January 2007 Archives

Planned Parenthood has an action item for the young woman who was put in jail and denied emergency contraception after being raped. Take action here and contact the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office.

In case you've been in hiding for the past two weeks, you should know that everyone is running for president. And they're starting now. I'm pretty sure Dem Hill staffers are still hung-over from all the celebrating, but even though winter came late, spring is coming early in Washington. Joe Biden has already stepped in it (again), and he only officially announced his candidacy yesterday. Nice.

While Congressional leadership is trying to get work done, it seems everyone else is starting to take sides. As women sign up to work with anyone but Senator Clinton, of course, they're being asked why. That's the bad news. The good news is they're all giving the same answer. Being a woman does not get you the automatic support of women. There's no vagina litmus test, people. Congratulations on your new gigs, Kate, Eureka,and Amanda. For the rest of you out there, am I wrong? Should women, especially feminists be supporting Hillary by default?

Several people have sent me this breast cancer awareness ad, put out by the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation. When I first saw the picture, I wasn't so sure it was totally offensive. And as Ann said to me via IM not so long ago, perhaps it's the group trying to counter the criticism of their "girlie pink ribbons" image.

But then I was driving and saw the ad on a bus shelter, and all you can really make out from far away is a picture of a woman's torso with the words, "Punch it, Strangle it, Kick it," etc. So, ugh. Plus, the headless woman is yet another example of how the Komen Foundation always seems to imply "save the boobies!" rather than "save women's lives!"

Pic from techne.

Because what's more fun than some old fashioned racism shrouded in pro-woman rhetoric?

Immigrants wishing to live in the small Canadian town of Herouxville, Quebec, must not stone women to death in public, burn them alive or throw acid on them, according to an extraordinary set of rules released by the local council.

The declaration, published on the town's Web site, has deepened tensions in the predominantly French-speaking province over how tolerant Quebecers should be toward the customs and traditions of immigrants.

"We wish to inform these new arrivals that the way of life which they abandoned when they left their countries of origin cannot be recreated here," said the declaration, which makes clear women are allowed to drive, vote, dance, write checks, dress how they want, work and own property.

"Therefore we consider it completely outside these norms to ... kill women by stoning them in public, burning them alive, burning them with acid, circumcising them etc."

Well how lovely. I wonder if the council has rules about locally-born men not beating their wives after a night at the bar? Somehow I doubt it.

Salam Elmenyawi, president of the Muslim Council of Montreal, said of the declaration, "I was shocked and insulted to see these kinds of false stereotypes and ignorance about Islam and our religion ... in a public document written by people in authority who discriminate openly."

It's amazing to me that people are still using the bullshit excuse of protecting women to justify blatant racism.

South Dakota is at it again. A new abortion ban bill is expected to be revealed today at the state Capitol--and this time around it will have exceptions for rape, incest and the health of the woman. (So generous, I know.)

“Legislators in the House and Senate who did not vote in favor of the bill that was passed last year say that they would support such a bill that had exceptions for rape and incest and clearly defined health exceptions,� [Rep. Don Van Etten, R-Rapid City] said. ...Kate Looby, state director for Planned Parenthood in South Dakota, North Dakota and Minnesota, also was in the Capitol on Monday. She said the lawmakers were “ignoring South Dakota voters,� who rejected an abortion ban last November.

The only exception in that measure was to save the life of the mother, but Looby said she believed South Dakotans would not accept the new measure either. “I think the people of South Dakota want the government to stay out of this private, personal family matter,� she said.

Let's hope so. But this is going to mean a change of fighting words on our part. After all, a lot of what pro-choicers talked about when trying to defeat the last ban was the lack of exceptions...

FInd out about the South Dakota "logo" here.

Recent research has shown that pregnant women going full-term can drink coffee without the fear of health risks.

While studies have alleviated the perception that drinking coffee while pregnant can lead to miscarriages or birth defects, it was just this most recent study which found that women can get their caffeine fix without fear of premature birth or an underweight baby.

I just found this and I'm pissed the fuck off.

"iFeminist" Wendy McElroy has written a piece for Fox News, Continuing to Defame the 'Duke 3' as Rapists, where we're misquoted:

Even the popular gender feminist site Feministing had conceded "it probably isn't appropriate to continue calling this the 'Duke rape case'."

That's funny, because I'm pretty sure it was a commenter that wrote this--not us. Congrats, noname: Fox News loves you!

I'd like to think this was a mistake (despite the fact that it's pretty damn clear who is blogging and who is commenting) so I've emailed McElroy about a retraction. But still--ugh.

UPDATE: I've had a series of emails with McElroy which seem to indicate that she's unwilling to remove the incorrect quote unless Feministing provides her with our position on the Duke case. Check them out after the jump (read from the bottom, up). This is seriously bad journalism.

UPDATE II: The reference to Feministing has been taken down and McElroy assures me a retraction is forthcoming.

There will be no sex with the male escort. Or so they say at Precious a "rent -a-fling" service employing 1,500 male escorts.

"Our customers are mainly women working in the adult entertainment business, but following them are housewives and office ladies in their 30s. Recently, we've also noticed an increase in housewives in their 40s and 50s," Haruki Kamisato, the head of Precious, tells Shukan Post.

Women pay a basic fee of 10,000 yen for a two-hour session, but some women will also pay more to have the escort give them a sensuous massage.

Um, yeah I am SURE they are only getting massages. But what is more interesting than this? The claim that women do this for more philosophical reasons.

Unlike men who use paid escorts primarily because they want to relieve sexual frustration, women into the rent-a-fling caper are seeking something a little more philosophical.

"Just seeing the faces of people who notice you walking around with a gorgeous guy on your arms is enough. My husband treats me like little more than a maid, so the attention I get when being with a cute young guy makes up for that," another housewife, this one a 40-something woman, says. "I might get the occasional sensual massage, but we never have sex."

That is so profound. Although, some women may be using this service for the attention they get from the men, I am sure there are other reasons as well. And maybe not as often as men, but please believe, women do pay men to have sex as well.

Still thought it was an interesting story.

Thoughts?

Yeah yeah, so the Golden Globes were a while ago. But I just started watching Ugly Betty online and now I'm hooked. And I super duper love this girl.

'Cause you're guaranteed full submission with these lovely ladies. This is some seriously creepy shit.

It’s terrifying when a patriarchal tradition not only extends into the afterlife, but when women are slaughtered in order to respect it. Two Chinese women were killed by three men and were then sold (their corpses, that is) as “ghost brides.�

The most heinous part of this story is that the men had only decided to kill the women when they realized “that the women would be worth much more dead than alive.�

Shudder.

You've got to love a system that allows a rape survivor to be thrown in jail after reporting the assault.

A young woman was raped by a man who grabbed her as she was walking to her car from a local parade. After she called police and reported the crime, it was discovered that she had an arrest warrant out for her.

It was from an arrest when the woman was a juvenile and she was accused of not paying restitution. The woman says she was not aware there was a warrant out for her, and her attorney says it appears to be a paperwork error.

"They were more interested in prosecuting her for something that's a paperwork snafu from four years ago, that was juvenile. They were more interested in working on that than finding an experienced rapist," stated the victim's mother.

Still, the woman was put in handcuffs and taken to jail. She was not allowed bond, and the medical staff at the jail refused to give her the Morning After Pill even though it had been prescribed at the hospital.

Apparently the medical supervisor at the jail wouldn't allow her to take EC because it was against her religion.

"So, here we have a medical supervisor imposing her beliefs on a rape victim," said attorney Virlyn Moore. "As a human being, how someone could be so violated by this monster and then the system comes along and rapes her again psychologically and emotionally - it's outrageous and unconscionable."

The young woman was arrested on a Saturday, and wasn't able to leave jail until Monday afternoon. After being raped. Just sit on that one for a while. Unbelievable.

Via Feminists to the Rescue.

Ever since I got cable (bad choice when you have as much to do as I) but I have been watching a ton of Vh1 Soul, soooo good. And I love this song. All I can say, "I can have another you in a minute, so don't ever get to thinking your irreplacable. . . "

For some reason several of my girlfriends have been sending me this song/video. I guess it is important to remember the strength we have on our own, despite the nefarious implications of hetero-romance and what not. It is corny, it is mainstream, it is entrenched in disgusting capitalist patriarchy, but I can't help but get a little happy that young girls (and my girls) are singing this song.

I love you feministing for giving me a platform to rival this evil, expose it, make it known and fight it. I love you feministing commentators for kicking commenting butt. This story is awful. And so is this thread that followed it at Digg. Please a) start a more appropriate discussion here and b) go kick some commenting butt. Together we can overcome!

The line that should be ignored but disturbed me profoundly: "They are married.. He owns her.. It could never be rape because he is entitled to anything he wants."

Ugh.

Jill Morrison is Senior Counsel at the National Women's Law Center and was a speaker at the NAPW conference on the panel "How might you be prosecuted? Let me count ways: Punishing pregnant women based on claims of fetal rights and the war on drugs."

I am the kind of attorney that doesn’t actually have clients. I work for the National Women’s Law Center on policies that impact people, but it is rare for me to actually meet those people. Well, the Summit of the National Advocates for Pregnant Women brought me face to face with the amazing women who have had their basic constitutional rights snatched from them. Why? Because they were addicted to drugs.

In case you’re wondering, being addicted to drugs is not a crime, only the stuff you do is a crime, not who or what you are at a given point in time. So-

Being an addict: not a crime
Possessing drugs with the intent to take them, give them away or sell them: all crimes.

Being an alcoholic: not a crime
Driving while intoxicated: a crime

Despite this fact, all over the country, women are being prosecuted for “crimes� based only on their (1) being pregnant and (2) testing positive for drugs. No one else can be tested and prosecuted just for having drugs in his or her system. To get around what they obviously see as a shortcoming in the law, prosecutors charge pregnant women with “delivery of drugs to a minor� and “child endangerment� even though the laws clearly were not meant to be used in these cases.

This violates pregnant women’s constitutional rights, since (1) the laws are applied differently to them than anyone else, (2) they have no reason to know that these laws apply to what they are doing, (3) women have pled guilty to crimes that aren’t really crimes, and (4) the Supreme Court has held that punishing someone for being addicted to drugs or alcohol is both cruel and unusual punishment, since addiction is an illness. Not only is it unconstitutional, it doesn’t do a thing to help babies or their mothers. Threats of prosecution just scare women away from drug treatment and prenatal care.

I’ve filed legal briefs in a few cases to help women who were being prosecuted, but I’ve never heard their stories from them, face-to-face. And I have to admit: even after working on this issue for a few years, I never really thought about the women who’ve been prosecuted as being the best advocates for their own cause. My co-presenters at the conference, Mary Barr and Tayshea Aiwohi are awesome. They both created organizations to help women who are where they once were. Tayshea faces massive local resistance to her mission: opening homes for families in recovery from addiction so she could use your support.

This conference gave me a much needed reminder me of our common cause, and how much women can help themselves and direct their own lives when simply given the chance.

Everything about this rubbed me the wrong way.

This weekend’s World Economic Forum held a “Powerful Women� reception, which was co-sponsored by Forbes and Ernst & Young. The welcoming speeches were given by the (male) CEOs of the companies as well. You can try to redeem yourself, Forbes...

Heads of state, ministers and chief executives were among those who attended...

But there were also a lot of men.

‘I think that shows that men like powerful women,’ quipped Deborah Platt Majoras, chairman (yes, that’s what her business card says) of the United States Federal Trade Commission, as she scanned the room while sipping a glass of champagne.

The whole coverage was about men’s reaction, even the one quote by a female attendee.

Mr. Forbes said he was not intimidated by the concentration of high-powered women in the room.

‘I have six of them at home,’ he said, referring to his wife and his five daughters.

Ya think he'd be more intimidated by a room full of high-powered feminist bloggers?

The New York Times has a piece today on how women seeking high political positions are playing up their motherhood for more votes. (And that the strategy is a good one.)

For a long time women seeking high office, particularly executive office, were advised to play down their softer, domestic side, and play up their strength and qualifications. Focus groups often found voters questioning whether women were strong enough, tough enough, to lead.

. . . Today, many political strategists say women no longer have to be so defensive. Voters have grown more accustomed to women in powerful positions. And women like Ms. Pelosi and Mrs. Clinton, whatever other problems they may have, have been on the public scene long enough and are familiar enough players in the architecture of power that they no longer have to prove their strength day in and day out.

Relax, ladies! Now that you’ve proved yourself worthy, you can be your natural, nurturing selves again!

What this means, strategists say, is that motherhood and a focus on children can become one more political asset to be showcased — a way of humanizing a candidate and connecting with voters, especially other women.

Because motherhood and children is the only thing that connects us, right?? Ugh. This piece is masking a sexist stereotype as some sort of liberation for mothers in politics: now that they’re seen as equals (ha), they can breathe a sigh of relief and embrace the domestic, softer and, most importantly, the most honest side of themselves again. (And it’ll get you votes too! How convenient.)

Like Jen said, it's not like Harry Reid is pitching his familial obligations to the masses. Anyway, the end of the article is my favorite part; when finally addressing childless women in politics, Condi is the one to defend, of course.

Teeth, which premiered at Sundance this year, is a film about a teenage girl who is "the local chastity group's most active participant"... and then discovers she's living the vagina dentata myth.

A stranger to her own body, innocent Dawn discovers she has a toothed vagina when she becomes the object of violence.

A friend who went to Sundance said this was the film everyone was talking about. Says director Michael Lichtenstein,

I've known about the vagina dentata myth for a long time. Though there are many versions of the myth, the story is nearly always the same: the hero must conquer the woman/creature with the teeth. I thought it would be fun and informative to turn the myth around so that it is the toothed woman who is the heroine. And the story grew out of that "what if..." premise.

I wonder if this is also what inspired the "Rapex" condom? One reviewer wrote,

If you get over the rather distasteful subject matter and focus on what's beneath the surface, you'll find a flick that's got a whole lot to say about young women and their fear of burgeoning sexuality, society's general distaste (and, let's face it, fear) of the female sex organ, and the ways in which men do a serious disservice to womankind by treating their "naughty bits" as if they're something to be ashamed of.

I can't wait to see it. My only problem is that the movie poster seems a little too fluffy-teen-comedy for the real subject matter.

Jewelry is the only proper way to start up the BabyMaker2007.

Pic (once again) from smiteme.

It’s always nice to see the leaders of this world allowing their sexist side to slip out. Japan’s health minister described women as “birth-giving machines� during a public speech on the declining birthrate this Saturday.

Japanese Health, Labor and Welfare Minister Hakuo Yanagisawa made the comment, which he’s obviously been getting a load of shit for:

“The number of women between the ages of 15 and 50 is fixed. The number of birth-giving machines (and) devices is fixed, so all we can ask is that they do their best per head,�

What I absolutely love is that immediately after making the statement, he says, "Although it may not be so appropriate to call them machines."

Not so much, Minister, not so much.

Here we go again... South Dakota legislators will soon introduce another abortion ban, this time with rape and incest exceptions. Plus, the North Dakota house just passed a trigger law banning abortion in the event Roe is overturned.

"Madame Speaker" is good not only for women, but also for men.

Scary news: Birth-control pills are now less effective at preventing pregnancy. Update: Reader Therese points out that the FDA says that's actually not true. Phew.

Warrior sperm!

How Sassy magazine convinced its teen readers to stop worshipping New Kids on the Block and start loving bands that wrote their own songs and actually played instruments.

Wal-Mart's insurance plan will now cover birth control.

Are you listening, Hitchens? Women are funny.

Republicans vow to recruit more women candidates.

James Webb's response to Bush's State of the Union address reinforced the ridiculous "macho Dems" theory.

What life is like for transgendered clergy.

One mother talks to her daughter about the HPV vaccine. Plus, why is the HPV vaccine not recommended for men and boys?

Pro-choicers campaign to dismantle the Hyde Amendment.

Best headline/subhead ever: "Democrats Plans for Dividing and Demonizing Pro-Lifers // Plan to promote more contraception and thereby make pro-lifers look like hypocritical extremists." You betcha!

Top 10 Reasons Why You Should Be Terrified that "Dr." Eric Keroack is in Charge of the U.S. Federal Family Planning Program.

One woman's rape story.

Laura Hershey’s parents didn’t listen to her doctors’ assumptions that spinal muscular atrophy would end her life when she was a child. Forty-four years later, Laura is still here, and isn’t planning on going anywhere.

Laura Hershey is a consultant, published writer/researcher, and committed advocate who has 20+ years experience as an activist for disability rights. You can read Laura’s writing at Crip Commentary, a web site she runs that discusses various aspects of disability rights. She’s currently pursuing her MFA in Creative Writing.

I spoke with Laura from her home in California. Here’s Laura…

A Massachusetts teenager is in trouble after her attempt to self-induce abortion failed:

An abortion was out of the question. [Amber] Abreu, 18, had done that once already. She couldn’t ask her mother to pay for that again. Her mother, a Venezuelan immigrant who wanted so much for her children, would be devastated.

It's interesting that Abreu didn't consider taking the pills -- which a friend brought her from the Dominican Republic -- to be the same thing as having an abortion. In a study of Latina immigrants and their relationship with self-induced abortion using Cytotec, many said they considered taking the pills "better" than surgical abortion, or not an abortion at all.

[Abreu] did not contact social service workers or community organizations. She had learned nothing about birth control or what to do if she became pregnant again. She received no prenatal care. She took the Cytotec.

This is what happens when abortion is both incredibly expensive and stigmatized -- women turn to DIY methods. And sometimes they backfire. Abreu's story reminded me of Gabriela Flores, a Mexican immigrant who was arrested for self-inducing abortion using the same drug, was initially charged with murder. The charges were later reduced to "illegal abortion." Abreu may face homicide charges.

There's a reason Cytotec is a popular abortion method in countries where abortion is illegal, such as the Dominican Republic (where Abreu's pills came from). In Latin America, Cytotec is commonly sold over-the-counter and costs only a few dollars per pill. International repro health organizations like Ipas are doing important outreach work educating women when and how they can safely have abortions using Cytotec (misoprostol) alone. If doctor-supervised abortion isn't an option, and when proper doses are used at the right point in pregnancy, it can be a safe and effective way to have a DIY abortion. But it's bad news when women like Abreu get the pills without all the information.

Nell Hamm, 65, who clubbed a mountain lion that attacked her husband while they were out hiking.

Nell Hamm said she grabbed a 4-inch-diameter log and beat the animal with it, but it would not release its hold on her husband's head.

"Jim was talking to me all through this, and he said, 'I've got a pen in my pocket and get the pen and jab him in the eye,"' she said.

"So I got the pen and tried to put it in his eye, but it didn't want to go in as easy as I thought it would."

When the pen bent and became useless, Nell Hamm went back to using the log. The lion eventually let go and, with blood on its snout, stood staring at the woman. She screamed and waved the log until the animal walked away.

Seriously bad-ass.

In addition to some of the stuff Jess linked to earlier this week, I've been slowly making my way through the many, many posts from Blog for Choice Day. The list is impressively huge.

I often find myself feeling like the antis are so much more together than we are as a movement. But one thing I realized at the Blogs4Life conference on Monday, especially after returning from it and seeing how many people Blogged for Choice, is that blogging is one thing pro-choicers do WAY better.

I mean, their event included a speaker who had to explain, "A blog, or 'Web log' is an online journal or diary..." Thing is, this wasn't billed as a training seminar. It was touted as a conference for anti-choicers already in-the-know and blogging. And only one speaker made more than a passing reference to " Web logs" themselves. There was little to no strategizing on how to use blogs as a political tool. I heard them say over and over that theirs is a movement of young people. But if that were really true, where were the hundreds of entries against choice on the Roe anniversary? I certainly saw less than half as many. And yes, I was looking.

Pro-choicers' internet activism got me thinking about something noted feminist journalist Katha Pollitt recently wrote on a listserv for women in media:

Actually, it's really hard to get women out on a demo of more than a few people. The march for women's lives took a solid year of planning (and achieved???). Back in the day, women picketed the media to protest coverage, took over offices of women's magazines. There's nothing like that going on now.

The only thing better than anti-feminist articles that rely on hackneyed stereotypes or the overuse of scare quotes are anti-feminist articles that insist feminism is no longer needed because stations like Lifetime and Oxygen exist.

Enter Bernard Chapin. Chapin has a special place in my heart since he wrote the funniest—and most telling—piece ever on Feministing a couple of years ago. Of all his complaints about the site, Chapin seemed most upset that we didn’t fit into his “comforting� stereotype of feminists as “horrendously ugly,� but were in fact “young and fit.� (By the way, that line still makes me want to scrub my skin off.)

In Chapin’s latest piece of genius, "Women Are Not Oppressed," he responds to an article penned by graduate student Jenny Dombrowski discussing the need for feminism.

Although her accusations are quite preposterous, I will live up to my burden of rejoinder by analyzing them because crazed feminists multiply and become more powerful when good men think they’re above responding to them.

Also, if you feed us after midnight:

What makes me kind of feel bad for Chapin (ok, not really) is that his arguments are just so…well, stupid.

I guess she has never heard of Oxygen or Lifetime, cable channels devoted entirely to presenting women as empowered superheroes—a perspective that can be ironically juxtaposed with the channels’ actual viewership which consists of irritable, discombobulated, depressioniacs.

What does a discombobulated depressioniac look like, I wonder? (Alliteration is fun, huh Bernie?)

There are plenty of gems in there as you can imagine, but my favorite is when Chapin mocks Dombrowski for bringing up the ERA:

In this statement we witness the radical feminist incapacity for abstract thought along with their complete lack of education.

Uh huh. Maybe he should stick to griping about Lifetime movies.

The Associated Press reports that James Kopp—already in state prison for the shooting death of Dr. Barnett Slepian—was convicted yesterday on federal charges.

The jury deliberated about four hours over two days before deciding James Kopp violated the federal Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act in the 1998 slaying of Dr. Barnett Slepian. Kopp, who represented himself during the two-week trial, tried to convince jurors during his closing arguments that he didn’t mean to kill Slepian when he fired from woods into the doctor’s Amherst home. Kopp said he intended only to wound him to prevent him from performing abortions the next day.

Yeah sure. As Assistant U.S. Attorney Kathleen Mehltretter put it, “If you want to injure a person, you don’t shoot them with a high-powered rifle.�

Either way, I kinda want one.

I put this in humor but I think I need to start up a creepy category. This is basically D&D for pro-lifers.

Thanks to Nate for the link.

The truth is being a feminist blogger comes with a gaggle of challenges. But I will say and I am sure the girls will back me up on this, the biggest challenge is often the hateful comments and emails we get. At this point our skin has grown thick and we realize that women speaking their minds does indeed still provoke hatred and fear. But that sounds like someone else's problem to me and is a reminder for why we continue to do what we do. That said, this shit just cracked me up. First thing this morning in my inbox. . .

It is alright to use the word faggot. Just like it would be alright for Isiah Washington to call me a nigger and vice-versa, done socially. That is assuming we knew each other, which we do not. The black female producer who ordered him into treatment is a complete jackass. Gays are a complete pain in the ass in this society and are not fully accepted. Society says that it is alright for women to EAT each other. They are not faggots. To call a man a faggot in the heat of an argument is not grounds for calling out the national guard.........A lot of the things that you people print in your online magazine severely stretch the boundaries of decency and even political correctness. LOOK IN THE MIRROR !!! This is John Theron Wellington in the beknighted southern locality of Savannah,GA. You have not the balls to offer feedback, because you are literally without balls.

Telling me I don't have balls is decent? What a fool.

According to a study done by the Body Shop and MTV, 70 percent of young women (over a 1000 polled) in the UK don't really think they are likely to get HIV.

Almost three-quarters (71%) said they would feel embarrassed if a condom fell out of their handbag in the ladies' toilet, while just 32% make it a priority to ask new partners about their sexual history.

More than one in 10 (14%) of the 16- to 30-year-olds questioned said it was a man's responsibility to carry the condom.

And 10% said they thought a woman who carries a condom is "easy" and sleeps around.

Nearly half (47%) of the 1,064 women interviewed said they ignored the subject of condoms when talking to their friends about their sex life.

Again, without knowing some of the details of the study it is hard to make a conclusion, however something to think about:

If people that have access to contraception don't use it, it isn't looking good for people that don't. And it is interesting that the study reported that several of these women thought that only homosexuals, drugs-users and developing countries has AIDS. Gotta love some ignorant thought to keep you, well ignorant.

via Daily Mail UK.

That is all I can really say. Between this story and the serial killer that allegedly fed his victims to his pigs, I am so over reading the news.

Good till the last drop. Ugh.

It used to be that to get dolled up and barely dressed women to serve you, you had to spring for hot wings or a burger. Now all you have to do is buy an overpriced cup of coffee.

Cowgirls Espresso, whose tagline oh-so-subtly reads “udderly the best,� is a coffee stand based in the Seattle area where the baristas sport bras and little else.

Unlike Hooters or Heart Attack Grill—who at least try to pretend that their barely-dressed employees are wearing “uniforms�—the Cowgirls’ attire is basically, well, undies. (With the occasional schoolgirl outfit thrown in for good measure.)

And there’s no question as to what the expresso stand is actually selling (hint: it ain’t coffee):

At places such as Cowgirls, the barista is the brand.

"If I'm going to pay $4 for a cup of coffee" said one male customer, "I'm not going to get served by a guy."

Oh, and the Cowgirls get paid minimum wage. Nice. And don't even tell me that they make good tips. It's coffee. Not that this is indicative of all gals who work at places like this--but I had two roommates in college that worked at the local Hooters and said they made shit tips. Just saying.

President Moshe Katsav of Israel is being asked to step down by Prime Minister Olmert, due to rape accusations.

"Under these circumstances, there is no doubt in my mind that the president cannot continue to fulfil his position and he must leave the president's residence," he said.

His comments followed a nationally televised news conference in which a visibly angry Mr Katsav denied the accusations against him.

At one point the president railed against a reporter from Israel's Channel 2 television, accusing it of leading a campaign against him.

He implored the public not to believe the allegations, saying: "When the truth comes out you will be shocked."

I mean we are already pretty shocked.

via BBC.

Not that I would expect any better from CNN correspondent Glenn Beck, but saying "faggot" is just a "naughty name" that is just not cool. And then CNN's subsequent support of his right to say it, also not cool. And of course the initial use of it by Isaiah Washington, annoyingly not cool.

From AmericaBlog

So CNN is now defending its host, Glenn Beck, and his use of the word "faggot" on the air, AND his suggestion that the word isn't very derogatory. Way to step in it even further, CNN. Faggot is the n-word to gays, and you think it's appropriate? Does CNN permit the n-word on the air? And would they permit their hosts to suggest that it's simply a "naughty name"? CNN has a host who is a loose cannon and who has already slurred Muslims, gays, and more. (Though, interestingly, I doubt CNN would let a host slur blacks or Jews, so apparently free speech has its limits even at CNN.) But rather than apologize, CNN defends their host who thinks the word "faggot" is appropriate for CNN, and who thinks the word "faggot" is simply a "naughty name."

You can see it on video here.

Luckily, GLAAD is all over it. Interestingly, Washington is being sent to rehab. Now if this is possible can someone also send Mel "sugar tits" Gibson and Michael "embarrassingly racist" Richards as well.

Just a quick note to let folks now that we're tooling around with our commenting and trackback options so a lot of comments are being held in moderation longer than usual. Apologies for the delay, everything should be peachy keen soon.

Seriously?

Pic from smiteme.

I don't know why I let these things bother me. They just do. Not because of the anti-feminism--that I can deal with. It's uninformed anti-feminism that pisses me off.

Okay, as a female, I can admit to the fact that feminism was, at one time, an extremely valid and helpful concept. After all, now we can own land and vote - I'd say that's pretty darn great. However, as with most ideas, feminism has run it's course and become the haven and weapon of fat, ugly, lonely people (women, in this case) everywhere.

My question is--is this our fault? Is feminism doing a poor job of letting younger women like this one know what feminism is actually about? Now this person may just be a jerkie, but there are plenty of women who accept anti-feminist stereotypes as the truth. Should feminists be working harder to debunk those myths or are some folks just lost causes?

Just putting it out there.

From last night's State of the Union address:

"In all we do, we must remember that the best health care decisions are made not by government and insurance companies, but by patients and their doctors."

Unless, of course, you have a vagina.

Protestors in Toledo, Ohio were successfull in getting Kmart to pull the gross "Problem Solved" shirt they've been selling.

Many passing drivers honked their horns - apparently in support - as parents of young people who were slain in domestic violence, representatives of the Toledo chapter of the National Organization for Women, the Take Back the Night Collective, and others shivered in the 27-degree temperatures.

Most held signs referring to the T-shirt carried in Kmart's boys department:

•"Attention Shoppers: Kmart has an attitude problem. Recall violent merchandise."

•"Attention! Domestic violence in Aisle 7."

•"Violent T-shirts: Get it off your chest!"

•"There is nothing light-hearted about domestic violence."

During the rally, which lasted about 35 minutes, three parents of domestic violence slaying victims walked across the parking lot to the store to present a letter written to Aylwin Lewis, chief executive and president of Sears Holdings Corp., the parent firm of Kmart and Sears stores.

Spokesperson Kim Freely, who once said "we believe these attitude Ts are meant to be light-hearted in nature," later released a statement saying that the shirt "is no longer available at Kmart...and we have no plans to reorder it."

So big kudos to the demonstrators in Toledo!

This is just horrible:

Researchers found that doctors were more likely to reduce the chemotherapy dose for heavier [breast cancer] patients and those who were less educated, and lived in zip codes with lower median household income and higher levels of poverty. Severely obese patients were four times more likely to receive a reduced dose, and women with less than a high school education were three times as likely to have a dose reduction.

And the reason behind this?

‘We speculate that physicians have concerns about a patient's ability to tolerate the side effects of chemotherapy and that the physician's uncertainty about a patient's tolerance increases with increasing social distance. One might just as well ask why we are willing to give full doses to someone with more education. It may be that negotiating side effects and continued doses of treatment is easier when there is more shared culture,’ says lead study author Jennifer Griggs, M.D., MPH, associate professor of internal medicine at the U-M Medical School. Griggs was at the University of Rochester in Rochester, N.Y., when she completed this research.

How exactly does their educational background or income level factor into medical treatment again? 'Cause I'm not getting it. The doctors, more or less, can't relate to these women as well, so therefore they give them an inadequate dosage of treatment? The fact that this may be one reason behind why women of lower income and education have a lower survival rate of breast cancer should be a call for some serious looking-into. Because this is just fucked.

The amazing folks at National Advocates for Pregnant Women.

The phrase that best summarizes this past weekend’s conference for me: hot damn.

I can honestly say that NAPW organized the best feminist conference that I’ve ever been to. And I like me some feminist conferences, so that’s saying something.

Why so fabulous? Well, first of all I got to hang out with some of the most amazing women ever. Just to name a few of the lovely ladies I got a chance to talk with this weekend: Bloggers Brownfemipower, Bean, BitchPhD, and Shark Fu (I love a bitch); and organizational mavens Aimee Thorne-Thomsen (Pro-Choice Public Education Project), Lauren Brannon (Soapbox), Miriam Zoila Perez (National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health), Priscilla Huang (National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum) and SO many others.

But it was more than the great attendees—it was the incredible energy at the conference, the remarkable panelists, and the oh-so-important (and ambitious) vision for reproductive justice that the conference put forward. I mean, damn, just look at the program and you'll see what I mean.

The weekend gave me a ton to think about and process, too much for me to ever write here. So here's what I'm thinking--I’m going to try to get a bunch of the conference participants to guest post here. Soon. (If you’re reading and you were a presenter at the conference, email me!) There were so many important things discussed that it feels like I would be doing the women who work on these issues a disservice by trying to cover it all myself, and in just a couple of posts. So be on the lookout for future guest posts by the women who participated in the conference.

Oh, and a huge thanks to Nancy Goldstein, Communications Rock Star, who ran around like a maniac all weekend making sure us lowly bloggers were well taken care of.

Some more pics (all courtesy of NAPW) after the jump.

The fine folks over at Coat Hangers at Dawn (a pro-choice South Dakota blog) have linked to a response by the author of the Integrity Balls story. He offers a typically gender-role-dictated defense: that telling boys to abstain from sex is so they won't defile someone's "future wife" is the only way to get them to stop humping everything that moves.

I'm just guessing here, but I think the reason why much of the encouragement to the young men was made as it was is because of the psychology of males. (I know the ubersexualists at CHAD probably disagree, but males and females actually do think and relate differently.) Males tend to think of themselves as bulletproof, so an appeal to the male to safeguard the welfare of others is more likely to be effective than to tell him that sex outside of marriage is just as harmful to him--after all, he thinks he's invulnerable.

Maybe because Christian conservatives like Bob are constantly indoctrinating boys with the message that they are invulnerable and just want to fuck like animals, whereas girls are fragile and want to be wooed. He also writes,

How you get that out of an event designed from start to finish to instill respect for women is beyond me.

Sure, respect for women as property. Like a borrowed, shiny convertible that you wouldn't want to scratch. The Integrity Ball is clearly not about respect for women as equal human beings, who also have sexual urges and who belong to themselves, not to their parents or to their current boyfriends or to their future husbands.

Sad that they fear those who respect women the most.

I wouldn't call it fear. I'd call it revulsion. The "hands off because she belongs to some other guy" message is not respect for women. That's respect for other men.

Apparently Bob also failed to grasp the creepiness of the Purity Ball. Around the time we feminist bloggers were writing about it, he responded:

Instead of protesting the Purity Ball, why not have your own event and call it the "Slut Ball" or something? After all, if you hate sexual purity so much, you should be proud of being a promiscuous slut, right?

That's my cue to flip off my daddy, pop a few birth control pills, crank up "Promiscuous Girl," and start gyrating! Seriously, though, good ol' Bob defines a "slut" as someone who desires "complete sexual autonomy." Sounds pretty great to me. So, put on your event planner hats, dear Feministing commenters, and answer this question: What would a Slut Ball -- a glamorous event designed to advocate "complete sexual autonomy" -- look like?

So, I learned a lot from the anti-choicers at the Blogs4Life conference. But I learned many more things from their photos and captions from yesterday's march:

1. Girls sure are purdy when they want to take away other women's right to choose! (This is reminiscent of anti-choicers' tendency to compare the attractiveness of women on either side of the issue. Isn't patriarchy awesome?)

(More after the jump.)

I wrote a piece for the Huffington Post yesterday about the Roe anniversary that attracted all sorts of unseemly anti-choicers. Help a girl out and go show some support in comments.

Thank god she has a big, strong man door to protect her.

Pic from Amber Rhea.

Our oh-so-favorite Forbes has released profiles of the 20 richest women in entertainment.

What I wonder is why it’s necessary to include their marital status and number of kids as two primary facts of information in their introduction?

Contributed by Gwendolyn Beetham, Gender Consultant, Department of Peacekeeping Operations

It's that time of the year...the 37th Session of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women is being held at UN Headquarters in New York. In this session, delegates from 15 of the 185 countries party to The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) get to talk about the "appropriate measures, including legislation and temporary special measures" that they have put in place in compliance with CEDAW, "so that women can enjoy all their human rights and fundamental freedoms." Experts get to ask questions. The country delegates respond. It's fun.

In this session, running from the 15th of January to the 2nd of February, countries reporting include: Austria, Azerbaijan, Columbia, Greece, India, Kazakhstan, Maldives, Namibia, Netherlands, Nicaragua, Peru, Poland, Suriname, Tajikistan, and Vietnam.

A run down of what's happened so far at UN Dispatch.

But I've got a piece up at the Prospect today analyzing the truly horrible proposed Georgia abortion ban. It's not a trigger law, meaning that if it's passed, it will challenge Roe. Check out some of the assertions in the bill:

• Legalized abortion has created a "dramatic rise in the incidence of child abuse and a dramatic weakening of family ties,"
• "[W]omen who have had an abortion require psychological treatment of such symptoms as nervous disorders, sleep disturbances, and deep regrets,"
• "Abortion results in increased tobacco smoking,"
• "Abortion is linked to alcohol and drug abuse,"
• "Most couples find abortion to be an event which shatters their relationship,"
• "Abortion exploits women, treating them and their children as mere property,"
• "Abortion is contrary to feminist values, and the great suffragette Susan B. Anthony referred to abortion as 'child murder',"
• Abortion has caused the state "an inestimable amount economically" including "the costs and tax burden of having to care for individuals and their families for the conditions cited above" and "a significant reduction of the tax base and of the availability of workers."

Ridiculous, right? It makes my blood boil to see the rhetoric of groups like Feminists for Life laid out in legislation. Georgians are saying the bill doesn't look likely to pass, but the fact that it's already gotten a second reading in the judiciary committee is enough to make me nervous. Especially because Georgia is a state that does not allow popular referendums. There would be no way for voters to reject the ban if it's signed into law. Shudder.

I marked the 34th anniversary of Roe v. Wade by attending the Blogs4Life conference this morning at the Family Research Council HQ. A couple observations:

• The majority of anti-choice bloggers, judging by the attendance, are 50-year-old men, several of whom brought their young sons along. Nearly every younger woman I noticed there was attending as a reporter.
• They love to equate the anti-abortion movement with the civil rights struggle. There were a lot of power-point slides featuring Martin Luther King, Jr. quotes and fuzzy photos of smiling black people. See, if you ask Sam Brownback, one of the problems with America is that we treat fetuses as second-class citizens, much like African-Americans were treated in the pre-civil rights era. Does this seem more than a little insulting to anyone else? Saying that black people and fetuses (and really, embryos) should be considered "equally human"? Wow.
• Peter Samuelson, of Americans United for Life (which pushes incremental, state-level anti-choice legislation like parental consent laws and waiting periods), said he is confident that Roe will not be overturned -- it will be made irrelevant by the type of laws his organization promotes. The group only focuses on legislation that polls with public approval of 50-60% or more. "It's incremental. It's step-by-step. It's very effective."
• Did you know that abortion providers EAT FETUSES?! No, really! Jill Stanek told me so today.
• Tony Perkins: "There is something innately in us that tells us as one generation we should give birth to the next." So if you don't want children, you're only lying to yourself.
• There was also much talk about how the annual March for Life never receives any coverage from the "secular media." Quick Nexis and Google News searches reveal this is total bullshit.

And speaking of anti-choicers, Bush called marchers to wish them well and issued an official proclamation naming today "National Sanctity of Life Day." Bush has issued a similar proclamation every January 22 during his presidency.

Related: Check out this sweet cartoon of Brownback with a fetus as his running mate.

Also be sure to check out Dana Goldstein's piece on the conference.

So many posts, so little time. I'm going to be updating this throughout the day, but here is just a taste of some of the blogging for choice happening today:

Majikthise: Happy anniversary, Roe

Feministe: Why I’m Pro-Choice

Lawyers, Guns and Money: Blogging For Choice Day: Why I Am Pro-Choice

Culturekitchen: NC-18

Mamacita: Top Ten Reasons That I Am Pro-Choice

My Left Nutmeg: Blog for Choice

The Countess: Today Is Blog For Choice Day

Reclusive Leftist: Blog for Choice

Feminist Law Professors: Today is Blog For Choice Day: Try a Little Emergency Contraception Activism!

Pandagon: Blogging For Choice and beyond choice

MORE LINKS AFTER THE JUMP

In a cover story timed with the Roe anniversary, the New York Times Magazine asks, "Is Post-Abortion Syndrome Real?" The answer, supported by an overwhelming body of evidence, is NO, and the article does a good job laying out the research.

By and large, this is another article (echoing the one that appeared in The American Prospect in the wake of the South Dakota abortion ban) about people like Leslee Unruh who want all anti-choicers to frame the issue David Reardon-style: "abortion hurts women." Because even though most antis are opposed to choice because they value fetuses over adult women, the "abortion kills babies" argument just doesn't sell very well.

And here's the thing with these "abortion hurts women" people who don't focus on fetal rights. Even Reardon's own biased and baseless "research" shows that not all women are traumatized or harmed by their abortions. So it's safe to assume that there are some women would have been traumatized by the reverse -- being forced to carry those pregnancies to term. If we acknowledge that women's reactions to unplanned pregnancy and abortion can vary greatly, isn't informed choice what's best for women? And I don't mean "informed" by the lies spewed by most crisis-pregnancy centers. But informed by the kind of personal counseling practiced by Peg Johnston and many other abortion providers.

While abortion-rights advocates frame abortion as a woman’s legal right, the November Gang providers tend to think in terms of a woman’s responsibility to decide when and whether to bring life into the world. And instead of telling women who grieve over their abortions to look elsewhere for the source of their distress, they try to use the moment as a catalyst. Sometimes an abortion “pops open the box where old anxieties have been kept,� Torre-Bueno says. “It’s an opportunity to revisit past traumas like child abuse, or to face them for the first time.� This doesn’t mean that the abortion was a mistake, or that other circumstances — the unresolved past, a loutish boyfriend, money problems — aren’t the real trouble, Torre-Bueno reasons. But women sometimes need help sorting this out.

That sounds ideal. The problem is, with the financial and political strain placed on abortion providers by anti-choice groups and legislators, there isn't much cash lying around to hire extra staff to do more than routine intakes for abortion procedures. Ask almost any clinic -- they're understaffed, and often have trouble just keeping the place running. It's financially untenable for every abortion provider to offer that sort of counseling. Which is truly depressing.

There's a part of me that sometimes resents how statistics are bandied about when it comes to abortion -- mostly by the antis, but by pro-choicers, too. Sure, it's important to publicize that over 75% of women who have abortions say their foremost feeling is one of relief. And to examine statistically the reasons women say they choose the procedure in the first place. But one of the main reasons I'm pro-choice is that I believe there is no "typical" situation. Every woman chooses abortion for different, complex reasons and reacts to the experience in different, complex ways. Somehow, making this an argument about how "most women react" doesn't quite dignify the personal nature of the experience. And that's why I'm rooting for the idealists, the Peg Johnstons and Ava Torre-Buenos of the movement. Even though the political pragmatist in me will continue to cite statistics about how the vast majority of women are helped, not harmed, by abortion access.

While Ann posted a few months ago on the recruitment of young women to donate their eggs for stem cell research and the safety risks involved, ethical questions have been raised regarding compensation.

While there’s been some controversy about women getting paid to donate their eggs to fertility clinics, the fact that women are getting paid to donate their eggs for stem cell research has created some talk.

One of the bigger questions posed regarding this asks whether getting compensated for donating eggs to stem cell research exploits lower-class women. Marcy Darnovsky, the associate director of the Center of Genetics and Society, says that a woman’s need to survive could override the medical risks involved in donating eggs:

'I think any woman who's trying to pay the rent and put food on the table, and people who don't have a lot of money to spare, are going to be tempted to discount the risks and overvalue the benefits.'

But like Ann’s previous post, some states in the U.S. have enacted a law classifying egg donors as “research subjects,� so you could potentially say the same thing could happen for any research subject. Kathy Hudson, director of the Genetics and Public Policy Center at John Hopkins University also says there are ways of avoiding exploitation, like ensuring that a variety of groups of women are recruited to donate, as well as putting limits on the number of times women can donate.

At the same time, some of the most heinous cases of exploitation in this country were due to flawed research methods, so donors' protection should be an absolute priority.

While I’m sure it’s not news to most of y’all, Hillary Clinton announced on Saturday that she will be running for the 2008 presidential election.

‘Twill be an interesting race. Any reactions, thoughts, anticipations?

Contrary to the tired “opt-out revolution� bullshit, a recent study found that women aren’t choosing to leave their careers to be a mother and wife, but have actually evolved beyond an outdated career model to maintain their professional lives in their own way:

Study authors, Mary Shapiro, Cynthia Ingols, Ed.D, and Stacy Blake-Beard, Ph.D, found the high FWA [flexible work arrangements] usage supported their hypotheses that women aren’t ‘opting out,’ but are managing their careers differently. By doing so, women are rejecting an outdated career model that was created for and by the white male managers who were building corporations after World War II. That historical career model, demanding that work be primary in an individual’s life, was founded on the stay-at-home mother and stable organizations and markets. As that foundation has eroded, a new model has emerged where individuals act as ‘career self-agents,’ and negotiate their own terms of employment. Women, as they negotiate FWAs (to essentially determine when, where and how much they will work), are leading that shift in the career paradigm.

Career self-agents. I like the sound of that.

In the spirit of Blog for Choice Day, I just wanted to write a little something about why I’m pro-choice.

My support and fight for reproductive health and justice is about more than the recognition of women’s right to control their own bodies and my feelings about how the state’s attempt to control women’s reproductive rights is connected to women’s oppression more generally. At the core of it, it’s about something much more simple.

It’s about trusting women.

I trust women to make their own decisions. I trust that women (of all ages) don’t need to be told what to do with their bodies or their futures because they know what’s best for themselves and their families. And I truly believe that the folks who are fighting so hard to limit women’s reproductive choices are doing so because they don’t trust women. And that terrifies me—because if women aren’t trusted to make decisions about something as personal as their own bodies, we’re in big trouble.

Feel free to share in comments why you’re pro-choice.

The BBC is airing a documentary about the word "cunt."

A quickie with Sarah Silverman.

Why Nancy Pelosi and Hillary Clinton should quit trying to craft their images as caretakers and homemakers.

Harvard considers two women in its search for a new president.

A truly disgusting article about "trophy wives gone bad." Philobiblion has a response.

A pharmacist at a Wal-Mart in Ohio denied a couple's request for emergency contraception. As if we needed a reminder that Plan B isn't really "over-the-counter" at all.

North Dakota considers an abortion ban.

A detailed look at the abstinence-only curricula in Washington schools.

Maine allows gay couples to adopt each other to ensure they get at least some of the rights most states reserve for married heteros.

Apparently some people try to sell housewares on craigslist by featuring photos of women's asses. Nice.

A call for women-sized sports gear that's in the team's colors -- not pink.

Massachusetts may expand its abortion clinic buffer zone.

Katie Couric writes about being the only woman invited to an exclusive press event before Bush's Iraq escalation speech.

Some psychologists make the argument that it isn't necessarily a bad thing when teenagers dress sexy. In related news, the Texas legislature freaks out!

Is it time for a feminist Hanky Code?

Ada Calhoun pleads with media outlets to stop printing ruminations on our "oversexed culture."

You know how anti-choicers are always saying contraception is the same thing as abortion? A bill in the Virginia legislature seeks to define the difference between preventing and ending a pregnancy.

The abortion records seized by former Kansas attorney general Phill Kline have been copied and are now missing. Has anyone checked Bill O'Reilly's office?

Indiana and Virginia are considering mandatory HPV vaccination for all sixth-grade girls. So are Colorado, Kansas and West Virginia.

Conscience magazine on framing choice.

The "burkini" makes a splash.

On the eve of the Roe anniversary, NAPW's Lynn Paltrow writes about how anti-choicers work against the creation of a "culture of life."

A planned Operation Rescue protest falls flat.

As tomorrow is the 34th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision, I know there are probably events going on all over the country. If you know of something happening in your area, leave the info in the comments to this post.

Noemi Martinez makes her Hermana Resist zine out of her South Texas home, usually when her son and daughter are sleeping. By day, she’s the human trafficking outreach coordinator at Texas RioGrande Legal Aid.

She says, “Between 800,000 to 900,000 people are trafficked in the world every year, with an estimated 18,000 to 20,000 of those in the US. A trafficked person doesn't have to cross international lines, and it can happen to a US citizen not only to undocumented persons.�

I spoke with Noemi over phone and email about her zines. I plan to talk about her anti-trafficking work in an interview to come. Here’s Noemi…

And she's just my type.

(I'm too worn out from the conference to blog about it tonight...coherent thoughts to come when I'm better rested.)

Pic from duttduttdutt.

So you know how, in the pre-Roe years, young women who found themselves with unwanted pregnancies were often sent away by their parents to deliver their babies in maternity homes?

Well, these homes still exist. And on Tuesday, three pregnant teens staged a jailbreak from the New Hope Maternity Center in rural Utah. They hit the director of the home with a frying pan, tied him up with electrical cords, and made off in a stolen van. Whoa. I know they're "troubled teens," and I'm not trying to justify their violent behavior, but things must have been pretty bad for them to resort to these tactics.

This little news item has gotten me really curious about the private maternity home business. After reading the website and doing some googling around, I see that a stay at New Hope costs parents nearly $4,000 a month. And the home's owners, Spencer and Jana Moody, have opened (or tried to open) several other centers in Utah. But that's about it. As far as I can tell, the center isn't overtly religious, like the maternity home that was featured on the show "30 Days".

Does anybody know anything else about maternity homes like New Hope?

The Ethics and Lobby reform bill has an amendment that could potentially force bloggers and other forms of grassroots communication to register as a lobbyist to speak.

"In what sounds like a comedy sketch from Jon Stewart's Daily Show, but isn't, the U. S. Senate would impose criminal penalties, even jail time, on grassroots causes and citizens who criticize Congress. "Section 220 of S. 1, the lobbying reform bill currently before the Senate, would require grassroots causes, even bloggers, who communicate to 500 or more members of the public on policy matters, to register and report quarterly to Congress the same as the big K Street lobbyists. Section 220 would amend existing lobbying reporting law by creating the most expansive intrusion on First Amendment rights ever. For the first time in history, critics of Congress will need to register and report with Congress itself. "The bill would require reporting of 'paid efforts to stimulate grassroots lobbying,' but defines 'paid' merely as communications to 500 or more members of the public, with no other qualifiers.

Ann suggested I look to the ACLU about this, but they haven't written much yet. Does anybody know anything more about this?

And who the hell is getting paid? Congress must just be trying to give me a big lobbying job, not cracking down on my right to free speech.

India's first all-woman contingent called the Central Reserve Police Force, is leaving to join UN peace keeping forces in Liberia.

The specialised police unit, comprising 125 female officers of the CRPF, has received training in crowd control, handling of weapons, teargas and unarmed combat.

The team, led by Commandant Seema Dhondiya, will be armed with pistols, Insas and AK-47 rifles and light machine guns.

"This is a unique moment for us, it's a historical moment for us. Because it is not just the first woman contingent which has been going from India on a UN assignment, but for what I learnt it is the first woman contingent in the world which has been entrusted with a task such as this for maintaining law and order, restoring peace over there so that the country is able to progress," sad J.K. Dutt, Director General of CRPF.

Sounds awesome.

via Daily India

So I'm here in Atlanta at the National Summit to Ensure the Health and Humanity of Pregnant and Birthing Women. Shit is awesome.

There are a ton of amazing women here—some from pro-choice organizations, some from pregnant and birthing women’s rights orgs, midwives, doulas, you name it.

And Lynn Paltrow, the Executive Director of National Advocates for Pregnant Women, is—as someone so accurately put it during the morning’s events—a rock star.

There’s a ton to write about, and there’s not wireless in the conference area so I snuck up to my hotel room real quick (fuck you Hilton $12.95 a day for internet). So here’s the short version.

Paltrow spoke a lot about the myth that there are different kinds of women—women who have abortions and women who have babies. The fact is, of course, that we’re all the same women. (After all, 61 percent of women who are going to have abortions are already mothers.)

But because of the pervasiveness of that myth, we haven’t been working together. And the thing is, we need to be. Because the same rhetoric that say women are murderers for having abortions also says that women are murderers for not giving birth appropriately.

We’re living in a time where pregnant women are roundly punished—whether they decide to terminate the pregnancy or carry it to term. Paltrow told stories of women who were put in jail for having a stillborn, women who were forced to have C-sections against their will (one of whom died) and other such ridiculousness.

Paltrow’s, and the conference’s, aim seems to be making those connections between women who advocate for pregnant and birthing women and women who advocate for abortion rights—because we’re all fighting for the same thing really. Something Paltrow said really resonated with me: how our capacity for getting pregnant is what connects us all in this mess of discrimination and punishment.

In any case, I’m rambling because I have to run to another session. Amanda has more.

Oh, and a big thanks to reader Brett who hooked us up at No Mas Cantina last night and took us out for drinks. Sweet.

Contributed by Madeline Halperin-Robinson.

I was skimming the blog over at the Independent Women’s Forum -- I know, I know -- don’t judge me! Anyway, a sentence in the middle of one of the posts caught my eye:

Our… motivation is a hatred of modernism and a romantic, if perverted, notion of a return to a glorious past that exists only in… imagination. It has been a constant theme since the first manifestos… declare war on the “Crusaders, Jews, and Nonbelievers.� The ideology has been laid clearly since then 1990’s.

Huh?! What’s this? An introspective look into their far-right reactionary work and anti-woman philosophy? Did they finally realize they’re trying to take the country back to a world that never really existed? I blinked and looked again. This time I saw what the post really said:

Our enemy’s motivation is a hatred of modernism and a romantic, if perverted, notion of a return to a glorious past that exists only in their imagination. It has been a constant theme since the first manifestos of Al-Qaeda declared war on the “Crusaders, Jews, and Nonbelievers.� The ideology has been laid clearly since then 1990’s.

Funny how a few little words can make such a big difference.

Why can't I dance like this? I think this video was made for lesbians, but that is just what my girl LusciousMsBrown said, and it may be wishful thinking, but hey.

If you are wondering what I watch when I am home alone. . .

Seriously, though. Are we still trying to figure this out? I have a really hard time with studies that are based along gender, like women are this way and men are that. Beyond the fact that there are more than two genders, there are a lot of men and women. How can we really figure out who is better at what? Some women are good drivers, some men are terrible drivers and visa versa.

That age-old stereotype about dangerous women drivers is shattered in a big new traffic analysis: Male drivers have a 77 percent higher risk of dying in a car accident than women, based on miles driven.

SHATTERED! So many factors, so little time and I am not feeling very snarky right now. All I can say is they need to look at Queens drivers. They are terrible. Sorry Jessica.

via AP.

Apparently it's time once again to over-analyze the fashion choices made by female members of Congress. At least this story appears, appropriately, in the Style section. (It's particularly maddening when the Times chooses to put basic coverage of women politicians in this section, as if they were still the "Women's Pages." Or when the paper chooses to cover women's fashion in the politics section.) But this is exasperating. We're STILL talking about what female politicians wear just as often as we talk about what they accomplish in the political arena?

Women in politics are still operating in a male world and don’t want to appear as lacking gravitas.

That's true. Men will get called out if they wear something totally inappropriate (see: Cheney's parka at the Holocaust remembrance ceremony), not really for fashion choices. It's simple for them (if they want) to avoid calling attention to their clothing. Women, on the other hand, are "marked" no matter what they choose to wear:

[Deborah] Tannen points that women are marked in other ways, too. Most notably by our appearance. We're marked if we wear a short skirt (floozy!), or if we wear a power suit (ballbuster!), if we wear our hair cropped short (dyke!) or if we get a giant perm (stupid secretary!). She notes that men can be marked by their clothing choices or titles, too. The difference is they have the option of going unmarked. That's a choice women never have.

So Pelosi wears a fashionable nipped-waist jacket and she's marked as a swiftly effective political leader. Condoleezza Rice wears boots; she's marked as a dominatrix. Harriet Miers wears eyeliner; she's marked as begging for Bush's attention. And on and on. Men simply have to choose between a black, navy or gray suits and pick out a tie. And the color of their cravat rarely marks them as anything.

I realize that politicians are public figures, and so people are going to talk about every little choice they make. Including their clothes. But these stories are never about male politicians' physical appearance. That's sexist. So I give Pelosi and her staff major props for refusing to talk to the Times for this article.

And that's probably all I would have had to say about it, prior to moving to Washington. But now that I live here, I have to say this part is all true:

I just thought that sounded catchy. I actually don't think just because someone went to college they "think" more, but according to this study done in Great Britain, they drink more in their 20's. The study asked women to recall their drinking habits from their 20's, 30's and 40's. The study also found that women that were not formally educated were heavy drinkers in their 40's. Hmm.

A spokesman for Alcohol Concern, Frank Soodeen, said that there were a number of reasons why a heavy-drinking culture had emerged in younger, well-educated women - even though the incidence of binge-drinking in women in all parts of society was on the rise.

He said: "They are often working in an environment of which drinking is part of the culture, and of course, they often have more disposable income than women with fewer qualifications.

"However, a lot of is due to marketing - the alcohol industry has specifically targeted younger professional women, and the emergence of smarter bars is particularly aimed at encouraging women to drink more."

He said that the reasons for binge drinking in older, less well educated women, were likely to be linked to anxieties about relationships, and pressures of parenthood, as well as the drinking habits of partners.

Why would these also not be factors for women that are educated to drink in their 40's? I mean can we deny that difference in access to education often results in a class difference and it is pretty safe to say that the party/drinking habits of working class verse upper/middle class people, well it is just different. Privileged folks usually get away with more, yah?

via BBC.

That's right. There's now an event, sorta like a Purity Ball, only for boys and their mothers: the Integrity Ball. Why is this glamorous evening not called a Purity Ball, too? Because it's not up to young men to stay "pure." They just have to seek out a wife who is:

Baker told the young men that the women they had come with, their mothers, were somebody’s daughters, and they meant the world to those parents. He further told them that when they date a girl, she is somebody’s daughter, and they care deeply for her.

Baker also told them that while they might not believe it at the time, the girl they may date in high school is probably not going to be the one they will marry. “So you’re dating someone else’s future wife,� he told them. He also told them that someone else may be dating their future wife.

“If you knew somebody was with your future wife,� Baker asked them, “touching her in ways you wouldn’t like, pressuring her, how would that make you feel?�

Even though it's a program for boys, it's still all about how young women need to be pure! Notice how they're taught that women always, at every stage of their lives, "belong" to a man. First daddy, then some "future husband" they haven't met, then a husband. The Integrity Ball speakers don't say that men will stand at the altar symbolically accompanied by all of their previous sexual partners. Nope, that burden is the woman's alone, if she hasn't maintained her purity.

Speaking of self-control and the meaning of sex, Baker told the young men, “Having sex doesn’t make you a man. Dogs have sex, but it doesn’t make them a man. Guys, separate yourselves from the animal kingdom.�

Sure, it's good to tell young men that they shouldn't pressure their partners into having sex. But of course it's never acknowledged that their girlfriends might have "animal urges" as well. All of the language echoes the same old abstinence-only stereotypes: "women are passive receptacles who don't enjoy sex" and "men are horny animals who can't control themselves."

And this is just amusing:

Mothers and sons then had an opportunity to get out on the dance floor together, enjoying songs such as “Unchained Melody� by the Righteous Brothers, “Old Time Rock & Roll� by Bob Seger and others.

Think they were workin' on the night moves as well? And can you even imagine what the slow-dance to "Unchained Melody" looked like? They should call this thing the Oedipal Ball. I can't wait for the YouTube video.

You mean you didn't know that along with equal pay and an end to rape, early feminists fought for women's right to photocopy? Jeez, talk about no sense of history.

Pic from jbcurio.

Women find men more attractive if other women find them attractive too. People were paid to come to this conclusion. I swear.

"We tend to think about things like attraction as reflecting a private decision or a personal choice but our work shows that people's attractiveness judgments can be influenced in pronounced ways by what other people appear to think of those individuals," said psychologist Dr. Ben Jones.

Jones, of the University of Aberdeen, and his team tested the impact of the opinions of others by giving women a test in which they had to choose the more attractive of pairs of male faces and to rate how much more handsome they found them.

They were then shown a short video in which the same faces were displayed. But each face was being looked at by a woman smiling or one showing a bored or neutral expression.

After watching the video, the researchers repeated the initial test.

"We found that the slide show caused women to become more attracted to the men who were being smiled at by other women," said Jones.

Yes and of course this must be because women are competitive for men's attention and they don't just want a man, they want your man. Logical conclusion, right?

I am not going to deny that this competitive complex does happen, we all know in some of the most mature of crowds, it does. But is this really the first time this doctor realized that how other people percieve what is considered attractive, actually impacts what people find attractive? Because advertising giants figured it out a mad long time ago. The beauty, fashion, commodity industries thrive on people's insecurities and convinces them of what they should and shouldn't like based on some *other* person's arbitary opinion. Sheesh.

So I think it is a pretty big leap to say that women happen to find men more attractive when other women do. It is more like, our entire society is based around trying to get what you don't have, but are convinced that you need, so you MUST have it. Now as we have all seen, that competitiveness is often nurtured in women. We are taught that not only is our worth gained from the male gaze, but we must fight to get that gaze.

F%&* that noise.

via Reuters.

China's one-child policy often results in women attempting to give birth across the border in Hong Kong. I am sure there are a variety of reasons they are attempting to cross the border, but similar to the US-Mexico border, surely traverse is tricky and dangerous. And now, being cracked down upon.

Tens of thousands of women in the past three years have crossed into Hong Kong, checked into hospitals to give birth, and returned home again, often without paying their bills.

By doing so, they can evade China's one-child policy, and gain automatic residency rights for their child in Hong Kong.

But the numbers doing so now account for almost a third of Hong Kong births, and local women are complaining of arriving at hospital to find the wards already full.

Now the government has announced higher fees to deter the women, and extra security at border points. From next month, women judged by teams of doctors to be more than seven months pregnant will not be allowed in unless they have confirmation of an advance booking at a hospital. The measure will apply to all mainland pregnant women, but not to women from outside the territory, a decision that has been attacked as discriminatory.

That sounds intense. A team of doctors are going to determine how pregnant you are and then determine if you can cross the border. It just doesn't seem right or fair. Why does the legislation fall on the bodies of women? As opposed to an analysis of the conditions causing the desire to cross borders?

via Telegraph UK.

So I'm headed to Atlanta tomorrow to meet up with Amanda and other fun blogger folk to go to the National Summit to Ensure the Health and Humanity of Pregnant and Birthing Women, held by the National Advocates for Pregnant Women. Good times.

Here's my problem--I've never been to Atlanta and I need some fun dinner/drinks ideas for the three nights I'll be there. So if anyone knows of any not-to-be-missed spots, help a girl out and let me know in comments. Gracias.

Enjoy. I know I did.

Our gal Courtney has a provocative piece on TAP Online today about how the prevalence of abstinence-only education contributes to the screwed-up attitude many college students have about sex. She argues that the number of drunken acquaintance rapes might be reduced if everyone was more experienced talking about sex, boundaries, and needs.

The abstinence-only sex education that most young men and women receive does not teach them how to articulate their own sexual needs and respect those articulated by their partners. Teens who are merely told "Just don’t do it" are lacking more than an anatomy lesson or information on contraceptive choices. They also missing out on essential communication skills and life-saving knowledge about sex and power. Which is bad news for teenagers in our paradoxically hyper-sexual and hyper-conservative contemporary America who are in desperate need of wise mentorship.

It's an interesting argument. While I think it's at some risk for being interpreted as, "Date rape is women's fault if they can't say no" -- which is definitely NOT what Courtney's saying -- the inability to have a mature dialogue about sex and power is a largely unexplored consequence of abstinence-only education. And an under-explored contributing factor to drunken acquaintance rapes.

I think abstinence-only could also make it more difficult for women to come to terms with the fact that they've been raped. Most curricula drill home the idea that all sex should feel dirty and shameful. So when young people have an experience like (Courtney's friend) Jen's and feel regret afterward, it can be hard to tell whether they feel that way simply because they've had sex -- because they've been taught that all sex should feel bad -- or they feel that way because they were involved in a rape.

But I've gotta say, a standard of healthy, open discussion with teens about sex and power seems like a total pipe dream at a time when we can't even get school districts to discuss more straightforward topics like contraception.

Contributed by Courtney E. Martin

The New York Times reported on Sunday that communities in the Binghamton, NY area are booing a court ruling that requires the area cheerleaders to shake their moneymakers for female sports teams as well as male.

In fact, half the squad at Whitney Point High School dropped out when the news hit, and the remaining eight, the Times reports, “now awkwardly adjust their routines…�Hands Up You Guys� becomes “Hands Up You Girls.� Amanda Cummings (yeah, the last name is brutal), the cheerleading co-captain, explained, “It feels funny when we do it.�

Excuse me if I’m not moved by the difficult struggle to change one word in a frickin’ cheer and excuse me further if I believe that “feeling funny� is probably the sign of long overdue progress.

According to my good friend who is researching a book on college cheerleading, Kate Torgovnick (some of you may recognize her as a former Jane editor), these women don’t just stand around and look cute anymore. Cheerleading can be a physically demanding and emotionally grueling sport.

So why, may I ask, would cheerleaders not be down to support their fellow lady killers who put it all on the line in other sports? You’d think that watching their friends and peers box someone out or sink a mean baseline shot would be inspiring, not grounds for turning in their pompoms.

You had to know that yesterday's news about most American women not having husbands was going to produce some annoying headlines. But I just don't get this one. I mean, the story is about women being by themselves--what do men have to "watch out" for?

By the way, follow that NBC link for video coverage of the story.

20 year-old Miss New Jersey Ashley Harder has resigned after she "violated" Miss USA rules by becoming pregnant. (Guess she should have had an abortion, huh Donald?)

And you've got to love this coverage from the New York Daily News:

Curvy beauty Ashley Harder, 20, became the third lovely in Trump's pageant stable to run afoul of strict rules designed to keep the beauty contest a wholesome affair.

Blech.

Maybe if Harder would have agreed to pose nude while in a family way Trump would have forgiven her.

No, I'm not that Wham! I'm talking about Women, Action & the Media:

At WAM!2007, we’ll share facts and ideas and develop skills and action plans to transform the media environment and amplify progressive women’s public voices—as analysts, opinion-makers, community members , and influential participants in civil society.

March 30 - April 1, 2007 Stata Center, MIT, Cambridge

Feministing is a supporting sponsor! ...Along with ColorLines, Bitch, Feminist.com, Clamor (RIP!) and Dollars and Sense. Plus the lovely Samhita and Jess will both be panelists. And I'll be in attendance, too.

It looks to be an awesome weekend. Check out the tentative list of panels and presenters here. Keynote speakers are Ellen Goodman and Thenmozhi Soundararajan

Early registration ends January 31, so get moving. I'm excited just thinking about it.

The New York Times had a piece on Sunday about a growing epidemic among girls and women in Brazil: anorexia. Two girls have died from it within the last two weeks.

While Brazil historically hasn't been a country that falls victim to the Western social beauty standard of “the skinnier, the better,� it looks like things are changing. And rapidly.

The particularly interesting part I found in this article is historian Mary del Priore’s contention that Brazilian women’s recent struggle with “globalized� social beauty standards is partly due to their subversion of Brazilian machismo.

“This abrupt shift is a feminine decision that reflects changing roles. . . Men are still resisting and clearly prefer the rounder, fleshier type. But women want to be free and powerful, and one way to reject submission is to adopt these international standards that have nothing to do with Brazilian society.�

So Brazilian women are swapping one patriarchal culture for another? This is way too depressing to believe. Thoughts?

Spanish Justice Minister Fernando Lopez Aguilar canceled a speech he was scheduled to give in Saudi Arabia yesterday because the women journalists with him weren’t allowed to attend.

Soooo dreamy.

I thought this was pretty cool. (And also knew my pops would love it; he’s a big Buddhist.)

Griffith University psychologists are using “mindfulness,� a psychological technique based on Buddhist philosophy, to treat anorexia, binge eating and bulimia. And apparently it’s working.

Compared to other therapies, mindfulness requires less of a focus on food and controlled eating and more on freeing one’s minds from negative thoughts and emotions. "They learn that thoughts and emotions don't have any power over us as they are just passing phenomena and aren't permanent,� says psychologist Angela Morgan.

“Women who have been through the program report less dissatisfaction with their bodies, increased self-esteem and improved personal relationships," she says.

Mindfulness has also shown to be effective in treating substance abuse, anxiety and depression, and stress associated with physical conditions like trauma, chronic pain and cancer.

Here are a couple of books if you're looking for more info on the technique.

This is pretty intense. The Washington Post had an article yesterday on how the U.S. will soon begin conducting uterus transplants for the first time. Considering that fact that this deals with reproductive health issues on top of the controversy surrounding organ transplants, there will likely be a bit of talk over this.

After all, this could theoretically allow men to bear children. Oh yes, there will be talk.

For probably the first time, more American women are single than married. And it ain't cause we can't get a man. In a NY Times piece, "51% of Women Are Now Living Without Spouse," a study shows that more than half of American women don't have husbands, up from 35 percent in 1950 and 49 percent in 2000.

Several factors are driving the statistical shift. At one end of the age spectrum, women are marrying later or living with unmarried partners more often and for longer periods. At the other end, women are living longer as widows and, after a divorce, are more likely than men to delay remarriage, sometimes delighting in their newfound freedom.

“This is yet another of the inexorable signs that there is no going back to a world where we can assume that marriage is the main institution that organizes people’s lives,� said Prof. Stephanie Coontz, director of public education for the Council on Contemporary Families, a nonprofit research group.

But I thought women were desperately trying to snag a man?! That we're terrified of being lonely old spinsters! I guess facts have an annoying way of ruining good old-fashioned scare tactics.

Pic from invalid_wakes.

A U.S. Air Force sergeant has been relieved of her duties because she was featured in the latest edition of Playboy magazine.

Michelle Manhart modeled before entering the Air Force, in which she has been serving for the past 13 years. Now, after her recent six-page spread in the magazine, she is being investigated for her actions and will likely be discharged.

The spread includes her in camouflage uniform and holding weapons with the title, “Tough Love.�

A wee cheesy? Maybe. But it is a reason to get discharged? In Manhart’s statements to AP, I like the way she keeps stressing the fact that she hasn’t done anything wrong:

"Of what I did, nothing is wrong, so I didn't anticipate anything, of course...�

"I didn't do anything wrong, so I didn't think it would be a major issue.�

Oscar Balladares, a spokesman for Lackland Air Force Base, made an official statement regarding their position:

"This staff sergeant's alleged action does not meet the high standards we expect of our airmen, nor does it comply with the Air Force's core values of integrity, service before self, and excellence in all we do. . . It is not representative of the many thousands of outstanding airmen who serve in the US Air Force today."

Um, I’ll stay away from the fact that he can’t even keep his language gender-neutral, but what exactly does this statement mean? Who gets to decide exactly what having integrity entails?

Posing for Playboy merits a possible discharge while recruiters found guilty of sexual misconduct (sexually assaulting enlistees) are merely reprimanded by a reduction in rank or forfeiture of pay. So according to the U.S. Air Force’s “high standards� of integrity and excellence, a recruiter violating a woman’s body has more integrity than a sergeant doing what she wishes with her own.

Maybe it’s time to question who really is lacking integrity here.

(Left to right: Ann, myself and Jessica.)

You get the gist.

This was after our wonderful Gwynn's engagement party. Congrats to the happy pair!

"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter."
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

Check out the Martin Luther King, Jr. Papers Project at Stanford University. Feministing will resume posting tomorrow.

The Pill probably doesn't reduce women's sex drive.

Is the end of feminist health care near?

2006: The Year in Race and Racism.

Seeking justice for Nazenin Fatehi, Malalai Joya, and Malak Ghorbany.

More on how we can count on women to "clean up" Congress.

Apparently a recent episode of Scrubs featured a "backhanded endorsement" of pro-choice politics.

Armpit hair wars!

Phill Kline's special abortion prosecutor has been fired. Kline was also criticized by Kansas governor Kathlee Sebelius.

A look at women's health care in Korea.

Adam Corolla hates transpeople.

Have you seen those stupid Sony Bravia TV commercials that claim it's "finally a TV for both men and women"?

Despite their restrictive abortion laws, most Latin American countries are years ahead of the U.S. when it comes to EC availability.

Boston Globe columnist Cathy Young explores the (d)evolution of anti-feminist Elizabeth Fox-Genovese.

Yesterday when Condoleezza Rice appeared before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to ask for money to fund the escalation in Iraq, Senator Barbara Boxer asked her,

Who pays the price? I’m not going to pay a personal price. My kids are too old and my grandchild is too young. You’re not going to pay a particular price, as I understand it, with an immediate family. So who pays the price? The American military and their families. And I just want to bring us back to that fact.�

Rice (and the White House) claim Boxer was saying Rice wasn't personally affected by the war because she's a single, childless woman:

“I thought it was O.K. to be single,� Ms. Rice said. “I thought it was O.K. to not have children, and I thought you could still make good decisions on behalf of the country if you were single and didn’t have children.�

You're right, Condi! It is! But if you really think it's okay not to have or want children, you shouldn't be working for an administration that wants to deny women at home and abroad access to family planning. Of course conservatives, who have been enacting anti-woman policies for years, are quick to seize the opportunity to call Boxer an anti-feminist:

“I don’t know if she was intentionally tacky,� Mr. Snow said in an interview on Fox News. “It’s a great leap backward for feminism.�

Thanks for the head's up! Glad he's letting us know who's good for feminism and who isn't. After all, he and his bosses have been nothing short of fanatical in their pursuit of women's rights, and we should value their opinion on this matter. Rush Limbaugh managed to have an even crazier interpretation, deftly making this a nuanced discussion of race and gender:

"Here you have a rich white chick with a huge, big mouth, trying to lynch this, an African-American woman, right before Martin Luther King Day, hitting below the ovaries here,� Mr. Limbaugh said on his radio show.

Ha. Last time I checked, Condi Rice was a pretty rich chick herself. Boxer's comments had nothing to do with race. And when did conservatives like Limbaugh become such ardent defenders of Martin Luther King Day?

They're doing what they always accuse liberals of: making an unrelated story all about gender and race. Thing is, when we get upset about this stuff, the quotes are offensive -- just ask Tony "Tar Baby" Snow. (See for yourself how Fox News is spinning Boxer's comments. Completely ridiculous.)

Isn't it obvious that conservatives are using a nonexistant confrontation between childless women and mothers to distract from the serious opposition Rice faced at the hearing -- and from Bush's flailing failings in Iraq?

As your typical defender of women who choose to be childless, I diligently searched Boxer's comments for something that might piss me off. But I couldn't see it. Maybe she could have said in a more straightforward manner, "Neither of us have immediate family members in Iraq," without mentioning her kids. But really Boxer was just making a classic anti-war argument -- one that chickenhawks have a hard time responding to -- that the people who make the wars are totally out of touch with the people who pay the price.

I resent the fact that conservatives are playing feminist police as a way to distract us from the fact that they've killed a whole lot of people in Iraq and want the authorization to kill even more.

Alyx on right.

Alyx Beckwith works with the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) on a joint project with the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the UN World Food Progam (WFP) to improve the livelihoods of orphan and vulnerable children in the Mafeteng District in Lesotho, Southern Africa. She's been working on the project since September.

Alyx emailed me her answers to my questions. Here’s Alyx…

But Amanda was kind enough to caption this pic of Neidra lounging in my undie drawer. So I had to share.

...not because they're a place where scantily-clad young women are liable to get themselves raped. But because they're discriminatory against men. A Denver club will no longer be allowed to charge women lower drink prices.

The lawsuit, which only applies to one bar in the Denver area, was brought by self-described "major anti-feminist" Steve Horner, who became an anti-feminazi crusader after his wife left him. When asked why he's working diligently to end "unfair treatment of men," he responds:

"If I was a black or a cripple or a Jew or a gay, you wouldn’t dare ask me that question,’’ Horner said. "I’m standing up for my civil rights.

He's vowed to take his fight against ladies' night to every bar in Colorado, and then to neighboring western states.

It’s that time of year again! (You know, when I bug you to blog about choice issues, duh.)

On January 22nd - the 34th anniversary of Roe v. Wade – NARAL Pro-Choice America is asking pro-choice bloggers to raise the profile of reproductive rights issues in the blogosphere and the media, and to let everyone know that a woman's right to choose is nonnegotiable.

So blog for choice on January 22nd, and this year's topic is a simple one: tell us, and your readers, why you're pro-choice.

You can sign up for Blog for Choice Day here and download a Blog for Choice Day sidebar graphic (to let your readers know that you're participating) here.

When you sign up to Blog for Choice, NARAL will send you a reminder, and link to your post on BushvChoice. (You can also tag your posts with "Blog for Choice" to show you're joining in.)

And of course, if you're not a blog or a website, please encourage (translation: bug) your favorite sites to take part in Blog for Choice Day!

South Dakota just pisses me the hell off. (Not all of you, SD. Just the anti-woman parts.)

A federal appeals court has agreed to rehear a challenge of a 2005 South Dakota law that would require doctors to tell women seeking abortions that the procedure ends a human life.

…The appeals court grants only about one in 50 requests for a full court rehearing, state Attorney General Larry Long said Wednesday. "This is a rare and unusual event, and we're just delighted."

Delighted is one way to put it. Horrified is another.

Under the law—which was temporarily blocked because it violated doctors’ right to free speech—docs have to give patients a written document that includes a statement that "the abortion will terminate the life of a whole, separate, unique, living human being." Lovely. Nothing like forcing anti-choice ideology onto doctors.

Tab: Because no one remembers a fatass.

A *new* study claims that women dress to impress (!) when they are ovulating. Haven't we been over this already?

The research, published in the journal Hormones and Behavior, took 30 university students aged between 18 and 37 who did not know what the study was about and were all in stable relationships.

All were photographed in their least fertile and most fertile phases.

Then a group of 42 other people - just over half of them women - were asked to look at the pairs of pictures and judge in which one the woman was trying to look more attractive.

Their faces were blacked out to make sure the assessment was based on their attire.

The judges chose the photo taken during the fertile phases 60 per cent of the time.

That is NOT "well beyond a random chance" as the researchers would like us to think. It could be a coincidence. At least the way this study is done. Sixty percent isn't overwhelming proof.

But is there a connection? I mean aren't we all a little hornier right before our periods? But does that make us baby making maniacs. Not quite. As Amanda eloquently wrote the last time this came up:

Naturally, the urge of the shallow, sexist media is to imply that this all means femininity is somehow inborn, but really the more legitimate way to look at it would be that femininity is a set of learned behaviors that produce certain rewards, particularly male attention. And if we have some internal drive that makes us, say, want to get laid, we apply the learned behaviors more to achieve that goal. (Wonder if they studied women trying to be attractive to women at all.) The media likes to spin these studies as evidence that women are slaves to our hormones, but what it really says to me is that human beings are remarkably flexible and creative about learning and employing behaviors to get what we want.

Indeed. Thoughts?

The December/January issue of Audrey magazine has an article dedicated to the top five health issues affecting Asian women. Check it out [pdf].

I've got a review of Jennifer Baumgardner's new book, Look Both Ways: Bisexual Politics, in the new issue of Mother Jones. Even though "bisexual" is in the title, Baumgardner's book is more about "looking both ways" -- her way of describing people who are attracted to individuals rather than equally attracted to both men and women. It's mostly about women who usually date men, but are also open to romantic and sexual relationships with women.

[B]i women bring "gay expectations" of equality, respect, and sexual fulfillment to their relationships with men. "You wouldn't be with a man who couldn't talk about his feelings in an informed and subtle way," one woman tells her, adding, "On just the most obvious level, you would never be with a man who wouldn't go down on you."

Duh. I've never dated women, but have always had these expectations for my relationships. I wouldn't call them "gay," as Baumgardner does. More accurately, they're "feminist expectations."

This isn't entirely new territory. Bisexual activists like Lani Ka‘ahumanu have been pushing for more recognition from society and from the queer community for decades. But as usual, Baumgardner has a refreshingly up-to-date perspective on what's often treated as a gray area of sexuality. Definitely an interesting read.

The Audi-Oh vibrator. That's right.

I love farmers. It is true. And I try to buy locally grown organic produce as much as possible. Farming is a huge feminist issue. As women in places such as India are fighting for land and seed rights, women are taking to the field in the states. Aw shit.

Linda Moist, director of the Pennsylvania Women’s Agricultural Network, said women now are 11 percent of primary farm operators and 27 percent of all operators, an increase of 13 percent since 1997.

Pennsylvania lost 2,000 male-operated farms between 1997 and 2002 but gained 1,000 farms owned and operated by women.

The network started three years ago as a way to create a way for women to discuss farming issues and to have mentors in the farming industry.

Well at least that is the case in Pennsylvania. Any other stories of women farmers?

via Lancaster Online.

The large number of illegal and unregulated abortions in Ghana are resulting in health problems and sometimes death for the women. In tribal culture both abortion AND contraception are frowned upon. Hell of a time for sexually active youth eh? The BBC reports that 2/3 of abortion are occuring illegally and in unsafe conditions.

Gloria's second abortion was only four months ago. First her friend gave her melted sugar with Guinness. No effect. Then 10 paracetemol tablets ground up with local gin. Still nothing.

"Finally, we tried a broken bottle ground up with seawater and "Blue", a washing detergent, which we soaked in a cotton cloth and inserted into my womanhood," she confessed.

"By doing that the foetus came. I bled and bled and bled for more than five days."

Gloria is today in constant pain and too afraid to see a doctor.

She has refused to tell even her mother, who is a midwife.

"If I informed my mother, she would tell my father and that would be the end of me," she explained.

One gynocologist in Ghana says that many of these "quacks" performing the abortions are able to charge high prices due to the illegal nature of the practice. And are able to manipulate even poor women into paying a lot for the procedure.

Furthermore, abortion is technically illegal but under certain circumstances women can demand services from the government.

They are: if she gets pregnant as a result of rape, incest or reduced mental ability; if the pregnancy poses a risk to her physical or mental health, and if the unborn child might suffer an abnormality or disease.

But that is if they know the law at all and that is a major problem.

Women and girls, doctors, quacks, the police, even judges, have all been shown to be ignorant of Ghana's law, or have wilfully broken it knowing they will not be caught.

Scary.

via BBC News.

Check out this piece on Alternet by Jennifer Pozner of Women in Media & News. It originally appeared in BitchFest: Ten Years of Cultural Criticism from the Pages of Bitch Magazine.

Looks like Texas is taking cues from Oklahoma.

Two conservative lawmakers want a new law triggering an abortion ban in Texas should the U.S. Supreme Court ever reverse its landmark 1973 decision, Roe v. Wade, legalizing abortion.

…The bills would ban abortion except to "prevent the death" of the mother — if Roe is overturned. They contain no exemptions for rape, incest or to protect the health of the mother.

Because, really, who gives a shit about her?

UPDATE: Georgia, too. Ugh.

This may be my fave feminist graffiti yet. I want--no, need--that stencil.

Pic from kobenhavn.

Ok, so it's not an apology, but it's something:

We heard a number of complaints last week because we used the word "catfight" to describe a disagreement between two distinguished members of Congress -- Pelosi and Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.). To those who civilly articulated reasons why the term is inappropriate, we say: Point taken.

Out of one billion people 13 percent of India's population is Muslim. With such a formidable population, one would think perhaps, discrimination against women that are veiled, would not be as strong as say in the UK. However some women are telling us otherwise.

Things have not changed today for Muslim women who wear headscarves or burqas in officially secular India, according to Hussain, a social worker with the National Muslim Women's Welfare Society who attended a conference of Muslim women's groups in New Delhi this week.

"From A to Z, whether dealing with schools or the administration or hospitals, there is hostility for women wearing the burqa and the hijab," said Hussain, dressed in a salwar-kameez with her head uncovered.

In November, a central government-appointed panel said women wearing the head-covering hijab found it difficult to get jobs while Muslim women dressed in a burqa complained of rude treatment at markets, hospitals, schools and on public transport.

via Reuters.

...just doesn't cut it.

Just wanted to give some birthday love to our super amazing cool-clothing-making journalista/Feministing editor, Ann. If only we were all blessed with her writing skills and fashion sense, the world would be a better place.

Happy 25th, lady!

Contributed by Brooke Warner.

In her recent Bookslut review, “We Don’t Need Another Anthology,� Eryn Loeb is operating under the assumption that the only people reading feminist anthologies are feminists and women’s studies majors, and thus misses a few major points about why publishers put out anthologies in the first place.

I am an editor at Seal Press, “the main perpetrator,� according to Loeb’s review, of bringing new feminist anthologies to the marketplace. The notion that our readers are already primed on the topics we’re covering is both idealistic and completely unrealistic (though I empathize, particularly coming from a woman who, I’m willing to bet, is “primed� with a background in women’s studies). However, most young women today don’t even consider themselves feminists. Listen Up was published in 1995, and during my time at Seal Press many women have told me that that book was what turned them onto feminism. We Don’t Need Another Wave does, indeed, cover many of the same topics—twelve years later. There are personal essays and confessionals that range in topic from abortion to abuse to polyamory. Loeb’s critique of “the heavy emphasis on personal experience� dismisses the very thing that brings many young women into the movement in the first place—that someone out there is relating an experience that resonates so deeply that it provokes an awakening, an ah-ha moment: They’re feminists—and that’s a good thing.

Generally, anti-feminist articles make me cringe; this one made me laugh at loud. Nancy Levant, in Feminism and the Control of Womanhood, seems to think that scare quotes are a fantastic rhetorical device—she uses them for about 14 different words in this one column.

Some examples:

I received a note from a “feminist� who was quite disturbed with my opinions about “feminism.�

Women’s “rights� are disallowed definition by culture, religion, personal opinion, or any other social definition minus the feminist movement.

Equally, and thanks to the help of the feminist movement, “mental health� has taken center stage in the lives of women and children in the United States. It is estimated that 25 million American women are now taking “anti-depressants.� In the 1980’s and 1990’s, it became chic to seek “therapy.�

I don’t know if Levant believes things like feminism, women’s rights and—uh—anti-depressants are all figments of feminists’ imagination, but I have to say it didn’t shock me to see that she used her zealous scare quoting on the term ‘mental health’.

Oh, but the best line comes in the last paragraph:

And to the world’s feminists – I say this: You are the dumbest women who have ever walked the face of the Earth.

Sweet, huh? Here’s Levant’s email address if you’d like to tell her to go “fuck herself.�

This is just fucked:

Miriam Shear says she was traveling to pray at the Western Wall in Jerusalem's Old City early on November 24 when a group of ultra-Orthodox (Haredi) men attacked her for refusing to move to the back of the Egged No. 2 bus. She is now in touch with several legal advocacy and women's organizations, and at the same time, waiting for the police to apprehend her attackers.

In her first interview since the incident, Shear says that on the bus three weeks ago, she was slapped, kicked, punched and pushed by a group of men who demanded that she sit in the back of the bus with the other women. The bus driver, in response to a media inquiry, denied that violence was used against her, but Shear's account has been substantiated by an unrelated eyewitness on the bus who confirmed that she sustained an unprovoked 'severe beating.'

Make sure to read Shear’s account of the incident; it’s pretty intense.

My friend sent this to me so I thought I would put it up. It is a series of pics of women from different periods in history and how body image has changed over the course of the last 300 years in the West. All the women depicted are white, but I still thought it was interesting to look at how industrialization and advertising have literally changed beauty and body standards. They even compare the models of today to holocaust victims, which is a little intense, but I think we get the point.

I would be interested in doing this with images of women of color from the West and looking at how the images relate images of white women. When I look at these pictures I don't just see the construction of femininity as thin-ness, but also as constructed a white body, which is considered the norm for Western beauty.

Thoughts?

Sorry I forgot to add the link.

That's what you'll wear for your wedding, and you'll like it!

Some people have too much time on their hands. Take, for example, “Perplexed in Denver� who wrote into advice columnist Amy Dickinson about a non-virgin bride-to-be who has the audacity to think that she can wear anything but whore-red on her wedding day.

Dear Amy: My wife's niece is getting married soon. She has been living with her boyfriend for more than a year. She spent $400 to buy a white wedding gown.

My question is: Is this morally right? I thought that white meant virginity.

Is this a fad or do lots of people do this? Isn't she breaking the sacred vows of marriage by getting married in white? I told my wife that this is a farce. Who is right?

- Perplexed in Denver

Yes, how perplexing it must be for moronic misogynists to try to fathom that the color of one’s wedding dress isn’t predicated on the status of one’s hymen. Even more perplexing is how this guy actually got someone to marry him. But I digress.

Thankfully, advice-giver Amy points out to Perplexed that he seems shockingly uninterested in the morality and virginity of the groom, and that generally in order to break wedding vows (which I’m quite sure don’t say anything about dress color) one has to be married first.

Perhaps someone should also remind our confused friend that if only virgins wore white when they got married, the wedding gown industry would lose about 95 percent of their customers.

UPDATE: Yes, I fucked with the timestamp on this post so that the one below wouldn't be the first one on the page. That mug could scare away new readers!

My NY trip was FANTASTIC and, although calling out a whole new gaggle of men for random patriarchal behaviors is tempting, for now I am a Cali girl. Jessica aka Messica on the other hand thinks she is all classy living in her own apartment in NY, but clearly this picture is showing otherwise. This is Jessica caught in one of Manhattan's classiest spots. Homegirl is a MESS! I mean what look is she going for exactly? One eyed compulsive licker?

For this reason and the fact that skinny bitches hold up the subway, Jessica who is clearly too much of a mess for NY, should move to San Francisco. There is no subway here and you can look as messy as you want and people will still love you.

Messica this hurts me more than it hurts you. What are you gonna do now?

The full, ridiculous, story at WIMN's Voices.

Video still uploaded by smiteme.

The New York Times Magazine had a review of “femme brut(e),� a show of feminist artists in New London’s Lyman Allyn Art Museum.

While it’s great that the history of women artists is being discussed, the beginning of the last paragraph was a pretty off-putting:

Angry social and political protests about gender are largely a thing of the past. The new wave of female artists are working on issues and concerns similar to those of their male counterparts.

(Don’t you just love it when they have to throw a word like “angry� in there? Those angry feminists!)

This pisses me off to no end. I studied feminist art in college and beyond, and for the article to point out the historical pooh-poohing of women artists but deny the current existence of feminist “social and political art� is hypocritical and misleading.

Check out the recently launched Feminist Art Project for just one resource of proof that feminist art is still alive and kicking (and political!).

Nicaraguan human rights activists are (thankfully) trying to quash a law that bans abortions, even in cases or rape or when the woman’s life is in danger.

They asked the Supreme Court to block the law on the grounds that it’s unconstitutional and violates "fundamental rights and principles."

Nicaraguan lawmakers approved the bill with support from two right-wing parties and leftist legislators from the Sandinista party of Daniel Ortega, the president-elect who takes office on Wednesday.

It put Nicaragua alongside nations like Chile and El Salvador in imposing a blanket ban on abortions. Previously, abortions in Nicaragua were allowed for women who were victims of rape and incest or if their lives were in danger.

But clearly, that was way too controversial. Better that women die or be forced to have their rapists children. Sigh.

Hat tip to Pam for finding this ABC coverage of the Quiverfull movement. It's everything I thought it would be.

Remember how much shit Miss USA took recently for her "behavioral and personal" (aka "slutty") issues? Apparently the real problem was that she was projecting this image without first getting permission from the men in charge. Because now The Donald is apparently considering letting her pose for Playboy.

We know what's happened when national beauty queens have appeared in porn in the past. But clearly it's acceptable behavior if it's been approved by their male handlers first.

Gross.

Just wanted to share some cool news with y'all. In addition to continuing my work on Feministing (as if I'd ever leave my baby!), I’m going to be do some blogging work with Peter Daou this year. You’ll mostly see me at UN Dispatch, but I’ll also be poking around The Daou Report and elsewhere.

So please be prepared for shameless promotion of said blogs and related campaigns. In fact...I have a post up at UN Dispatch about reactions to the new Deputy Secretary-General, Dr. Asha-Rose Migiro, if you're so inclined. (Come on, be inclined!)

Oh, and the bad-ass shirt can be found here.

As a sporadic L Word viewer, I'll be the first to admit that it's become a wee dramatic over the past season or two, but I have to say that last night's season premiere kicked ass. Anti-choice ass, that is.

Kit, played by Pam Grier a.k.a. Jackie Brown, goes to a "clinic" to get an abortion and finds herself trapped in a "pregnancy crisis center." While it was pretty terrifying to see a depiction of what they put these poor women through, it was dope to see Grier go buck wild on their deceving asses. After all, she is Pam Grier.

I haven't been able to find a link to just that particular scene, but you can see the whole episode online.

At least that's what the Democratic party leaders seem to think. Ryan Lizza discusses their attempts to match, swagger-for-swagger, Republicans' caricature of masculinity:

The members of this new faction, which helped the Democrats expand into majority status, stand out not for their ideology or racial background but for their carefully cultivated masculinity.

“As much as the policy positions is the background and character of these Democrats,� says John Lapp, the former executive director of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee who helped recruit this new breed of candidate. “So we went to C.I.A. agents, F.B.I. agents, N.F.L. quarterbacks, sheriffs, Iraq war vets. These are red-blooded Americans who are tough.�

Have they retained Harvey Mansfield as a consultant? Lizza asks, "If a party measures its candidates by whether they wear a uniform, carry a gun or simply look tough — does it invite the public and press to apply that standard to all the party’s leaders?" Sure, it invites the public and the press to apply that standard to all the party's male leaders. And it invites them to apply a standard of femininity to the party's female leaders.

This cardboard-cutout view of gender means there's no way for female politicians to prove their "toughness" on a surface level, because that's a trait society is only comfortable associating with men. If you're a dude, you prove you're a "red-blooded American" by quarterbacking a football team, you prove you're "tough" with a tour in Iraq, you prove you're a no-nonsense by sporting a flat-top buzz cut. If you're a woman, you certainly can't do those things and still be considered electable. (Well, maybe Iraq is OK. But you'll have to talk a lot about how you missed your kids while you were away.) You can't prove "toughness" by talking about reproductive rights (those women who raise money for Emily's List? Total pussies) or about better health care policy. Nope, you need a gun, a dick and some balls to show you've got what it takes.

Women politicians must prove they'll be good leaders being just as tough as the guys, but by only talking up their nurturing, feminine credentials (five beautiful grandkids!) or about how women can "clean up" the halls of Congress, etc. Because when women do try to exhibit "toughness" on a surface level, the same way male politicians do, they inevitably make the party and the voters uncomfortable. They're called a ball-busting bitches and often seen as whiny and attention-grabbing -- not truly "tough."

If your actions don't fit the perfect either/or gender mold -- like if you are a powerful Democrat who bluntly calls out the president on his bullshit, but you happen to (gasp!) have a vagina -- your gender-role-defying actions simply get left out of articles like Lizza's. James Webb gets props for his aggressiveness because he picked a fight with Bush at a White House reception. But all of Pelosi's hard-nosed quotes about Bush are completely nullified by her decision to wear pearls. Sorry, honey. Can't have it both ways.

Back in March, we listened to Rahm Emanuel (who used to be a ballet dancer before he took to politically enforcing the stereotypical gender binary) declare that we need more nurturers in office. So the influx of "masculine" Dems is only half of the picture. This is really about buying into the idea that America can only be a safe and prosperous place when our male leaders are manly and our female leaders are womanly.

Anti-choice groups in Georgia are holding a “public hearing� tomorrow to try and get support for HB1, a proposed abortion ban similar to the one defeated in South Dakota.

You know, I’ll just let the bill speak for itself.

If you're in Georgia and want to stop by the anti-choice rally (cause really, that's what it is) to back up the other pro-choicers there, here the info:

Public Meeting on House Bill 1
Tuesday, January 9th
9:30 AM - 3:00 PM
Room 606 of the Coverdell Legislative Office Building

(Poor Cupid, tethered to the unreasonable feminist demand that women not be raped.)

Right up there with man-hating and bra-burning is the idea that feminists want to destroy romance. The older myth was that we were just jealous biddies who couldn’t get a date. (Cause feminists are ugly and scary, didn’t ya know?)

The new and improved anti-feminist myth about romance is that we’re big old whores.

My favorite example of this comes from, who else, the Independent Women’s Forum. Their “Take Back the Date� campaign is the ultimate in blaming feminism for killing romance. (What “romance� actually means to the ladies of IWF is a whole other story; the fact that the campaign name is a play on Take Back the Night speaks volumes, IMO.)

Who won the sexual revolution? Not young women who live in the world of "hooking up," the modern campus alternative to dating. Young women complain to us that dating has become an anachronism. Instead of chivalry and courtship, college relationships are more often nothing more than awkward drunken make-out sessions.

According to IWF Vice President Carrie Lukas, feminists use Valentine’s Day to “celebrate the sexual revolution for freeing women to have sex as casually as men.� Uh huh. (Translation: Feminists have sex! And sex isn’t romantic!)

What’s truly interesting to me about this campaign is that it positions college campuses’ V-Day—which generally consist of a performance of The Vagina Monologues and other anti-sexual violence activities—as the antithesis to romance. Just check out the Take Back the Date flyer made available on IWF’s site (a cropped section of which is above).

Free Cupid! Feminist groups have gone too far! They’re promoting female victimology and male-bashing with performances of The Vagina Monologues and misleading information about women’s issues.

So if anti-violence is anti-romance, then what exactly is romance to the IWF? Going back to the good old days where women were raped and no one spoke out? This may seem like a harsh take on the campaign, but considering how often sexual violence against women is conflated with romance, I think it’s appropriate.

Random example: Some years ago, I had a pretty disturbing experience with a guy I had casually dated turning into a full-blown stalker. It was terrifying—threatening phone calls, hanging out in front of my apartment building, checking my emails, hacking into my AIM, and more that I won’t even get into. But all of this was done with romantic rhetoric about how he was just crazy in love with me. I even had a guy friend of mine, who I asked for advice on the situation, wonder why I would be so upset about someone “caring� about me so much.

And there’s a reason, after all, that many rape awareness curricula are sure to point out that rape has nothing to do with romance or being overcome by “passion�—because too often that’s the way it’s perceived, specifically in acquaintance rapes. It’s all about women being resistant, and how romantic it is when guys finally “get through� to them. (For a funny-scary take on this, check out this piece in The Onion.)

Feminists aren’t anti-romance, when romance means mutual affection and respect. And yes, feminists think that women should be able to have casual sex if they want to—but that doesn’t mean that we all scoff at the idea of dating and relationships, either. If you ask me, feminists are the most romantic women around—because we rely on our own judgment and choices to define what’s romantic. And that’s deserving of some flowers.

The first picture is from here. The second is a product of this.

Talk amongst yourselves.

This is a wee late. Many (including myself) anticipated that because Massachusetts lawmakers were refusing to vote on a proposal to ban gay marriage, there was little chance it would make the ballot.

But unfortunately, last Tuesday’s meeting on the proposal didn’t go as planned, and now the only state that has legalized gay marriage is moving forward to possibly make the proposed constitutional amendment a reality.

Fuck.

On Feb. 11, Portugese voters will decide whether to legalize abortion. Polls show a majority of voters favor legalization.

In L.A., it costs $70 (the price of a marriage license) for a woman to take her husband's name. It costs $320 if a man wants to take his wife's name. So the ACLU is suing.

Tracy Russo notices how few statues of women there are on Capitol Hill.

A British organization estimates exactly how many women are shut out of top jobs by the glass ceiling.

Most charges against Girls Gone Wild founder Joe Francis have been dropped.

A cross-dressing Pakistani TV talk show host is delicately breaking taboos.

Texas and Kentucky (along with a slew of other states) consider making HPV vaccination mandatory for 6th-grade girls.

Democrats are vowing to put pressure on Bush to replace his anti-contraception family planning office appointee, "Dr." Eric Keroack.

Why "Plight of Muslim Women" stories don't come close to painting an accurate picture of the lives of Muslim women.

Pharmaceutical companies join the ranks of industries that use "babes" to sell their wares.

Phill Kline's special prosecutor (in his case against a Kansas abortion provider) is linked to anti-choice terrorists Operation Rescue.

Rosalie Little Thunder is a long-time Native community and environmental activist. Of the Sicangu band of the Lakota Nation in South Dakota, Rosalie has been on the frontlines to save the wild herd of bison that roams Yellowstone National Park.

I spoke with Rosalie over the phone yesterday about her activism for the new year. There’s a deep trail between her home and Yellowstone. Here’s Rosalie…

This was my jam back in junior high.

New UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has appointed a woman from Tanzania as Deputy Secretary-General.

Get the scoop at UN Dispatch.

Some sad news: Cynthia Dailard, a senior public policy associate at the Guttmacher Institute, died on Christmas Eve of heart failure. She was only 38.

I talked to Cynthia just a few weeks ago for a story I'm working on about insurance coverage of the HPV vaccine. She was an incredibly knowledgeable and accomplished woman who was deeply committed to women's health and reproductive rights. Guttmacher has a nice summary of Dailard's recent work:

Cynthia pushed us to think deeply and to stretch in new directions. She often anticipated policy concerns and opportunities before they were widely recognized. Some of her recent writings, for example, explored the logistic hurdles to providing widespread cervical cancer vaccination, a restrictive definition of sexual abstinence newly articulated by the federal government, and the sexual and reproductive health implications of marriage promotion efforts. Some of her best-known work revolved around federally funded abstinence-only-until-marriage programs, which, she argued, are out of touch with teenagers' sexual behavior and thus harmful to young people.

Memorial donations can be made to the Chevy Chase Bethesda Children's Center, where Dailard's two daughters attend preschool.

I have been on vacation for the last few weeks (hence the lack of posts sorry!) but I got a chance to visit New Orleans for New Years. My boo is a bayou boy and please believe as a New Yorker I feel as though I am in an cross-national relationship (well I am anyway, but you catch my drift). Louisiana is a trip.

But I did get a chance to see my good friend Sean who is an amazing and very political artist. As he did with the above piece, his work is created from found objects, magazine clippings among other things and is images of popular events (like the Twin Tower bombings, Saddam getting checked for lice, Martha Stewart on a bed of shredded money etc). He just found a big sign that says Halliburton, that he will cover with the names of the 3000 dead US soldiers.

It is controversial and it is hot, and he is my best friend since I was 14, so I am very proud of him. He has a show coming up this Saturday. So if you are in New Orleans, check this shit out.

Sean M. Neary
"Layers"
Opening Saturday January 6, 2007 6pm-11pm
3 Ring Circus' Big Top Gallery
1638 Clio St. NOLA 70130 (Between St. Charles and Carondelet)

More pics after the jump.

Remember the folks that brought you the Respect Yourself. Protect Yourself. condom campaign? Well Advocates for Youth are at it again.

Go join their campaign by designing your own ad touting condom-use and you could win $500 and see your design distributed across the United States!

Over at TAPPED, I cross-posted my recent entry about the controversy over Jack Hitt's New York Times Magazine cover story on abortion in El Salvador. There, the commenters wanted to know why it's such a bad thing for mainstream news sources to treat anti-choice "news" websites as real sources.

Well, here's why: The always-diligent Ema did what I should have done and looked up the court document on the anti-choice website. It does say the size of Carmen Climaco's uterus indicated she had been approximately 18 weeks pregnant -- a detail later rejected by the judges. It also mentions in a stand-alone sentence that the gestational age of the fetus was between 38 and 42 weeks. (Though I do speak Spanish, I'm not positive I've got it right. So if you're fluent, please feel free to correct me in comments.)

But the point isn't whether this document says Climaco's pregnancy ended at 18 or 38 weeks. As Ema says, "My problem is that nowhere in the court document is the EGA [estimated gestational age] established according to accepted principles. (There's no mention of relevant autopsy findings--fetal weight, measurements, pathology report, etc.)." She's right. But I disagree with her that the only way to know what happened is to read through these documents. I think, given the lack of medical evidence and the nature of the laws and court system in this country, even an accurate translation won't provide solid proof of either story.

Either the Times public editor had access to more information than this one document on LifeSite (which I'm guessing he didn't), or he took the anti-choice website's position and accepted the court records at face value. This doesn't absolve Hitt and his editors (or me, for that matter) from failing to get these documents in hand. And I stand by my assertion that this story would in all likelihood have been stronger if they'd sent a fluent-Spanish-speaking woman to report it.

But I also did exactly what I was saying was dangerous: relied on anti-choice "news" sites to provide accurate information about what was contained in the documents, and didn't think critically about whether that information was actually valuable. So consider this a mea culpa, a call to understand that court records don't tell the whole story, and a plea for reporters to do their homework so media critics don't turn to biased websites to flesh out the story.

Our girl Celina has a must-read up at Alternet today, For Female Soldiers, Sexual Assault Remains a Danger.

Check it out.

Great pic, because it inspired me to think these folks could take their tech and shove it. And that was enough for me. But then I looked at the website from the poster, and it's just too cool. Their tagline is: Reclaiming ICTs to End Violence Against Women.

From the website:

"Take Back The Tech!" is initiated and organised by the Association for Progressive Communications, Women's Networking Support Programme (APC WNSP).

We are a global network of women who support women networking for social change and women's empowerment, through the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs).

We promote gender equality in the design, development, implementation, access to and use of ICTs, and in the policy decisions and frameworks that regulate them.

Our network numbers over 100 women from more than 35 countries. They are individual women and women's groups and organisations working in the field of gender and ICT and actively supporting women's networking. Our members have formed themselves into regional networks in Africa, Asia-Pacific, and Africa and are building an emerging network in Europe.

The site hosts a blog-a-thon, a forum, a digital storytelling section, and even a campaign "Feminist-ing wikipedia!"

PIc from jaqian.

If the Supreme Court ever overturns Roe v. Wade, Rep. Mike Reynolds, a Republican from Oklahoma City, wants to be good and ready to take away women’s reproductive rights.

Rep. Reynolds has filed a bill that would reinstate Oklahoma’s anti-choice laws banning abortion. Lovely.

"When my colleagues elect me as speaker on Jan. 4, we will not just break through a glass ceiling, we will break through a marble ceiling.... In more than 200 years of history, there was an established pecking order - and I cut in line."

More at Alternet.

A group of popular cheerleaders at a suburban Dallas high school who are in trouble for drinking, posting scantily clad photos on MySpace, talking back to teachers, and general troublemaking. Could there be anything more exciting to the media than "girls gone wild" meets sexy cheerleaders -- with a school district controversy thrown in for good measure? The Dallas Morning News reports:

Ms. Theret [the school principal and also the mother of one of the girls, fired in the wake of the scandal] said she felt the girls should be kicked off the squad. But she referred the case to other administrators, who put the photos into four categories: alcohol possession, in-the-presence-of alcohol, tobacco and "unladylike" behavior.

The "unladylike" photos they're referring to show the high school seniors posing in a condom store, with some simulating oral sex.

[Administrators] doled out 30 days suspension for the condom photo, 15 days for a drinking photo or 45 days for both. Every parent, except Ms. Theret, appealed the ruling, which ultimately went to [superintendent] Mr. Crowe.

Mr. Crowe said he felt the condom photo shouldn't be more severely punished than drinking. He dropped it to a 30-day maximum for all incidents.

The condom photo (which receives its own section in the independent counsel's report on the cheerleaders) ostensibly merited more punishment because it was the only one in which the girls are wearing their cheerleading uniforms. And overall, they really do sound like they were out of control. But I have to wonder if administrators would punish a group of five boys so harshly for posing with prophylactics. Or if the story would have garnered national media attention.

John Bambenek author of the baffling article “You Are More Than Your Vagina, No Matter What Neofeminists Tell You,� is running for the school board in Champaign, Illinois.

In case you don't remember Mr. Bambenek, he is the guy that made the astute observation that "far from being merely sperm receptacles, [women] are people entitled to the full balance of human dignity."

Narciblog points out that in addition to seeing women as so much more than merely cum dumpsters, Bambenek also has some lovely ideas about the HPV vaccine being offered to students and creationism being taught in schools. I'm betting you can guess where he comes down on those issues.

So please, start praying for the kids of Champaign. Especially the little vaginas, I mean girls.

Today is the first day of session for the 110th Congress. And, the first woman speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi takes the helm. Waiting for the train this morning I heard two women discussing it. One said, "it is really weird to have a feminist leading the House. Good weird. Hopefully it's contagious." Agreed. There are tons of stories about this. Here's one of my favorites, with one strong exception.

Nancy Pelosi carves her place in American history today as the first woman to become speaker of the House, the main event in a three-day celebration of faith, family, feminism and her blue-collar roots.

As Democrats retake the House and Senate with pomp and ceremony at noon in Washington, the 66-year-old San Francisco congresswoman and grandmother will be second in line of succession to the presidency and the nation's highest-ranking female leader.

"We've waited over 200 years for this time," Pelosi told a cheering, emotional crowd of politically active women Wednesday. "But we didn't just wait - we worked hard for this."

My big problem with this story, and most of the others that talk about Pelosi, is this:

Pelosi "will devote as much time to being a grandmother as speaker," Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., told the crowd at a tea Wednesday. "She raised five children before she entered politics." Then one of Pelosi's granddaughters, 8-year-old Madeline Prowda, told people that the next speaker "eats chocolate ice cream for breakfast."

It was hard to find a story about Pelosi's new position that didn't remind the reader that her family is a huge priority. Which is nice. My family is a priority for me too, but that has nothing to do with my job. In all of the celebration, it's a stark reminder that a powerful woman must always be softened, lest anyone mistake her for a "real" feminist (read evil childless man-hater). Sigh. I couldn't find a story about Harry Reid, the Senate majority leader's family obligations. Perhaps I just missed it.

But, congrats to the new speaker, and all of the good new additions down on Capitol Hill.

(Unless you're a homo)

It's already pretty well established that abstinence-only education discriminates against gay and lesbian students, but this takes the cake.

A Florida high school has refused to allow a student to establish a Gay-Straight Alliance as an after-school club. After being called out on their bullshit reason that the school doesn't allow any clubs (it does), Okeechobee High School is now claiming that there can't be a queer club because the school has an abstinence-only policy.

Eh? Apparently only hetero teens can abstain.

The ACLU has filed a lawsuit against the school on the student's behalf.

Alternet has compiled some of the feminist blogger responses to the Women's eNews article Ann blogged about yesterday. (I also did a short intro.) Enjoy.

UPDATE PART DEUX: Funk (and others) respond.

UPDATE: Alternet cut my intro down (they can't handle my heat, obviously) so I'm posting the original uncut intro below the fold.

The South Dakota attorney general recently filed a complaint asking a judge to decide whether a group that worked to uphold the state's abortion ban must reveal the name of its sole donor.

According to the filing, the real purpose of the group Promising Future, created by Rep. Roger Hunt (who was also one of the architects of the ban), was "to provide a corporate shell by which the sole shareholder could make anonymous contributions to ballot question committees that supported the passage." Some legislators are calling for Hunt's suspension from office until he agrees to identify the donor.

In other good news, state legislators say it's highly unlikely that anti-choicers will try to pass another abortion ban in the coming years.

And while we're back to talking about South Dakota, it's worth mentioning this item from the Christian press in which prominent anti-choicer Leslee Unruh admits that during the campaign she faced more harassment from hardline "pro-lifers" than from pro-choicers.

"When you’re running a pro-life campaign the last thing you need is pro-lifers who have a different strategy and won’t respect the people in the state," Unruh said.

"The pro-life community can’t continue to do this," she added. "When someone works as hard as I have for 22 years, the outside pro-lifers coming in and bringing trucks and (bringing) anger and hate—that affects the community."

All of the tactics that "scared" Unruh are classic moves by anti-abortion groups: gory photos of dismembered fetuses, disruptive prayer vigils, and videotaping reporters and volunteers. Maybe our gal Leslee should be asking pro-choicers for some advice. We've got a lot of experience dealing with that sort of harassment.

This may also be a sign that Unruh's brand of anti-choice/"pro-woman" framing could divide the anti-abortion movement -- separating the savvier types (see also: Feminists for Life) from those who won't stop screaming, "don't kill the baaaaabies!". I think the antis who falsely fly the "pro-woman" flag make for more formidable adversaries. But this tactical split could make the anti-choicers compete within the movement for resources and political support, which could work in pro-choicers' favor in the end.

She's baaaaack! Get out your feminist police badges, because Liz Funk is here to tell us that women who go out to bars or take advantage of drink specials are not only kinda slutty, but are almost asking to be raped. Her line of reasoning sounds remarkably similar to all of the anti-feminist responses to the rape and murder of Imette St. Guillen and other women who were last seen at bars or clubs.

To be sure, there are many feminist critiques to be made of ladies' nights. (Check out Jess's nuanced take on this from awhile back.) Rather than slut-shaming and victim-blaming, Funk could have addressed the fact that, in promoting ladies' nights and for-women-only drink specials, club owners are using women as bait to attract the "real" customers. Which is truly offensive. Echidne puts it this way:

They are the tethered goat that is used to get the tigers or the men with the money. They are part of the amenities of the place, and that may be the point Funk is trying to make. But adding that reference to a horrible murder makes her point something quite different, something to do with punishing the underage women for their irresponsible behavior.

Funk mentions Right Rides -- an organization that acknowledges being out, alone and drunk late at night is not a safe situation but never says the onus is on women to prevent their own rapes. But rather than quote the feminists who run this valuable service (or other non-blaming sources), she turns to Gary Miller, whose previous claim to fame was saying that all women who go to bars are "exchanging dignity for attention." Nice move.

The editors at Womens E-News say they stand by the piece. Click here to email them and share your thoughts on this subject.

Read more at Pandagon, Feministe, Reclusive Leftist, Pinko Feminist Hellcat, Shakespeare's Sister, Echidne and Rox Populi.

Make sure to read this excellent, though depressing, post at RHRealityCheck about the history of feminist health care and how we are letting it slip away.

The feminist women's health movement gave birth to feminist health centers and, at its zenith in the mid-eighties, there were over 50 such centers around the United States. Over the last twenty or so years, an estimated thirty-five of those clinics have closed their doors forever. Clearly, something dramatic is happening.

The post is writen by Amie Newman, who works at the soon-to-be-shut-down Aradia Women's Health Center (AWHC) in Seattle.

An oldie but a goodie.

Pic from jerseygirl80.

It's one of those good news/bad news situations.

Togo has become one of few African countries to legalize abortion if the pregnancy is the result of rape or an incestuous relationship, according to a copy of a new law seen by Reuters on Thursday.

Abortion is illegal in most African countries unless medics deem the procedure necessary to protect the mother's life or physical health.

..."The voluntary interruption of pregnancy is only authorized when prescribed by a doctor and on request of the woman in cases where the pregnancy is the result of rape or of an incestuous relationship," the Togolese law said.

The law also allows for abortions if there "is a strong risk that the unborn child will by affected by a particularly serious medical condition."

This is a step in the right direction, but the law also carries stiff penalties for those who are involved in illegal abortions--up to five years in prison.

Not too long after his article on global feminist terrorism at Rutgers (I'm an RU alumni myself; figures), my favorite misogynist David Usher seems to be on a roll with his new article, which has the best headline ever: “The Tyranny of Feminist Jurisprudence.�

While the piece is on the release of Judge Robert Dierker’s anti-feminist book, he uses the occasion to go off on his usual tirade on how us feminist elitists are corrupting the nation with the spirits of our feminist Ku Klux Klan ancestors by our side. It's fucking hilarious.

It was quite a year...

Sweetest Victory: Election '06, baby! We bid farewell to Rick Santorum, Kansas AG Phill Kline, and a slew of other notable anti-choicers. South Dakota rejected the abortion ban. Democrats took Congress, and we've got the first female Speaker of the House.

Sweetest Partial Victory: Plan B finally approved for over-the-counter sale... sorta.

Best Ways for Girls to "Go Wild": Take EC (a perennial favorite), dance, go on Spring Break, go out to a bar, get physically assaulted by Joe Francis.

Worst Lying "Doctor": Tie! It's gotta be either Bush's anti-contraception family planning office appointee Eric Keroack or Mark Rector, who said the South Dakota abortion ban provided an exception for the health of the mother.

Worst Bush Appointee: Keroack. (So bad he makes this list twice...)
--Runner Up: New director of the Office on Violence Against Women.

Best Innocence-Killer: HPV vaccine! Now approved and recommended for all girls, who are finally free to slut it up without consequences.

Most Hilarious Anti-Sex Propaganda: Plant metaphors, Dudes can get pregnant, too, the Purity Princess Survivor Kit, the Virginity Voucher, "No sex for you, my pretty!"

Worst Expansions of the Abstinence-Only Empire: Medical students and all twentysomethings.

Worst Description of Feminism: Bras 'n' aprons.

Best News for Female Leadership: Portia Simpson Miller, Angela Merkel, Michelle Bachelet, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf (Ok, that was late 2005, but still.)

Worst Advice: Tie! Either "Don't marry a career girl" or "Live every day as if you're about to be pregnant."

Best Example of the Media's Inability to Competently Cover Issues Related to Race or Sexual Assault: The Duke rape case.

Worst State Court Ruling: Women in Maryland can't say no once sex has started.

Worst Case of Feminist Policing: "Shot through the heart, and you're to blame / You give feminism a bad name."

Best Reasons to Redefine Hotness: 100 of them.

Worst Federal Anti-Choice Legislation: Fetal pain bill and the Teen Endangerment Act. (Thankfully, neither passed.)

False-Hope-Inspiring, Recurring Headline of the Year: Male birth control pill may soon be a reality!

Best Reasons Not to Fuck Republicans: There are many, but here are just a few.

Contenders for the 2006 Bullshit Research Award: Houswork prevents cancer, Women like to talk and men don't, Girls who like sex make for limp dicks, Parasite turns women into whores.

Under-Covered Story of the Year: Jess's boobs. Ha.

Ask and ye shall receive. I told the lovely Miss Amanda that there should be a feminist police badge that bloggers can use when folks want to wax nasty about someone not being feminist enough (or too feminist). And thus a prayer was answered. Thanks, lady!

I've already acknowledged that my new favorite person to hate, Louann Brizendine, is getting way too much coverage on her new book, which essentially says that women are hard-wired to be "feminine." This obviously pisses me off to no end, but what really gets to me is when people try to label this bullshit as feminist thought.

This piece claims that in the past, most women would just dismiss Birzendine's book as anti-feminist and supporting stereotypes, but now we're beginning to accept our natural, feminine tendencies. In fact, femininity is becoming the face of feminism for 2007:

Many women, it seems, are ready to embrace the tenants of femininity as an asset, not a liability.

. . . So perhaps the fighting is over -- on some fronts at least -- and North American feminism has evolved past its first, second and third waves into something of a tidal wave, an onslaught of fierce femininity that is as radical as it is unexpected.

Women now find strength, power, resilience, humour and fortunes in the very behaviours, concerns and impulses we once tried to suppress.

Whoa. So the "old" feminism has only suppressed our natural, inner desires to gossip, have children and look purdy. Finally, the new "feminine" feminist movement will liberate us from our conditioned feminist self-loathing! It's like a recruitment for a new generation of faux feminists...

And who is among the new crew of "femininists"? Some include Brizendine, Laura Kipnis (which is totally inaccurate), Tori Spelling and Paris Hilton. And no, I'm not kidding.

I'm sure nearly everybody remembers the New York Times Magazine cover story "Pro-Life Nation," about abortion in El Salvador. It was written by Jack Hitt, an old white dude and entrenched member of the elite lefty media (he routinely writes cover stories for Harper's, Mother Jones, etc.). On Sunday, the Times public editor wrote:

"A few� women, the first paragraph indicated, were serving 30-year jail terms for having had abortions. That reference included a young woman named Carmen Climaco. The article concluded with a dramatic account of how Ms. Climaco received the sentence after her pregnancy had been aborted after 18 weeks. [...] It turns out, however, that trial testimony convinced a court in 2002 that Ms. Climaco’s pregnancy had resulted in a full-term live birth, and that she had strangled the “recently born.� A three-judge panel found her guilty of “aggravated homicide,� a fact the article noted. But without bothering to check the court document containing the panel’s findings and ruling, the article’s author, Jack Hitt, a freelancer, suggested that the “truth� was different.

This gives the anti-choicers a great opportunity to discredit the entire article, which makes a series of important points about the lives of women in countries where abortion is criminalized. This has long been a sticky issue for the antis, and they were none too pleased when this article came out. One of the worst things about Hitt's and the editors' failure to admit to their error is that, by forcing the public editor to expose the issue, he cites and lends credibility to anti-abortion "news" services like LifeNews.com, which have proliferated (ha) in recent years. I've watched these sites for a long time, and have seen mainstream news outlets mimic their language and pick up certain stories. Now, by crediting them with "exposing" the problems in Hitt's El Salvador story, they're now seen as journalists rather than propagandists. Needless to say, this is dangerous.

Personally I find it very easy to believe that some Salvadorean women have been imprisoned for having abortions. But as a reporter, I also know its possible that Hitt simply wasn't able to track them down or get them to speak with him about their experiences in time to meet his deadline. Combine that with Hitt's failure to get the court documents and the Times' failure to fact-check, and you've not only undone all the good that's come from reporting on this issue, you've actually made things harder for pro-choicers both in the U.S. and abroad.

This is also a perfect example of why it's bad for journalism, particularly investigative and progressive journalism, when the vast majority of the bylines belong to white men. Don't get me wrong-- sloppy reporting can be committed by a reporter of any gender. But I'm just guessing that a woman, particularly a Spanish-speaking woman, would have had an easier time gaining trust and access. She may have found additional examples of women who have been imprisoned under this law, and then the discrediting of this one case would not have left the rest of the article on such shaky ground. I have a lot of respect for Hitt as a reporter. But he even acknowledges in the article that it was hard to get Salvadorean women to open up about their extremely personal and, in this case, illegal decisions to a white guy who doesn't speak their language.

When this story came out, I remember thinking, "Why on earth would the Times send a non-Spanish-speaking man to report this story? I know there are competent and accomplished female Spanish-fluent journalists out there." The answer? His is one of the big names of lefty journalism. And major outlets don't assign 7,600-word cover stories to just anyone. Lengthy, ambitious, National-Magazine-Award-contender stories go almost exclusively to the elite handful of progressive/investigative journalists who are mostly white and male.

The controversy over Hitt's El Salvador abortion story isn't only about bad reporting and editing. It's a sadly concrete example of why it's bad for all journalists and all progressives when men dominate the media.

The number of deaths of U.S. soldiers in Iraq has hit (and passed) the 3,000 mark.

I wonder what our nation's resolution should be this year...

Seems like the pseudo-incestuous nastiness of Purity Balls is clear to everyone but the folks that throw them.

While I posted on the victory of Malalai Joya gaining a seat in the Afghanistan parliament a while back, it seems that her plight to improve women’s rights within the country is being threatened, along with her life.

Ali from Eteraz.org points out that Joya's occupancy in parliament has resulted in constant death and rape threats, and is even forced to move homes on an almost daily basis in fear of her safety. But despite all this, she is still managing to do what she can to expose the reality of the conditions Afghanistan under the present occupancy of the Northern Alliance. Here’s a snippet of a kick-ass speech she recently gave:

Five years after the collapse of the misogynist and anti-democracy regime of the Taliban, and after almost five year of the US led attack on Afghanistan; you may like me to describe the achievements and positive outcomes in Afghanistan, but I'm sorry to tell you that Afghanistan is a land still burning in two-fold fire.

. . .I must tell you that unfortunately there has been NO fundamental change in the plight of Afghan people. When the entire nation is living under the shadow of gun and warlordism, how can its women enjoy very basic freedoms? Unlike the propaganda raised by certain Western media, Afghan women and man are not ‘liberated’ at all.

This site has been created in her support where you can donate to her cause. You can also send a letter to Afghan authorities urging for her protection.

Women like Joya are necessary for the change that’s so desperately needed in Afghanistan, particularly for the rights of its women. Let’s hope this will help her to get the security she needs to continue her struggle towards peace and equality.

I've learned a lot of things last year, but these are the gems I pumped out last night after a half a bottle of wine. Feel free to share your own in comments. Feministing is taking two Advil and will see you in the morning.

Prunes, apparently, are made from plums. Who knew?

I don’t miss television. I haven’t ordered cable since I moved into my own place, and I’m realizing that I don’t really need it.

My mother is remarkably underappreciated.

No matter what I do or accomplish, someone is always going to judge me by the way I look.

I really, really like living by myself—I’ve been shocked to realize how much I like solitude.

Fate is cruel and will do things like have Netflix send you The Notebook on the day your relationship ends.

I can’t tell the difference between mice and moles.

Even though I’ve been working on feminist issues for years, some things (actually a lot of things) can still make me cry in frustration.

Plants die in my presence. Seriously, they’re in my apartment a day and then they’re dead.

My sister is the best friend I could ever have.

My resolution? Well, that one is private.

Happy New Year!