June 2006 Archives

Oh my god, the perfect way to waste time. Jill at Feministe and Amanda at Pandagon have both utilized the best tool ever--a facial recognition program that tells you what celebrity you look like. Check out famous Feministing faces after the jump.

Remember the “Roe v. Wade for Men� case that Rebecca Traister at Salon covered a while back? Well, the results are in. Check it out.

As an update to Madeline's post on the CDC’s recommendation of the HPV vaccine to young girls, we’re not surprised to find that the Independent Women’s Forum thinks this attempt to eliminate the disease will only trigger a much more serious epidemic: slutosis.

Fuck saving women’s lives, we need to save these girls’ souls! Barf. This argument is baseless. When I went to the doctor for shots when I was young, I didn't know or care what the hell it was for; all I knew is that it hurt like a mofo. What do they think the doctor's going to do, give her a condom instead of a lollipop when she leaves the office?

Thanks to PseudoAdrienne for the link.

The anti-choice (pro-crazy) group Operation Rescue purchased a Kansas building that housed a clinic--and then they evicted them.

The anti-abortion group has evicted the clinic and plans to renovate the building for use as its headquarters and a memorial display, said Cheryl Sullenger, Operation Rescue spokeswoman.

This is pretty fucked up.

It looks like Minnesota is going to be giving a shitload of money to the same “crisis pregnancy centers� that others are trying to regulate due to false advertising and scare tactics that intimidate women into not having abortions.

Tomorrow, a number of groups and clinics that specifically aim to steer women away from abortion will begin receiving $4.75 million from the state over the next two years. This is a part of the “Positive Alternatives Act� that was passed last year.

In the meantime, funding for family planning (which includes abortion services) is going down. And fast.

Dumb "women" headlines of the day!

When I search for articles pertaining to women, I find a number of stories that have humorous, sexist, and/or dumb headlines that I feel like are too humorous, sexist and/or dumb not to share with others. Here are my three favorite of the day:

"Flip-Flops Damaging To Women’s Careers"
(Fuck the glass ceiling, flip-flops are ruining us all!!!)

"Men’s and women’s tastes in food surprisingly similar"
(I thought women only like quiches and men only like pork chops!)

"Even skinny blonde women need love"
(Self-explanatory.)

You have got to see this.

Jill at Feministe uncovered one of the eeriest (and most hilarious) anti-choice projects I've encountered, and it’s called “Grooms for Life.� It essentially pairs single pregnant women with anti-choice bachelors who are willing to marry them and be their baby’s daddy. After all, women wouldn’t have abortions if men were willing to marry them! My favorite line:

“female pro-lifers and married men could spend their time recruiting bachelors to their cause so that the screaming demonstrators outside abortion clinics would soon be replaced by swains in bow ties, holding rings and serenading the pregnant women.�

Not too creepy.

The one thing I do give these crazies props for is the upfront “we don’t care who you marry� attitude that only exposes them for who they really are.

With the U.S. Women’s Open kicking off today, it looks like there’s a new theme that’s attracting the audience this year: fashion. Ooh ooh, I got a joke. What does fashion have to do with golf? Nothing, but we’re talking about women’s golf, silly!

While I’ve always personally wanted an excuse to wear argyle socks (and don’t you just love the word “knickers�), this new style of fashion described is not-so-original and a wee “slutified� -- the three descriptors from the article that stand out in my mind are “mini-skirts,� “tight tops� and “pink.� (There’s also the “funky headscarves,� but that’s more cheesy than anything.)

Don’t get me wrong; I love short, tight gear and rock it all the time. But it really gets my knickers (a different meaning this time) in a twist when focus is put on the athletes' sexual appeal or something so stereotypically "female" as fashion to legitimize a women's sport.

Thoughts?

Now whenever I come across creepy freeperdom I am forced to pause and read, frown and cry.

via Echidne.

Now this is interesting: A Biblical justification for limiting suffrage to men (or even to men with property). It started with one of those games where people are asked to answer questions, and the blogger answered a question about what she'd like to change in the world like this:

If you could change one thing about the world, regardless of guilt and politics, what would you do? Hoo-boy, this is where I get in trouble, and that starts with "T" and that rhymes with "P" and that stands for "pool." I'd like to jump in a pool right now. Some may tell me to jump in a river for this one: I would remove women's suffrage, and I might even consider making voting rights tied to property ownership.

You can read the rest at Echidne. Does the bible say blacks shouldn't vote either? Gadzooks.

I am all about that. According to an annual study called the Kids Count, that measures the health and well-being of children and teens, less teenagers are having babies or dropping out of high school. Yet more teenagers are living in poverty. Hmmm.

The report measures each state's progress on 10 statistics, including infant mortality, poverty rates, single-parent families and babies born with low birth weights.

States in the Northeast and upper Midwest scored the best. At the top: New Hampshire, Vermont, Connecticut, Minnesota and Iowa. Southern states did the worst: Mississippi, Louisiana, New Mexico, South Carolina and Tennessee.

Nationally, there were improvements in eight of the 10 measurements in the 1990s, when the economy was booming, government-sponsored health care for children was expanded significantly and welfare reform helped move hundreds of thousands of families from welfare to work.

One issue that has continued to improve: teen pregnancies. Teenagers' birth rates fell from 48 per 1,000 females in 2000 to 42 per 1,000 in 2003.

"We see a continuing decline in births to teenagers, but we don't see any decline in the percent of children in single parent families," said Wade Horn, assistant secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services.

Single parent families are tough, but a reality. Many women don't want to get married, but want to have babies and more power to them. But I am all for a decrease in teenage births. More education, more resources etc., that never hurts.

OMG?! Do you think sex education is helping this situation at all?

via SeattlePI.

Contributed by Madeline Halperin-Robinson

This afternoon the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) unanimously voted to recommend routine vaccination against HPV for girls age 11-12. The committee’s recommendations are non-binding – it is now up to each state to decide whether or not to put these recommendations into practice and make the vaccine mandatory for all 11-12 year olds before they enter school.

But more hurdles to access must be cleared before we can declare victory over the STI that can cause cervical cancer. Typically, the committee's recommendations are adopted by each state and used as a guide for government and private insurers to decide whether or not to cover the vaccine. But we are not living in typical times. Feministing has already reported about the far right’s opposition to making the vaccine available to poor women and girls, and they may still succeed.

The ACIP committee's recommendations are great news for rational people who believe science should trump political ideology. All but two states allow religious exceptions to mandatory vaccines, and many states allow exemptions for philosophical reasons-- so fundamentalists will be able to say no to the vaccine for their own daughters. But that's not enough for the religious right. They want to foist their religious beliefs on all young girls. We may see individual states bow to these pressures and make the unprecedented move to go against the ACIP recommendations. This would derail efforts to make the vaccine available to all by weakening the incentive for insurance companies to cover the cost of the vaccine.

Full disclosure: Madeline researches this issue as part of her job with the Sexuality and Family Rights program at Legal Momentum.

After gaining the right to vote and run in parlimentary elections back in May 2005, women will be participating in the Kuwaiti elections this Thursday for the first time.

How exciting!

Kuwait holds parliamentary elections on Thursday in which women can run for office and cast votes for the first time in a national poll in the oil-producing Gulf Arab country.

More than 250 candidates are standing, including 28 women determined to make headway despite daunting odds against any female candidate beating seasoned male opponents, many of them former parliamentarians seeking re-election.

"The participation of women in the elections makes this a historic day for Kuwait," said U.S.-educated female candidate Fatima al-Abdali. "The success of any woman will be a victory for all Kuwaiti, Gulf and Arab women."

How many women are actually elected is yet to be seen, it is still a radical shift in the electoral process.
via Reuters.

The national Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices is set to vote today on whether a promising cervical cancer vaccine should be part of the standard shots that adolescent girls receive.

As you already know, conservative groups have been less than enthusiastic about the vaccine, claiming that it could make girls promiscuous (I know). Let’s hope the panel makes a judgment based on science and health, not politics.

Still amazed and saddened by how little media coverage this, you-would-think, very important topic has gotten by mainstream media. OH, wait, who owns mainstream media? Oh, yeah, that's right.

Check this out:

The Senate Commerce Committee Wednesday rejected a network-neutrality amendment, handing cable and phone broadband-access providers yet another victory over a coalition that has demanded the application of strict nondiscrimination standards against entities that control access to millions of Internet users.

The panel voted 11 to 11 to defeat an amendment sponsored by Sens. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) and Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.), who had backing from Google, Yahoo!, eBay, Amazon, Microsoft and other firms that deliver voice, video, and information services and applications.

Under Senate rules, a tie vote means the amendment failed.

Beyond Victimhood: Women’s Peacebuilding in Sudan, Congo and Uganda, a new report out on the remarkable peace building work that women are doing, discusses how women are being left out of the peace-building process and what needs to be done to incorporate more of the work and resistances of these women.

In all three [countries], an array of women’s organisations and leaders are doing remarkable work, under difficult circumstances, especially in community organisations and informal conflict resolution mechanisms. Still, women remain marginalised in formal peace processes and post-conflict governments. Donors and others in the international community all need to do much more to offer sustainable support rather than just rhetoric.

“Peacebuilding cannot succeed if half the population is excluded from the process�, says Caty Clement, Director of Crisis Group’s Central Africa Project. “Our research shows that peace agreements, post-conflict reconstruction and governance work better when women peace activists are involved�.

Diverse opinions are always necessary in any type of alliance or peace building negotiations, but it is also important to see how militarization is a gendered machine and is based on a model of patriarchal aggression. It is not safe to say that just the inclusion of women in such a process would challenge that fact (although in this case it seems that it is), but it would indeed disrupt the male domination of war/peace politics.

The report says,

The stereotype of “women as only victims� should not be reinforced. An array of women’s organisations and women leaders are doing remarkable work in each of the three countries, under difficult circumstances. The daily struggle for survival greatly limits the numbers who have become peace activists but their potential is significant. Because those who are courageous and capable enough to involve themselves as catalysts in peacebuilding are an endangered minority, they should be safeguarded and strengthened with funding, training and inclusion in assessment missions and other decision-making mechanisms that shape fundamental questions of security.

Nuff said.

via Reuters.

This is not the first time I have read about this.

Women metabolize nicotine faster than men do — especially women who are taking oral contraceptives — according to a new report. The researchers say this could affect women’s smoking behavior, as well as their response to nicotine-based quitting aids.

And let us not even get started on the corporate culture of addiction, marketing and big corporations that support it (and why I really, really need to quit smoking).

via Reuters.

A very classy response to Brett Myers' assault of his wife.

Cause what's a little domestic violence compared with America's favorite pastime?

Philadelphia Phillies pitcher Brett Myers, 25, has been charged with assault and battery after he assaulted his wife in front of numerous witnesses.

Courtney Knight, 26, who witnessed the alleged attack at 900 Boylston St. with two friends, said in a telephone interview that Myers seemed "really angry."

"He was dragging her by the hair and slapping her across the face," Knight said. `"She was yelling, `I'm not going to let you do this to me anymore.' "

Knight said the 6-foot-4 -inch, 240-pound ballplayer dwarfed his wife, whom police report at 5 feet 4 inches and 120 pounds.

"She's a real small girl," Knight said. "It was awful."

Knight said Myers was undeterred by the presence of her and her friends.

"He had her on the ground," Knight said. "He was trying to get her to go, and she was resisting. She curled up and sat on the ground. He was pulling her, her shirt was up around her neck. . . . He could have cared less that we were there."

Nice guy, huh? But here's the best part.

Mike Teevan, a spokesman for Major League Baseball, said the league has no policy requiring suspension of players charged or convicted in domestic violence cases.

"We're obviously very concerned about it," Teevan said. "But it was an off-field incident and it's the player's private life. We're going to let the legal system run its course."

His private life? He beat the shit out of his wife in the middle of the street. That's fucking assualt, not his "private life."

PageOneQ reports that the Pentagon will reverse its listing of homosexuality as a mental disorder. It will instead be listed as "mentally fabulous."

If you haven't check out Guernica yet, you really should. It's a fab online magazine with really interesting and eclectic content. They even got props from Howard Zinn, the bastards: "There is nothing quite like Guernica, where you can find an extraordinary bouquet of stories, poems, social commentary, and art. It is always a pleasure to read."

Oh yeah, and I'm going to be blogging for them on Wednesdays.

So, newstyle reviews. Lemme know what you think, yeah?
In this edition, things I slept on and don't want you to miss:

HEAR

The Dresden Dolls
Yes Virginia
Roadrunner Records (2006)
--Provocative without being pushy, this Boston duo's latest album is full of clever, personal songs about sex and drugs, among other things. The Dolls will be doing some summer shows and have a book of sheet music coming out next month, while Amanda hosts a vaudeville and short film tour that will hit Brooklyn tomorrow and continue its U.S. trek through July. Check it here.

READ

Bitch Magazine
Style and Substance Issue
Summer 2006
--Fashion and feminism are given center stage here. I'm especially in like with the articles on women's magazines and Dolly Parton and Madonna. SFers can go to El Rio to catch some flicks with the Bitch team tomorrow nite, and the mag's anthology is coming out in August. We are so proud of you, Bitch!

WAIT FOR IT...

Strangers with Candy: The Movie


Peaches "Impeach My Bush"

AND MORE!

Now, a moment of silence for the breakup of Sleater-Kinney. "Indefinite hiatus"=indefinite sadness for this one and some of bestest people I know. Listen to "Dig Me Out" and shed a few tears for "One More Hour." Hope you can catch them on one of their final (boo!) shows this summer.

Random news.

Sally Jacobsen, the former Northern Kentucky University professor who encouraged students to destroy an anti-choice display, had the case against her dropped.

Jacobsen, who was put on leave and eventually retired, wrote an apology and completed court-mandated mediation.

I love this. Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains will be giving away free emergency contraception this Friday to protest Colorado Governor Bill Owen's veto of a bill that would have made the pill available over-the-counter.

Vicki Cowart, President and CEO of Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains, said, "The Governor has once again turned his back on the women of Colorado...Better access to EC could significantly reduce the number of unintended pregnancies – and thus the number of abortions – in Colorado. It's unfortunate that the Governor did not support its passage."

Free EC will be available at all 24 health centers in Colorado. Sweet.

Oops.

Up until Monday afternoon, Right to Life of Montana had been endorsing Shawn Stuart, who’s running on the Republican ticket in Butte’s House District 76, but is also the Montana contact for the National Socialist Movement, described as “America’s Nazi Party� on its Web site.

Within hours after being questioned about the endorsement, the pro-life group deleted Stuart’s name from its on-line list of candidates whose views align with theirs.

Real slick. The excuse the organization gave? “He slipped through the cracks.� Huh.

Now I can see endorsing a candidate who somehow did something fucked in the past that’s all buried and comes to light. But a two second Google search on this guy pulls up a goddamn nazi press release. Not to mention the press coverage!

That’s just shameful.

John McEnroe has come out in support of equal prize money for men and women at Wimbledon.

"There should be no argument when they are at the same event at the same time, that there should be equal pay," McEnroe said during a teleconference arranged by U.S. broadcaster NBC.

..."The opportunities that are being given to young girls and the thought that they can be in position where they can make as much money as a man, which doesn't really happen in any other sport, sends a good message," McEnroe said.

"I have to point to (former tennis champion, women's tour pioneer and equal-pay campaigner) Billie Jean King, because if it weren't for her, these girls wouldn't have that money in the first place."

I heart him.

So it's somewhat old news that last week the New York City police nabbed 13 subway gropers in just 36 hours. Any woman who's ever ridden crowded public transportation isn't really surprised by what the undercover cops experienced.

Women know the drill. Just as some men reflexively check to see if they have their wallets on a crowded train, women check their bodies. Pull in your backside and your front. Wedge a large bag for protection between yourself and the nearest anonymous male rider, who might, just might, be planning something. Put on you fiercest face, and brace yourself for contact that seems too deliberate to be accidental, too prolonged to be random.

And yet subway historian Stan Fischler says, "Half the time you don't know whether it's accidental or not." Somehow I find it hard to believe that Stan has ever been intentionally groped on the subway or the bus (or on the street, for that matter). Because, as a woman, I can assure him that it's pretty easy to figure out quickly whether you're being touched accidentally or on purpose.

Even though the article doesn't mention the website by name, we can credit the fabulous HollabackNYC for getting the police to take notice of street and subway harassment. It's really inspiring that their project has gotten so much attention.

The NYC tabloids had nearly identical leads on their coverage of the sting, though the Post definitely wins:

Subway perverts beware: Your next flashing or groping victim could be a cop.(NY Daily News)

Subway gropers, beware - next time you cop a feel, you might be feeling a cop. (NY Post)

Hilarious! But I do want to point out that not every groper is a "pervert." I think many of them are just regular dudes who feel entitled to grab a little ass now and again. So fighting this type of harassment is not just a matter of keeping a small subset of the population off of public transportation, or segregating women in their own train cars. It's about changing society's idea that it's okay for random men to touch and comment on women's bodies.

This is a feminist film buff’s wet dream.

Altar magazine has organized a fantastic two-week long women’s film festival titled Her Voice, Her View, to kick off July 12th. Over 30 films have been chosen to be shown throughout the following two weeks as a part of the Pioneer Theater’s Female Film celebration.

The festival gives the opportunity for female writers, directors and producers (who are largely unrecognized), domestic and international, to feature their work in NYC. The films address a range of issues, including violence against women, b-girls, prison, eroticism, hip hop and reproductive rights.

I'll be putting up a reminder post closer to festival kick-off, but in the meantime click here for more details on the films and to order tickets in advance.

There’s nothing like a good old-fashioned abstinence essay contest.

The fourth annual abstinence essay contest held by the Wayne County Health Department in North Carolina announced its winners recently.

In addition to small scholarships and gift certificates to the local mall, students also received “a t-shirt, abstinence bracelet, and gift certificate from McDonalds.� Can I get oral with that? (Sorry, couldn’t help myself.)

The first place winner, 17 year-old Brandy Hardison, is the current Miss Teen Heartland.

"Dad made me do it. I'm glad he made me do it," she said. In her entry, she said she keeps a picture of her parents in her head and lives by the cliché, "your body is a temple."

Living by a cliché is scary enough. But “Dad made me do it?� What is it with these abstinence folks and their Daddy issues? In any case, I know I’m cruel to poke fun. It’s just when I read Hardison’s winning essay, I thought this excerpt was simply brilliant:

I view my virginity as a gift to my future husband. I don't know him yet, but I know he's going to be deserving of my love and for my waiting for him.... and all those punk guys I dated in high school will not come close in comparison.

Love it.

This is an actual headline from the BBC: Womb environment 'makes men gay'.

A new study says that "conditions in the womb" may be a contributing factor to men's sexual orientation.

The short version: Older studies showed that the more older brothers a boy had, the more likely he was to be gay--though there was no identifiable reason for this. This new study out of Canada, which looked at families with both biological and non-biological brothers, says that the reasoning is more biological than social.

Professor Anthony Bogaert from Brock University in Ontario, Canada...found the link between the number of older brothers and homosexuality only existed when the siblings shared the same mother.

Ok, makes sense. Here's where it gets weird (to me).

A woman's body may see a male foetus as "foreign", he says, prompting an immune reaction which may grow progressively stronger with each male child...The antibodies created may affect the developing male brain.

What really disturbs me about this this "uterus seeing a male fetus as foreign" thing is that it reminds me of this guy.

And naturally the larger question with all these why-are-you-gay studies is why do we have to know? I'm terrified that once someone targets a "reason" they're just going to try and find a way to do away with it. (I guess they couldn't do away with the all-mighty uterus though.)

The Supreme Court announced yesterday that they won’t hear a case from pro-choice groups trying to block states from having “Choose Life� license plates.

About a dozen states allow drivers to pay extra for the specialty car tags to show the car owner's opposition to abortion.

Justices said they would not look at tag laws in Louisiana and Tennessee.

Abortion opponents contend they have a free-speech right to broadcast their own views on their car tags. Proposals to offer car owners an alternative "Choose Choice" plate failed in both state Legislatures.

And I’m guessing it’s not because “Choose Choice� just sounds weird. (Which it clearly does, I have to admit.)

Related: Rachel Joy Larris at TomPaine has a short piece up on whether pro-choicers should lose the ‘choice’.

I had an article on Alternet yesterday, Abstinence Double Standard Threatens Girls' Health. Check it out.

Yes those are scare quotes, and this time around they’re appropriate.

A study released yesterday by Washington think tank Education Sector shows that the media frenzy over the educational ‘boy crisis’ (god, I love these scare quotes!) is pretty much for naught.

From The Washington Post:

...over the past three decades, boys' test scores are mostly up, more boys are going to college and more are getting bachelor's degrees. Although low-income boys, like low-income girls, are lagging behind middle-class students, boys are scoring significant gains in elementary and middle school and are much better prepared for college, the report says. It concludes that much of the pessimism about young males seems to derive from inadequate research, sloppy analysis and discomfort with the fact that although the average boy is doing better, the average girl has gotten ahead of him.

"The real story is not bad news about boys doing worse," the report says, "it's good news about girls doing better. (Emphasis added)

I’m not one to say I told you so. But yeah, I did.

The report points out that the real educational concerns are over race and class issues for both boys and girls.

What I love about the article is that not only debunks the ‘boy crisis’ myth, but it also suggests that this whole thing is just a backlash to all the gains that women have made. Duh.

The "boy crisis," the report says, has been used by conservative authors who accuse "misguided feminists" of lavishing resources on female students at the expense of males and by liberal authors who say schools are "forcing all children into a teacher-led pedagogical box that is particularly ill-suited to boys' interests and learning styles...Yet there is not sufficient evidence -- or the right kind of evidence -- available to draw firm conclusions," the report says. "As a result, there is a sort of free market for theories about why boys are underperforming girls in school, with parents, educators, media, and the public choosing to give credence to the explanations that are the best marketed and that most appeal to their pre-existing preferences."

Yeah, like “the feminists did it!� Silly conservatives.

Check out this article from The New York Times on the most "sought-after constituency" in Kuwait--women.

Women in Kuwait won their right to vote just last year.

Many political analysts expect the entry of women in the political process to redraw the political map and to hold significant sway over the 50-member Parliament in the years to come as they become an Arab version of the soccer mom. That new power will give women a lot more say on issues like corruption, economic development and family law.

Make sure to check out the whole piece. Interesting stuff.

This is too great.

Rachel Sklar, formerly of Fishbowl NY and now at The Huffington Post, wrote a piece for CBS News’ Public Eye. The article is good, but it’s the PS that I love.

P.S. Public Eye: This column runs weekly. I should NOT be the third woman who's done it since OCTOBER.

Awesome.

Because it's a nasty rainy day here, I needed something to cheer me up.

So go check out some awesome Pride pics from this weekend in New York. (Feel free to add links to pictures from other cities in comments.)

This week marks the beginning of the B-Girl Be Summit in Minnesota. Damn I wish I lived nearby, because this shit seems awesome.

B-Girl Be: A Celebration of Women in Hip Hop 2006 aims to develop from what was created last year as the first summit of its kind. We offered a unique gathering where the execution of hip hop met up with its conceptualization through praxis as well as theory. Audiences of over 3000 people came together amongst over one hundred local, national and international hip hop artists to learn and practice the individual elements of break dancing, aerosol art, rapping, and turntablism. Keeping with our desire to challenge the norm B-Girl Be went beyond the four-element hip hop model to offer new gendered dimensions to essential exponents of these such as audio and visual production, exhibition, fashion, entrepreneurship, and scholarship.

Check out the schedule for the summit here. And if anyone is planning on going, please let me know how it is!

Not that anyone should take MSNBC's advice on dating seriously, but this article just irked me. I mean, how many variations can you make on the dumb women-are-monogamous, men-are-polygamous argument?

Is monogamy hot or not? For many women, the answer is “yeah, baby!�

Women of all ages say they’re enjoying sex with their partner more now than they used to, according to results of the new ELLE/MSNBC.com Sex and Love Survey. For many men, however, giving up the thrill of the chase means giving up some thrills in the bedroom as well.

Yawn. Who gets paid to write this shit?

This is one of the scariest things I’ve seen in a while. I can’t believe this is the first I’m hearing of it. The pic (from the BBC) above shows tools that are commonly used in Cameroon to--brace yourselves--pound on girls' breasts to try and make them “disappear.�

Statistics show that 26% of Cameroonian girls at puberty undergo it, as many mothers believe it protects their daughters from the sexual advances of boys and men who think children are ripe for sex once their breasts begin to grow.

The most widely used instrument to flatten the breasts is a wooden pestle, used for pounding tubers in the kitchen. Heated bananas and coconut shells are also used.

Student Geraldin Sirri recounted her painful experience.

"My mother took a pestle, she warmed it well in the fire and then she used it to pound my breasts while I was lying down. She took the back of a coconut, warmed it in the fire and used it to iron the breasts.

"I was crying and trembling to escape but there was no way."

Is this really what women have to do to protect themselves from sexual assault? Some parents are just doing to so their daughters don’t have consensual sex.

"Breast ironing is not a new thing. I am happy I protected my daughter. I could not stand the thought of boys spoiling her with sex before she completed school," one woman explained.

"Unfortunately, television is encouraging all sorts of sexual immorality in our children."

Right, so best we beat those breasts into submission before they ruin the almighty virginity.

After receiving my letter about their article on the Independent Women's Forum, Venus Zine was kind enough to ask me to write an essay in response. The piece is up on their website, where the author of the original story also weighs in. Check it out.

The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals reaffirms a ruling that waitresses in tank tops and tiny track shorts are actual products, not symbols that can be trademarked. Disgusting.

The RightRides program in NYC has expanded, and with help from ZipCar is now providing late-night shuttle service for women in many parts of Brooklyn and Manhattan.

The Mapping Our Rights project is an amazing resource for information on women's rights in your state.

The Stranger examines pharmacy war being fought in Washington State.

CoverGirl has paid for product placement in young-adult novels.

An analysis of Esquire's "State of the American Man" issue concludes that it's no so much a requiem for men as an unintentional hammer blow to the kind of gender politics that produce articles like these in the first place.

A British study says girls don't benefit from sex-segregated education.

When actress Anne Hathaway asked her "The Devil Wears Prada" co-star Stanley Tucci to stop touching her breasts, he responded, "What do you expect? You're flinging those melons around like it's harvest season." Also disgusting.

Men in India are cashing in on the country's single-woman shortage by renting out their wives. (This is classified as "Weird News." They must not have a "Revolting News" section.)

Time magazine covers the new HPV vaccine-- and arguments for and against making it mandatory for public school enrollment.

Are "female chauvinist pigs" really to blame for thongs, impants and "the death of real passion"?

This article on women and the sportscars they love also informs us that women are "no longer afraid to be seen" driving pickup trucks. Good to know!

Parental notification for abortion is likely to be on the California ballot once again.

Newsweek profiles American Apparel founder Dov Charney.

A judge has decided that 40 white male professors at Northern Arizona University are entitled to $1.4-million in back pay and raises. The professors brought a lawsuit alleging that the university had discriminated against them by giving raises to minority and female professors, but giving no raises to them.

This interview is brought to you thanks to Sara Burke, Editor at Peacework Magazine.

Bill Weinberg, editor of the online journal World War 4 Report (ww4report.com), interviewed Houzan Mahmoud on March 21, 2006 on WBAI radio, and Peacework Magazine editor Sara Burke corresponded with her by e-mail in May. Portions of both conversations are included here. To learn more, visit Organization of Women’s Freedom in Iraq [OWFI] at www.equalityiniraq.com, or visit Houzan Mahmoud’s blog at http://houzanmahmoud.blogspot.com. Published in Peacework, June 2006.

Houzan Mahmoud is the Head of Iraq Freedom Congress-Abroad and one of the leading figures of the Organisation of Women’s Freedom in Iraq. Women’s organizing has been key to the development of Iraq’s secular resistance, as women know that they are the most vulnerable to persecution and repression in a militarized, Islamist nation.

Here’s Houzan…

Ever wonder what's on the mind of New York City high school girls?

For all you New Yorkers, this weekend you'll get a chance to find out. I'm a big fan of this this kick-ass organization called Girls Write Now. They pair new york city high school girls with professional young women writers, aiming to help girls express themselves and find their voice. You should check out the girl's annual reading this weekend, called BEHIND MY EYES, hosted by Stacyann Chin of Def Poetry Jam, who is an awesome poet in her own right. It's this Sunday at the Barnes & Noble in Astor Place from 4-6.

And, better yet, if you can't make it to the reading, you can support Girls Write Now by doing all your book shopping at the Barnes & Noble *Astor Place only* this weekend, because 25% of all the profits will go to support these girls in their next season. Saturday, 6/24-Monday 6/26, look for the girls with the vouchers at the store.)

Click here for more information about how you can get involved in Girls Write Now.

Sweet! I loves me a good fight.

Check out our buddy Evan Derkacz's coverage on Alternet about how the Vatican has warned Amnesty International to not drop their neutral stance on abortion and push for it as a human right, for doing it will "cut off their hands."

People scare me. (Especially nutty, religious ones.)

While this was back in 1939, it's notable nonetheless. This letter from Disney Animation Studios was sent to Lillian Friedman (the first female American animator) after she applied for a job there.

Via BoingBoing.

Senate Puts Off Neutrality Vote
by Wendy Davis, Friday, Jun 23, 2006 6:00 AM ET

THE SENATE COMMERCE COMMITTEE THURSDAY adjourned without making any decisions about whether to pass a so-called "Net neutrality" law that would prohibit Internet service providers from discriminating against some Web publishers, either by refusing to transmit their content or charging them higher prices for faster transmission.

The committee will take up proposals again Tuesday, when it resumes consideration of a telecom overhaul passed by the House of Representatives earlier this month. When the bill was in the House, neutrality advocates unsuccessfully attempted to pass an amendment prohibiting Internet service providers from discriminating against
Web publishers.

Instead, the House version gives the Federal Communications Commission authority to enforce net neutrality principles and to fine companies up to $500,000 for offenses.

Rest of article after the jump.

Bush says he supports contraception! ... for people he considers "responsible":

This Administration supports the availability of safe and effective products and services to assist responsible adults in making decisions about preventing or delaying conception.

Could've fooled me! Bush may have been silent on the issue, but his actions have made his stance on contraception clear. And this statement isn't exactly a ringing endorsement of the right of all women (and men) to have access to birth control-- there's a lot of wiggle room here. The administration is still likely to oppose certain types of contraception-- like, the emergency kind-- by saying (falsely) that it isn't safe, or that it ends a pregnancy rather than prevents contraception. And what do you want to bet Bush doesn't consider sexually active teens or low-income single mothers "responsible adults"?

Rep. Carolyn Maloney was quick to note Bush's hypocrisy, and sent a letter asking if his policies will now reflect his supposedly pro-contraception position. She enclosed a copy of the op-ed by the woman who had to have an abortion because she was denied EC.

Maloney demanded to know:

1) Will you urge the Department of Justice to incorporate information about emergency contraception in the guidelines for -the treatment of sexual assault survivors?

2) Will you remove political barriers to the scientific process at the FDA and urge the agency to make a decision on the application to sell Plan B over-the-counter?

3) Will you intervene on behalf of American women and work to stop pharmacists from preventing access to birth control pills, including emergency contraception?

Excellent questions. Sadly, I think I already know the answers.

Our crush of the week is Joss Whedon, creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, after seeing a recent speech he made at an event for Equality Now. Check it out. So hot.

Thanks to Amanda for the link.

Bringing attention to the previous post is appropriate, as today marks the 34th anniversary of Title IX being passed into law.

While most assume assume that the law is solely related to sex discrimination within athletics in schools, there are a number of other Title IX areas that are often overlooked. This includes sex discrimination within higher and career education, employment, math and science, technology, learning environment, standardized testing, education for pregnant and parenting students, and sexual harassment.

While athletics is an area that needs just as much attention as the others, we need to recognize that this law is not just about sports. Title IX is about finding a safe place that all youth need to feel comfortable and capable within their educational environments.

Happy Anniversary, Title IX!

And fume.

This is a bit old, but necessary to bring attention to. ABC News reported last week about a sexual assault case of a disabled woman in Colorado Springs, where the district has refused to take up the case that the woman’s parents filed because their expert claimed the attack was “pleasurable� for the victim.

I warned you.

While the 15-year old boy plead guilty to unlawful sexual contact (who was the 20-year old woman’s peer trainer), the parents filed a federal law suit against the school district. The boy had apparently been suspended 20 times the year before and hadn’t been screened or trained for his time spent with the young woman. Seeking to resolve the case through mediation, the district declined the parents wishes.

"A professional hired by the district said the assault was pleasurable, not traumatic," said the woman’s mother. "He said it ignited her female desires."

What?!? How would a professional even use that phrase? Talk about the interlocking of oppressions to the umph degree.

The Supreme Court ruled today that employees can sue when businesses retaliate against them for making sex harassment claims. Employers can't legally demote or take any other action that would dissuade a “reasonable worker� from making a charge of discrimination. Nice!

The ruling is a victory for Sheila White, a forklift operator and the only woman working in the maintenance of way department at [Burlington Northern] railroad’s Tennessee yards. After complaining that she was the target of inappropriate remarks and that she had been told women should not be working in the department, White was reassigned as a track laborer, a less-skilled job. In the wake of another dispute, she was also suspended for insubordination.

The Burlington Northern attorney argued, “If you are just transferred from one set of responsibilities to another, there are no adverse affects.� Except for when that "transfer" is to a job with less responsibility and pay. It's good to know that women like Sheila White now have legal recourse.

The controversial anti-rape device, Rapex, won't be released on store shelves until the end of the year.

Inventor Sonette Ehlers describes the device as an anti-rape female condom. Women would need to wear the condom (always, I guess) and if they're raped, the condom folds around the perpetrator's penis and attaches itself with microscopic hooks. It's impossible to remove without medical intervention.

I'm all for stopping rape, but I think this device really isn't the answer. We've covered the reasons why it's problematic before, so I'll just point to this article if you want the scoop.

The Episcopal church, which just elected a woman as its leader, is asking dioceses not to elect openly gay bishops. One step forward, two steps back...

A woman burned 100 books in the gay and lesbian section of a Chicago public library. Officials said it wasn't a hate crime, but can you imagine how the fundies would be screaming if a hundred books on Christianity had been burned? Activists are taking book donations to increase the gay and lesbian collection at another library in the area.

And a Boise man has complained that his local public library stocks such offensive titles as "The Joy of Gay Sex." In protest, he's checked out the book and says he'll never return it. (It's that good!) If he ever does, the library says it will keep the book on its shelves. One of the library board trustees said he'd rather have his 9-year-old son start smoking than look at a book about gay sex.

It's Pride Week here in San Francisco (and in NYC), and it's almost as if these idiots want to remind us why Pride festivities are important. The Boston Phoenix also has a great essay on the subject.

This weekend is a big one for GLBT Pride events-- and not just on the coasts. There are Pride marches in Atlanta, Columbus, Denver, Honolulu, Houston, Minneapolis, Oklahoma City, Seattle, Santa Fe and St. Petersburg.

This is seriously from an email I received:

Why do you have to be for abortion to be fore [sic] womens' rights? How can it be a part of your body if it is a male?

Hear that gals? If you're pregnant with a boy, it's not really yours. Or something.

Say it ain't so! In a recent Blender interview, Nelly Furtado says, “I went through a feminist phase and read a lot of philosophical stuff. Some of the male bashing brainwashed me for a bit so I stopped. I love men!�

Just all part of her new image I guess. From her website: Nelly Furtado has gone from flower child to "Promiscuous" girl.

Oh dear.

I know Samhita already posted on the great news that condom use decreases the risk of HPV in women, but if you're interested I went into the news a little deeper over at LiberalOasis. (I'm guest blogging, remember?)

In light of the June 12 women's rights protests in Iran where women were beaten and arrested by police, the Iranian government has charged two of the lead activists, Noushin Ahmadi Khorasani and Parvin Ardalan, with "acting against national security." Uh, I thought the government with its little nuclear crisis (and the US is not innocent in this fiasco) is doing that just fine on its own.

Anyway.

via JURIST.

Check out this interview on Democracy NOW with Eve Ensler and Kimberle Crenshaw (LOVE). They discuss race, violence against women and prisons.

Badass feminist civil rights law professor Kimberle Crenshaw highlights some of the shortcomings of both the anti-incarceration movement and the anti-violence movement.

Yes, well, you know, one of the things that's so remarkable about this event and what Eve is bringing to our attention is the relationship between violence and incarceration. I like to call this a tale of two movements, because, frankly, there's been an anti-violence movement that really hasn't dealt with the consequences of violence for women who are incarcerated or how incarceration is often a precursor to violence, so that whole relationship hasn't been explored. There's also an anti-incarceration movement that more or less just focuses pretty much on men, how men wind up being incarcerated, some of the consequences.

So this is an opportunity to actually look at women who fall between the cracks of both movements, who are the women who are both victims of violence, but also are victims of state violence, namely, because they have been subject to rape, battery, incest, a whole range of other things that happen to women in society, are more likely to be incarcerated, right? And once they are incarcerated, they're subject to a whole range of consequences that are sometimes particular to women, so this is bringing attention to women, to issues that really haven't come up on the agenda of either the anti-violence movement or the anti-incarceration movement, so it's a dramatic radicalization of both of these movements.

Good shit. Historically, it is indeed incarcerated women that fall between these two movements and tend to be overlooked. It is also pretty safe to say that the majority of these women are poor, working class, women of color.

At first I thought gasp, not another Western attempt at bringing our feminism to *Africa* but this group seems to actually be consulting with women in Sierra Leone to build and develop a Center for Women's Empowerment.

A five-man delegation of British and American researchers from the Youth Action International (YAI) Tuesday arrived in Sierra Leone on the invitation of the West African Youth Network.

The team is here on a two-week feasibility study for the creation of an internationally recognized centre for women, a press release from the above organization states.

While in the country the team would be meeting experts on education and rehabilitation, visit rehabilitation and skills training centres, meet and receive input from women who were the victims of the civil war in a bid to gain first hand information on how the Centre for Women Empowerment and its courses can impact and revolutionise women's lives.

Hot.

via AllAfrica.com

This is good to know.

Consistent condom use by their male partners appears to reduce the risk of human papillomavirus, or HPV, infection in newly sexually active women, a study reports today.

HPV is the most common sexually transmitted infection in the USA. Certain HPV types cause nearly all cervical cancer cases, and others cause genital warts.

The new study, in The New England Journal of Medicine, followed 82 female college undergraduates who reported their first intercourse with a male partner during the study or within two weeks of its start. The women had pelvic exams and HPV and Pap tests every four months. They also completed a Web-based diary about their sexual behavior every two weeks.

Women whose partners always used a condom were 70% less likely to acquire an HPV infection than women whose partners used condoms less than 5% of the time, the University of Washington researchers found.

Of course I just noticed that it says *newly* active sexual partners. Oh well. But you should use condoms anyway.

via USA Today.

Check out what happens on The View when Sandra Bernhard dares to question the Bush administration and their policies towards women. All hell breaks loose when she makes a (funny) comment about thinking Laura is "heavily medicated." Elisabeth Hasselbeck (who the AV Club appropriately calls The Young Annoying One) turns into a frigging banshee.

As we've reported before, Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) has introduced legislation that would regulate the deceptive advertising practices of "crisis pregnancy centers" that try to convince (intimidate) pregnant women against having abortions.

Click here to support the Stop Deceptive Advertising for Women's Services Act (H.R. 5052).

I was gearing up last night to write something on Whitney Joiner's Salon article, Live girl-on-girl action!, which takes on the trend of young straight girls making out with each other for male viewing pleasure. Then Amanda had to go and destroy any chance I had of making a new point. So yeah, what she said.

But I would like to add this: Sometimes doing silly, nonempowering, sexually vapid things when you're younger is just part of getting to the good stuff. I was reminded of this piece that Jennifer Baumgardner did for Alternet in response to Ariel Levy's Female Chauvinist Pigs.

If pressed, I'd venture that at least half of my sexual experiences make me cringe when I think about them today. Taking top honors is the many times I made out with female friends in bars when I was in my early 20s, a rite of passage Levy much disdains throughout the book. I'm embarrassed about the kiss-around-the-circles, but if I didn't have those moments, I'm not sure I ever would have found my way to the real long-term relationship I have today. If all my sexual behavior had to be evolved and reciprocal and totally revolutionary before I had it, I'd never have had sex.

Just saying. And speaking of Levy, The Guardian blog Comment is free is having some interesting conversations about her book sparked by this article.

It’s not my usual time to post, (I will post on Saturday, too) but I spoke with Joan Blades, co-founder of MoveOn.org yesterday afternoon on the issue of “Net Neutrality� from her Berkeley, California home. And she said Friday might be the day when the internet changes for all of us.

Here’s Joan…

What's truly hysterical/terrifying about this clip is that it really could be an ad for the virginity pledge sect.

Sales of emergency contraception (Plan B) in Canada have doubled since last year when the drug was made available over the counter. And it’s looking like American women may be a driving force behind the sales spike.

Duramed Pharmaceuticals Inc. , Plan B's Canadian manufacturer , sold 23,000 pills to retail pharmacies in January 2005. Now, 41,000 pills are sold by Canadian pharmacies each month, according to figures released yesterday by DoctorSolve Healthcare Solutions , a company that sells drugs through its website.

...Judith Soo, a University of British Columbia assistant professor who is conducting an economic evaluation of emergency contraceptive use, said...“In Canada, women do not require a Plan B prescription from a physician to obtain treatment. It can be obtained directly upon request from a trained pharmacist...As many states border on Canadian provinces, it is likely that women obtain Plan B treatments by crossing the border or through Internet pharmacies. It is not possible to quantify this number.�

Women in the Southern states are also going to Mexico to get EC. Thanks, FDA. Way to make preventing unwanted pregnancies and abortion so easy.

Tell me it isn't hilarious (in an admittedly juvenile way) that this article about outrage over a sex toy shop opening in Chicago is accompanied by an ad for raw fish.

It's also a good reminder that southerners aren't the only ones who can be prudish about sex toy sales.

So says the Pentagon anyway.

A Pentagon document classifies homosexuality as a mental disorder, decades after mental health experts abandoned that position.

The document outlines retirement or other discharge policies for service members with physical disabilities, and in a section on defects lists homosexuality alongside mental retardation and personality disorders.

For real though, you're telling me this is crazy, but this motherfucker is normal?

Via Pam's House Blend and PEEK.

There's no real choice for women in the upcoming U.S. Senate race in Pennsylvania, where Democrats are running anti-choicer Bob Casey against the awful Rick Santorum.

Making the understatement of the year, Santorum told a crowd of women ''I know I get a lot of flak for not being great … on women's issues." His campaign has launched a "Women for Rick" initiative, which encourages the barefoot baby-makers of Pennsylvania to sign up for text messages about Santorum's record. I can only speculate, but I'm assuming the messages look a little something like this:

Rick thinks you don't need access to abortion... or birth control.

Rick says education won't improve the lives of low-income single mothers. The only solution is marriage!

Rick asks, wouldn't you find it more "professionally" gratifying to quit your job and have babies?

Rick looooves the Federal Marriage Amendment, which would not only keep America safe from those awful gay people, but would also be great for domestic violence victims.

Perhaps the most convincing text message would be:

Bob Casey is almost as bad.

New research shows that stress can play a part in women’s infertility. Not exactly shocking news, if you ask me.

But this was kind of interesting:

A pilot study revealed that psychotherapy had a startling effect in some of these stressed women - restoring fertility in up to 80 per cent of cases.

That's pretty cool--if you can afford treatment.

But I’m always kind of wary of studies like these. I’m just waiting for the research that says that all us pre-pregnant gals should avoid reproductive-inhibiting stress by not working or leaving the house. Yeah I’m paranoid, but I think I have a right to be.

Scott Lemieux of Lawyers, Guns and Money has a ridiculously great article up at The American Prospect on the bullshit that is the "Roe-doesn't-matter" argument.

In Men Overboard, Lemieux takes on the "affluent men safely ensconced in liberal urban centers" who just love to argue that the little ladies should stop worrying about Roe being overturned.

A teaser for you:

Indeed, what is finally most intolerable about the new anti-Roe consensus is just this willingness to throw the rights of others under the bus while patting oneself on the back for making noble compromises. It is certainly easy for men living in blue state urban centers -- who know that no woman in their family or social circle will ever be denied a safe abortion -- to casually dismiss the importance of the rights of poor women in the two dozen states at high risk of banning or severely restricting access to abortion in a post-Roe world.

Registration is required to view the full article, but Feministe has the whole thing here.

You've totally helped me get over D.C. And for this, I love you.

Yesterday, South Dakotan Secretary of State Chris Nelson said that organizers had collected enough signatures to put the sweeping abortion ban on the ballot in November.

The state's abortion law, among the strictest in the nation, bans the procedure in all cases except when necessary to save a woman's life, with no exceptions for rape or incest.

Supporters hoped it would prompt a court challenge that would give the U.S. Supreme Court an opportunity to overturn its 1973 Roe. v. Wade decision that legalized abortion.

I’m simultaneously excited and terrified. Obviously collecting all those signatures (almost twice the amount needed) is truly amazing, but there’s still a lot of work to be done before November. To see how you can help, go to the South Dakota Campaign for Healthy Families.

These women are smart. They work for change. They aren’t afraid to speak their minds.
They are the REAL hot 100.

Their stories stand in contrast to the negative portrayals of younger women we're used to seeing in the mainstream press. This list (a project that we at Feministing are deeply invested in) celebrates REALLY hot younger women and their accomplishments!

Meet the REAL hot 100 women of 2006 and see how hot SMART can be.

After much consideration, I've decided not to get into the whole feminist blow-job debate. It's just asking for trouble. But check out Feministe who has a good post and a roundup of links on the topic. (Feel free to add more links in comments.)

I just can't bring myself to talk about dick today. But on a related note, check out the latest classy shirt from our friends at Sinful Shirts.

HIV/AIDS activists in India are targeting married women as part of a campaign to battle the increasing number of women infected by their husbands.

"We need to expand the focus to include married, monogamous women who may not perceive themselves to be at risk, but whose personal risk is inextricably linked to the behaviour of their husbands," said Suniti Solomon, of the Y.R. Gaitonde Centre for AIDS Research and Education.

"As more and more women get infected, notions of risk group need to be redefined to more accurately assess potential for HIV infections."

...Solomon's organisation recently reported that in a study of 3,357 women more than 85 percent of those who tested positive had a single sexual partner.

For more information on India and the HIV/AIDS epidemic, check out this country report from UNAIDS.

You be the judge.

I really don't know how I could have missed this woman-as-cow grossness from The Modesty Zone. (Thank goodness Amanda posted on it again; my life wouldn't be complete without seeing this.)

The shaming cow shirt immediately reminded me of PETA's cringe-inducing Milk Gone Wild campaign, which pretty much made me unable to look at my own breasts for at least a week. So I must ask--what the fuck is up with the cow references? Aren't we past the "getting the milk for free" nonsense? Ick.

You and I had such a nice time during Take Back America. We ate, we drank, we talked about a future together. I thought maybe--just maybe--you could be the one to take the place of my beloved New York City. I mean, you're so much cleaner and better smelling. You even kindly let me know how much time I have to cross the street; NYC would never be that polite. I was willing to overlook your J. Crew stylings and lack of a truly great pizza place--because I realize that relationships require compromise.

Then you had to go and do something like this:

Damn, D.C., I thought I knew you.

This is too cool:

Nevada Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori became the first woman elected to lead a church in the global Anglican Communion when she was picked Sunday to be the presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church.

It was another groundbreaking and controversial move for a denomination that consecrated Anglicanism's first openly gay bishop just three years ago.

Jefferts Schori said she was "awed and honored and deeply privileged to be elected" and that she would "bend over backward to build relationships with people who disagree with me."

Which--from the looks of the article--are plenty of folks:

Gasps could be heard throughout the vast convention hall when Jefferts Schori's name was announced.

Rev. Canon Chris Sugden said that her election "shows that the Episcopal leadership is going to do what they want to do regardless of what it means to the rest of the communion." Rev. Eddie Blue of Maryland said, "I am shocked, dismayed and saddened by the choice." I’m dismayed and saddened that people could find the idea of a woman as a religious leader so distressing.

We knew it was coming, but it still stings.

Gov. Kathleen Blanco has signed an abortion ban into law; the ban will only take effect if Roe is overturned.

Blanco signed the measure on Saturday. Planned Parenthood of Louisiana issued a statement saying the new law "endangers women's health by criminalizing abortion at a time when the state is still recovering from Hurricane Katrina and scrambling to prepare for the start of the new hurricane season."

The measure, sponsored by Sen. Ben Nevers, D-Bogalusa, includes no exceptions for cases of rape or incest. It would allow abortion only to save the life or the health of the mother.

How generous of them. First South Dakota, then Ohio (sort of). Now Louisiana. Any guesses on which state is next up to screw us over?

Regina Spektor
Begin to Hope
Sire Records (2006)

Some likened Regina Spektor’s previous work and success as an anomaly—cutesy music from a cutesy girl, a shiny new thing that would lose its appeal all too quickly once the “Next Big Thing� luster went bust. And ya know, who could blame them? Her last album IS titled Soviet Kitsch, after all. Well, tell them haters to shove it because Begin to Hope is auditory divinity.

The kookiness is still there, but Spektor has made it much more endearing, her lilting vocals sailing over punchy piano pieces, simple drumbeats and the occasional cameo from a backing band. “Better,� a series of coquettish conditionals, gets the album started proper, and “On the Radio� is curious and uplifting, a welcome change to the many pop songstresses out there who think they have to sing “sad� (and typically lyrically empty) songs to be taken seriously.

This isn’t to say she’s pitch perfect here. “That Time� does a superb job of making you sentimental over your own set of funny memories until Spektor asks “Remember that time you OD’ed?,� which left me feeling panicky, then cheated from some silly and overtly “bizarre� wordplay. Still, Spektor shows some range on her first major label effort, and that’s something to believe in. As she sings in “Hotel Song,� “Come into my world.� Begin to Hope is reason enough to do just that.

Inga Muscio, author of the controversial, rebel-rousing manifesto Cunt: A Declaration of Independence, is at it again with another critical look at the way our society works, and doesn’t work.

Inga caught up with me over email from Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, to discuss her latest book, Autobiography of a Blue-Eyed Devil: My Life and Times in a Racist, Imperialist Society. She will start her big book tour for Blue-Eyed Devil this fall. But for right now, Inga says: “I’m working with an artist on an illustrated story called ‘Patience and Heartbreak and War.’ It’s about a woman who becomes a sniper/mercenary after being gang-raped by six men. More uplifting material for the world from me.�

Here’s Inga…

In a move to combat wildly inaccurate language in abstinence-only programs, two House Democrats have introduced a bill to prevent the federal government from funding groups whose "materials on human sexuality contain medically inaccurate information."

Comically, Focus on the Family is calling it a bill "to cut funding for purity."

It's actually called the Guarantee of Medical Accuracy in Sex Education Act, introduced by Reps. Luis Gutierrez (D-IL) and Jim Moran (D-VA). And if the Waxman report (which found that over 80% of abstinence-only curricula contain false, misleading, or distorted information about reproductive health) was any indication of the scope of this problem, most of the providers of this curricula would be in trouble. Too bad the bill is unlikely to go anywhere.

This isn't the first time members of Congress have attempted to call attention to this issue. In March 2006, more than 120 House members signed a letter urging that federal funds not be spent on inaccurate abstinence-only programs. And last year the Senate voted unanimously to adopt similar language as an amendment to the FY 2006 appropriations bill. But conservative lawmakers kept the language out of the final bill.

In related news, the House Appropriations Committee recently said no to a requested funding increase for abstinence-only education. And Kansas has just decided to teach sex ed with an "emphasis on abstinence," rather than "abstinence-only-until-marriage," as many conservative lawmakers had hoped.

You must check out this Alternet article (via The Huffington Post) about this weird new pop culture trend of describing masculinity that involves straight men’s apathy of the mating game.

A number of commercials are coming out that are pushing this idea, such a guy choosing a taco over a hot woman or prefers a beer over his girlfriend. It's this regression back to a boy’s mentality where �girls are a pain, a disappointment, and rather dangerous to the soul.�

Susie Bright argues that this seemingly innocuous trend points to a larger problem with masculinity, sexuality, and overmedication.

What do you think?

Related: Also check out Lakshmi Chaudhry’s article, “Growing Up to Be Boys.�

Awesome! Feministing's favorite summer camp--the Willie Mae Rock Camp for Girls--is featured on SPIN's website. Love them.

According to a new study, women react just as strongly to erotic images as men do. Apparently, it shocked the researchers and almost every article that covered it. As for myself? Not so much.

At the end of the brief article, the author adds that the researchers hope the results will help them better understand mental illness.

Whaaa? Am I losing it or should I just assume the author totally misread the study? Either way, I'm still shocked that people are surprised about the findings. What's so hard to understand??

Nine hundred women talk business in Egypt. That's hot.

Around 900 women from 88 countries participated in the 16th annual Global Summit for Women, which concluded on Monday in Cairo. The summit, popularly referred to as "The Davos for Women", focused on providing female business leaders from both the public and private sectors with the techniques and connections needed for advancement.

Organisers said that, by holding the conference in Egypt, non-Arab participants had a chance to see the "business excellence" of women from Egypt and other Arab countries, while Muslim and Arab women had the chance to network with counterparts from other countries.

It is indeed ALL about networking.

via Reuters.

If it were only that easy.

Check out this article that questions whether school athletics that are sponsored should divide their benefits equally between girls’ and boys’ teams. Seems easy enough, right? Problem is, most teams that are sponsored are male.

Most know that companies aren’t held liable for sponsoring more male teams than female. It’s schools that are required under Title IX to protect their students from being “excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination...� Experts say that this includes "the benefits" that come with sponsorship from a company like Nike.

One suggestion given is to approach the sponsor about giving the girls’ team the same gear/sneakers/what-have-you as the boys, because most of the time, they will. Or merely divide the profits in some way or another. Some schools do just that and all is dandy. But many are hesitant to ask for more from a sponsor in fear of losing the sponsorship altogether. Others, well, don’t really care.

For example, Mary Salisbury of Oregon sent a letter to the athletic director of her daughter’s school, Dennis Murphy, (who also happens to be the boys’ basketball coach) because the boys’ team had been receiving gear from Nike for the past three years. She suggested he ask Nike to hook the girls up or distribute the gear evenly. He replied by telling her that he wouldn’t do it because he didn’t believe that the school was violating Title IX, and that the fact that Nike donated to the boys’ team instead of the girls merely reflects that “life isn’t fair.� We’ve got some inspirational role models in these schools, I tell ya!

The fact of the matter is that every school district is required to hire and train an official Title IX coordinator to address matters such as these, and the majority of the time they just don’t exist. All they have is assholes like this telling the young'uns, “Life’s a bitch, get over it, now let me get back to the real athletes.�

This is just gross.

Last Saturday, a woman in a bikini ran onto the field of an international rugby match held in New Zealand. She is now trying to sell the bikini online. Not particularly my bag of chips, but hey -- it is dough.

However, the young woman’s former lover has hired a lawyer to attempt to block her from selling the bikini because he had bought it for her as well as paid for her implants. So apparently, her body technically belongs to him. Well, when it's in the bikini.

He might as well just try to get the rights to auction her on ebay. Sigh.

So you may have noticed that once again, we’ve implemented TypeKey and required registration in order to comment. It sucks that we have to do this, but the barrage of trollishness lately necessitates it. That being said, I figured I’d bring out some of the old post by the much-missed Lauryn on why exactly we need to get our shit in order when it comes to comments.

We started Feministing to provide a forum to critically analyze and discuss issues that young women and feminists care about. Yet, as our web traffic has grown, we've had less critical discussion on the site. Whether it's the never-ending stream of comment spam *or* the assholes that think that it's okay to appropriate feminist space for their own agendas--we are tired of losing great feminist voices.

Because young feminists have so few spaces to *openly* analyze the world, we are re-committing ourselves to trying to provide a safe space for our readers. (While we know that we will never be able to provide a truly safe space, that doesn't mean we won't try).

Our policy is not about censorship, it's about fostering a space for the voices of young feminists and progressives.

Lauryn always did know how put things...

On a personal note, I just want to say thanks to all of our amazing feminist commenters and their infinite patience while we worked out what exactly we wanted to do and how we wanted to do it in terms of comments. We value your voices and your participation and it’s because of you that we’ve decided to take a much stricter stance on how we moderate the discourse at Feministing.

For those who would (and will) say that we’re stifling dissent, I want to put this out there: It took this long to moderate as I should have been because of my own (perhaps misguided) optimism. I truly believe in feminism and its ability to help people and change their lives for the better. I believe in it so much that there’s a part of me that wants everyone to know and understand that like I do. And that part of me thinks that if I talk to people enough and show enough patience that they’ll "get it"--because I really do think that most people are good and want others to be happy and safe and treated decently.

When people don’t “get it,� I often feel defeated--like I didn’t do my job. But there comes a point when I have to accept that no matter how much I believe in feminism and it’s ability to make change, some people will never get it because they just don’t want to. And that doesn’t make me a bad emissary for feminism or a failure in my work.

I owe it to the amazing feminists and young women who come to read Feministing every day to make this a place where they feel free to comment and connect without fear of the same bullshit they get in “real� life. So that’s what I hope to do.

Thanks again to our readers, your support really does mean the world to us.

I mean, seriously. What the hell is this all about?

Thanks to Deanna for the heads up.

Women leaders from around the world joined forces to launch Global Women's Action Network to discuss some of the most pressing issues facing women and girls worldwide. Specifically, the focus of the Global Women's Action Network is to address the death of mothers and girls and also the potential wasted on thousands of girls unable to go to school each year.

The event, titled 'Mobilizing for Action', was co-hosted by the Jordanian National Centre for Family Affairs (NCFA) and the US-based NGO Children's Defence Fund (CDF).

According to NCFA figures, maternal mortality rates in Jordan average around 41 per 100,000 live births, twice Western European rates, as a result of health carelessness on the part of pregnant women.

According to the organisers of the conference, every minute somewhere in the world a mother dies during pregnancy or childbirth, every hour 450 newborn babies die, and every three seconds a child under five dies.

"Added together, that is more than 11 million women and children dying each year from mostly preventable causes," said Marian Wright Edelman, President of the CDF, who rejected the argument that this high number of fatalities was the result of acts of God. "More than 100 million children across the globe do not attend school. The majority of them are girls. These are our human choices. They can and must be changed and it is women who must lead the way."

Damn straight.

via Reuters.

The Independent Women's Forum agrees with us on something!

You'll have to excuse me, I have to keep watch for the locusts and plagues.

A little more on the Iran protests...

To update on Jessica's post yesterday about the protest in Iran, several Iranian female bloggers have come out in support of the protesters and are decrying the actions of the police officers, many of whom were women.

Among the police were a number of women officers. Their behaviour has been widely noted by Iranian bloggers.

One site commented that the women police were swinging their batons without restraint.

Another written by an eyewitness called the confrontation between the women police officers and protesters "very interesting" - and described one protester being chased by a policewoman, shouting back at her: "Don't you care if your husband takes a second wife?"

A posting on another site described some policewomen as taking off their chadors so they could use their batons more easily - commenting acidly that they did not seem to mind that non-family members could see them uncovered and hear their voices.

Along with blogs and comments, several pictures have been published detailing the actions of the police as well.

Certainly an example of how blogging and alternative news media can work hand in hand with activism, especially in places where access to news is mediated.

via BBC News.

UPDATE: Global Voices Online has a great roundup of posts out of Iran.

The UN Development Fund for Women found that women in Eastern and Central Europe are being paid less, even though statistically they tend to have more education than men.

The study, "The Story Behind the Numbers: Women and Employment in Central and Eastern Europe and the Western Commonwealth of Independent States," was released Tuesday by the U.N. Development Fund for Women.

While statistics show the transition has resulted in economic hardship for both sexes, with living standards and work conditions being "leveled down" for most people, the study does point to an increase in gender inequality and launched possible longer-term deterioration in women's situations relative to that of men.

Women in the region now comprise a larger share of public sector employees than they did in the early years of the transition, while men are much more likely to work in the private sphere. Public jobs are generally of low status and underpaid, the report notes.

Women being paid less? I know it is shocking.

via UPI.

Isn't it nice to to know that new plastic surgeries are cropping up every day to deal with all of that gross knee and "bra fat" you have? No, seriously.

Patients have developed their own nicknames for these obscure fat deposits. To help doctors understand the exact locations their patients are describing, the journal Dermatologic Surgery recently published an article titled "Lexicon of Areas Amenable to Liposuction." According to the article, patients are now asking for liposuction of the "buffalo hump" (upper back), the "wings" (bulges around the bra area), the "doughnut" (around the belly button), the "banana fold" (below the buttocks), the "piano legs" (calves) and the "chubb."

'Chubb' is apparently a term for knee fat. Funny, I just thought it was called 'leg.'

Feminism is dead. Young women don't identify with feminism. I call bullshit. Young feminists must be doing something right, because we've inspired the formation of a new anti-feminist campus organization: the Network of Enlightened Women (NeW). (I've always wanted a nemesis!)

Read the rest at LiberalOasis, where I'm guest blogging today.

Relatives of the people who were arrested at a women’s rights rally in Tehran gathered in front of the city’s prison to demand their release.

At least 41 of the women arrested during Monday’s demonstration have been transferred to Evin Prison.

At least 400 people were arrested during the rally held in 7 Tir Square, according to a statement emailed to Iran Focus by one of the women’s groups that had originally sponsored the protest.

Iranian officials routinely play down the scope of anti-government protests and deflate the number of those arrested.

Terrifying.

I'm easily disgusted by just about any news coverage of Ann Coulter. But Shakespeare's Sister links to this exchange from Hardball with Chris Matthews, which is nauseating-- but not for the usual reasons:

MATTHEWS: Do you find her physically attractive, Tucker?

CARLSON: I‘m not going to answer that, because the answer, I don‘t want to hurt anybody‘s feelings. That‘s not the point.

MATTHEWS: Positively.

COSBY: Don‘t ask me that question.

MATTHEWS: Mike, do you want to weigh in here as an older fellow. Do you find her to be a physically attractive woman?

BARNICLE: I‘m too old to be doing that. I had enough fights in my life.

MATTHEWS: OK, Rita, do you find her to be a physically attractive woman?

COSBY: I‘ll throw it back to you, Chris, do you find her attractive.

MATTHEWS: You guys are all afraid to answer. No, I find her—I wouldn‘t put her—well, she doesn‘t pass the Chris Matthews test.

Wow. Just.... wow. Click here to tell Chris Matthews what is truly unattractive about Ann Coulter-- namely, her inflammatory ranting.

Shakes writes, "Tune in tonight when Chris asks his panelists to address the perplexing conundrum of whether Rush Limbaugh is sponge-worthy."

Last week we pointed out that even though the FDA approved the new HPV vaccine, we haven't cleared the final hurdle. A panel still has to set the guidelines on how the vaccine will be administered, and that panel contains several influential conservatives-- including Dr. Reginald Finger of Focus on the Family.

In comments, reader prying1 brought up the fact that Focus on the Family doesn't say they're opposed to the vaccine's approval or use. FoF's official position on HPV vaccination is as follows:

Focus on the Family supports widespread (universal) availability of HPV vaccines but opposes mandatory HPV vaccinations for entry to public school. The decision of whether to vaccinate a minor against this or other sexually transmitted infections should remain with the child’s parent or guardian.

Madeline explains:

Sounds good, right? The problem with FoF's stance on this is that it can't happen that way. Unfortunately, the vaccine is really expensive and insurance companies (and public health clinics, medicaid, etc.) won't cover the vaccine unless they are required to. So, unless FoF and the other (ahem) "pro-family" groups are willing to start paying for poor children to get vaccinated, it won't be about "parent's choice" it'll be completely up to insurance companies -- and we all know how generous they can be.

FoF also seems to think that, after administering the mandatory HPV vaccine, schools will be required to tell kids that now they can have all the sex they want. Good Christian parents should tell their kids: "Some people and your friends at school may say wrong things to you about this vaccine, like, 'It’s safe and okay now to have sex.' That’s not the case and I want you to hear the truth from me."

And maybe we should quit researching HIV/AIDS drugs, too, because now that people with AIDS are living longer, kids might get the message that it's OK to have unprotected sex. Sheesh.

According to FoF, the truth is that "the seriousness of HPV and other STIs underscores the significance of God’s design for sexuality to human wellbeing." Hear that, kids? God made HPV and other STIs to punish dirty whores with cervical cancer. Good girls don't need vaccination.

Just an FYI! We're currently in transit, on our way back to NYC from Take Back America, and won't have any posts up until later today. Thanks!

Despite the fact that the abortion ban bill is likely to be shelved in Ohio, a House committee hearing went on with continued wackiness:

About 250 people, mostly supporters of abortion rights, crowded the building's largest hearing room while another 100 listened in on loudspeakers in the atrium two floors below.

The bill likely will receive just one hearing and then be shelved, but Health Committee Chairman John White, a Springfield Republican and staunch abortion foe, said he scheduled the hearing because he wanted to give the bill "a rich going-over."

The only exception to the outright abortion ban in the bill is if a doctor, in trying to prevent the death of a pregnant woman, also terminates the pregnancy without intending to do so.

Oops--sorry I saved your life! So crazy. I love that they have absolutely no shame in admitting that they could give a shit about women’s lives.

A NY Times article yesterday discusses the government push to have more mothers breast feed and the underlying message that if you don't, you're a bad mother.

There is no black-box label like that affixed to cans of infant formula or tucked into the corner of magazine advertisements, at least not yet. But that is the unambiguous message of a controversial government public health campaign encouraging new mothers to breast-feed for six months to protect their babies from colds, flu, ear infections, diarrhea and even obesity.

A two-year national breast-feeding awareness campaign that culminated this spring ran television announcements showing a pregnant woman clutching her belly as she was thrown off a mechanical bull during ladies' night at a bar — and compared the behavior to failing to breast-feed.

...Child-rearing experts have long pointed to the benefits of breast-feeding. But critics say the new campaign has taken things too far and will make mothers who cannot breast-feed, or choose not to, feel guilty and inadequate.

I don't feel any pressure to breastfeed, but perhaps that's because I have no children (not counting the boyfriend). Just a wild guess. Any mommies want to weigh in?

While Lawrence Girls-Suck-at-Math Summers promised to make the Harvard faculty more diverse, a university report shows that women are still a bit screwed at the school.

Women represent considerably less than half of the faculty in all but one of Harvard's schools, and while the number of women in tenure-track positions grew slightly from the last academic year to the current one, women still make up a small fraction of the university's tenured professors.

...In the natural sciences, 25 percent of the faculty on a tenure track were women in this academic year, the report found, compared with 22 percent a year ago. But among the tenured professors in natural sciences, only 8 percent were women.

That must be cause our girly brains want to go read a romance novel...not deal with icky boy "science."

I just had the pleasure of hearing the dynamic Cecile Richards, the President of Planned Parenthood, speak on a panel titled, “Devalued:The Anti-American Right.�

Her discussion was (obviously) focused on the abortion ban in South Dakota, but also made it a point to remind the audience that along with the growing threat to Roe, that clinic violence and harassment has been intensifying across the nation as well. Click here to check out their stats on clinic violence.

When the panel opened to questions, I was shocked to hear some guy ask her something along the lines of that since gender issues will soon cease to exist within politics (due to our apparent sexism-free society), does she expect the issue of choice to disappear as well. While my personal reaction would have simply been, "Whaaa?", I was happy to hear Richards’ more articulate reply, which was that while she certainly hopes the day will come when choice won’t be an issue (because we’ll essentially have our own choices to make), we wouldn’t be here today if gender inequality didn’t exist.

Needless to say, Richards is fabulous and I therefore love her.

I just got back from a plenary at Take Back America featuring Joan Blades (the co-founder of MoveOn.org) and her organization, MomsRising.

She’s also (along with a number of other mommy activists) made a documentary as well as written a book, The Motherhood Manifesto: What America’s Moms Want and What to Do About It. Blades is collaborating along with a number of other mother’s organizations that are grappling with issues and problems concerning mothers, including discrimination against mothers in work, maternity leave, and health and child care.

One of my favorites of their favorites is Mothers Ought to Have Equal Rights, who is launching a campaign along with MomsRising to dispel the myth perpetuated by mainstream media that stay-at-home mothers and working mothers are at war with each other.

Check out their site to find out more about the “Mommy Wars� and make sure to sign their CEASEFIRE petition.

Now these are some hot mamas!

Apparently Wonder Woman is retiring...sad.

DC Comics has relaunched the star-spangled heroine’s monthly comic book, starting over with Wonder Woman, issue No. 1, now in stores. In the story, Diana Prince, who has been Wonder Woman for most readers since 1941, turns her mantle over to former partner Donna Troy, also known as Wonder Girl.

As Rebecca from Broadsheet points out, all I can think when I think Wonder Woman is the first ever Ms. cover.

We're playing around with some comment options so pretty please be patient while we figure this shit out.

Thanks...

I hate writing anything about David Brooks because he's already proved himself to be quite the dipshit. But this latest column which attempts to explain the gender gap in school, is just priceless.

A quick overview:

Men are manly and like manly things like books written by men about men being the alienated lone wolf (or violence, fun!); they like manly colors like black gray and blue; and they love them some risk. Also, men's brains make them unable to talk about emotions (that's for girly-men).

Women, on the other hand like womanly books about "relationships," bright girly colors and like to process their emotions through talking and stuff.

Brooks is pissed that people don't subscribe to the Mars/Venus dichotomy and says that this is why boys don't like to read. Seriously.

Young boys are compelled to sit still in schools that have sacrificed recess for test prep...

During the 1970's, it was believed that gender is a social construct and that gender differences could be eliminated via consciousness-raising. But it turns out gender is not a social construct. Consciousness-raising doesn't turn boys into sensitively poetic pacifists. It just turns many of them into high school and college dropouts who hate reading.

Naturally.

The Ohio bill that would ban all abortions--even when the woman’s life is in danger--doesn’t look like it’s going to go very far.

After dozens of supporters and opponents of abortion rights spend a good six hours making their cases, House Bill 228 is expected to be placed back in a file cabinet and left to die at the end of the year.

"I don’t see it coming back," said Scott Borgemenke, chief of staff for Speaker Jon A. Husted, R-Kettering, adding that an abortion bill is not among the priorities this year for Republicans, who control both branches of the legislature.

Rep. John White, a Kettering Republican and chairman of the House Health Committee that will hear testimony starting at 10 a.m., said he expects only one hearing.

"As the bill is written, I don’t think there is support on the committee," White said, calling the bill "poorly written."

Kellie Copeland, executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice Ohio, is still worried: “It’s shocking to me to propose legislation that says to another human being, ‘You don’t have the right to health care that could save your life.’�

Yeah but it’s a woman’s life, so who really cares?

This is a head-scratcher.

70 men and women were detained at a women’s rights demonstration in Iran:

About 100 women had gathered in central Teheran on Monday to protest against what they called the Islamic Republic’s discriminatory laws against women.

Some men joined them at the gathering, which the judiciary said was “illegal�.

Well, how nice.

UPDATE: At the same protest, police actually beat a small group of women.

The National Organization for Women is here at Take Back America and one of their staff, Emily Reynolds, is wearing the best shirt ever (above). If it was closer to my birthday, you could consider this a gift hint.

This one is also kind of cute.

Ludacris has narrated a new women's basketball documentary, which he says will empower women:

One of my main reasons in doing it is because of how powerful I think it is for ladies to watch it. We have a lot of problems and troubles with the youth, period, but it's the young women who need to be especially strong at this point. [...] I want to empower the young ladies out there. It's about women's battles on and off the court.

Like women's battle not to be seen as meat? The cover of his album Chicken-n-Beer features Ludacris salting a woman's leg and getting ready to bite into it. (Sexual Politics of Meat, anyone?)

He's also said:

"People give hip hop a bad rap. It's the easy cop out. Everybody wants to blame us for everything... By me doing this documentary about empowering women, I can lead by example."

His example? "Bitch your pussy smell like Pepe Le Peu. / You filthy, nasty, sick in the head, / Sittin' in my dressin' room with dick on your breath." Off the court, women are surely empowered by such Ludacris hits as "Hoes in My Room," "Ho" and "Move Bitch."

Ludacris is first and foremost a multi-platinum hip-hop artist, not a professional narrator. His lyrics reach a much wider audience than the documentary ever will, and his involvement in one project that positively portrays women doesn't counteract the overwhelmingly negative messages in his music.

The documentary, "The Heart of the Game," is getting great reviews. Right now it's only showing in New York and LA, but will open in wider release on Friday.

Make sure to check out Tristan Taormino's roundup of the Toronto conference, Vixens + Visionaries: Female Erotic Directors Revolutionizing Porn.

My fave snippet:

Some say no porn could ever be feminist. Lots of us disagree. But that doesn't mean we agree on what it is: each filmmaker defines her or his work differently. For me, feminist porn is about character, choice, and consciousness. I like to collaborate with performers on how their sexuality is represented, rather than give them a script or formula to follow. I want to capture complex, three-dimensional beings rather than stereotypes, to create an open environment that's safe for everyone—especially women—to take charge of their pleasure and be able to express their desires freely. I want to represent sex as positive, fun, healthy, and adventurous. I consciously work to create images that contradict (and hopefully challenge) other porn that represents women only as objects and vehicles for male pleasure. (Emphasis mine)

Good shit.

The New York Times covered a dinner honoring women (specifically, Chile's Michelle Bachelet) who have risen to the higest levels of government. Where did the story run?

National section? Nope. Week in Review? Try again. How about Sunday Styles? Bingo! Where else would you print a quaint little story about a "tittering" group of women, some of whom want to dress up and play President?

If you can get past the pink purse graphic and the fact that it's in the style section, the article is a pretty standard take on the state of women in U.S. politics, and why we have yet to elect a female Commander in Chief.

Mrs. Clinton, if she runs for president, will do so in a country that trails behind a growing list of others in electing women to the highest office, a country that recently dumped its Hollywood version. Although polls show most Americans say they are willing to vote for a woman — more than 90 percent of those surveyed would do so for the right candidate — far fewer, about 55 percent, believe the country as a whole is ready for a female president. Broadly, the data suggest that there is a lingering awkwardness toward women at the tip-top of political power, both on screen and off.

Marie Wilson, who runs the White House Project, has some great thoughts about the double standard for male and female politicians:

[Wilson] said the public is still putting women on pedestals — and will only accept a female president whom voters consider flawless, more so than a man, an almost impossible standard.

"Frankly, the social and cultural ideal of women in America hasn't shifted as fast as the realities of women's roles," Ms. Wilson said. "When one woman is up there, we start to project all this stuff onto her of, 'Is she perfect?' That's why I was hoping Geena Davis would be on television long enough to make some really bad mistake."

Then Arianna Huffington opines that American voters are so over masculine swagger... but doesn't mean they want to elect Hillary Clinton.

Maybe I could set aside my disagreement with many of Clinton's positions and vote for her if she'd promise never to carry ugly pink accessories imprinted with the presidential seal.

Thanks to Erin for the link.

Vanessa and I are off to Take Back America 2006 in DC...and damn does the line up look good. We're going to live-blog as much as possible. Unless it's boring. In that case we'll just fuck around. (Just kidding, guys, the conference looks uber-exciting.)

By the way, check out the finals from the What Is A Progressive? contest.

A new electronic device designed by a student at London's Brunel University reminds women about taking their birth control pills.

The 'Remember' device also advises users what to do if they have forgotten to take their pill.

It continually predicts the user's current level of protection and glows red if it is too low.

The pill is more than 99% effective against pregnancies, but research suggests 70% of women forget to take one a month, and 10% forget it at least four times.

Remember reminds women when it’s time to take the pill with alerts like an alarm, a light and a vibrate mode. The longer you don’t take the pill, the quicker and louder the alerts will sound.

Inventor Lai Chiu Tang says, “I had heard and read so much about the massive consequences of simply forgetting to take a pill that I began thinking about ways of reminding women. But after further research I discovered that forgetting to take the pill was only part of the problem. Lots of women didn't know what to do after missing a pill or, worse still, didn't even realise they may be unprotected.�

That’s pretty hot...I have to admit that when I was on the pill, I was the queen of missed doses.

Well, at least they’re being honest about not giving a shit about women’s lives:

House Bill 228, as proposed by State Rep. Tom Brinkman, R-Cincinnati, would criminalize all abortion -- whether to save the life of the woman or to end pregnancies resulting from rape or incest.

Furthermore, it would make it a felony for anyone to take a woman across the state line to obtain an abortion elsewhere. (Emphasis added)

I guess Ohio is trying one-up South Dakota.

Kellie Copeland, the executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice Ohio, says “South Dakota legislators launched an attack on a woman's right to choose...Will Ohio lawmakers now follow them down this path with an even more extreme ban?�

I just wanted to say congrats to the best-est couple in the world, Bill and Gina-Louise, who got married this weekend.

Bill (of LiberalOasis fame) is a great friend and really was the one who got me to start Feministing, so I owe him a lot. Plus their wedding was super fun. And had free booze.

By the way, while the lovely couple are enjoying their honeymoon in Australia, I'll be guest blogging at LiberalOasis (along with Avedon Carol of The Sideshow, Frederick Clarkson of Talk To Action, Charley Blandy of Blue Mass Group, and Tom Burka of Opinions You Should Have).

A couple of more wedding pics after the jump.

More than 40 percent of teenage girls report having had unwanted sex at least once, with about 10 percent reporting that they had been forced to have sex. Most, 37.6 percent, had unwanted sex because they feared the partner would get angry if denied sex.

The conservative politicians who oppose gay marriage refuse to actually talk about men who love men or women who love women.

The wage gap widens as women move up the corporate ladder.

Annalee Newitz argues feminists shouldn't back away from the debate on genetic engineering, or it'll be up to the men. Again.

Single women are buying up more real estate than single men.

About 200 delegates, mostly women, from 13 Arab states and Turkey, gathered for a conference on the U.N. Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). The delegates at the meeting adopted a resolution calling on Arab states to adopt the law in full. The article fails to note that the U.S. has yet to ratify CEDAW.

A new survey shows women in predominantly Muslim countries believe they should have the right to vote, work outside the home and serve in the highest levels of government. A majority said that a lack of unity among Muslim nations, violent extremism, and political and economic corruption were their main concerns. Many said they found Hollywood's portrayal of women degrading.
(I recommend reading coverage of the survey in conjunction with Laila Lalami's essay.)

... and a columnist criticizes such studies and essays about "what women want," writing: "Well, I'm a woman. And let me tell you what we want: a study that concludes women are unique individuals with such a diversity of preferences, habits, goals, fears and taste buds that we can't possibly be lumped together and studied like lab rats."

Elizabeth Berrios, 28, is from Hartford, Connecticut. She’s been working at various prisons in Hartford, and in maximum-security prisons in rural areas north of the city for a year as a Correctional Commissary Officer. She works the first shift, 6:30 a.m. to 1:45 p.m. Her day begins at 4:45 a.m. and her second shift begins at 3 p.m. when she picks up her 3-year-old daughter from daycare.

Correctional Commissary Officers supervise inmates who work in the prison in an assembly-like line packaging products [TVs, CDs, envelopes, etc.] that inmates of the prison legitimately buy from the prison. These boxes are later checked and approved by the Correctional Commissary Officer to ensure nothing extra is packed into the boxes. These boxes are then hand-delivered to the inmates by the Correctional Commissary Officer with the help of a Correctional Officer (CO) [prison guard].

I spoke with Elizabeth on May 24, 2006, two days after she found out a CO at one of the prisons she works at was beaten by one of the inmates with the phone that was on her desk. Here’s Elizabeth….

Metallic Falcons
Desert Doughnuts
Voodoo-EROS (2006)

The freak-folk music family has expanded its repertoire with the 6.6.06 release of Metallic Falcons Desert Donuts, which speaks of desolation and time forgotten.

The soft metal duo consists of Voodoo EROS’ Matteah Baim and Sierra Rose Casady, who is also a member of CocoRosie. Baim and Casady take you to an unknown world with murmured chants, spare guitars, fastidious use of strings and hypnotic drumbeats. “Journey,� the album opener, immediately transports the listener from the bedroom, car, wherever you were to a higher plane of existence, one where mysticism reigns over the rigmarole and parameters of our current times.

The tracks that follow “Journey� all contribute to a sound that’s peaceful yet haunting, enjoyable yet disturbing. Guest appearances by Devendra Banhart, Jana Hunter, Tarantula A.D.’s Greg Redgrove, Antony of Antony & the Johnsons and Casady’s own sonically blessed mother punctuate the solid debut album. As Casady counts out “1, 2, 3, 4� on the album closer “Four Hearts,� you’ll be sad to hear the journey end, yet will know that its essence of haunting melodies and simplistic beauty won’t be leaving you soon.

The Metallic Falcons will fly on by the Troubadour in L.A. tomorrow nite and hit some spots in Poland, Spain, Belgium and Italy before a September appearance at the Bumbershoot Festival in Seattle. Get more info on the duo and their cohorts here

Look for a new review next Wednesday. Again, I’m totally up for suggestions.

Just because it's Friday: Sexual Abstinence Rap

You don't need a booty to make your jeans talk anymore.

While many young ladies can make blue jeans talk by just walking down the street, others may need technological help, and that’s where Uranium Jeans can spell it out right there across their asses. The scrolling LED text, displayed by an embedded flexible micro screen, can be changed via text messaging from a cellphone, or stock messages can be downloaded from the Uranium Jeans web site.

This is just goofy. Because I really need more people looking at my ass.

via Gizmodo.

Police in Maryland have arrested a 25-year-old "pro-lifer" Robert F. Weiler, who planned to bomb an abortion clinic and use a handgun to "shoot doctors who provided abortions."

The AP reporter notes that Weiler's car has "Choose Life" license plates. Also:

A woman who answered the phone at the Greenbelt clinic said they had not heard of the threat.

I can't believe police hadn't made them aware of this.

Thanks to Michael for the tip.

Update: More at Shakespeare's Sister and Feministe.

Archbishop Agostino Marchetto, the Vatican’s specialist on migration, has called Germany out for the prevalence of prostitution during the World Cup, saying the profession is a loss of a woman’s dignity, “whose cost is less than a ticket to a soccer match.� Lovely.

Due to the event and the anticipated million plus visitors from outside of the country, an influx of prostitutes from Eastern Europe is expected. Prostitution in Germany is legal, where women can get health insurance, join a union and pay into a pension plan. After his spiel on how sex work cheapens a woman’s worth, Marchetto manages to add:

"(It's bad enough) that prostitution is allowed ... but it is even worse that more than 40,000 women will enter the trade during the World Cup and many of them are forced to carry out this activity against their will, so they are objects of trafficking.�

Maybe that should be more of a focus rather than preaching about the sinful and worthless lifestyle that prostitutes have, particularly in a country where prostitution is legalized as an actual profession.

Once again, an example of how people love to dissolve that line between sex slavery and sex work.

For any of y'all that live in (or will be in) the tri-state for the next couple of weeks, make sure to check out V-Day's festival to kick off on Monday, Until the Violence Stops: NYC. The two weeks will feature of number of different events that will bring awareness concerning violence against women and girls to The Big Apple.

One of the many fanastic events V-Day has lined up is sponsored by the organization I work for, Girls for Gender Equity, titled, "Art Revolution: Girl Style." It will be a multi-media event featuring young women artists, including photography, spoken word artists, and a special performance by all-girl rock bands Hellish Relish and Magnolia from the Willie Mae Rock Camp for Girls. (Trust me, you want to see these girls rock out.) Here are the details:

Art Revolution: Girl Style
When: Friday, June 23 - 7:00 PM to 9:00 PM
Where: Stain - 766 Grand Street, Brooklyn, NY 11211
RSVP to mandy@gges.info or call 718-857-1393

Click here to check out the other events V-Day will be featuring.

A recent study on breast cancer shows that black women who develop the disease before reaching menopause are twice as likely as white women to have a form of the cancer that is more lethal.

While black women’s death rate from breast cancer is 36.4 per 100,000, there are 28.3 deaths per 100,000 white women, the report said.

These disparities in breast cancer mortality are more pronounced among women under 50, with black women's death rate at 11 per 100,000 compared to 6 per 100,000 -- nearly double -- that of white women. So what are the reasons?:

Previous research has shown socioeconomic factors also play a role in black women's lower survival rate from breast cancer compared to whites women, including less access to care that translates into their getting diagnosed and treated later.

Let’s not also forget about the fact that black women are much less likely to get genetic counseling than white women, which can detect BRCA mutations. These mutations, which are prevalent in both races, account for 5 to 10 percent of the cases of breast cancer worldwide.

I like this woman. Not only is Fadela Amara leading a revolutionary feminist movement, but thought of a dope name for it as well.

Ni Putes, Ni Soumises (Neither Whores nor Submissives) is an organization that battles the severe conditions of violence that young Muslim women are subjected to within the ghettos of France. The title says it all:

‘Not whores’ is aimed at young thugs who refer to all women except their mothers as whores, while ‘not submissives’ is directed at intellectuals, politicians and other observers to alert them that merely because these women are oppressed, it does not mean they are simply passive.

While approximately 12 percent of the current National Assembly is female (one of the lowest proportions in Europe), Amara is convinced that basic women’s rights should be the organization’s current focus. She says, “For now we are. . . concerned with fundamental liberties — more practical matters — like the right to dress how you want, the right to study, the right to choose your companion.�

For example, Ni Putes managed to convince President Jacques Chirac’s government in 2003 to give funding to build shelters that offer asylum to domestic violence victims.

In the meantime, Amara recently published a book, “Breaking the Silence: French Women’s Voices from The Ghetto.�

Viva la Feministe! (Sorry, I just had to do it.)

Are we really at the point where a model not taking her clothes off is considered a breaking story?

I guess I missed this one when it first went down.

A teacher who was fired from a Catholic school for being pro-choice lost a court case yesterday. Sad.

The teacher, Michele Curay-Cramer, who now teaches at a junior high in West Chester, was hired in 2001 to teach English and religious classes at Ursuline Academy in Wilmington.

Ursuline fired her Jan. 27, 2003, a week after she signed her name to a newspaper advertisement celebrating the 30th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion.

Curay-Cramer sued in federal court in Delaware, citing a 1978 law that forbids employers from discriminating against employees who support abortion rights.

A Court of Appeals ruled against Curay-Cramer, saying that Congress didn’t intend for the 1978 law to apply to religious schools. Cause apparently they're allowed to discriminate.

Contributed by Madeline Halperin-Robinson

Merck just announced that the FDA has approved their HPV vaccine, Gardasil. This should be great news, but we all know that nothing is simple these days in matters of public policy and women’s health.

The real battle over the vaccine will be in the coming weeks as the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) issues their recommendations for how the vaccine should be administered. While the ACIP decisions are non-binding, its recommendations set the standard by which states decide if they will mandate vaccination, insurance companies choose to cover the cost, and doctors decide how to advise their patients. Their decision on June 29 will determine whether or not we will be on our way to eradicating an STI that affects 80% of women by age 50 and is at the root of almost all cases of cervical cancer.

The only member of the 15-member panel to publicly state his opinion about making the vaccine routinely available is Reginald Finger. Dr. Finger nominated himself to the ACIP after the ultra-conservative Focus on the Family was asked to provide a list of scientists to nominate for various federal boards. Dr. Finger (sorry, I can’t get over that name) describes himself as a liaison between the CDC and Focus on the Family. He says, “Focus on the Family wants to have good relationships at CDC - and I can help make those happen.�

He has also said that if “people begin to market the [HPV] vaccine or tout the vaccine that this makes adolescent sex safer, then that would undermine the abstinence-only message.� For the record, Finger would also be wary of approving an HIV vaccine, should one become available.

Sigh. I hope the other 14 members of the ACIP will make their decision based on science and public health. The Family Research Council weighed in at the last ACIP meeting, so you should submit written comments to the ACIP before their June 29 hearing:

Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
1600 Clifton Road, NE
MS E-05
Atlanta, Georgia 30333

Just one more reason why I love me some Rosie.

From Geraldo Rivera's Geraldo at Large:

Rivera: "But many are unsatisfied with the pace of progress. Even as world leaders gathered at the United Nations Wednesday to find new ways to tackle the epidemic the actress Rosie Perez led AIDS activists at a rally outside."

Rosie Perez: "I’m disappointed in our leadership here in the United States. Yes the United States is giving a lot of money for the, for the fight against AIDS but to push a program of abstinence is just insane. It, it doesn’t work. We have to be realistic and we have to do even more than what’s being done."

(Swoon.)

By the way, it seems that it's not only feminists who have a "mental disorder."

This is too wacky. Scientists have created a new way for women to deal with their symptoms from menopause--menopause beer of course!

Czech scientists say they have created a new non-alcoholic beer that contains 10 times the normal amount of phytoestrogen, intended to help women suffering from the menopause.

The beer, developed by the Czech Republic’s Research Institute for Brewing and Malting, is intended to relieve menopausal symptoms and maintain bone density by tackling a lack of the oestrogen hormone in many Czech women.

Certainly sounds like a fun way to beat those hot flash blues. I guess.

Shame on you, Macy's!

From The Consumerist:

Until yesterday, two male mannequins, one wearing a rainbow flag, stood watch inside a Boston Macy’s. At their right was a calendar for Boston Pride, a nine-day gay pride event.

Macy’s removed the mannequins in response to a letter and phone campaign organized by a fringe conservative religious site MassResistance.

Apparently, the group was upset over the super-faggy mannequins:

“They were male mannequins with enlarged breasts, and one was wearing a skirt,� said MassResistance president Brian Camenker, referring to the gay pride flag wrapped around one figure, cinched with a white belt. “It was really disgusting.�

Enlarged breasts? I often wonder if these people are making stuff up, or if their minds are so warped that they actually see things that aren't there.

Here's some contact info if you're so inclined:

Ronnie Taffet
Vice President, Public Relations
212/704-1802
Macy’s East

Elina Kazan
Director, Publicity
212/494-4624

The NYT reports that the Duke men's lacrosse team will be allowed to play next season, under strict monitering. I have no comment. Really. I don't.

Virginia Coach Dom Starsia confirmed last night in a telephone interview that he had spoken with a Duke official about the logistics of the program's return to competition.

"I couldn't be more pleased," Starsia said. "I'm sure there will be some parameters for them to return, but it's a step in the right direction for our sport."

Let us not allow a little rape accusation get in the way of our good ole boys and their sports.

To elaborate on this Rolling Stone has a good piece on the culture of sex at Duke, the sexual status of Duke lacrosse players and the support that they are getting from family, good lawyers, and other students. The article basically validates that sexual aggression from these guys is not unfathomable, but instead par for the course. . . It is a culture that supports white male aggression and innocence and simultaneously silences the costly mistake this type of aggression makes.

Since the story broke in March, lacrosse parents have descended upon Durham in support of their sons, joining forces with a dozen or so lawyers representing members of the team -- including Robert Bennett, who defended Bill Clinton during the Lewinsky scandal, hired as a consultant. The national media have arrived, en masse, and have set up a permanent base camp in Durham. Worried alumni have flocked to town -- this Saturday night happens to be Alumni Weekend -- filling Durham's restaurants with hushed talk of the scandal. But yet, here at Shooters, surrounded by a horde of drunken, writhing students, the objects of all this attention -- the Duke lacrosse team -- are trying to forget all that. They are pounding beers, exchanging high-fives and throwing their arms around one another in brotherly, inebriated affection.

''Laxers,'' as lacrosse players are universally known, tend to be the most desired and most confident guys on campus. They're fun. And they're hot. It's something that frustrates and often baffles other young men, particularly those who've had girlfriends stolen by these guys. But women understand.

The article is interesting, although she doesn't go as far as I would like her to (like saying that this is how patriarchy and racism are functioning on the duke campus, but hey it is Rolling Stone). I still think it is important to note that she does bring up how the sexual culture of Duke supports men in the belief that they are entitled to sex. This notion of entitlement is, as I mentioned above, the type of entitlement that does allow for rape to happen.

Furthermore, in terms of white women being complicit in their own oppression, several of the women interviewed in this piece when asked about the rape responded with things like, " well she was a stripper. . ." Which, in their frame of mind, obviously makes it okay to rape her. Apparently some types of rape are just better left overlooked.

On a final note, in light of all the hateful, racist, sexist comments we recieved from the last post I did on Duke I have decided to keep this thread closed. If anyone has comments they should email them to me and if I think they will add to discussion I will publish them.

I also wanted to shout out to all the folks that wrote in support of me on their own blogs, in comments and sent emails. Your support has allowed me to even begin to write about this shit again in an open an honest way. Specifially thanks to Brownfemipower, Blackademic, Vegankid, Alas, Slant Truth, Blackamazon, Smackdog, and Women's space and I am sorry if I left any others out, for your support and insightful words. It makes me feel less crazy.

Finally in light of the comments that were geared personally to me about my intelligence, the truth of the matter is if I were white they wouldn't have been said.

As brownfemipower says in her post. . .

If racialized dehumanization of women of color is what happens on the internet, please please please explain to me again why it is so fucking impossible to believe that those poor little white "boys" could have done what they are accussed of?

We will continue to speak our truths. We will continue to stand in solidarity. Try to silence us and we only get louder!

Focus on the Family is always good for a laugh. Or a cry:

Katie giggles as she waits for her date to come around and open the car door. The pair enters an ice cream shop. She sits down at the table as her date gently pushes in her chair. He takes her hand from across the table and asks, "What flavor would you like tonight, Sugar?" Katie smiles and says, "I'll have chocolate, Daddy."

More and more fathers are becoming aware of their influence and regularly dating their daughters.

Such creepy language. After a respectable number of ice-cream dates, do you think they'll be serious enough about each other to attend a Purity Ball?

Carey Roberts says that those wacky women's libbers just aren't right in the head.

Peer into the dark heart of radical feminism, and you’ll get a glimpse of a seething caldron of delusion, phobia, and paranoia.

And dead puppies! I like that he uses the world caldron, by the way.

Roberts is so enamored of his feminists-are-bat-shit-crazy theory, that he even creates a name for this dangerous disorder: "FIPH – feminist-induced phobic hysteria."

I don't know what's worse--that someone has actually given this guy a column, or that he looks like he could be my grandpa. My very scary, creepy grandpa.

If you're in Brooklyn (oh how I'm missing my old hood right now as I hang with the hippies in the Woodstock library), make sure to check out Burlesque For Choice at The Lucky Cat in Williamsburg.

There's sliding scale admission: $5-10 suggested donation or $25 for VIP Seating and a gift bag. Proceeds will go to Planned Parenthood.

I'll be dragging my ass on a bus back to New York so that I can make it tonight, so you Brooklynites have no excuses!

A teenage girl in Germany was recently forced to strip by police in a semipublic area so that she could be searched for weapons. Blogger Lyssa, who alerted me to the story, says that the teen sued but "the court decided that it was perfectly legitimate to let a 17-year-old hop around with her knickers twisted around her knees to prove that she didn't pose a threat to the football match."

Lovely.

Check out Lyssa's full post on the story here.

The Playboy channel is introducing a new kind of "dating" reality show: Foursome.

Playboy TV will roll out the half-hour show July 8. It will take two couples each week and follow them for 24 hours to see if they end up in the sack, Daily Variety reported.

Every move will be recorded -- including bedroom moves.

Among the more racy episodes revealed by Playboy is one in which one of the men is so obnoxious, he drives the women into each others' arms.

The network said while women are being encouraged to discover "their inner bisexuality," man-on-man action is being strictly banned from the show. (Emphasis added)

Cause that's like, gross, dude. Ugh.

NARAL Pro-Choice America is celebrating the 41st anniversary of landmark Supreme Court decision Griswold v. Connecticut by asking women to get off their ass and take action against pharmacists to refuse to dispense birth control.

It should be simple: a woman walks into a pharmacy with her prescription and walks out with her medicine. Right?

If only it were that easy.

Rogue anti-choice pharmacists across the country are refusing to fill women's prescriptions for birth control. To make matters worse, so far this year anti-choice lawmakers in 18 states are trying to legalize this blatant discrimination.

So NARAL is letting folks know how they can stop the madness. And they’re even putting it list form.

Ask your members of Congress to support legislation to ensure that women can get their prescriptions filled in any pharmacy.

Tell 5 friends about NARAL Pro-Choice America's work to stop pharmacy refusals and get a free magnet.

Download and print our "Who Invited the Pharmacist?" ad that NARAL Pro-Choice America has been running in magazines and newspapers across the country to get the word out about these pharmacy refusals.

Think about it as a birthday present to your privacy rights.

Thanks to B-Shoot over at Modern Feminist for passing along her latest video blog, Male Feminists (Fe-men-ists?).

Click on the pic above to watch.

..and now they're finally here: Maxim hotels! (Ugh.)

The ever-growing Maxim brand is making it's way to where else--Vegas:

Maxim's parent company, Dennis Publishing, is expected to announce today that it has signed a deal with a real estate developer, Concord Wilshire Partners, to build the Maxim Hotel and Casino, a $1.2 billion destination hotel with 2,300 rooms and a 60,000-square-foot casino that is to open in 2010.

All the accouterments of any self-respecting new hotel on the Strip will be on hand: a luxury spa, high-end retailers, celebrity chefs, lots of conference space. Then, the connections with Dennis Publishing will be added. Maxim Lounge, a collaboration with the nightlife impresarios Rande and Scott Gerber, will have an outpost in the hotel. And the company's music magazine, Blender, will get top billing on the outdoor and indoor concert spaces.

Let's just hope the hotel does better than Maxim's foray into hair-frosting.

Oh, and apparently the Palms is bringing back the Playboy Club, which hasn't been around for about twenty years.

Hey West Coasters! Those of you in San Francisco should join me tomorrow night for a few rousing rounds of sex trivia at Planned Parenthood's benefit for the South Dakota Campaign for Healthy Families, which is working to overturn the state's abortion ban.

Here's the info...

What: Sexpert Quiz Night

Where: Café Royale at 800 Post St. @ Leavenworth, San Francisco

When: Wednesday, June 7th, 2006, 7pm-9pm

Suggested Donation: $10 ***

*** No one turned away for lack of funds!

The American Prospect's cover story this month is a Lakoff-esque take on politics: Republicans are the party of masculine disciplinarians and the Democrats are feminine nurturers.

Author Francis Wilkinson claims that the masculine characteristics that have made Republicans (particularly Bush, our swaggering Fratboy-in-Chief) electable are the same characteristics that have been the root of their most prominent failures-- particularly in Iraq and New Orleans. And yet he points to a new round of macho, macho Dems-- veterans and businessmen who don't speak foreign languages or engage in sissy sports like windsurfing-- who are stepping up to "save" the left from its feminine image.

Holy. Shit.

Hosts of a chat show on a Hong Kong radio station apologized Tuesday for an Internet survey asking its listeners to vote which actress they would most like to sexually assault.

The Commercial Radio poll drew widespread criticism last week, with teachers, legislators and ordinary citizens slamming it for advocating violence against women and for corrupting youth.

"The program hosts and co-workers publicly apologize for any offence that the Internet poll 'Which female artiste would you most like to sexually assault' caused to female artistes and everyone in Hong Kong," a message posted on the radio Web site said.

Jeez, who would have thought that ranking women on how rapeable they are would be considered offensive?

Via PEEK.

Papua New Guinea's only female MP says that women in the South Pacific aren’t well represented in politics because of cultural barriers:

PNG's Community Development Minister Carol Kidu said that in the south Pacific region, excluding Australia and New Zealand, women MPs made up only 3.5 per cent of parliamentarians.

Countries in the region were "a long way from being representative democracies for women" and were only slightly better than Islamic Arab nations, she said in a speech in Honiara during an induction program for new Solomon Islands MPs.

The Solomons was among the worst with no female MPs in the 50-member parliament and PNG was not much better with 0.9 per cent representation, she said.

"I am not even a whole per cent."

Ouch. For more info on women’s political participation (and other issues) in the Pacific, check out Beijing Betrayed.

From The Daily Mail: Why women who want to get ahead get a husky voice

And is the picture of Kathleen Turner really necessary?

Watch out, she's after your soul.

The Financial Times in Germany says that young women aren't working hard to further their careers--it's to trick poor old saps into marrying them.

They are single women who, stuck in their search for a personal partner, are ready to give their all to a professional one. What they want is a high-earning, high-flying, high-virility man - and one who they can drag to the altar. Welcome to the world of the "office piranha".

We all know the story: women are supposedly taking control, marrying later and "putting off" motherhood until well into their 30s or early 40s. But scratch below the surface and you'll find that many of these career-minded Amazons are only tolerating singledom while frantically scanning the horizon for an old-fashioned knight in shining armour.

Feministe's Jill has a great breakdown of the article, which claims that men who leave their wives for younger women are just suckers who fell for the office piranha's evil plan. It's hysterical.

You'll have to excuse me, I have to go suck the life out of a middle-aged businessman in a desperate ploy for financial security.

I hear from a few design friends that these watches are pretty cool, but I ask you: could you ever wear something called the Pimp Watch?

The latest release from Pimp Watches is apparently for women--the Pleasure Seeker. At least it's not the Bitch Better Have My Money watch, I guess. Sigh.

Well not really. But in a new document issued by the Pontifical Council for the Family, the Vatican condemns contraception, abortion, vitro fertilization and same-sex marriage. Whew.

Obviously the document isn’t saying anything that we didn’t already know, but it did leave out the recent debate on whether the Church should condone condoms in an attempt to battle the HIV/AIDS pandemic. Interesting...

A cervical cancer vaccine that prevents HPV infection is showing promising results:

An experimental cervical cancer vaccine made by GlaxoSmithKline Plc produced immune responses in all women ages 15 to 55 in a clinical study, the first evidence that a cervical cancer vaccine may work in women ages 26 and older, the company said on Monday.

But don't hold your breath. Even though cervical cancer kills 200,000 women worldwide per year, Christian conservatives are trying to block the vaccine for fear that it will make young girls slutty. Cause obviously you're much better off with cancer than multiple sex partners.

Louisiana Governer Kathleen Blanco, a Democrat, says she'll sign the state's abortion ban, which was recently passed by both the House and Senate.

[Blanco] says she believes an exception for rape and incest victims to get an abortion, a proposal rejected by both the House and Senate, would have "been reasonable," but she said she wouldn't reject the bill for that reason.

This is why it's unreasonable for pro-choicers to support politicians just because they're nominally Democrats. When we elect people like Blanco to "win back" the South, we really lose.

The Washington Post had a great piece up this weekend by a woman who--because she was denied access to emergency contraception--had to get an abortion.

The conservative politics of the Bush administration forced me to have an abortion I didn't want. Well, not literally, but let me explain.

I am a 42-year-old happily married mother of two elementary-schoolers. My husband and I both work, and like many couples, we're starved for time together. One Thursday evening this past March, we managed to snag some rare couple time and, in a sudden rush of passion, I failed to insert my diaphragm.

Make sure to check out the whole story and the online conversation the author had with WaPo readers.

Outrageous.

The Ethiopian Ministry of Health (MoH) said on Wednesday that the HIV/AIDS prevalence rate has reached 5 %, among women and that the infection rate was on the rise.

The minister was speaking at the 42nd annual conference of the Ethiopian Medical Association, which was opened here on Wednesday.

"Ethiopian women are vulnerable to HIV infection due to their low socio-economic status on top of the biological factors. The national surveillance report estimates the HIV prevalence among women to be 5 %,"Worku said.

According to government statistics, close to two million people are currently living with the virus in Ethiopia, making the country one of the largest HIV- infected populations in the world.

But NGOs estimate over three million people to live with the virus in the country.

These numbers are staggering.

Call me crazy, but I don't want to use any skin-care product that makes someone think about eating me. At least like this.

What an asshole:

"Ages of experience have taught us that the commitment of a husband and wife to love and to serve one another promotes the welfare of children and the stability of society," Bush said in his weekly radio address. "Government, by recognizing and protecting marriage, serves the interests of all."

The debate over the amendment is set to start at 2pm, so watch C-SPAN and try not to throw things at the TV.

Virginity pledgers often dishonest about past

Ya think?

I know we’ve posted on Janet Rosenbaum’s report before, but I thought this was worth repeating.

Teenagers who take pledges to remain virgins until marriage are likely to deny having taken the pledge if they later become sexually active. Conversely, those who were sexual active before taking the pledge frequency deny their sexual history, according to new study findings.

These findings imply that virginity pledgers often provide unreliable data, making assessment of abstinence-based sex education programs unreliable. In addition, these teens may also underestimate their risk of exposure to sexually transmitted diseases.

"Teenagers do not report their past sexual activity accurately, with virginity pledgers giving more inaccurate reports of their past sexual activity," study author Janet Rosenbaum, of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, told Reuters Health.

Shocking, I know. When oh when will people just admit that this shit just doesn’t work? Get over it already!

To update on Jessica's post last week on how Kuwaiti women recently won the right to run in the upcoming summer elections, thirty-two women will be running out of over 400 folks running for parliment.

A historic bill passed last year granted female suffrage in the U.S. ally and key oil producer.

Government figures showed after registration officially closed on Saturday that 402 people, including 32 women, penned their names as candidates in the poll.

Some 340,000 voters of whom 195,000, or 57 percent, are women, are eligible to choose the new 50-seat house that replaces the previous assembly dissolved last month by the emir, Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah.

via Reuters.

In light of the growing rates of crime against women in many of the major cities of India ( a recent trend due to the shifting nature of women's work in India) the women of New Delhi are taking self defense classes to deal with unwanted attacks on buses, trains and on the streets.

A 15-day self-defence programme organised by the Crime Against Women Cell of Delhi Police is teeming with women of all age groups determined to learn the basics of self-protection.

Since May 29, the classes are being run at Nanakpura in south Delhi, Kingsway Camp in north Delhi and Shahdara in east Delhi. The city has the highest number of crimes against women in the country ranging from rape, murder, harassment and assault.

So far 1,766 women have registered themselves for the training programme. Those who complete the course will be awarded a certificate June 14.

That's right. Since 2002 some 27,521 women have completed training. Very impressive.

via Monsters and Critics.

I know I did a double take when I read the title of this article too. This is so intense, but apparently women that are being smuggled by sex traffickers (from Asia, South Asia, South East Asia, Africa and parts of Western Europe) are being auctioned at the airports in the UK upon arrival.

via BBC.

"We are now seeing 'slave auctions' being held in public places at airports where brothel keepers are bidding for women destined for prostitution."

One auction had taken place outside a coffee shop in the arrivals hall at Gatwick Airport, the CPS said. Others were believed to have been staged at Heathrow, Stansted and other UK airports, it added.

Sometimes I don't want to read the news anymore.

Washington state takes another step toward allowing pharmacists refuse to dispense contraception.

South Dakota's Oglala Sioux tribe bans abortion on the reservation in an effort to prevent president Cecilia Fire Thunder from establishing an abortion clinic there.

Elizabeth Vargas steps down from World News Tonight to be a better mommy (like any male newscaster has ever taken a demotion to be a better daddy), and Katie Couric bids farewell to the Today Show (like anyone would be speculating about her "new look" if she were a man).

A new report highlights the role of women in managing natural resources and combating the desertification of land.

The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) is the single largest contributor of funds for family planning services worldwide. President Bush, however, is proposing a severe funding cut to the program for next year.

Women in predominantly Judeo-Christian nations should look at their own oppressive regimes before "taking pity" on women in Muslim countries, Laila Lalami writes.

Since Mother's Day, two Chicago women have been on a hunger strike for immigrant rights.

LiveJournal considers images of lactating moms pornographic.

Businesses in the UK are advertising to the wives and girlfriends of soccer fans: "Dear girls, why not escape this summer's World Cup to a country where men spend less time on football and more on you." Because we all know only men like sports. Women just bring them a beer and then go back to talking about shopping and makeup. (P.S. Meat and grills aren't for women, either! Clearly, only men can handle the flames shooting from their "pimped out," high-tech grills.)

Female genital cutting has deadly consequences when the women give birth, raising by more than 50 percent the likelihood that the woman or her baby will die.

A new project allows individual women to share their abortion experiences.

Rebecca Traister chats with the author of "The Alphabet of Manliness."

Don'tcha wish Hasbro never even intended to make dolls based on the pop group the Pussycat Dolls?

Former FDA Commissioner Lester Crawford admits he personally denied the request to sell emergency contraception over-the-counter.

A judge dismisses a Catholic pharmacist's suit against Wal-Mart, in which he claimed the store fired him for refusing to dispense birth control. (Whoa! It's so odd to see Wal-Mart, which only recently began stocking emergency contraception, on this side of a lawsuit.)

Ellyn Ruthstrom was diagnosed with breast cancer on July 6, 2005. She was 45. Close to a year later, Ellyn is almost finished with her last rounds of chemotherapy for this stage of the treatment. She will be returning from her close to three-month leave of absence as the editor-in-chief of Teen Voices at the end of June. And she’s ready to get back to publishing more kick-ass teen-written features for teen women everywhere. Here’s Ellyn…

As a pleasant addition to Samhita’s post yesterday on the obviously damaging physical and mental effects of domestic violence, a new study in Canada revealed that more than three-quarters of women living in shelters believe they are at risk of being killed by their partner.

The YWCA released the study yesterday, revealing that out of the 368 women that were interviewed, 77 percent said they feared that they were “serious danger of homicide� from an abusive partner.

Pretty upsetting, but also (sadly) not super surprising.

This makes me want to bang my head against a wall.
Venus, a normally fabulous feminist arts and music magazine, has a softball article about anti-feminists the Independent Women's Forum. Here's the letter I sent them about it:

To the editor:

When I saw Venus had published a piece about the Independent Women’s Forum (“Feminist Fiction,� Summer 2006), I hoped the headline was a reference to the fact that this is a group that fictitiously portrays itself as feminist. Instead the headline was referring to IWF’s take on the pay gap. This isn’t “intelligent, witty journalism.� It’s repeating, word for word, the talking points of an organization with an anti-woman agenda.

IWF is a group that denies that gender inequality exists, thinks child support should be voluntary for men, advocates shaming and firing people for having sex, opposes comprehensive sex education, fights to confirm federal judges who oppose abortion rights, and is a parrot for Bush administration policies. They’ve supported eliminating the “burdensome regulations� and “frivolous litigation� (like class-action lawsuits) that help ensure women’s full participation in the workforce.

Also, IWF’s many programs to encourage “a return to chivalrous dating practices� promote out-moded gender stereotypes that are at odds with the sort of truly strong, independent women usually portrayed in Venus’ pages. As a devoted feminist and fan of your magazine, I find it shocking that you would publish such a one-sided article about a destructive organization that would like to see women back in the kitchen and fully reliant upon men.

Sincerely,
Ann Friedman

On the up side, this issue of Venus also features an article on the REAL hot 100, written by Feministing's own Angie Vo. The article isn't online, but you should check out the print version.

On Monday, President Bush will support a constitutional amendment that would ban same-sex marriage nationwide, reports the Chicago Tribune.

In order to pass this legislation that would prohibit individual states from recognizing same-sex marriages, the measure would need two-thirds of support in the Senate and House, as well as be ratified by at least 38 state legislatures. (In other words, this shit ain’t gonna fly.)

While the proposal is more than likely to be denied, we may be outnumbered by the public -- two years ago, 63 percent of Americans said that they were opposed to same-sex marriage.

Sigh.

Contributed by Courtney E. Martin

I haven’t seen X Men III, nor will I unless I can sneak in a 40 and some Twizzlers, but I have a feeling that Halle Berry won’t have shit on Carrie Giver—the star of a new comic that arrived in my hot little hands this week.

The first edition of The Adventures of Carrie Giver, published by TR Rose Associates, is called “The Cost of Caring,� and you guessed it, is packed full of frightening statistics about women’s labor in the U.S. and beyond. When Carrie begins to “glow with the power of astral projection� you better watch out—she’s about to turn into a badass feminist avenger who saves babies and grandpas from speeding cars, testifies in court about the wage gap, and staves off a horny senator’s untoward advances.

The approach is certainly fresh; for too long the great idea of a caregiver credit has been marketed in stale, nonprofit speak. My only complaint is that Carrie doesn’t seem to acknowledge women who ain’t got a maternal bone in their bodies and does her waist have to be so damn tiny?

To get in on the supergirl action, go to www.carriegiver.com.

Check out Jessica's article in The Guardian today on The Real Hot 100. The Guardian was so inspired, they're actually starting their own hot 100 list!

Additionally, keep checking the site as we will be announcing the final 100 very soon!

In a post-Title IX world, with more and more women playing college sports, universities are trying to figure out what to do when female athletes get pregnant. Current policies are all over the place.

Some agreements protect the scholarships of pregnant players for at least a year and require the athletes to notify their coaches as soon as they learn they are pregnant. Other policies state bluntly that if a player becomes pregnant, she will be dismissed from her team.

According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, the NCAA's bylaws state that an athlete is allowed a sixth year of eligibility if she becomes pregnant (even though I couldn't find any mention of pregnancy in the bylaws). However, the NCAA also allows colleges to strip scholarships from athletes who voluntarily withdraw from their sports. But is pregnancy a "voluntary withdrawal"? I'm guessing that if a woman is a committed college athlete, her pregnancy probably isn't planned. Sure, having sex is voluntary. But so is playing a pick-up game of basketball. And if athletes suffer injuries during a pick-up game, they're still eligible for "medical redshirt" status.

Which is how college athletic departments should deal with pregnancy -- the same way they deal with injuries that require months of recuperation. A woman shouldn't have to choose between continuing her pregnancy and keeping her athletic career, even though getting pregnant (while it's often an accident) and blowing out your knee aren't exactly the same thing.

One advocate suggests that colleges form support groups for pregnant athletes, to offer guidance and then ease the transition back to the playing field after she's given birth. In essence, granting this type of medical redshirt would be more like allowing maternity leave. Sounds good to me. Like it or not, college athletes, at least at major universities, are employees. They're paid (in the form of scholarships and perks) in exchange for their "work" for the university. So bring on the maternity redshirt!

Well, it’s not that cut-and-dry, but still interesting nonetheless.

A study of 7,000 older women found that those who consume a moderate amount of alcohol have higher levels of mental function than non-drinkers.

Researchers at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center found that compared to non-drinkers, women who reported drinking up to two or three drinks per day performed better on measures of global cognitive function, which includes concentration, language, memory and abstract reasoning.

Crazy, right? Additionally, when did a few drinks every day become moderate? Lead author of the study, Mark Espeland also makes it a point to say at the end of the report:

"Until we better understand the reasons why alcohol consumption is associated with better cognitive functioning, these results on their own are not a reason for people who don't drink to start or for those who drink to increase their intake.�

Damn.

A study by the National Center on Health Statistics-- Fertility, Contraception, and Fatherhood: Data on Men and Women from the National Survey of Family Growth--says that men with higher education levels are more likely to eat with, play, and bathe their kids. (Among many other stats.)

What struck me was the way that the Associated Press described the study’s results:

Men who have earned a college degree plan fewer children, but tend to fuss over them more than guys with less schooling.

Why is bathing, playing and eating, “fussing,� rather than just good fathering? Any thoughts?

Check out the latest from cartoonist Mikhaela Reid, Your Yucky Body: Summer Swimsuit Spectacular!, a seasonal update to her classic Your Yucky Body: A Repair Manual.

The good news? It's Mikhaela's birthday!
The bad news? In lieu of a present, the Boston Phoenix is cancelling her cartoon. Click here to email the editors and ask them to keep publishing Mikhaela's strip!

Hey all, just wanted to let you know that comments may be buggy for a couple hours.

After a lot of deliberation, we've decided to once again implement TypeKey registration to cut down on the trolling/spam in comments. So please be patient while we figure this shit out.

Many thanks.

Love this. Make sure to check out MisFortune500, a highly-anticipated (at least by me!) website that “challenges corporate malfeasance against women worldwide, helping them reclaim their rights to decent work, a clean and healthy environment, and access to land, water, food and quality public services.�

The site, a parody of Fortune magazine’s annual list, seeks to expose corporate violations of women’s rights while also tracking good practices and women’s actions around the world. Today for example, MisFortune500 looks at women in India protesting Coca-Cola.

The site is really an amazing resource, so check it out and spread the word.

Thanks to Denver Post writer Katie Stone for the awesome write-up yesterday. We're flattered.

Kinda like can white people fight racism? It is a rhetorical question and an age old one, but what do we think?

via Majikthise.

I am impressed with Majikthise's positivity and although I agree with her on some level, I still find many people that attempt to build allies with *oppressed* communities to be short-sighted of the baggage they bring themselves. For example, several of the white teachers in my school who have been there for a long time and are very committed, yet say the MOST racist stuff in the teacher lunch room about the predominantly black community that I teach in. But let me not digress.

In light of last weeks Duke post and the ensuing flame war (with a round-up post to come), I am questioning so many of these things and what it is we need to do to build allies across difference. We have the greater context of culture in the West, where our media is still dominated by racism, sexism, classism, heterosexism... In the face of overarching issues it is much easier to talk, build, move. It is when we turn the mirror on our selves that the problems arise. That we notice the problems imbedded in our own movements. The racism in feminist circles or the sexism amongst *progressive* men or the sheer elitism of academia verse grass-roots resistance.

We all fall along these lines so at what point do we build alliance? And how do we do it? Can people outside of oppressed groups understand and work with people from within those groups? And what about those of us that don't fall into just one group, what then? huh huh?

(And let me just say on some level I have to believe they can, or I won't be able to get up and go to work tomorrow, but that is a whole other issue.)

ps-troll me and i delete you.

A new study finds that domestic violence affects women's physical and mental health. Tell us something we don't know.

A survey of more than 3,400 women found that 44 percent had experienced intimate partner violence. The more recent the violent incident and the longer it had persisted, the worse the victim's physical and mental health and social network were likely to be, the researchers found.

In 5 percent to 13 percent of the women, domestic violence persisted for more than 20 years, with more than one partner responsible in 11 percent to 21 percent of the cases. Within the previous five years, 15 percent of the women had suffered from intimate partner violence, and 8 percent of the women had been affected within the previous year.

Compared to women with no such history, women recently victimized by violence were four times more likely to report symptoms of severe depression and almost three times more likely to report poor or fair health and more than one additional symptom. They were also likely to report lower social functioning.

Physical abuse -- slapping, hitting, kicking, or forced sex -- had a stronger impact on health that nonphysical abuse such as threats, chronic disparaging remarks, or controlling behavior. However, the researchers noted that both forms of abuse significantly damage women's health and often occur together.

Domestic violence along with most kinds of violence tend to be cyclical. If it is an established pattern it is much harder to break and diagnose. Furthermore, domestic violence is an issue that cannot be located to a specific place, culture, race, ethnicity, class, etc. It is a problem in every community.

via Forbes.