"I felt so alone for a while,'' she said. "I missed my family.... It was just a dumb mistake."

This is just too depressing.

Twisty and Jill have more.

Contributed by Jessica Wakeman

Tonight at 9 p.m. EST, my favorite PBS show, Frontline, will be screening, "Sex Slaves," which will investigates the practice that traps women from the impoverished Eastern European countries Moldova and Ukraine in organized sexual slavery. Pretty scary stuff.

Check your local listings.

Now, I'd like to consider myself a gal with a good sense of humor. But this shit is so not funny.

This weekend was the Bay to Breakers race in San Francisco, where folks do a footrace while dressing up and doing some outdoor partying.

Apparently some guys thought this was a great opportunity to dress up like Duke lacrosse players and chant "No means yes!" I wish I was joking. I can't even fathom the level of stupidity that someone would need to do something like this.

One more pic after the jump. (Notice the logo on the shirts? Sigh.)

Thanks to Andy for the heads up.

Pat Summitt, coach of the University of Tennessee's Lady Vols basketball team, is the first woman coach to break the $1 million mark in her contract.

The new agreement raises Summitt’s total compensation package to $1.125 million for the 2006-07 season and an average of $1.3 million for the life of the contract.

...Summitt just completed her 32nd season as the Lady Vols coach. She surpassed the 900-victory plateau and currently stands as the winningest coach in Division I with 913 victories.

Sweet.

Yikes.

Lucy Kibaki has been causing quite a ruckus after saying that young people shouldn’t be using condoms to prevent HIV.

"Those who are still in school have no business having access to condoms. Those who are in university and are not married have no business having condoms in their halls of residence," she told schoolgirls in the capital, Nairobi, on Thursday evening.

Kibaki, who (scarily) chairs the Organisation of the 40 African First Ladies Against HIV/Aids, pushed abstinence as the only preventative measure young people should be using.

Naturally, HIV/AIDS activists in the area are freaking out.

A message of love from the folks who brought you my favorite abstinence shirt.

Who knew Satan was so political? I also love that this is in quotes. Did someone from ChristianShirts.net get an exclusive Dark Lord interview?

Because clearly, we are very glamourous.

The Oklahoma Senate passed a bill last week chock full of restrictions on abortion.

Sponsored by Sen. Don Barrington (R), the bill would require parental consent for minors seeking to obtain abortions and would give state funds to anti-choice "pregnancy crisis" centers. But that’s not all. It would also require doctors to tell women about “fetal pain� and say that anesthesia could be given, and would encourage women to view a sonogram before obtaining an abortion.

Can you say scare tactics?

The bill is on its way to Gov. Brad Henry.

As an update to Samhita's post a couple of months ago, check out this piece on how gun makers are trying to market to women. Great. (I know some ladies like their pistols, but I’m sorry--they just freak me the fuck out.)

"Any shotgun I get, I have to get cut off. Not a lot of lady models are shorter," said [Kay] Clark Miculek, 49, who owns Clark Guns, in Bossier City and runs camps throughout the country teaching women to shoot.

But she knows that gun makers are now coming out with shorter, lighter shotguns, new grips on handguns and flashier designs, all of which attract women buyers.

Manufacturers are tweaking their products and changing how they approach the burgeoning female market, which is estimated to be worth at least $285 million this year in firearm sales alone.

Damn. I don’t really buy the whole women-need-guns-for-self-defense stuff. And I’m from NYC, so I don’t do the hunting thing either. (Plus, Bambi. Nuff said.)

Any “lady� firearm aficionados out there?

Related: Check out Gun Women: Firearms and Feminism in Contemporary America

Feministing got a mention in the San Francisco Chronicle. Neat.

This educational video from Planned Parenthood really is a must-watch. I mean, who doesn't love talking genitals? (Though I have to admit the pre-ejaculate on Mr. Penis' head made me cringe.)

Via Feministe.

Sorry, I’ll use any excuse to post a pic of a stuffed tampon.

The Associated Press reports that period-stopping birth control methods are becoming increasingly popular among young women.

I don’t know about you, but this freaks me out:

Stephanie Sardinha, 22, hasn't had a period since she was 17. A college student in Lisbon Falls, Maine, Sardinha uses NuvaRing, a vaginal contraceptive ring. After the hormones run out in three weeks, she replaces the ring right away instead of following instructions to leave it out for a week to allow menstruation.

I know periods can be a pain, but the idea of not having one seem so bizarre to me. But according to doctors, it’s no big thing-especially if you’re already on the pill.

"If you're choosing contraception, then there's not a lot of point to having periods," said Dr. Leslie Miller, a University of Washington-Seattle researcher and associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology whose Web site, www.noperiod.com, explains the option. She points out that women on hormonal contraception don't have real periods anyway, just withdrawal bleeding during the break from the hormone progestin.

Miller also says that women today have nine times as many periods as our great-grandmothers--we’ll have about 450 periods in our life. (That’s a lot of Midol.)

All that considered, it still seems a little sketchy to me. We don’t know what the long-term effects are of not menstruating. Though I’m wary of anything hormonal anymore--I was on the pill for over ten years and since I went off I’ve felt fab. Anyone taking period-stoppers want to weigh in?

...that I'm not sorry to be moving out of the hipster mecca of Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

Check out #9 on Gawker's Blue States Lose.

This Sunday’s Modern Love column in The New York Times deals with the trials and tribulations of dating while feminist: Changing My Feminist Mind, One Man at a Time.

Kind of hokey, but interesting nonetheless. The sentiment I could relate to most: “Friends wondered why I couldn't leave my politics at the door and just go on a date for goodness sake.�

My dating life and feminist sensibilities have clashed on more than one occasion, but my politics have never really kept me from having an (ahem) active love life.

Thoughts?

From The Washington Times: Working mothers don't breast-feed enough

The babies are starving because you’re working!!

Seriously though, I’m sure that there is a decrease in breast-feeding when you’re working--you can’t drag your kid around on your tit all day. Employers tend to scoff at that kind of thing.

Of course breast-feeding is important--but why focus on how “maternal employment can be a liability,� instead of why workplaces aren’t more flexible and accommodating to new mothers?

It’s nice to start off the week with some good news.

Legislation requiring physicians to furnish the state with additional information when they perform abortions was vetoed Friday by Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, who said it crossed the line on privacy issues.

The bill would have required physicians to inform state health officials about each late-term abortion and whether the fetus was abnormal. It also would have expanded how much information doctors would have had to report, including how a woman would have been harmed without the procedure.

Because if she wasn’t going to be hurt that bad, than she should have been forced to continue the pregnancy obviously. Ugh.

Sebelius said that the bill would “force women to provide intimate, sensitive health information to the government.� Which of course was the point.

Americans and Western Europeans don't agree on what's normal and acceptable teen sexual behavior. But many health experts do.

When U.S. Army Specialist Jennifer Scala entered the courtroom to testify against her fellow Abu Ghraib guard Sgt. Michael J. Smith, she carried a copy of Inga Muscio's Cunt. Nerve's Ada Calhoun explains what that means for feminism's Third Wave.

The CDC conference panel on abstinence was changed "due to political pressures from up above."

A critique of Caitlin Flanagan's critics: "The feminist warriers ... embody the worst stereotypes that their enemies have promulgated about them: their reading of Flanagan has been doggedly ideological, humorless, and petulant."

Arizona residents can now eat out at the Pink Taco.

Check out Amnesty International's online action for the women of Darfur.

The Times of London interviews Catherine MacKinnon.

Women in California prisons are expected to give birth to 300 babies this year, so officials are opening the state's first-ever prison nursery.

So on Friday I smartly spent 20 dollars to go see the Mr. Hyphen pageant, which was hands down one of the most fun events I have been to all year. The purpose of the pageant was to honor Asian American men in the work they do in their communities, to debunk the stereotype that Asian men are not sexy and to raise some cash for Hyphen Magazine.

Oh and they are sexy. My boy Robin ended up winning and is now Mr. Hyphen (because he is amazing and when asked in the Q&A what message he would send out if he were to be Mr. Hyphen, he responded, " a dismantling of patriarchy!" HELLO!)

The other contestants were all very talented and doing amazing work within their respective communities, but it really did get me to thinking about the pageant structure and how patriarchy does function within the Asian American communities when it comes to community based activism.

Why is it that a male pageant gets to be all political and focused on the work that the men are doing (even though they did have a sleepwear part, w00t!) and women's pageants, even within the Asian American community (such as Ms Chinatown) still focus on looks and *gendered* talents (singing, dancing, etc.)?

And I totally agree with working within ones community for change, but why is so much of that change led by men and why is it still centered around VERY gendered stereotypes of Asian men and women? Furthermore, is there still a need for race/ethnicity/country of origin based community activism or should we be spending our energy talking across difference?

On the other hand, this was a great event because I am ALL about honoring some amazing feminist Asian American men and to break stereotypes (especially sexual) about Asian American men.

All in all it was some good fun and I sure walked out a little, shall we say, sweaty.

A new study shows that the "mountain" states have the highest level of incarceration rates for women.

According to the Women's Prison Association, the number of female state inmates serving sentences of more than a year grew by 757 percent between 1977 and 2004, nearly twice the 388 percent increase for men, the report said. The surge was most notable in the Mountain States, where the number of women in prison soared by 1,600 percent, the report said.

According to statistics cited in the report, Colorado had 72 female inmates in 1977 and 1,900 in 2004, while comparable numbers increased from 28 to 647 in Idaho, from 2 to 473 in Montana, from 187 to 2,545 in Arizona and from 30 to 502 in Utah.

Oklahoma had the highest per capita imprisonment rate for women. Mississippi was second. Nationwide 96,125 female inmates were in state and federal prisons at the end of 2004.

As we have talked about before the incarceration rates of women nation-wide have been steadily on the incline for the last 10-20 years.

via Chicago Tribune.

AP reports on a new drug being researched and developed by Palatin Technologies could potentially be the viagra for women.

Palatin Technologies of Fort Lee says it has had encouraging results in both men and women with Bremolanotide (breem-oh-LAN'-oh-tyd), which stimulates the brain, rather than the genitals.

The company's director of preclinical development says it may help women who lack desire and have trouble getting aroused.

The brain instead of the genitals? Is it going to convince you that whomever you are sleeping with IS good in bed or some shit or make you forget that you never wanted to sleep with that person in the first place? So many questions....

Broadsheet asks would we even want a drug like this?

Last year, while waiting to see if she got accepted to the PhD programs she applied to, Maura Finkelstein decided to audition for a PBS reality show. Her friend at PBS told her about the open-call, and Maura said, why not? But what she didn’t expect was getting picked.

The PBS producers found Maura comfortable and real enough in front of the camera to be the “girl of all work�—a maid—on the “Texas Ranch House� reality show. Maura, 26, found this out the same week she got accepted to Stanford. But Maura decided to first spend a summer back in time, in the wild, wild west. So she did. Here’s Maura…

In case any of y'all are in the tri-state area tomorrow and interested in supporting reproductive rights while getting your drink-on, come by and watch Jessica attempt to be the special guest BINGO master for this event:

B-I-N-G-O Benefit Party
for Cecilia Fire Thunder & Pro-Choice Mississippi
Sat. May 20, 3-6pm
Pete's Candy Store
709 Lorimer St. (L to Lorimer)
Williamsburg, NYC
$7
B-I-N-G-O with Cool Prizes
One free lager or well drink
Music by Jodi Shaw

All proceeds go to Cecilia Fire Thunder, President of the Oglala Sioux Tribe, Pine Ridge, who is planning to start an abortion clinic on tribal lands if the abortion ban in Sout Dakota is not repealed by the ballot initiative, as well as a group of women who recently formed a new and much-needed coalition, Pro-Choice Mississippi.

So make sure to stop by and share the love!

California state senator Sheila Kuhl has introduced a bill to the state legislature that will prohibit the teaching of any material that “reflects adversely on persons due to sexual orientation� and to add the “age appropriate study of the role and contributions of people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender.� The bill has passed the Senate and is headed to the Assembly.

Not surprisingly, a number of conservative groups, including Concerned Women for America, are making a big stink about this. State director of CWA, Cindy Moles, said the bill is trying to teach children about “dangerous sexual lifestyles� and was not necessary from an educational standpoint. “We don’t need to list all the behavior of historical figures,� said Moles. "Certainly not their sexual behavior."

I love the way she implies that being LGBT is purely about sexual behavior, and not a valid identity. Get ready for your first class, Cali students! “Intro to Gay Sex� is here to teach you the fundamentals of how to become a sinner and get AIDS!

I think this bill is a great idea. It seems like these days, I hear homophobic language from kids’ mouths more than anyone.

Oh, and one more thing -- Senator Kuhl is the former sitcom star of “The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis,� which the article had to mention at least three times.

The FDA’s leading advisory board has voted unanimously on the safety and efficacy of the HPV vaccine Gardasil. HPV causes up to two-thirds of cervical cancer cases, which kills 290,000 women every year worldwide.

With the expectation of the FDA to follow the advisory board’s approval of the drug, Gardasil may be on sale in the U.S. by the end of the summer.

Of course, the drug will really only be accessible to people who can afford the $650 in treatments that it would cost.

Nevertheless, this is good news. Let’s just hope that the political forces behind the FDA approve as well.

Ned Lamont is quite the ladies' man these days.

The National Organization for Women Political Action Committee revealed in a press release yesterday that they are endorsing candidate Ned Lamont for the U.S. Senate.

Lamont has a pretty good rep in the world o’ reproductive rights; he intends to fight to make emergency contraception over the counter, give all rape victims access to EC, and support the nomination of pro-choice judges. Additionally, Lamont is against the war in Iraq and supports the legalization of same-sex marriage.

Most importantly, he’s made an effort to get down with the bloggers with his cheesy new commercial ad! I love it.

Go to his site for more info on the Dem of the hour.

MensNewsDaily.com has a recent piece on how the almighty cock is at the center of the universe. No, I’m not joking:

“By removing the power of men the government has done the equivalent of removing the sun from the solar system. Without a sun there will not be any energy for nurturing to take place, the planets will fall out of orbit, chaos will ensue, and the solar system will collapse.�

Priceless!

Well, this sucks.

I posted a while back on the horrific law in Black Jack, St. Louis that prohibits more than three people from living together unless they are related by “blood, marriage or adoption.� While the town’s planning and zoning commission reviewed and then requested a change in the law, the measure was rejected on Tuesday by the city council in a 5-3 vote.

The mayor then declared that the city will be beginning to evict people who do not hold Black Jack’s definition of “family� this week.

The saddest part about the rejected measure is that it was only going to change the existing law slightly (but for a significant amount of people, I don’t doubt) to just include the definition of a family as “unmarried couples with two or more children.� Others still would’ve been out on their asses!

So I’ve decided that I’m leaving my home here in NYC to open a brothel in Black Jack, even if it’s just long enough to create some hysteria. Anyone in?

Barbie needs to back the fuck up.

Mattel can have their Mod Barbies and their weird other collectables. But they can’t have the pin-up girl!

Mattel, the maker of the world-famous doll, is now targeting adults, as well as kids and collectors, with its Pin-Up Girl Collection.

The first of three Pin-Up Girl Barbies is now available - Way Out West Barbie. The cowgirl wears denim shorts (a la Daisy Duke) and has a lasso.

Following this summer are Hula Honey (in a cocoanut bra and grass skirt) and Lady Luck (a Vegas lounge singer).

Sigh.

Because the Constitution should be used for evil, not good, it seems.

Apparently the fur was flying between Specter and Feingold during the meeting:

"If you want to leave, good riddance," Senate Judiciary Chairman Arlen Specter told Wisconsin Democratic Sen. Russell Feingold, who refused to participate because, he said, the meeting was not sufficiently open to the public.

"I've enjoyed your lecture too. See you later, Mr. Chairman," Feingold told the Pennsylvania Republican before storming out. The testy exchange highlighted tensions over the proposal, which would amend the U.S. Constitution to prevent states from recognizing same-sex marriages.

The measure passed 10-8 on a party-line vote in a brief session held in a small, private chamber just off the Senate floor. Specter said he voted for the amendment because he thought it should be taken up by the full Senate, even though he does not support it.

Well thanks so much. (Side note: when women argue it’s a catfight, but when men do it’s “testy.� How appropriate.)

Yesterday a House committee passed a near-total ban on abortion in Louisiana. The only exceptions will be to protect women’s health against “severe� problems or “permanent impairment.�

What I found really interesting though, was the reported exchange between two (male) lawmakers on what’s best for women:

The amendment was added by Rep. Charlie DeWitt, D-Lecompte, who at first offered a more loosely written amendment to allow an abortion to protect the health of the woman. "That would mean abortion on demand," [Sen. Ben] Nevers told DeWitt.

"I resent that right there," DeWitt shot back. "That ought to be a choice made between that family and the woman's doctor" on when to end a pregnancy for the mother's health.

He then refined the amendment to address chronic health problems that could cause permanent impairment or a "substantial risk of death."

Wow, how generous of them. They want to make sure they won’t die (so we can have more babies) and that our uterus won’t be permanently impaired (so we can have more babies).

Note: The bill wouldn’t take effect until Roe is overturned. It’s like they’re pissing their pants in anticipation.

I also loved this:

Nevers said the bill would ensure that a woman who thinks she has become pregnant as a result of rape or incest has access to contraceptive help before the sperm fertilizes the egg. "I am trying to protect every woman in this state and give them a real choice," he said.

His paternalistic rhetoric aside, can someone please explain to me how Nevers plans to ensure that rape and incest victims are given EC in a timely way? So if you’re raped by your dad, you’re supposed to prove the abuse and get permission for EC all before the holy sperm meets the egg? EC works by either preventing fertilization or implantation on the uterus--there’s no way to tell which. So this “real choice� Nevers is offering doesn’t exist. Shocking, I know.

Check out this Women’s eNews article by Courtney Martin on the much-discussed new Pink song, Stupid Girls.

Played over and over on MTV, the "Stupid Girls" video parodies conspicuous consumption, cosmetic surgery, eating disorders and vacuous celebrities. One refrain also raises a puzzling political question: "What happened to the dreams of a girl president?"

...Pink--one part pop, one part rock and one part hip hop--pens her own testimonial to her song and video. "A lot of people are relieved that someone has finally said something about the mindless epidemic of unhealthy girls out there promoting consumerism and escapism," she writes on her site.

I won’t bore you with my opinion again, so watch the video here and judge for yourself.

By the way, I may have to steal this quote from Pink: “smart and sexy are not oil and water.�

Clearly they are not talking to the women I know, ahem.

According to this study the number of women becoming addicted to drugs, nicotine and alcohol is increasing rapidly.

the gender gap is closing. More than 20 million girls and women in the United States abuse drugs and alcohol and 30 million more are addicted to cigarettes, according to a 10-year research effort from the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA) at Columbia University.

The study documents how women, pound-for-pound, not only get more drunk or higher faster then men, but also become addicted more easily.

I mean really this has not been my experience, but I could see what they are saying. I have never seen that much of a correlation between body size and ability to consume party goods, more like preferences and what is considered socially acceptable for girls to do as opposed to boys. But I know some hardcore ass ladies so...

Also according to the study, teenage girls engage in the use of drugs and alcohol as often as teenage boys. Furthermore,

The risk of addiction to alcohol and drugs, including nicotine, is approximately doubled as well. The reason may be hormonal or psychological, according to ongoing research at the National Institute on Drug Abuse. Males and females abuse drugs for different reasons. For example, teenage girls are more likely than boys to abuse substances in order to lose weight, relieve stress or boredom, improve their mood, reduce sexual inhibitions, self-medicate depression, and increase confidence, according to CASA.

Teenage girls could also perhaps use substances to have fun, just like their guy friends (just a thought). I do see how instances of substance abuse are overlooked in young girls and women because it is always assumed that only boys do things like that.

What my feelings are on the way young people in general are talked to and treated with respect to drugs and my feelings on the drug war in general, well that is a whole different issue.

via LiveScience.

I wish I could say I am suprised by these stats, but it is still difficult to hear and see. The researchers say this is potentially a nation-wide epidemic. We have been saying that for years. And you gotta love the title of the piece, "US women abused by men..." Give me a break.

More than 40 percent of women surveyed in the Seattle area reported they had been physically or psychologically abused by their husbands, dates or boyfriends, researchers said on Wednesday.

For their study, Thompson and colleagues interviewed a random sample of more than 3,400 women members of a Seattle health maintenance organization.

They found 44 percent of the women, aged 18 to 64, had suffered some form of what they call "intimate partner violence." Most reported more than one type -- for example, physical violence and verbal threats.

Damn.

via Reuters.

I think this is awesome. Women do a significant amount of the worlds farming, but attention, funds, resources are rarely paid to them. How loans will *help* them I don't really know...

The Federal Government has set aside about N500 million loan facilities for women farmers in the country, out of the just approved N50bn agricultural loan to reduce poverty and unemployment.

Women Affairs Minister, Mrs. Inna Maryam Ciroma, disclosed this in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State Capital, during an interactive session with women farmers, associations and NGOs.

Mrs. Ciroma noted, "I urge you Nigerian women farmers to form yourselves into co-operatives, register with the Association of Nigerian Farmers (AFARM) to easily access the loans. She said that the minimum each women could get was N250,000, adding that only known women farmers would be considered.

via AllAfrica.com

Who knew it was Female Stereotype Awards Week? Swiffer just announced the winners of its "Amazing Woman of the Year" contest, and Maxim released its annual Hot 100 list.

Most of the Swiffer honorees actually appear to be doing something in addition to cleaning the house, from running camps for foster kids to writing rape shield legislation. "These five women have been chosen for their amazing contributions to their family, career and local community," as the press release puts it. But it's clear that "family" is the one hard and fast requirement. Childless women apparently fail to amaze the Swiffer judges. All winners are identified in the first sentence as mothers, which makes sense because of course mommy does all the housework.

And Maxim once again names 100 celebrity women who have "a tremendous amount of buzz surrounding them, undeniable beauty and a promise of greater things to come." Translation: Famous women willing to be slathered with Vaseline and photographed in porny poses. There are some smart, funny, outspoken women on their list (Sarah Silverman, for example), but they're predictably recognized for their bodies and not their accomplishments.

If you want to see some women recognized for more than their tight asses and spotless kitchen floors, just wait a few months. The REAL hot 100 will be announced soon. And women don't have to be wearing either a wet negligee or Mom Jeans to make the list.

Who knew those wacky abstinence-only folks were so kinky?

Our favorite anti-sex nut Phill Kline is appealing a judge’s decision that says health care providers don’t have to report sex between consenting teens. (He wanted them to report ANY sexual activity between anyone under 16 year-old.)

U.S. District Judge J. Thomas Marten’s ruling places the state’s abuse reporting law in jeopardy, Kline said.

Kline contends a 1982 Kansas law requiring doctors, teachers and others to alert the state and law enforcement about potential child abuse covers consensual sex between minors. He argued that the law applies to abortion clinics and later extended that to other health professionals and teachers.

Kline is still all pissed that he lost the right to find out, as Dahlia Lithwick put it, if “Steve frenched Stacy on the band trip to Topeka.� Priceless.

Northwestern suspended the women’s soccer team after they found photos of some pretty gross (but I imagine standard) hazing:

The photographs showed women's soccer players wearing only T-shirts and shorts or underwear. Many of the players were covered in marker, and some appeared to be drinking beer. Other photographs showed players giving lap dances for what the captions said were Northwestern men's soccer players. The captions said the dances were a punishment.

Ew. But here’s what made me even more uncomfortable than the description of the hazing:

[Northwestern assistant athletic director Mike] Wolf said that in light of a third Duke men's lacrosse player being indicted in a rape case Monday, it was important to Northwestern's administration and Murphy to act quickly, to not let the story develop in public without an official response.

Ok. I get that they’re trying to do the right thing. But likening the alleged rape at Duke to a hazing incident is pretty insensitive--or is this just par for the course in a college-culture that sees rape as just another example of “kids acting out?�

Using the release of The Da Vinci Code movie as a hook, a new website on women, feminism and faith has just launched: HerCode.

“Jesus taught us that all people are equal in God’s eyes, but religious institutions are not living up to their full potential because women are not considered equal partners,� said Helen LaKelly Hunt, author of Faith and Feminism: A Holy Alliance. She is also the founding director of FaithandFeminism.org, a site dedicated to bridging the values of faith and feminism, which houses the HerCode.org project.

HerCode asks women to share their stories about faith and spirituality. Check out the one after the jump from Lisa Witter, then go share your story. (My short version--I have Italian-Buddhist parents. Nuff said.)

Nathan Tabor, the man who broke the story of feminism’s untimely demise, now lets us know that emergency contraception kills.

Imagine going to your doctor and being offered a pill—not because you were sick, or in any danger of becoming sick. No—your friendly physician is simply giving you drugs because you’re a woman.

If that sounds like a Hitchcock horror story to you—be prepared. Gynecologists around the country are embarking on a weird medical experiment that could have serious repercussions for women’s health.

The weird medical experiment? Advance prescriptions of emergency contraception.

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) has decided it won’t wait for the Food and Drug Administration to approve over-the-counter sales of the so-called morning after pill—a pill which is supposed to help women who are harboring regret over a sexual encounter the night before.

Um, what? Amanda takes on Tabor's special brand of logic:

When we regret something that generally means we made a decision that we wish we hadn’t made. But no one decides for a condom to break, so what is the regret that Nathan’s alluding to here?

I suppose Tabor is used to girls he sleeps with summarily rejecting his seed. The absence of EC will ensure that any condom “mishap� will increase the likelihood of the boys making it. Then you’ll never escape. (Cause if you poke it, you own it.)

But weird notions about sexual regret aside, the real problem with Tabor’s claims about EC is that they’re just not true.

Also, some leading medical experts say that the morning after pill doesn’t just prevent pregnancy—it can also kill a child who has already been conceived in her mother’s womb....Doctors routinely tell pregnant women not to take any medication during their pregnancies for fear that it will harm their unborn children. If a pregnant woman can’t take an aspirin, how can doctors assume that it’s safe for her to take the morning after pill? What if the pill "fails" and the woman remains pregnant?

Um...because EC doesn’t end a pregnancy, it prevents it. (Journalism at its finest, really. Kudos, Nathan.) And as Jill points out, “if you’re pregnant, it won’t work, and you will stay pregnant.� But I guess that whole "truth" thing just isn’t interesting enough to report on.

King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia has told newspapers to stop publishing pictures of women, for fear that the mere sight of them will lead young men "astray."

After a meeting with editors on Monday, the king was reported in the Saudi media as saying that "one needs to think if he would want his daughter, sister or wife to appear like that. Of course, no one would".

Newspapers have recently broken with tradition and published pictures of women with hair covered but faces showing.

Women's faces=men sinning. Obviously.

Sweet. I could use some good news.

The ruling by Fulton County Superior Court Judge Constance C. Russell had been eagerly awaited by gay-rights supporters who filed the court challenge in November 2004, soon after the constitutional ban was approved.

Russell said the state's voters must first decide whether same-sex relationships should have any legal status before they can be asked to decide whether same-sex marriages should be banned.

"People who believe marriages between men and women should have a unique and privileged place in our society may also believe that same-sex relationships should have some place — although not marriage," she wrote. "The single-subject rule protects the right of those people to hold both views and reflect both judgments by their vote."

Well...it’s something I guess.

A Washington Post editorial calls attention to the fact that some members of Congress are using campaign funds pay for child care.

A leader in this creative billing is Rep. John T. Doolittle (R-Calif.), who has had his campaign reelection committee and his leadership PAC pay $5,881 in child-care costs since 2001 for his daughter, now 14.

Doolittle has supported legislation to require more poor parents to participate in welfare-to-work programs without providing adequate increases in child-care assistance. He also received the lowest possible score from the Children's Defense Fund for his votes on (among other things) funding for child care, Head Start and after-school programs. Parents in his district spend one-third of their income on child care.

Maybe someone should send him a copy of the Motherhood Manifesto to inform him that not all working parents have a PAC to cover this expense.

The Personal Democracy Forum conference was fun yesterday, despite the fact that two of the most important panels had no women on them. Zero.

Though I did get to hang out with some lovely lady bloggers: Liza, Elana, Jill and Deanna. There were also some very crush-worthy boy bloggers around: Matt Stoller, Chris Rabb and Peter Daou. The free drinks didn't hurt, either.

Jill has some great pics, so check them out.

(A big thanks to the NY Younger Women's Task Force for footing the bill.)

If you're in New York, swing by Bar 13 and show your support for riffRag--a queer feminist art mag.

Tonight!
Doors 9:30pm
@ *snapshot*
35 E. 13th St/University Pl.
www.snapshotnyc.com

$7 at the door
10pm, sharp Queer Film Screening, including Cherry Bomb
10-11pm / 2 for 1 Drink Specials
Kissing/Processing Booths
riffRAG print version&merch
DJs on Both Floors
Roofdeck, Dancing

Almost half of programs that train nurse practitioners, physician assistants and certified nurse-midwives don't offer training in abortion procedures or care.

Feminist Daily News has more.

Don’t try to escape it, ladies. It used to be that you only considered yourself pregnant when there was a fetus involved. Not anymore--turns out, all women are just “pre-pregnant.�

New federal guidelines ask all females capable of conceiving a baby to treat themselves -- and to be treated by the health care system -- as pre-pregnant, regardless of whether they plan to get pregnant anytime soon.

Among other things, this means all women between first menstrual period and menopause should take folic acid supplements, refrain from smoking, maintain a healthy weight and keep chronic conditions such as asthma and diabetes under control.

The vessel will make sure to treat its uterus and surrounding matter with care for the preparation of the all-mighty fetus. The vessel puts the lotion in the basket.

Sorry, I’m all for being healthy--but I’d like to think of myself as bit more than a potential baby-carrier.

Thanks to Elana for the link.

This is annoying. A Kansas judge has ruled that Phill Kline’s court battle to obtain the private medical records of women who had abortions will remain closed to the public.

District Judge Richard Anderson denied a request to open the proceedings to the public, filed a week ago by the Associated Press and the Kansas Press Association, which represents newspapers across the state. Anderson also warned Kline's office and opposing lawyers not to publicize the case further.

"We're disappointed with Judge Anderson's decision," Randy Picht, AP's bureau chief for Kansas and Missouri, said Monday. "And we're considering our options."

Kline is attempting to glean information from records held by clinics operated in Wichita by physician George Tiller and in Overland Park by Planned Parenthood of Kansas and Mid-Missouri. In 2004, at Kline's request, Anderson issued subpoenas for 90 records total, but the clinics asked the Kansas Supreme Court to intervene. It did, sending the case back to Anderson.

Kline claims he’s looking for evidence of child rape. This from the guy who wanted health care professionals to report teen make-out sessions.

A new report published in the American Journal of Public Health says that “despite an increased need for reproductive health services among incarcerated women who are at risk for STDs and pregnancy, they are often underserved in receipt of reproductive health and family planning services.�

Women in prison are at higher risk for STDs and unplanned pregnancies:

The majority of the growing number of women who are incarcerated are released within a few days or weeks, when they may again be exposed to STDs and become pregnant unintentionally.

In a survey of 484 incarcerated women, Dr. Jennifer G. Clarke and colleagues at the Rhode Island Hospital in Providence found that more than two-thirds reported inconsistent birth control, 38 percent had multiple sex partners and more than 83 percent had a history of unplanned pregnancy.

Most of the 18- to 35-year-old women surveyed said they would likely have sexual relations with a man within six months of release from prison.

The study also found that incarcerated women were more likely to use birth control when it was offered by the prison:

Thirty-nine percent of jailed women started birth control when it was offered before their release, while only 4 percent took advantage of free birth control offered at a community health center after their release.

Of course, women in prison being treated poorly (especially when it comes to repro rights) isn’t exactly news. For more information, check out the Women’s Prison Association.

Guys--if you really need a cut-out king outfit for your dick, I just don't know what to say to you.

These are part of a weird ad campaign by Durex called Dickorations. (With the hilarious tagline, The World's #1 Source for Penis Outfits.)

Naturally, the other outfits include a cape, a doctor's jacket, a tux and--sigh--a member's only jacket.

Via Nerve.

23 year-old David Evans, a Duke lacrosse player, was indicted in the alleged rape of a 27 year-old woman yesterday.

He called the accusations "fantastic lies."

Salon has a great interview with Nobel laureate and Iranian human rights activist Shirin Ebadi, in which she describes the current women's rights situation in Iran:

A man can have four wives, and he can divorce his wives without giving any reasons. But getting a divorce for a woman is extremely difficult, and in some situations impossible. The value given to the life of a woman is half that given to the life of a man. And on matters of testimony, the testimony of two women is equivalent to the testimony of one man. When a lady is married and she wants to travel, she has to have the written authorization of her husband in order to get her passport and the right to travel. But these are all laws that precede [hard-line Iranian president Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad.

She also points out that the civil rights situation is likely to get even worse if the U.S. decides to attack:

It's very well known that any time a country is under threat from outside, the government uses it as an excuse and starts talking about the necessity of preserving national security, and therefore individual liberties suffer.

Sound familiar?

The pro-choice initiative in South Dakota to get the abortion ban on the November ballot seems to making great progress:

The South Dakota Campaign for Healthy Families said the petition drive is on track with more than 10,000 signatures and it believes it would easily obtain the required number to put the law on the ballot.

"We're way over half and we have a whole batch we haven't even counted yet," said campaign spokeswoman Jan Nicolay. "We're very confident we'll get there."

South Dakota Gov. Mike Rounds, a Republican, signed the law March 6. It bans nearly all abortions, even when pregnancies result from incest or rape, and requires that if a woman's life is in jeopardy, doctors must try to save the life of the fetus as well as the woman. Doctors who perform an abortion could receive a $5,000 fine and five years in prison.

As most of you know, supporters of the ban hope that it will be challenged and set the wheels in motion for a Roe-reversal.

To find out more about the pro-choice actions in South Dakota or to help, visit the The South Dakota Campaign for Healthy Families.

By the way, at a pro-choice fundraiser last week I had the chance to catch a speaker from Planned Parenthood South Dakota. Kylene Guse is one of only two organizers for Planned Parenthood--so she’s one busy bitch. I’ll be posting a video of Guse’s speech later today, so be on the look out.

The Virginia Department of Health released a report on the top 10 cities for teen pregnancy rates--Petersburg and Hopewell were on the list.

Middle school and high school students in Hopewell receive abstinence education through their family life courses in school.

In Petersburg, a health outreach worker has been visiting five of the city's elementary schools to talk about abstinence with fifth-graders. "We're looking to expand to be in the middle schools and the high schools with this program," [Mattlyn] Debrick said. "You have to be really careful about what is stated. We want the youth to know the benefits of being abstinent ... We all need to come together to make a difference in the teen pregnancy rate."

And clearly telling them nothing about birth control is doing wonders. Viva la chastity!

I'm heading over to the Personal Democracy Forum conference right now (I'm already late, naturally) to go cause some trouble.

It looks like a great program, so I'll hopefully have all sorts of cool stuff to report back with. Plus there's an after-party so maybe I'll even catch some blogger make out sessions. Wishful thinking, I know.

Rachel Kramer Bussel interviewed me for the excellent NYC blog, Gothamist. Because you know you don't get quite enough of my rambling here.

Just one more study to add fuel to the media-created “mommy wars� fire.

A study out of the UK says that mothers who work outside the home have better health than stay-at-home moms.

After analyzing data from a study that tracked the health of Britons born in 1946, they found that women who had multiple roles were less likely than homemakers, single mothers or childless females to report poor health or to be obese in middle age.

"Women who occupied multiple roles over the long term reported relatively good health at age 54," said Dr Anne McMunn, of University College London.

"It looks like women are relatively healthy as a result of combining work and family life."

The study found that women who reported being “homemakers� most of their lives were the most likely to report poor health and to be overweight.

I’m sorry, but did this study just say that stay-at-home moms are fat? Harsh.

I’m not surprised by the conclusions of the study--seems to me that having a lot of interests would be better for your health mentally and physically. But the report seems to bash stay-at-home moms; you can’t tell me that just because a woman doesn’t have a job outside of the home that she doesn’t juggle “multiple roles.�

The study is published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, so check it out for yourself.

Check out Grit and Wit, a new site for feminist shirts.

Me likey.

I’m sorry, but feminism just isn’t for everybody.

In an appearance on "This Week with George Stephanopoulos," Laura Bush called herself a feminist. Oh dear.

"A lot of what I do internationally does have to do with women's issues, with women's rights, with the education of women and girls," the first lady said in a Mother's Day appearance on "This Week," "because it's so important and because women -- as we saw in Afghanistan -- and girls have been left out, actually forbidden to be educated."

..."You can't tell me that mothers and fathers don't love their daughters," she said. "I know they do and want the best thing for their daughters and their sons the world over. I truly believe that. And if women are educated, then they're more likely to be able to make wise and healthy decisions for their children."

The rhetoric sounds right, but as Samhita has said before: are we really supposed to look at Laura Bush as the face of international feminism?

Hey Laura, if you’re really a feminist then why not tell hubby to stop rolling back women’s rights? Or to stop trying to overturn Roe? And as Erica Jong asked before, “why [are you] promoting freedom for women in the Middle East when the rights of American women are being systemically eroded by [your] husband's initiatives?� And while you’re at it--please stop saying girls are bad at math.

Naturally I think it’s important that women identify as feminist--but not at the expense of the quality of the movement.

A new book looks at the rift between black and white feminists.

Q: Why are 30% of German women choosing to go childless?
A: Sex is essential, kids aren't.

For four decades, working women have poured into the paid labor force. Yet American society has done precious little to restructure the workplace or family life.

Chlamydia can be "surprisingly common" among younger women.

Quinceanera and sweet 16 parties are growing ever more lavish.

Do Republicans really think Hillary Clinton is a strong contender for the Democratic presidential nomination?

The Chicago Sun-Times offers us the shoddiest piece of journalism this week. (OK, I guess the Washington Post is a strong contender, too.)

Sirens examines women's fierce loyalty to their preferred form of contraception.

A video game trade show bans "booth babes."

A look at the economics behind the world's oldest profession.

Feminists mourn the passing of women's rights advocate and NARAL founder Lawrence Lader.

Scientists discover a protein that may be the key to better birth control.

A great essay on how disability doesn't have to mean chastity.

After being forced into hiding after the murder of Dutch filmmaker Theo VanGogh, Muslim feminist Ayaan Hirsi Ali found that the Dutch government and people were slightly embarrassed to have such a prominent "Third World" spokeswoman in their midst.

A judge dropped felony charges against a Virginia woman who was charged for shooting herself in the stomach in an attempt to have an abortion.

At the March for Women's Lives in 2004, I snapped a picture of my friend Gracy and her mother, beaming in their "Fuck Bush" t-shirts, and told them how lucky they were to be there together. (They weren't the only ones—the march was quite the intergenerational feminist event.) Even though I was marching arm-in-arm with my closest friends, it seemed a different and somehow more powerful statement to be able to be there with your mom.

This year, between Planned Parenthood's Mother's Day campaign and AlterNet's mother/daughter feminist conversation, I found myself getting cranky and bitter about not having a mother who's equally committed to feminist ideals. Fact is, I’m incredibly jealous of all you lucky ladies with feminist moms who raged in the 60s and 70s to get us where we are today, who bought you a copy of "Our Bodies, Ourselves," who can share in your disgust for the Bush Administration. My inner five-year-old was whining, "But I want a feminist mom, too."

As Mother's Day is celebrated around the world, it is important to reflect on some of the complications of pregnancy and childbirth faced by millions of women worldwide without access to basic family planning services.

From an email from WEDO and CHANGE:

This Mother's Day, ask Congress to reverse cuts to and increase funding for international voluntary family planning programs.

Millions of women suffer grave health risks or lose their lives because they don't have access to the information and tools they need to plan the number and spacing of their children or because they don't have access to prenatal care.

• Every year, 525,000 women die from causes related to complications of pregnancy and childbirth.
• Every year, an additional 8 million women suffer serious health consequences from pregnancy and childbirth.

This Mother's Day stand up for the right of women to have safe, healthy, planned pregnancies. Family planning programs provide a critical foundation for the health of women, families, and children.

• Providing access to modern contraception in less developed countries could prevent 1.4 million infant deaths and 142,000 maternal deaths annually.
• In the developing world, the use of modern contraceptives reduces unintended pregnancies by 85%, thereby reducing significantly the probability that a woman will have an abortion.
• Birth spacing of at least 36 months is associated with the lowest mortality risk for infants and children under five years of age.

This year President Bush requested devastating cuts to international voluntary family planning programs (despite having stated that family planning programs are one of the best ways to prevent abortion). These cuts put the lives of even more women and children on the line. This month Congress will decide how much money it will spend on each international issue. We need to make sure that they restore the money cut by President Bush from international voluntary family planning and increase funding over time so as to begin to meet the unmet global need.

TAKE ACTION TODAY! Click here to get a call-in script and the phone number for your Representative to ask him or her to co-sponsor H.R. 4188, the Focus on Family Health Worldwide Act. You can also send your Representative an email by following this link.

Mom, Happy Mother's Day! Thanks for all of your support, humor, love, and strength.

We love you!

Love, Jessica & Vanessa

Aishah Shahidah Simmons has lots to say about the Duke rape case. Based in Philadelphia, Penn, Aishah is the producer, writer, and director of the film NO! The Rape Documentary. She finished No! last August. Its world premiere was in February. And she’s been on tour with it ever since. She’s also the founder and president of AfroLez Productions, LLC, a multimedia arts company.

I spoke with Aishah on the phone in April, on a Friday morning. At that point in the case, there was no DNA evidence. But Friday, May 12th, the defense attorney for the accused Duke rapists, Joe Cheshire, said the semen obtained from vaginal swabs of the accuser indicates that she had sex with a man who is not a Duke student that night.

According to Cheshire, DNA was also found on a plastic press-on fingernail. The fingernail was taken from a trash can by two Duke players who rented the house where the rape is alleged to have occurred. The players were said to have volunteered the fingernail to the Durham, North Carolina police department after the players learned of the rape allegations. The genetic material found on the fingernail does not belong to either of the players who have been indicted.

I’ll withhold my comments.

I caught up with Aishah while she was in L.A., before another screening of No!. Here’s Aishah…

This is a whole truckload of crazy.

The White House has almost never consulted with the FDA during a drug approval process, but the Center for Reproductive Rights has found out about some shady business concerning Plan B and the Bush administration.

Yesterday, Bonnie Jones, an attorney for the reproductive rights group, told federal Magistrate Viktor Pohorelsky: "It has come to our attention that Mark McClellan at some point had a meeting with someone from the White House about Plan B." McClellan, now administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, worked as senior policy director for health care in the Bush White House in 2001 and 2002.

A copy of McClellan's appointment calendar while he was FDA commissioner contains an April 21, 2003 entry: "Conference call w/Jay Lefkowitz re: Plan B submis." The entry appears to refer to an application for non-prescription sales submitted to the FDA a few days earlier by Women's Capital Corp., which then owned Plan B. Barr Laboratories of Pomona, N.Y., later bought the company.

Lefkowitz, popular with conservative groups, is the former deputy assistant to the president for domestic policy and now serves as special envoy on human rights in North Korea.

Jones was in court trying to recover deleted FDA emails and permission to depose five FDA officials; Assistant U.S. Attorney Franklin Amanat asked Pohorelsky to block Jones’ request. Lester Crawford has also refused to be deposed--his lawyer says he plans to invoke his Fifth Amendment rights.

This is a pretty big deal. So why are we only seeing this story in New York Newsday?

And it's sold out.

My initial reaction when I saw this was that it was just kind of cheesy and dumb.

But an op-ed in the Vermont Guardian says there's more to it:

For many women, the phrase “barefoot and pregnant� remains a potent reminder of a very recent societal expectation that they stay in their place — the home — and quietly reproduce.

...Poking fun at these challenges allows young women to laugh them away as somehow irrelevant. But ignoring these hard-won rights certainly will make them go away. Are we taking a teddy bear too seriously? No. Viewing such challenges through cutesy images and Vaseline-smeared lenses dumbs down our sensibilities at a time when women need to stay sharp and smart.

Thoughts?

Via Broadsheet.

Many thanks to Madeline for pointing me in the direction of this great documentary on abstinence-only education.

Abstinence Comes To Albuquerque takes a comprehensive look at abstinence-only ed through a controversy that sprouted up in a New Mexico school.

Parent Susan Rodriguez was outraged when she found out that a faith-based private group was being funded by federal dollars to teach her daughter that sex is bad and condoms don't work. Yeah, I'd be pretty pissed too.

There's a lot of interesting/scary stuff in the film, but nothing quite beats the craziness that is Leslie Unruh of the Abstinence Clearinghouse who talks about her "covert" efforts: "Kind of like with the CIA, they’re not going to tell you everything they’re doing...Well the abstinence community has its own war room and it’s own CIA." Um, ok.

Another thing that really struck me while watching the film was the insane race and class issues. It's basically a bunch of white, Christian women teaching young women of color--many of them poor--about appropriate sexual behavior and what constitutes a family. A lot of kids in New Mexico come from single-parent homes (bad!), some of them may have parents that aren't straight (sin!). You'll see what I mean.

It's a short film, so go watch it now. It's really amazing.

When it comes to Catholic school teachers and kids, you’re damned if don’t and you’re damned if you do.

In the past, teachers have been fired for being pro-choice, for having kids out of wedlock (I suppose they should have had abortions?), and now a married teacher is being fired for having twins using in vitro fertilization.

After five years trying to conceive, Kelly and Eric Romenesko decided to try in vitro fertilization.

Their twins, Alexandria and Allison, were born last year. It was a joyous event in the couple's life.

"They're miracles. They're precious," Kelly Romenesko said.

The couple were not prepared for what came next. When Kelly, a teacher at two Catholic schools in Wisconsin, told her bosses she had gotten pregnant through in vitro, they handed her a pink slip.

"I was in tears," she said. "I remember asking, 'Is this the only reason why I'm being fired?' They stated, 'Yes.'"

Lovely. And why is in vitro so sinful? Joseph Capizzi of the Culture of Life Foundation says that unless you have sex, no kids for you: "It's not so much that it's artificial that's the problem, instead it's removing the sexual act and procreative act from the context of marriage."

Since the firing, the Romeneskos have stopped practicing Catholicism.

I’ve seen my fair share of bizarre anti-feminist articles, but this one takes the woman-bashing cake.

In Growing mongrels: Feminism's legacy, Kevin McCullough at WorldNetDaily argues that feminism is responsible for men turning into rape-crazy animals. (And I’m not going to even get into his use of the word “mongrel.� Crazy.) Now before any guys get their panties in a bunch, please note that I am not saying this about men. McCullough is.

Using baffling logic, McCullough says that violent rape is a direct result of feminism’s success. His examples of the consequences of feminism (very importantly-titled Exhibit A, B, and C) are a gang rape of a 13 year-old, an increase in pre-teen girls having “rectal sex,� and the sexual assault of a second grade girl.

How, you ask, could feminism have single-handedly raped small children while promoting that 10 year-olds have anal? Easy answer: equality=rape.

Feminists sought the desire, coming out of the '60s, to engage in sex similarly to what they perceived men were able to do – without consequence. The problem is "hooking up" has a more problematic effect for women because of the possibility of pregnancy. For that reason, taxpayer-provided birth control and, eventually, abortion on demand were advocated for, because consequences totally mess up the idea that "women can have sex just like men."

Not only did this idea that women should be able to have sex without popping out kids lead to a scourge of single moms, absentee dads and extramarital affairs--it also made men so mad they could rape.

Perhaps the most damning of all is the treatment of little girls went from making them a special princess in our heart, to thinking of them as one of the guys. Coarse behavior replaced manners. Using vulgarities replaced words of value. Men became demoralized and, in many ways, built up resentment and became more aggressive than ever.

But here comes the kicker--it’s not this built-up resentment and aggression that’s to blame for rape. Women are practically raping themselves, it seems.

Cause damn do we know how to party.

If you’re in New York, come check out the release party for the first print version of the F-Word. The zine has interviews with Margaret Cho, Gloria Steinem and Alix Olson and more.

Here’s the info...

Tonight!
7-9:30pm
Bluestockings Bookstore

Featuring pets Alix Olson, Kelly Tsai and Lenelle Moise; music by Morley and Toshi Reagon; art by Cristy Road; and all sorts of arts&crafts type of stuff. (I don't knit like a good feminist, but I'm sure I'll have a blast anyway!)

Ok, that's really not true at all.

But Alternet does have a really nice set of articles in celebration of Mother's Day--a conversation of sorts between writer Courtney Martin and her artist/activist mother Jere Martin.

From Letter to My Mother: "I love you, but sometimes your ideas of feminism seem sappy, sentimental, unproductive."

From Letter to My Daughter: "I love the beat of your feminism, your generation's spunk and confidence, but I don't always understand the message. It seems vague and undefined."

I'm sending them to my mommy now.

As a senior prank, someone sent a fake letter to parents of San Diego high school students, announcing the school would be providing free condoms at all future dances.

“It's awful,� said [Principal Barbara] Gauthier, who believes the culprit may have committed a crime. “I got wind of it when a dad called me concerned, and oh my gosh, I would never send something like that. It's clearly not anything I would ever endorse.�

Nah, she's more into promoting unprotected sex.

I know it's just a joke, but it shouldn't be so outrageous to think about providing teenagers with contraception. The parents' and teachers' response shows they prefer to ignore the fact that teens have sex rather than empower them with information and contraceptives. Because it's not only those slutty girls involved in fictional teen sex cults who are doing it. New research shows that even virginity pledgers are getting it on: half of teens retract their purity pledge within a year.

Conservative columnist John Podhoretz was on Fox News last night, promoting his new book about Hillary Clinton, Can She Be Stopped?:

PODHORETZ: I do, but I use the B-word to describe her and say that that is a virtue as the first woman presidential, you know, possibility.

HANNITY: Explain that, because you know what? A lot of people are going to get -- look, I know you, and you're a tell-it-like-it-is guy, but some people may misunderstand that.

PODHORETZ: OK, I'll put it to you very simply: The first woman president has to be somebody who has qualities that will convey to people that she can stand up before [...] all the worst men in the world, that she can pull the trigger when she has to, that she can negotiate, that she can stand tough and stand tall. Therefore, the first woman president has to be somebody who has qualities that we commonly associate with being unfeminine. She's got to be tough, she's got to be steely, she's got to be adversarial, and she's got to be difficult. [...]

COLMES: That's pretty harsh language and pretty hateful language, I would think. And then you say -- you call her flat and unwomanly. Why would you degrade another human being like this?

PODHORETZ: Hey, I'm saying she's the first -- she's going to be the first woman president of the United States. I don't think that's very degrading.

Is he a sexist asshole... or is he right? I'd say the characteristics he describes are necessary in any president, male or female. But when a female possesses those characteristics, she's labeled an unfeminine bitch-- by people like Podhoretz. I'd still consider it a derogatory term (despite some feminist reclamation), but it's one that's usually only applied to really amazing women who dare to disagree with male leadership. Why isn't this term frequently used to describe powerful women like Condoleezza Rice? Hmm.... maybe it's because Condi doesn't "stand up to the worst men in the world" (namely, her bosses), and she's happily in lockstep with an anti-woman agenda. Conservatives love outspoken women, as long as they're speaking out for men.

By Podhoretz's definition, I don't think Hillary is bitchy enough. But anyone he labels a bitch is likely to get my vote, even if I disagree with his (and society's) use of the term.

Crooks and Liars has the video. Media Matters has the transcript.

Shout out to my flat and unwomanly friend Jonathan for the link.

The New York Times has named Toni Morrison's Beloved the "The Best Work of American Fiction of the Last 25 Years." Dope.

Two of my favorite writers also made the list, Raymond Carver and Tim O'Brien.

Bernie at PopPolitics has an interesting take on the list, so check it out.

I know the smart-girls-kill-hard-ons story from The Washington Post has been covered pretty extensively, but this piece from Rebecca Traister is worth checking out.

In Do loose chicks sink dicks?, Traister takes author Laura Sessions Stepp to task for her clear disservice to men:

According to Stepp...We're looking at the loss of manhood in its purest form. Guys who can't get woodies for any old girl on the block are a poignant representation of the crumbling power of the erect phallus, which is, after all, as Stepp writes, "in the minds of many males, the sign of authority and dominance, perhaps the last such symbol in a society slogging its way toward gender equality." Wow. Stepp isn't doing the men she's writing about any favors in treating their condition not as a treatable health problem related to stress or their recreational habits, but as an actual loss of their masculinity, the ultimate cost of gender equality.

Traister (throughout the piece) argues that The Washington Post article treats men unfairly through shoddy reporting and sweeping generalizations. But naturally, the article inspired letters from Salon personally attacking Traister and accusing her of hating on men:

Why is it when the subject comes around to men not performing and ultimately being a disappointment to themselves and other women, Ms Traister is inevitably behind it? I think she's telling us something.

I mean really, how dare she write about guys and their dicks!

So annoying. So predictable.

A Colombian court has voted to legalize abortion in the case of rape, incest or if the woman’s life is in danger.

The ruling, by a majority of 5-3, brings Colombia into line with most of its Latin America neighbours.

"The court fulfilled its duty in recognising the right of Colombian women," lawyer and pro-choice campaigner Monica Roa was quoted by the Associated Press (AP) news agency as telling Caracol radio.

This decision comes after a women’s organization brought forward a lawsuit challenging the country’s law. El Salvador and Chile are now the only countries in Latin America that ban abortion under any circumstances. Maybe we can ship Bill Napoli off there?

For more information, check out the Guttmacher Institute’s article, An Overview of Clandestine Abortion in Latin America.

Check out this segment from NPR's All Things Considered, which reports on the abortion ban in South Dakota and Cecilia Fire Thunder's plan to open a clinic on the Pine Ridge Reservation.

Fire Thunder comments on the ban and it's lack of a rape and incest exception:

"To me, if a woman who has been sexually assaulted finds herself pregnant and she makes the decision to terminate that pregnancy caused by violence, that's her choice. You know, I don't know what the state legislature was thinking."

Neither do we.

Listen to the full segment here.

I suppose if they stopped coming out with these ridiculous and sweeping studies about men and women and their preferences in partners I might run out of things to write about, but really....

According to a new study carried out at the Universities of Chicago and California, women can tell, just by looking at a man's face, whether he is good with children - and therefore a good long-term catch, or just very masculine, and better for a short-term relationship.

It seems that a man's face can reveal to women how high his testosterone levels are. His value as a mating partner can be quickly assessed by looking at his face, say the researchers.

Dr Dario Maestripieri, one of the research team, said "Our results show that women are surprisingly accurate in judging a man's masculinity and his interest in infants by looking at his face. Our results also show that women value masculinity as a desirable trait for short-term relationships and interest in infants as a desirable trait for more stable long-term relationships. I don't think that evolution has given women a second sense in this area but has made them very good at using every piece of information at their disposal when making decisions about mating and relationships."

Eh? How exactly does a study figure out what women value? And since when is testosterone the only signifier of masculinity? (What about social constructions of masculinity?) Evolution hasn't given us a second sense? I think experience has given us all the sense we need when understanding masculinity.

And what about women that are attracted to men with less testosterone or women with more? Huh Huh?

Not me, not now, what smart girls say to heternormative mating (not sex and drugs like the abstinence campaign would like you to think, hehe)...

via Medical News Today.

Last Thursday's Zapatista related riots have shown to be a disgusting show of abuse by police in a town outside of Mexico City, especially for women.
via ReutersUK.

The National Human Rights Committee, a government agency, said police raped seven and sexually abused 16. The assaults are said to have occurred when the women and many others were held during the unrest, sparked by a round-up of unlicensed street vendors.

Three of the women who were allegedly assaulted include three foreigners.

One of them, Valentina Palma, a Chilean studying cinematography in Mexico, told La Jornada newspaper that she was robbed and beaten by officers.

"They insulted me, groped me, anything they wanted," she was quoted as saying. "When they jailed me that was when I saw the girls with their pants and underwear torn, sobbing."

This is disgusting. The fallout of this should be interesting. The Zapatistas haven't been in the news for a while, but they have no doubt been doing their work. Furthermore, women are integral to the Zapatista movement, so it will be interesting to see their response.

Nineteen Malaysian women identified as suspected victims of sex trafficking were freed in dawn raids on five addresses across England yesterday. It was the largest coordinated police operation against trafficking since the start of a government crackdown this year.

This is a result of a 5 month operation and investigation. Almost a dozen men and one woman were arrested for "suspicion of trafficking for the purposes of sexual exploitation and conspiracy to control prostitution for gain."

The question is what do all these arrests really do? Do they get to the heart of what motivates sex trafficking, I mean really? Perhaps if we were to put some money into girls education in Malaysia, I dunno....According to the article some of the women will get to go back home. But what will their options be?

via GuardianUK.

Yesterday, U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero ruled that a U.S. policy requiring recipients of federal HIV/AIDS service grants to pledge to oppose commercial sex work violates the groups' First Amendment right to free speech.

The Open Society Institute, the Alliance for Open Society International and Pathfinder International filed the lawsuit against the USAID policy which denies funding to U.S. organizations providing HIV/AIDS-related services in other countries unless they sign a pledge "explicitly opposing prostitution and sex trafficking.� According to Ricardo Castro, a board member of Alliance for Open Society International, "The provision not only violates the First Amendment, but also hampers organizations on the front lines of the AIDS epidemic working to save lives through proven prevention methods…public health policy should be based on science--not ideology."

If you’re thinking that all of this sounds a little too familiar, well, that’s because it does.

The first thing Bush did at the start of his first Administration was to reinstate the Global Gag Rule—a policy that basically prohibits NGOs that accept U.S. population assistance from even talking about abortion. Seriously—under this policy, not only do organizations have to agree not to provide abortions, but they cannot refer patients to other abortion providers, counsel patients on the option of abortion, or even lobby for abortion rights in their countries—even with their own f-ing money. And this is not to mention what’s happening in our own backyards (check out the PPFA’s recent War on Women: A Pernicious Web for more). As International Planned Parenthood Federation Director-General Steven Sinding has said: “…policies emanating from this administration…have led to more unwanted pregnancies around the world, more deaths from pregnancy-related causes and more HIV infections and more unsafe abortions.�

Initially I was thinking that this ruling might be a step towards overturning the Global Gag Rule as well…but honestly, I’m not holding my breath! Maybe I’m just having a pessimistic kind of day, but I also remember that a while back, Senators Barbara Boxer and Olympia Snowe got an amendment passed in the U.S. Senate to repeal said Gag Rule, but so far, no dice. Let’s hope that someone pays attention to the ruling of the District Court on this one…

If you want to know more about the commercial sex-worker policy, the Center for Health and Gender Equality has lots of great info.

Contributed by Gwendolyn Beetham

Relax, it's a title from an article in The Onion. Oh how I love them sometimes.

I nearly spit out my coffee in a fit of laughter after receiving an email from the lovely Amanda Marcotte alerting me to the article.

I'm going to go with Broadsheet's Lynn Harris' take on this one--it's funnyscary.

Pro-life advocates celebrated approval of the new anti-abortion drug UR-86 by the Food and Drug Administration Tuesday, calling it a "safe and effective method" for terminating pregnant women while leaving their unborn children unharmed.

Pfizer, manufacturer of UR-86—dubbed the "last-morning-ever pill"—said the drug is intended only for occasions when the mind-set or politics of the mother threaten the life of the fetus.

...Tuesday night, South Dakota legislators introduced a bill to impose a five-day waiting period for teenage girls and women before they can buy the pill, claiming its use does not adequately safeguard the lifestyle of the father, the laundry of the father, or the favorite meals of the father.

You know the anti-choice sect is all pissed caused The Onion let everyone in on their super-secret-if-Roe-doesn't-get-reversed back-up-plan. Foiled!

Via Pandagon and BoingBoing, we find out about my new hero: Karen at Oddity Collector.

Tired of hearing about how Superman's chest-bearing proves that male superheroes are objectified in the same way as female superheroes in comics, Karen took matters into her own hands. (Or her own Photoshop.) She created some images--like the one above--showing how male superheroes would look if they were objectified in a similar way to their female counterparts.

Amanda anticipates the argument that us damn feminists are just anti-sexiness:

We’re just wary of a world where one sex does the majority of the objectifying and the other has to do the majority of the posing with their asses arched and lips slightly parted, that’s all.

Indeed. Make sure to check out the rest of Karen's faux-comic covers.

Some gems of reason from Jacob Zuma, the former deputy president of South Africa who was recently acquitted of rape. (Stolen shamelessly from Broadsheet.)

1. If a woman appears to sit provocatively in a short skirt, she wants to have sex, with YOU.

2. Showering after sex can prevent HIV infection.

3. Amendment to No. 1: If a woman appears to sit provocatively in a short skirt, it is your duty to have sex with her. In fact, to refuse would violate her rights.

Get the full story from this NY Times editorial.

Because politics are clearly more important than people’s health.

The 2006 National STD Prevention Conference, which is government-sponsored, has been changed up (screwed up) after an abstinence-only-loving congressman made a stink.

An aide to Rep. Mark Edward Souder (R-Ind.), sent an e-mail April 26 to the Department of Health and Human Services raising questions about a panel titled "Are Abstinence-Only-Until-Marriage Programs a Threat to Public Health?"

"Just the title alone was enough to cause us concern," said Martin Green, Souder's spokesman. But the congressman also was alarmed because one of the speakers was focusing on a report produced by the office of Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.) that was critical of abstinence programs, and because no one would be speaking in support of such programs.

Right. Because no one who cares about public health would support these programs.

In response to Souder’s objections the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the main conference organizer, changed the name of the panel to “Public Health Strategies of Abstinence Programs for Youth� and removed the panelist set to discuss the Waxman report. Take a wild guess who replaced the original speaker. Not one, but two abstinence-only panelists: Eric Walsh of Loma Linda University in California and Patricia Sulak of Scott & White Memorial Hospital in Texas, founder Worth the Wait.

Green said that the change took “basically a propaganda panel� and made it into “a more accurate reflection of the scientific opinion.� Right.

By the way, here are some of Worth the Wait’s very “scientific� recommendations on how to not get an STD: Go shopping at the mall with your friends; have an 80's movie marathon; make a scrapbook; make a quilt out of your old T-shirts and blankets; play catch with water balloons in the yard or have a water balloon fight.

Who needs condoms when you have arts and crafts?

And not the cute kind either.

In celebration of Mother’s Day, Major League Baseball players will be using pink baseball bats for a week-long program to raise money for breast cancer.

Derek Jeter, David Eckstein and Marcus Giles are among dozens of players who intend to try them Sunday. This is the first time pink has been approved for bats — dyed at the Louisville Slugger factory, they're usually black, brown, reddish or white.

Kevin Mench was among several Texas players who wanted their mother's names burned on the bats. The Rangers slugger, who homered in seven straight games earlier this season, also planned to have a bat for his grandmother, who died from breast cancer.

That’s really sweet.

Louisville Slugger president John Hillerich said "the thought of these big macho men, swinging pink bats to help women with breast cancer ... what a novel idea.� Whatever, pink is totally macho.

I love this.

I was going to post today about a pro-choice fundraiser in Brooklyn that I'm going to on Thursday because I wanted to get a bunch of people to show. But thanks to a wack-a-doo piece in The New York Sun, I'm betting the event will have plenty of folks there.

Columnist Alicia Colon found out about the fundraiser and in a fit of anti-choice madness went on a writing bender that brought her to one logical conclusion: women shouldn't be able to vote.

How on earth did we women ever get the vote? If intellectual acumen were a requirement for suffrage today, we'd still be waiting for our shot at the ballot box. Fortunately, the pioneering suffragettes who fought for the 19th Amendment had their heads screwed on tight - unlike the "Sex and the City" groupies who think abortion as birth control is something worth fighting for. Five girls from Queens are holding a Brooklyn beer fund-raiser this week for their poor sisters in South Dakota, who've lost their right to kill their babies in utero.

In response to this genius juxtaposition of Sex and the City, abortion, beer and suffragettes, the event has gotten press from both Gawker and Broadsheet. (With more to come, I'm sure.)

So come have a beer this Thursday for Alicia Colon, the unintentional patron saint of pro-choice fundraisers.

May 11, 2006, 8pm
Cafe Grumpy
193 Meserole Ave., Brooklyn
$10 cover charge includes one drink.

Proceeds will be donated to Planned Parenthood of South Dakota.

While Iranian women have been fighting for the right to attend soccer games for some time, it looks like pressure from Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has reversed the decision.

Last month, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad declared that he would allow women to attend sports events (but sitting in a separate section of the stands) because their presence would “promote chastity.� However, Ayatollah’s status stands above the president’s, which led Ahmadinejad to reverse his decision.

This comes just a month before the national team plays in the World Cup.

Sigh.

For the 12th straight year Boston’s Operation Rescue is leading a prayer vigil against birth control today in Shrewsbury, Massachusetts. That’s where Margaret Sanger, Katharine McCormick, and Gregory Pincus joined together to develop the pill.

The FDA approved the first birth control pill, Enovid, 46 years ago this week. (Though the photo above is actually of Ortho-Novum, the second pill on the market and the first drug ever to be packaged in its own special "compliance dispenser.") And-- take it from Operation Rescue-- America's been going downhill ever since. The pill is the cause of “numerous social pathologies� and --

“Society’s embrace of contraception has yielded widespread promiscuity; ever increasing rates and strains of venereal disease; a 50% divorce rate; epidemic rates of unwed pregnancy; millions of abortions—over 40% of all women having had a surgical abortion by age 45; and greater rates of child neglect and abuse.�

And here I thought birth control acted to prevent pregnancy and abortions. I must have been brainwashed by the feminists. Sigh, I wish I could write this off as irrelevant extremism but with the continuing fight over EC, insurance coverage and pharmacy refusals, I'm afraid this thinking isn't fringe at all.

If you're a repro rights geek, you can celebrate this birth control milestone by checking out PBS's Timeline: The Pill. It's fascinating.

Contributed by Madeline Halperin-Robinson.

No, not him.

I'm talking about David Usher, the President of the American Coalition of Fathers and Children, who may just be my favorite anti-feminist writer. He attempts to create this fictional history of the feminist movement and proceeds to attack us with the most hilarious of theories (for lack of a better word). It’s time for a good laugh.

While he advised all men in his previous piece responding to the Duke rape allegations to “stay away from feminists and strippers� while calling feminism the “Pink Mafia,� an article from a while back went into depth about the linkage between the feminist movement and the Ku Klux Klan.

Well, his new piece talks of the “WKKK� as well, where the second wave of feminism was born. (Who knew?) Additionally, books such as “Women of the Klan� are apparently required reading in women’s studies classes. Darn, I didn’t get that one in my courses!

There’s a number of other shit he throws out that the women’s movement caused, like the “orgy of self-gratification and mass liberated sex� in the 60s, a feminist take-over of the United Nations, and the war against marriage. He says:

“The crucial war shaping the future of America occurs silently in Washington D.C.  Feminists are deeply aware that war spending needs translate into reductions of federal funding on the war against marriage.  This is why Jane Fonda, Barbara Streisand, and all known feminists staunchly oppose the war at all costs.�

HA! I fucking love it. His solution? The overturn of Roe and the restoration of a free marriage market:

"Heterosexual marriage is the only institution that naturally erases all physical, social, economic, and culturally-imposed differences that exist between the sexes. Marriage assures a robust economy, with many men ready to vigorously defend their homes and families, women willing to live on less to ensure the survival of a free democracy, and deficit spending is unlikely.

I know I’m posting this three months too early, but I just had to do it.

You must check out this new book that’s being released in August about the marketing schemes that are being used to make girls into boy-crazy, pink-obsessed shopoholics.

Packaging Girlhood: Rescuing Our Daughters From Marketers’ Schemes is a parent guide on how to teach girls to subvert the market and the media that essentially “packages� their girlhood. Here’s a snippet of their mission statement:

“We show parents the image of girls (sexy, diva, boy-crazy, shoppers) that's being packaged and sold, pretty in pink. We write about how ‘girl power’ has been co-opted by marketers of music, fashion, books, cartoons, TV shows, movies, toys, and more to mean the power to shop and attract boys, and how girls are encouraged to use their ‘voice’ to choose accessorizing over academics, sex appeal over sports, and boyfriends over friends. We expose these stereotypes and the very limited choices presented of who girls are and what they can be.�

Hell yes. I love this catchphrase the most:

“You can’t turn off the world; so teach your daughter to READ it and read it well.�

Do you think it would be okay to buy the book even if I don’t have daughter?

A new campaign sponsored by The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists is educating women on emergency contraception and urging them to obtain an advance prescription of the drug.

The goal is to encourage doctors to ask women of childbearing age if they would like an advance prescription for the morning-after pill "at every visit," said Dr. Douglas Laube, ACOG's president-elect and chair of the ob-gyn department at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. That way, if a woman has unprotected sex or contraception fails, she can take steps to prevent an unwanted pregnancy.

Naturally, the campaign is catching a lot of flak from anti-choicers who call it “irresponsible.� But what could be more responsible than having a form of back-up birth control just in case?

ACOG President Michael T. Mennuti says, "With the Ask me. campaign, ACOG is stepping up our efforts to address this country's high rate of unintended pregnancy. Nearly half (49%) of the more than 6 million pregnancies that occur each year are unplanned...Family planning is an important issue for our specialty, and EC is an excellent contraceptive option for millions of women who want to prevent an unintended pregnancy."

Mennuit continued that the campaign is particularly important because of the accessibility problem with EC. Many women can’t get to their docs in time (EC has to be taken within 72 hours of unprotected sex) and women who don’t have insurance may not have a regular doctor.

The doctor-led initiative was created in response to the FDA’s continued trumping of politics over science.

"Many of us feel the FDA's actions have been unfair, unkind, unconscionable, unsafe and biased," said Dr. Iffath Hoskins, chair of the ob-gyn department at Lutheran Medical Center in Brooklyn, N.Y.

Word.

It looks like the Durham police report on the rape allegations against members of the Duke lacrosse team wasn’t taken too seriously. In fact, the Durham police seemed to assure Duke authorities that the ordeal “will blow over,� and that if any charges were filed, “they would be no more than misdemeanors,� according to a university report released yesterday.

Because, you know, rape isn’t a serious crime or anything.

In fact, Duke president Richard Brodhead didn’t even hear about the report until a week later when he read about it in the student newspaper. When he inquired about it from Duke’s vice president of student affairs, Larry Moneta, he was told that “the accusation were not credible and were unlikely to amount to anything.� Nice job, Moneta!

The credibility of the accuser was apparently doubted by the authorities because when questioned, she initially told them she was raped by twenty men, then later said there were three. I guess this totally nixed the other minor detail that she was “crying uncontrollably and visibly shaken.�

Additionally, Brodhead didn’t hear about the racial aspects of the case until March 24, which the report says is “a gap in communications that is extraordinary.�

No fucking shit.

I’m honestly too pissed to comment on this right now. Click here to get the full Duke report.

Apparently women who like sex too much are responsible for a scourge of impotence among college men.

The Washington Post reports on the problem of younger men experiencing erectile dysfunction, which is supposedly caused in part by young women initiating sex.

According to surveys, young women are now as likely as young men to have sex and by countless reports are also as likely to initiate sex, taking away from males the age-old, erotic power of the chase.

"I know lots of girls for whom nothing is off limits," says Helen Czapary, a junior at the University of Maryland. "The pressure on the guys is a huge deal."

But it’s not just women’s horniness that’s a huge turnoff, it’s our damned opinions too:

One can argue that a young woman speaking her mind is a sign of equality. "That's a good thing," says [teacher Robin] Sawyer, father of four daughters. "But for some guys, it has come at a price. It's turned into ED in men you normally wouldn't think would have ED."

Amanda at Pandagon asks the obvious question: "But why would a woman who speaks her mind threaten the very existence of erections?"

Answer: It goes against how many young men perceive sex-- as “authority and dominance.� Seriously.

Amal Amireh at Improvisations: Arab Woman Progressive Voice has this to say:

If a man needs a helpless damsel, an unwilling partner (otherwise known as rape victim) or a virgin to get it up, then it is better for humanity that he doesn't.

No joke.

Also check out zuzu at Feministe for more.

The plight of women who work in professional sports... as managers and trainers, not as cheerleaders.

The "Chick Lit" genre is subdividing rapidly. Latest example? Chica Lit. (Yes, the headline calls it "hot." Ugh.)

Teenage girls are more likely than teenage boys to adopt new communication technology. They're also more likely to read the newspaper.

Do men have biological clocks, too?

Clinics and judges are having a hard time interpreting Utah's new parental consent law. And Californians might have to reject parental consent all over again.

Politics is getting in the way of a CDC conference panel exploring how abstinence-only sex education may undermine efforts to reduce STDs.

Gauging the impact of more than three decades of feminist activism.

Caitlin Flanagan proves that "homemaking and traditional motherhood" drives you crazy.

A new project seeks to break the silence surrounding domestic violence and South Asian women.

Click this link, and Seventh Generation will donate tampons and pads to women's shelters in your state. No monetary donation required.

Not a bad way to spend 30 seconds.

This is so horrible and depressing.

Young girls in Liberia are still being sexually exploited by aid workers and peacekeepers despite pledges to stamp out such abuse, Save the Children says.

Girls as young as eight are being forced to have sex in exchange for food by workers for local and international agencies, according to its report.

The UN in Liberia has said it would investigate allegation and promised to implement “safeguards.� But despite all the talk, the study says that abuse is still widespread. Respondents said in the report that more than half of the girls in their areas were being assaulted.

One woman reported that she was forced to have sex with a worker for the World Food Programme (WFP), others have been forced to have sex with teachers “in lieu of school fees.�

UN officials continue to say that the allegations are a priority. That’s real comforting.

Now you can track your fertility in style! (If you’re into lace, that is.)

Ovü is an armband with a thermometer on the inside that tracks the wearer’s Basal Body Temperature (BBT). Here comes the slightly creepy part:

The thermometer constantly takes in temperature in the underarm and tracks the changes. When the change is significant enough to imply a hormonal change (usually because of ovulation), the device triggers a melody to play.

Lalala, time to make the babies! How do you explain away the tune emanating from your armpit to coworkers, I wonder?

Via Popgadget.

And they’re laminated and everything.

This is too great. In a move to aid breastfeeding moms against those who find feeding babies objectionable, Kansas health officials are giving out cards with a message: "A mother may breast-feed in any place she has a right to be."

The cards are part of a public education campaign surrounding Kansas’ new law protecting women’s right to breastfeed in public. The initiative is being run by the Kansas Department of Health and Environment and the La Leche League.

"The law is really no good unless moms know about it," said Brenda Bandy, professional liaison for La Leche League of Kansas. "These cards are handy, they're durable, and they might just be the little bit of added confidence some moms need."

If a woman is asked to leave a public place for breastfeeding, the back of the card has numbers where she can report the incident.

Looks like the lactivists are doing pretty well for themselves! Sweet.

Via Broadsheet.

Microsoft has given a $1 million dollar grant to the the National Center for Women and Information Technology (NCWIT) in an attempt to recruit more women into IT fields.

Microsoft claimed that it is supporting NCWIT to help address "critical shortages" of females in the talent pipeline, from getting young girls interested in science and technology through advanced education in computer science, computer engineering and related disciplines.

Awesome.

So the NYT Magazine has put reproductive rights on the cover for the second time in a month! It's nice to see a major publication discussing what pro-choicers (and other news outlets) have been saying for quite some time: it's not just abortion rights that are at risk.

[...] recently, as the conservative tide has continued to swell, this campaign has taken on a broader scope. Its true beginning point may not be Roe but Griswold v. Connecticut, the 1965 case that had the effect of legalizing contraception. "We see a direct connection between the practice of contraception and the practice of abortion," says Judie Brown, president of the American Life League.

Yeah! We see a direct connection, too. Contraception prevents unwanted pregnancy and, therefore, abortion. Moving on...

It may be news to many people that contraception as a matter of right and public health is no longer a given, but politicians and those in the public health profession know it well.

Excuse me, you seem to have forgotten to include the feminists in that group, too. All of the repro rights advocates I know have been well aware that overturning Griswold--not just Roe-- has long been one of anti-choicers' goals.

The article illustrates nicely just how willfully ignorant conservatives are of science and research. Overwhelmingly, science says condoms prevent STDs and pregnancy. Comprehensive sex ed and access to birth control decrease teen pregnancy. Preventing the implantation of a fertilized egg is not abortion, because pregnancy does not begin until that fertilized egg is implanted in the uterus.

On that note, the reporter interviewed Illinois state Senator Ron Stephens, who is also a pharmacist who refuses to dispense EC-- but will provide birth control pills. When confronted with the information that conventional birth control pills and the morning-after pill both prevent implantation, Stephens responds, "Everyone has their natural prejudice. I'm going to understand it my way..." His way, apparently, is to ignore the fact that both work the same way.

The battle line, in other words, is shifting backward, from viability to implantation.

I'd put it a different way. It's not that the battle line is shifting backward, it's that there are actually battle lines on both ends-- both late-term abortion and pregnancy prevention methods are under siege.

Reading pieces like this, I just want to scream, "Hypocrites!" How many children do all of these conservatives have? The rhythm method has at least a 25% failure rate. How do the women who work for Concerned Women for America and the American Life League maintain their careers as anti-contraception crusaders without constantly getting pregnant? Oh, that's right. They're anti-sex. Explains so much.

I haven't seen this movie yet, but I can't wait since the other two in this series, Earth and Fire, are two of my favorites. Mehta knows how to piss off the Hindu Fundies for bringing up issues like (homo)sexuality, Muslim-Hindu conflict, and this time the politics of widowhood for women, in her ground-breaking, controversial and really pretty films.

via NYT.

Into this milieu now comes the director Deepa Mehta with "Water," a lush new film that opened on Friday, about Chuyia, an 8-year-old widow in the India of 1938. She has barely met her husband but is banished by her parents to a decrepit widows' house on the edge of the Ganges. Chuyia is left there sobbing, in one of the most heart-wrenching scenes in the film, but she insists her parents will soon return for her.

Even as it becomes clear that they won't, Chuyia's spirited, rebellious streak shines through, and she begins to change the way the other widows in the house view the world, as the independence movement of Mahatma Gandhi swirls around them. Chuyia has a particularly powerful effect on two people: Shakuntula, who begins to question a Hindu faith that subjects women who have lost husbands to such degrading lives, and Kalyani, a beautiful young widow who has been forced into prostitution by the head of the widow house. As the film unfolds, Kalyani ignores the taboos to fall tragically in love with a handsome young Gandhi nationalist.

The sorrowful film is nonetheless a triumph of conscience over blind faith, and a powerful message about how much, and how little, has changed in India. "I think it's slightly naïve for me to think that films make a difference," Ms. Mehta, the director, said in a telephone interview from Toronto, where she lives half the year, when she is not in New Delhi. "But what it can do is start a dialogue and provoke discussion."

I think films are a really important medium of communication and often times not only a starting point for discussion, but a starting point for activism. For example, Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price started a tremendous amount of organizing and just last week at the immigration protests the rally was called "A Day Without an Immigrant," from A Day Without a Mexican .

Since I haven't seen it yet, I don't yet know what some of these bigger implications might be, but I am interested to see the difference in reception between Western audiences and those in India. In the last decade, the US in particular has gotten very much obsessed with stories from, about, surrounding South Asia and especially South Asian women. But little of it has been in a radical feminist (third world feminist) way where the West is attempting to understand and support a condition different from their own. More in like a now we have South Asian literature and film to add to our collection of multi-culti *ethnic* and *foreign* stories, (not in any way to discredit the oftentimes VERY feminist authorship of these cultural productions.) Or my favorite, "oh those poor oppressed Indian women..." or what I like to call the Oprah's Book Club attitude.

Discussion, organizing and activism around the treatment of widows in India is an important one and has been on the top of the Indian feminist agenda for some time now. How will this story be received in the US? As a story of a young girl's courage and the recognition for all the moments of feminist practice that go down within the historical context of a very patriarchal India or will it be another way for Westerners to view India as a backwards place?

Anyone seen the flick?

“Yo my sister, yo my brother!
When they ask you, you check ‘other’
You don’t fit in, you’re in between
You push their buttons Boo
You’re just like me

Ahha, This is Womyn’s Music baby
Ahha, It’s a good thing!�

Just in case you didn’t hear Nedra’s “Ahha (It’s a Good Thing)� on Showtime’s “The L word� last season, here are some of her in-your-face lyrics. There’s definitely more where that came from. Nedra’s all about staying true, and her lyrics definitely don’t sway from the truth. From “Prozac (So Fun Living…) to “Any Way You Need Her,� Nedra keeps it socially conscious and butchy sensual.

I caught up with Nedra that morning in April, when it was snowing in NYC. And did some follow-up emails throughout the month. She does freelance web design work when she’s not on the road. And this July…girl is turning 40.

“Just not cracking yet,� she said. Here’s Nedra…

While it was recently announced that Commander in Chief has been pulled from the air, Geena Davis has been working on her own kick-ass project that is gaining much attention.

Davis recently launched See Jane, an organization that addresses the lack of female characters in television, movies and other media, particularly for young children.

A report was just released by See Jane about gender representations in G-rated films, including the portrayal of masculinity in boys and body image. Here are a few findings:

- There are three male characters for every female.

- Fewer than one out of three (28 percent) of the speaking characters (real and animated) are female.

- Less than one in five (17 percent) of the characters in crowd scenes are female.

- More than four out of five (83 percent) of films’ narrators are male.

Who needs Mackenzie Allen when girls have such a dope role model like Geena?

As well as the blackberries in their hands, according to the religious-looking pic of suits and electronics above this article by the Economist last month.

The author's claim was that women are presently the most powerful engine of economic growth in the world, as well as predicted that future generations may ask “why a man can’t be more like a woman.�

The article seemed to have a tone that was pretty impressive; the author was attempting to convince readers that having women in the work industry is essential for economic growth and that the only way to support this belief as well as improve the economy is to push for better daycare, parental leave, an equal share of housework between the sexes and more of an overall acceptance of women in work.

However, my delight in such an article came to a screeching halt during the second part, “Girl Power,� when the author pretty much denies the existence of a gender pay gap:

“The main reason why women still get paid less on average than men is not that they are paid less for the same jobs but that they tend not to climb so far up the career ladder, or they choose lower-paid occupations, such as nursing and teaching.�

I was also bothered by the author’s argument that women are not just crucial to the growth of the world economy, but offer certain skills that men don’t have. By the end of the article, it was a battle of the sexes, and to distinguish women and men’s working styles as “this� and “that� just seems to support the idea that men and women are inherently different. (Let’s not even get into the capitalist overtones.)

Thoughts?

Give a big fat welcome to Celina De Leon, the latest addition to Feministing. Celina has been given the very fancy title of Interviews Editor. We like titles.

Celina is a 27-year-old social justice journalist from Hartford, CT. She has a Master's Degree in Human Rights from Columbia University, and a B.A. in print journalism from Northeastern University in Boston. She spent her college years and much of her 20s as the senior editor of Teen Voices Magazine, and is a contributing writer for AlterNet.org.

Every Saturday, Celina will post interviews with activists, artists, and all sorts of women doing amazing work.

Celina recently interviewed the fabulous OUT Alternative R&B artist Nedra Johnson before she left for her summer tour. Her lyrics are all about her loving being a butch woman of color and her feminist politics. Her voice is a cross between MeShell Ndegeocello, Jill Scott, and BB King. She's opened for Blues greats Bo Diddley and Johnnie Johnson. Her song, "AHA (It's a Good Thing)," appeared on the Showtime drama, "The L-Word" in March.

So make sure to come back tomorrow to check out Celina's interview with the very cool Nedra Johnson.

Excuse my potty-mouth, but this just disgusts me.

It looks like the Massachusetts Family Institute has started a campaign that may halt future same-sex marriages in the state, proposing a ballot question that inquires about a reversal of the Supreme Justice Court’s decision to legalize gay marriage in 2003.

The Gay & Lesbian Advocates and Defenders have confronted the SJC on the request, arguing that Attorney General Thomas F. Reilly’s approval of the ballot question blatantly ignores a provision in the state constitution that blocks citizen-generated questions seeking the “reversal of a judicial decision.�

The SJC’s ruling is expected to come within the next four to six weeks. If the court approves it, the question must get the backing of at least 50 lawmakers in two legislative sessions in order to be featured on the November 2008 ballot.

Let’s hope the court makes the right decision so this doesn't have to get any uglier than it already is.

With it being so close to Mother’s Day, The Nation wrote an article on "the mommy wage gap" and how mothers have been continuously discriminated against in the workplace.

One suggestion the authors made was that the gender pay gap may be as large as it is because of discrimination against mothers, and that nonmothers generally get paid more to men’s dollar than moms.

Thoughts?

“Unwanted Pregnancies Rise for Poor Women.�

The National Center for Health Statistics among other sources led researchers to conclude that from 1994 to 2001, the rate of unplanned pregnancies increased by almost 30 percent for women below the poverty line. For women well above the line, the rate of unplanned pregnancies fell by 20 percent within that time.

When asked what they believed the drive was behind these trends,

“The authors noted that some state and federal reproductive health programs have been cut or made more restrictive in recent years. State and federal programs have increasingly focused on abstinence rather than contraception, and some analysts have argued that the shift is leading to less use of contraceptives and more unintended pregnancies.�

Leslee Unruh, the president and founder of The Abstinence Clearinghouse (self-explanatory title), says that the trends are due to the sudden and random failure of consistently effective sex education programs. She says, "They teach how to put on a condom rather than how to take control of their lives."

Because protecting yourself isn’t taking control of your life?

Just kidding. Really. But Alabama gubernatorial candidate Loretta Nall isn't. She's offering a virtual striptease to campaign donors.

Some background: A recent local newspaper column featured a photo of her cleavage. The columnist, Bob Ingram, went on to comment on her breasts. Then Nall responded:

I also question why you chose that particular photo out of about 200 available on the internet, many of which were more suitable for the political nature of the article in which the photo appeared. It doesn't seem to be a decision that a person of your journalistic credibility and background would make.

[...] Now that you and the rest of Alabama have been introduced to "the twins" perhaps you'd like to meet the rest of me. I'll don my Burka, so y'all won't be distracted, and perhaps we can discuss the other planks in my platform, since Mr. Ingram saw fit to only discuss one.

She proceeded to get Ingram on the phone and discuss her views on issues of actual importance, like drug policy reform and gay rights. Then she turned the free publicity into a campaign slogan, "More of these boobs [hers] and less of these boobs [incumbent politicians]!!!" (This much of her story has gotten some attention.)

And up until two days ago, when she announced her "Flashing for Freedom" fundraiser, I think she had the right response. Tit for tat, if you will. (Sorry.)

But there's no way I can get behind the online strippergram. Rather than simply responding to the way she was portrayed, Nall has taken a step in their direction. Even though she writes, "I don't approve of political reporters who are titillated by my breasts while ignoring the serious issues which affect a whole lot of poor and disenfranchised Alabamians," she's not giving the public much of a reason to examine the issues she stands for.

I know what you're thinking is "I'd really, really like to see the biggest boobs in Alabama politics."

Actually, I'm thinking, I'd really, really like to see female candidates not stoop to these levels.

Thanks to Michael for the link.

This is just lovely. A woman who was raped by the father of her kids has been forced to give him visitation rights.

Henry J. Weldy, father of Kim Linetty’s three children, brutally raped Linetty four years ago:

She details the multiple phone calls to police, her screams to neighbors and the swelling sense of dread that something horrible was about to happen to her.

Then Linetty tells of the attack -- how he wrestled her to the ground, punched her in the head, pulled down her pants and raped her, covering her mouth and threatening death during the assault.

In January, a judge ordered that Linetty take her children to Indiana State Prison to visit their rapist father. Using mind-boggling logic, father’s rights activists claim that this is in the best interest of the children.

"You don't deny children the right to see their parents based on issues between the parents," said Mike McCormick, executive director of the American Coalition for Fathers and Children, based in Washington.

"I'm in no way downplaying the seriousness of the fact that he is convicted of raping her, but that consideration is separate and distinct from the issue of the child maintaining a relationship with their father, even in circumstances of incarceration," McCormick said.

Right, calling a brutal rape an “issue between parents� is in no way downplaying it. Are you kidding me?

How can someone argue that being around a violent rapist is in the best interest of children?

Pinko Feminist Hellcat and Trish Wilson have excellent (and comprehensive) posts up on this story; go check them out.

There's a new abortion-rights poll out, showing support for Roe v. Wade is at 49% to 47%, compared with 52% in 2005.

The percentage of U.S. adults who say women should be permitted to get an abortion under all circumstance (24%) has remained rather stable over the last decade. In comparison, 20% of adults think a woman should be able to get an abortion under no circumstances, compared with 21% a year ago.

So there's been little change in the numbers of people who are firm and absolute in their views on abortion rights.

I wonder how those middle numbers would look different if they'd asked, "Do you support your own right (or your wife's or girlfriends' or daughter's) to decide whether to terminate a pregnancy within the first three months?" I also wish they'd asked respondents whether they'd ever personally exercised their right to choose (or supported someone who has). I mean, advertising agencies have picked up on the power of ownership language. I want abortion pollsters to do the same. I'm guessing that numbers would look a little more pro-Roe.

Thanks to Erin for the link.

Today's 'fuck you' goes to "big game hunter and shark master" Doug Giles. The honor is bestowed upon him for the following quote:

...the true identity of postmodern day feminists: misogynists with vaginas . . . womyn who not only hate men, but women also.

BTW . . . have you ever seen a feminist around a womanly woman and not one of her butch buddies who's sporting a Tim Allen haircut?

Giles, speaking about Carrie Lukas' new anti-feminist guide, also says that the book "is going to liberate ladies to be ladies." I can hardly wait. Liberate me, you shark master, you.

Others have analyzed Giles' bullshittery in much more thoughtful and humorous ways, I know. I just really wanted to give him the finger.

(Image borrowed from the gracious Bitch Ph.D.)

A 63 year-old woman will be one of the world’s oldest mothers after she became pregnant through fertility treatments.

Her Italian doctor, Severino Antinori, said despite her age she was the perfect candidate for motherhood:

"She came here with her husband, the couple love each other, she is very slim, blonde and in perfect condition, she fits all the criteria for maternity."

The Missouri House approved a bill this week that will change sex ed programs throughout the state--and not in a good way.

The bill requires public school students to get permission slips from their parents before taking sex ed, would ban “abortion providers� from providing any class materials, would state that life begins at conception and would have to push for "lifelong monogamous marriage between a man and a woman."

Wow. The bill was sponsored by Rep. Cynthia Davis (who says that contraception is “a way to have all the goodies and not pay the price"), who originally wanted to ban a requirement that students be taught about sexually transmitted diseases. Thankfully, that requirement was reinstated.

I don’t know about the parental permission for sex ed thing--when I was in school we had to get a note if our parents wanted us taken out of the class. And while we never really learned about abortion, a lot of great information on birth control and STDs was given to us by local women’s clinics. But I digress--this bill has nothing to do with caring about young people and their health. It’s about limiting our choices and our knowledge. Period.

Louise Arbour, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, says that sexual violence against women in Darfur is getting worse.

"The situation (in Darfur) is poor, bad and very alarming and what is particularly sad is to see no progress and a deterioration of the situation," said Louise Arbour, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights.

"I am absolutely persuaded that the sexual violence against women ... is worsening every day," Arbour told Reuters in an interview in Khartoum on Wednesday.

Arbour recently ended a tour of the region.

For more information about women in Darfur, go to Amnesty International.

Make sure to give some love to the incomparable Samhita, who is 28 years old today.

Who knew when I met this girl in college that we would be getting into so much trouble together (all of the political variety, of course).

The pic above is Samhita at her feminist-finest: in my apartment in the wee hours of New Years morning. Who said feminists don't know how to party?

Alternet has an article today on the recent trend of women-only train cars, Warning: No-Groping Zone: The pink-striped cars on Brazil's trains and subways are reserved for women only, but is it protection or segregation?

A new study by the folks at Salary.com says that if a full-time stay-at-home mom was paid for all of the work she does, she’d be getting $134,121 a year. Damn!

A mother who works outside the home would earn an extra $85,876 annually on top of her actual wages for the work she does at home, according to the study by Waltham, Massachusetts-based compensation experts Salary.com.

To reach the projected pay figures, the survey calculated the earning power of the 10 jobs respondents said most closely comprise a mother's role -- housekeeper, day-care teacher, cook, computer operator, laundry machine operator, janitor, facilities manager, van driver, chief executive and psychologist.

Mothers who have a job outside the home reported spending 44 hours a week at their paying job and 49.8 hours a week working at home; stay-at-home moms work 91.6 hours a week. I’m getting tired just looking at those numbers!

Salary.com also has a website where moms can calculate what they could be paid based on several factors, including how many kids they have: “The site will produce a printable document that looks like a paycheck.� Is it just me, or is that kind of cruel?

What do you get when you cross Jessica Simpson’s dad with a cult-like cotillion? Well, the Father-Daughter Purity Ball of course!

Basically it’s a sexual-purity soiree where young girls pledge their chastity--to their dads. And their fathers swear to protect their precious hymens...I mean daughters.

Lynn at Broadsheet tells us that these balls have been going on for a couple of years and that they’re cropping up in several cities.

...Dolled up in tiaras and pearls -- or perhaps abstinence jewelry -- the girls (some of whom look young enough to wish they were home watching "Dora the Explorer") are escorted by their dads to this creepy cotillion that, as far as I can tell from the photos, includes some sort of interpretive dance...

Nice. But not as creepy as the pledge daddy-dearest reads:

I, [daughter's name]'s father, choose before God to cover my daughter as her authority and protection in the area of purity. I will be pure in my own life as a man, husband and father. I will be a man of integrity and accountability as I lead, guide and pray over my daughter and as the high priest in my home. This covering will be used by God to influence generations to come.

The pictures of the event are priceless, but I can’t bring myself to put them up here. It makes me feel dirty.

Since I’m blogging from my parents’ house today (don’t ask), I thought I’d ask my daddy what he thought of all this.

Phil on the Father-Daughter Purity Ball: Jessica, please stop saying hymen. What is this now? [Reading website] Hmm. Well...the idea of being a “high priest� definitely appeals to my ego, but this is just fucking weird.

From the mouths of dads.

Related: The Happy Feminist, Pathological Fatherly Protectiveness

One out of three young women in the U.S. becomes pregnant before they’re 20-years-old.

Today is the National Day to Prevent Teen Pregnancy, and instead of pushing dangerous and ineffective abstinence-only ed programs, pro-choice groups are urging lawmakers to vote on commonsense legislation that will actually work.

NARAL Pro-Choice America is asking Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist to allow a vote on Sen. Robert Menendez's (D-NJ) Teen Pregnancy Prevention Act, which includes proposals to help prevent teen pregnancy and protect young women’s health and well-being:

Sen. Menendez stressed the importance of after-school programs and partnerships with community-based organizations.

"We need to provide opportunity and education for young people to help prevent teen pregnancy in the first place, and my bill will take an important step by increasing access to after-school programs as well as partnerships with faith-based and other community organizations," Sen. Menendez said.

Take action here.

Find out more about the bill: Teen Pregnancy Prevention, Responsibility and Opportunity Act (S.2508)

Make sure to check out Mikhaela Reid's latest, Conservative Spring Fashion: Guzzle-icious!

My fave conservative fashion trend is above. Hymens are so in this year.

I'm a couple days late on this one...

Even at the Vatican, not all sacred beliefs are absolute: Thou shalt not kill, but war can be just. Now, behind the quiet walls, a clash is shaping up involving two poles of near certainty: the church's long-held ban on condoms and its advocacy of human life.

The issue is AIDS. Church officials recently confirmed that Pope Benedict XVI had requested a report on whether it might be acceptable for Catholics to use condoms in one narrow circumstance: to protect life inside a marriage when one partner is infected with H.I.V. or is sick with AIDS.

I mean, I guess it's a start (though I doubt it will happen). But I suppose if you're unmarried, you don't deserve the chance to protect yourself.

Jill at Feministe has more.

For making Friday's Feministing party so much fun. Check her out above, with one of many well-deserved beers of the evening. (Apparently the party was so action-packed, I couldn't even be bothered to look at the camera.)

And a big thanks to all of you who came to show your support, including my online buds Jill from Feministe, Lindsay from Majikthise, Alternet's Evan, Rachel Kramer Bussel from the Village Voice and Gothamist, and Gwynn of the REAL hot 100.

Looking forward to the next one!

Make sure to check out the latest issue of Our Truths, Nuestras Verdades, the bilingual magazine which "seeks to reduce the stigma surrounding abortion in order to improve the physical, emotional and spiritual health and wellbeing of all people and strengthen their capacity to reach their highest potential."

This issue takes on abortion in pop culture and has articles like "Hip-Hop and Family Values" and "The Color of Choice: Breaking the Silence with Silent Choices." Great stuff.

(Click on image to magnify)

Are Caitlin Flanagan and IWF Vice President Carrie Lukas duking it out for top anti-feminist honors?

Lukas has just come out with The Politically Incorrect Guide to Women, Sex, and Feminism. (Just in time to glom some press from Flanagan's To Hell With All That: Loving and Loathing Our Inner Housewife.)

Lukas' Guide contains such some truly riveting information, such as:

Careers can be baby-deniers.

Research shows that women still tend to prefer men who are breadwinners...who they can consider intellectually superior.

...feminists pine for a sugar daddy in Uncle Sam.

So don't be a baby-denier! (That term is going to keep me laughing for at least a week.)

Also, if you want to catch some anti-feminist on anti-feminist action, check out this interview with Lukas by The National Review's Kathryn Jean Lopez. It's the greatest ass-kissing fest I've seen in a while.

You know you want to.

If you're in the NYC area, the Willie Mae Rock Camp for Girls (who we love) has just announced the dates for this summer's sessions. They're looking for campers and volunteers (counselors, musicians, etc.) so please spread the word.

And of course if you can't volunteer, you can always pony up some cash.

The Abstinence Clearinghouse is so “unconcerned� about a new study reporting that virginity pledges are ineffective that they’ve put out a preemptive press release.

"A paper by Harvard student Janet Rosenbaum released this week...gives health advocates no useful information in helping youth choose healthy behaviors."

(Healthy=hymen, in this case.)

In the yet-to-be-released June 2006 issue of the American Journal of Public Health, Rosenbaum--a Ph.D. candidate at Harvard’s Program on Health Policy--found that virginity pledges were a big ole waste of time.

Five years after taking a virginity pledge, most virginity pledgers fail to report having pledged. Virginity pledges do not affect the incidence of self-reported pre-marital sex or assay-determined chlamydia.

The Abstinence Clearinghouse takes issue with the findings (wonder why) and says that in addition to Rosenbaum’s “less than scientific� method, the study’s results are marred by “the questionable answers of the survey's respondents.� And by questionable, the Clearinghouse means that they owned up to having pre-marital sex. Which just can’t be right.

UPDATE: Here's the abstract, you have to pay for a complete pdf of the report.

Huh. This is gross.

As you may know, Rosie O’Donnell has been tapped to replace Meredith Vieira on ABC's The View.

The catch? Rosie can't look too butchy.

Rosie O’Donnell’s new mega contract with ABC has one absolute proviso: the former talk show queen cannot cut her hair.

You may recall there was an uproar toward the end of Rosie’s run as a syndicated talk show host because she chopped off her locks to emulate Culture Club songstress Helen Terry.

O’Donnell’s enemies at Gruner + Jahr Publishing even used the wedge hair cut against her when they sued her for a million bucks after shutting down the “Rosie� magazine. They lost that battle. But ABC apparently wants Rosie to look as glamorous as possible when she sits down on “The View� among Joy Behar, Star Jones, and Debbie [sic] Hasselbeck.

Maybe they'll also make her sport mini skirts and make out with male guests. In the name of being "glamorous," of course.

The Supreme Court ruled yesterday that anti-choicers who created “wanted� posters to identify doctors who perform abortions should pay $5 million in damages. It’s about time--this court battle has been a decade in the making.

The 12 activists and two anti-abortion groups were sued under a racketeering law and the 1994 Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, which makes it illegal to incite violence and threaten abortion doctors.

A Portland, Ore., jury had first awarded several doctors and clinics $108 million in punitive damages, but that was reduced by the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Anti-choice groups appealed in an attempt to reduce the amount (over and over again).

...Maria Vullo, the lawyer for Planned Parenthood, said the Supreme Court had "finally put an end to re-litigation of these issues." She said her clients did not contest the reduction of the punitive damages to $4.73 million.

"This case has never been about the money. It's about protecting doctors' lives," she said.

Anti-choicers have always contended that there is nothing threatening about the Wanted posters. Paul DeParrie, former editor-in-chief of Life Advocate magazine and one of the posters' creators: "If you read them, there is no threat--either implicit or explicit."

Tell that to Dr. Bayard Britton, who was shot and killed (along with his bodyguard) outside a Florida clinic after his name appeared on a similar poster.

Just wondering if anyone caught last night's episode of The Simpsons, which was a play on the Lawrence Summers girls-suck-at-math stuff. Here's a summary of the episode, Girls Just Want To Have Sums:

The family attends "Stab-A-Lot: The Itchy and Scratchy Musical." The musical's director is a graduate of Springfield Elementary and Principal Skinner puts his foot in mouth when he makes sexist comments about her education and that of women in general. He tries to make the situation better, but only buries himself deeper and deeper until he is fired and replaced by Women's Educational Expert Melanie Upfoot. The first thing she does is split the school into girls and the boys. Lisa dislikes the way girls are being taught math and she ventures over to the boy's side of the school in search of a challenge. Disguising herself as Jake Boymen she starts attending the boy's school but while she finds the math problems more interesting, it is being a boy that is a greater challenge.

Yeah. I watched it and was kind of bummed--it just wasn't as subversive or funny as I thought it could be. I know it's a fucking cartoon, so I'm not getting all crazy about it. But still. Anyone else want to weigh in?

Alternet's PEEK: Colbert rips Bush to his face (I swooned.)

Abyss2hope at Alas, a Blog: Booze, Education, Male Bonding, the Cooties and Rape

GlobalVoices: What Salvadoran bloggers are saying — abortion and gay marriage

Lindsay at Majikthise: Ex-FDA chief faces criminal charges

Padagon points to Dawn Eden's freak-out over a safe sex commercial.

Violet Palmer, one of the NBA’s first female referees, is set to be the first woman to officiate an NBA playoff game.

For Palmer, 33, working the playoffs is a goal she has been working toward for years.

"I wasn't sure I could reach it," Palmer said. "I knew I had the ability but this is the top of the pedestal for me."

Thanks to Killer B at Modern Feminism for bringing us what we hope will be the first of many video blog posts.

Click here to watch.

Today is the May Day General Strike: A Day without Immigrants!

No Work, No School, No Selling, No Buying!

via CNN.

Monday's events will be unprecedented in their scope, said Nativo Lopez, president of the Mexican-American Political Association.

"We're going to see something that's never occurred in the history of this United States -- a day in which immigrants withhold their labor, withhold their consuming power -- they don't go to school, they don't go shopping, they don't go selling," Lopez said.

About 7.2 million illegal immigrants hold jobs in the United States, making up 4.9 percent of the overall labor force, according to a recent study by the Pew Hispanic Center. Undocumented workers make up 24 percent of farmworkers and hold 14 percent of construction jobs, the study found.

Other estimates put the total number of illegal immigrants in the United States at more than 11 million.

Some resources:

May Day General Strike/Walkout Round-up at deletetheborder.org

No on HR4437.org

What is happening in SF via indymedia.

And the Immigrant Solidarity Network.

If anyone has other resources please add to comments.

Papers for everyone that is all.

See you out there...

Women on Cyprus recently broke a world record when they linked together almost 115,000 bras (covering about 70 miles of the island) in an attempt to raise breast cancer awareness.

The group of Dutch, British and Cypriot organisers took nearly nine hours to create the chain at the harbour in the resort of Paphos, following a year of painstaking planning.

Their success will shove Singapore, which had held the record since 2003 with 79,000 bras, off the top spot in the Guinness Book of World Records.

…Even the British solders based in Cyprus took part helping organisers move the bags of bras and lay the chain.

Organizers of the bra chain are also building a database that will send out text messages to women providing information and reminding them of screenings.

Pandagon’s Amanda Marcotte has a great piece up on Alternet today about anti-choice “pregnancy crisis centers� that pose as abortion clinics, Exposing Anti-Choice Abortion Clinics.

Here’s a telling snippet:

Anti-choice activists openly regard family planning clinics like Planned Parenthood as primarily feminist organizations that just so happen to provide health care. Sarah Wheat of NARAL Pro-Choice Texas, who spent a considerable amount of time researching crisis pregnancy centers and has compiled a full report on them, explained that the first crisis pregnancy center was opened in 1967 by Robert Pearson as "the service arm of the anti-choice movement." Crisis pregnancy centers have a long history of providing the absolute minimum of services required to maintain the illusion that they provide care while they further their actual goal of trying to persuade women out of abortion -- sometimes using deceptive methods.

Peggy Romberg recollected that when she worked for Planned Parenthood in the '80s, crisis pregnancy centers would actually provide shelter to pregnant women right up until the eligible date for legal abortion had passed. They would then turn the women out, and it was Romberg's agency that was tasked with explaining to these desperate women that it was too late.

Yikes. Amanda goes onto note that many of these “clinics� have no medical staff whatsoever; the only “medical� treatment they offer is a pharmacy-bought pregnancy test. Make sure to read the whole article—it just gets worse.