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I have a piece up at The Guardian that takes a look at some of the fab feminist comedians out there and how they're debunking the whole "women aren't funny" myth.

So who is your favorite funny feminist?

This Italian ad reads:

Who pays for man's sins? Only four per cent of women who suffer sexual violence report their assailants.

The poster is part of the national Telefono Donna rape helpline to help raise awareness for the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women on November 25th. It seems a bunch of male politicians are up in arms about it - what do you think?

Via.

The latest from Feministing favorite Sarah Haskins.

Hey NYC folks! I'm going to be interviewing Marilyn French tomorrow at the Tenement Museum about her new book. Info is below; hope to see you there!

Tenement Talks presents...

Wednesday, November 19 at 6:30 PM
From Eve to Dawn: A History of Women in the World
A Conversation with Marilyn French and Jessica Valenti

Tenement Museum Shop
108 Orchard Street (Delancey)
221-982-8420; events@tenement.org
Free - seating is first come, first serve

I'm going to echo Kate's sentiments and ask Helen Mirren - for the love of all things good - to stop talking about rape.

Back in September the actress said in an interview that she didn't think that women should bring date rape cases to court and now she's said that female jurors on rape cases are "sexually jealous" of the victims. Seriously.

"Whether in a deep-seated animalistic way, going back billions of years, or from a sense of tribal jealousy or just antagonism, I don't know.

...But other women on a rape case would say she was asking for it. The only reason I can think of is that they're sexually jealous."

I'm speechless.

Apparently Motrin got lots of mothers peeved when they ran the following ad:

Just a tad condescending. Ick. The response to the ad (yay online activism!) was so overwhelming, that Motrin apologized and is removing the ad from circulation.

Via Rad Campaign, Writes Like She Talks and LA Moms Blog.

I couldn't choose just one (there are so many!) but below are a few of my faves, in no particular order. Leave yours in comments...

Queen Latifah, UNITY

More after the jump!

One in three Australian boys thinks that it's okay to hit girls; one in seven think "it's OK to make a girl have sex with you if she was flirting."

Via Feministe.

In case you missed it...

Via Michelle Obama Watch, which also has Part II of the segment.

Sometimes the hate mail we get comes in the form of long rambling craziness. And sometimes, as is this case here, it's short, sweet, and incredibly stupid.

Marriage can only exist between a couple that can reproduce. Otherwise you might as well marry a farm animal. The people have spoken and you should shut down this site.

I'm sure all the couples having fertility issues will appreciate that one.

Hey all, you may have already noticed that we've changed up the comments format again. After some group discussion and listening to reader suggestions, we decided to tweak the comments rating system and only include the "I liked this comment," not the "dislike." (Of course, the "report abuse" link is still up so if you need to email us about trolls, that's how to do it.) This way, we're keeping it positive!

Last June, Duanna Johnson was brutally beaten by Memphis police - and it was caught on video.

Johnson was in the booking area at the Shelby County Criminal Justice Center when she was hit repeatedly in the face and head by a police officer while another held her down.

"Actually he was trying to get me to come over to where he was, and I responded by telling him that wasn't my name - that my mother didn't name me a 'faggot' or a 'he-she,' so he got upset and approached me. And that's when it started," Johnson said.

This week, Johnson was murdered. Helen at My Husband Betty brings us the tragic story:

She was shot execution style while on her "usual corner."

I'm tired of this.

I want there to be no reason for the Transgender Day of Remembrance. I want there to be no new names on that goddamn list.

I hope her mother, and her family, and her friends, find peace, and that she has too.

Johnson was suing the city for $1.3 million over the June assault, so something tells me they're not exactly going to give Johnson's case top priority.

Pam has more, including a statement from the Tennessee Transgender Political Coalition.

Above is one of the "workouts" offered by Flirty Girl Fitness, a new line of gyms for women that focus on the raunchier forms of exercise. (If you can call it that - in all of Flirty Girl's videos, I have yet to see someone work up a sweat by rotating their ass slowly in circles.)

I have no idea of Flirty Girls is indicative of the pole-dancing-as-workout craze that everyone seems to be talking about, but I thought the video was a good intro to this piece in the Dallas Observer.

I try the first "trick," which is called The Swing and involves kicking your leg out in front of the pole, hooking the metal in the crook of your knee, and then grabbing on with both hands, hoisting yourself off the ground and swinging around in a full circle. My arm muscles strain to sustain what's basically a horizontal pull-up, and I make it about three-quarters of the way around before the pain in my arms peaks. I slide down the pole and into a heap on the dance floor.

Peeling myself off the ground, I survey the other students. They're hair stylists, event planners and executive assistants who are tired of the same old gym routine; singles looking for self-confidence or some moves to show a new boyfriend; and wives and mothers who--between chasing toddlers and laundering spit-up-laden clothing--can't recall the last time they felt the least bit sexy.

When I talked about pole-dancing classes in my class at Rutgers yesterday, the majority of women seemed to view them as yet another negative porn-as-mainstream trend. But a few brave gals fessed up to taking the classes - and liking them. What seemed to appeal was an all-female environment where they could act out "sexiness" and "femininity" in a safe space. (I use scare quotes because of the limiting versions of femininity and sexiness that I think pole dancing and such things offer.)

But the sexuality offered in classes like these seems to me - I've never been to one, so correct me if I'm wrong - so put on and so based on the male gaze. After all, many of the women interviewed in this article and others talk about bringing the workout back home for their significant male others. Thoughts?

Thanks to Patrick for the link.

Every once in a while (actually, more often than that but I try to stay positive and all) someone brings up an aspect of sexism or a kind of discrimination I hadn't thought about before. This is one of these cases.

I've never really thought about it before, but I don't believe I've ever seen a movie trailer narrated by a woman. Variety has an article which cites a quote from Don LaFontaine, known as "The Voice of the Movie Trailer", who as you might recall, recently passed away:

"I think women are vastly underrepresented in this area," LaFontaine said in 2006. "You'd think that for films directly aimed at women, chick flicks, the logical choice would be for a woman to narrate the trailer. But studios hold focus groups and the people in them, women included, seem to prefer the male voice."

[Reporter Caroline] Ryder also notes that William Morris represents only three female trailer voices, all of whom work primarily in television or scratch (aka temp tracks), compared with 33 male trailer voices.

Is it because male voices are considered more authoritative? What gives?

Thanks to Brad for the link!

Dahlia Lithwick at the XX Factor highlights the assholedom that is Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, who thinks violence against women is "not that serious an offense."

Yesterday the Supreme Court heard a case about the reach of the Federal Gun Control Act and whether it includes someone convicted of misdemeanor domestic violence.

...Courtesy of the LA Times' David Savage, here's a report of oral argument, which evidently went poorly for the proponents of disarming wife beaters. Of note in the transcript is the following exchange between Justice Antonin Scalia and Nicole Saharsky, the Justice Department lawyer arguing for the stricter interpretation of the law.

JUSTICE SCALIA: And this was misdemeanor assault and battery, wasn't it?

MS. SAHARSKY: Yes, that's right. I mean, I really--

JUSTICE SCALIA: So it's not that serious an offense. That's why we call it a misdemeanor.

MS. SAHARSKY: Well, I mean, certainly the offense is this particular case was serious. The charging document reflects that Respondent hit his wife all around the face until it swelled out, kicked her all around her body, kicked here in the ribs--

JUSTICE SCALIA: Then he should have been charged with a felony, but he wasn't. He was charged with a misdemeanor.

Wow. Nothing quite like dismissive nastiness when it comes to beating up women!

In a recent interview, Sarah Palin - once again attacking the media for supposedly treating her unfairly - scoffed at bloggers as kids "in pajamas sitting in the basement of their parents' homes." The nerve! I haven't lived in my parents' house since I was a teenager. The pajamas are another story... (I like to be comfortable!)

Sorry for the day late post, folks. Will you stop sending me angry "where is Monty?!" emails now? :)

When we're upstate in Woodstock, there's nothing Monty likes better than to get filthy playing with his brother Banjo. Unfortunately, when it comes to water-fetch, Monty is a stealing little shit.

Pam lets us know about a new anti-choice organization that's sprouted out of attempts to define fertilized eggs as people.

Apparently the defeat of the Colorado amendment made anti-choicers think it would be a fantastic idea to take their failed state initiative nationwide.

A new pro-life organization, Personhood USA, plans to assist local pro-life groups in different states to put personhood amendments on their states ballot by using the petition process.

The 17 States that allow citizens to place constitutional amendments on ballots will be the target states. Personhood USA will also help with opinion petitions to encourage politicians to run personhood amendments in other states. During the Colorado Personhood campaign, organizers were contacted by individuals in many different states with excitement and the desire to start personhood efforts in their own state.

"Praise Jesus! The pro-life tide is rising in America, now is the time for the entire pro-life movement to turn the focus off from permitting murder but attempting to 'regulate' it, to pushing for the recognition of the God given right to life for all innocent persons. Persons are humans beings from the moment of fertilization." Cal Zastrow, Co-Founder of Personhood USA.

Um...yeah. Good luck with all that. Perhaps a creepy video will help...

PUSA Promo (Web) from Endfallow on Vimeo.

Ladies, did you know that your uterus is shaped like AMERICA? Yeah, I didn't either. I'd write more about the pathetic attempts by anti-choicers to limit women's reproductive freedoms, but my Texas is cramping like a mofo.

P.S. This is what a fertilized egg looks like. Yeah.

Amie Newman at RH Reality Check has a must-read post up about what a new administration (this was written before Obama's win) needs to focus on in terms of women's reproductive health and justice. Check it out.

I got a bunch of emails from readers about a recent episode of The Office that contained what all agreed was a non-funny joke about rape (though there's never really a funny rape joke, is there?). I hadn't seen the episode and couldn't find it anywhere - luckily, one of my students at Rutgers was kind enough to send it my way.

I generally really love The Office and think that its jokes - even on subjects like race and sexuality - are generally pretty smart and progressive. But I hated this. Thoughts?

Thanks to Alissa for the vid.

Pic from Grant Neufeld.

There's a great article in Minnesota's Star Tribune about college activists' attempts to focus sexual assault training and education on men.

Instead of teaching women not to walk alone at night or to carry Mace, some colleges are trying something much harder -- changing college men.

..."The fact of the matter is that prevention comes down to, largely, males. Because males are primarily the ones perpetrating these crimes," said Lauren Pilnick, sexual violence education coordinator at Minnesota State University, Mankato.

The piece also tells the story of Tyler Jones, a senior at the University of Minnesota who went through sexual assault prevention training and found himself using that education in a barroom exchange:

"Hey, see that girl over there?" Jones recalled an acquaintance asking, nodding toward a woman he wanted to take home. "She's almost drunk. Not quite drunk enough. ... What shot should I buy her?"

There was a time, Jones says, when he might have laughed off the remark. Not anymore.

"You want to buy her something really strong to like, basically knock her out?" Jones, a University of Minnesota senior, recalled saying. "Man, that's not right. That's rape. That's sexual assault."

The acquaintance looked stunned. "Whatever," he mumbled, and walked away.

I think moments like these are incredibly important: Having men name assault, and calling it what it is to their peers - especially in a culture that so often puts the focus of sexual assault prevention on women.

You know I can't resist anything Maddow related.

Thanks to Heather for the link.

Ann mentioned in the Weekly Feminist Reader that President Elect Barack Obama's transition team has compiled a list of Bush administration actions that can be undone quickly - and that the Global Gag Rule is one of them.

...The new president is also expected to lift a so-called global gag rule barring international family planning groups that receive U.S. aid from counseling women about the availability of abortion, even in countries where the procedure is legal, said Cecile Richards, the president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America.

I just wanted to give this news item its own post, because - woo hoo! The Global Gag Rule, which was reinstated by President Bush on his first day in office, prohibits any international organization that receives U.S. funds from counseling women on abortion as an option, providing referrals, or discussing the dangers of unsafe abortions - even if the organization uses its own money to do so. The impact of the mandate has been deadly for women worldwide. About 70,000 women die every year from unsafe or illegal abortions - a number that could be significantly lowered by access to information and sexual health care.

So the importance of Obama potentially overturning the Global Gag Rule can't be overstated - women's lives are depending on it.

Cartoon by Mikhaela Reid.

Queers Without Borders reports that on the transition team's job page, the nondiscrimination page includes gender identity:

"The Obama-Biden Transition Project does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, age, national origin, veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, or any other basis of discrimination prohibited by law."

The Connecticut Employment Law Blog notes,

It's one thing to raise the issue in a platform. It's quite another to start implementing a change like this almost overnight. And this has significant ramifications for the entire Executive Branch once the new administration starts.

Nice.

New York City blog Gothamist reports that on election night, a teenager was beaten with bats in Staten Island:

17-year-old Ali Kamara, a black Muslim, was walking home on Staten Island Tuesday night after it was announced that Barack Obama was elected president when he was brutally assaulted by four white men. Kamara tells the Daily News: "I see the car coming. They looked at me and said, 'Obama!' They were not happy. They had hoodies on. They started hitting me with bats and my body started vibrating." Luckily, Kamara was able to break away and hide until the thugs left; his mother, who moved with Ali to Staten Island from Liberia in 2000, showed the News a bloody towel she used to staunch his wounds.

The NYPD's Hate Crime Task Force is investigating the attack as a bias crime.

Don't miss these pictures. I don't know that my tear ducts can take much more...

Richard Kim at The Nation has a great article up up about why Proposition 8 passed in California - specifically, he battles back against the notion that people of color are responsible for the conservative win.

Thousands in LA protest Prop 8. Pic via Lesbian Dad.

The passage of Proposition 8, which will amend California's constitution to define marriage as between a man and a woman, was a devastating loss.

Thousands of protesters took to the street on Wednesday night, and over a thousand protested outside of a Mormon temple yesterday afternoon - the Mormon Church bankrolled a big portion of the proposition's campaign.

For more, see The Advocate for videos of Wednesday night's protest.

In related news, AMERICAblog reports that famed attorney Gloria Allred will file a lawsuit against Proposition 8:

Attorney Gloria Allred and her clients, Robin Tyler and Diane Olson, will hold a news conference today November 5, 2008 at 12:00 noon at 6300 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 1500 L.A. to announce a new lawsuit against Prop. 8. Prop. 8 intended to ban same gender marriages in California.

Ms. Allred and her law firm represented the couple in their victory before the California Supreme Court. Her clients became the first to marry in Los Angeles County in June.

It's so depressing that the same country that elected Obama could be so unbelievably hateful towards gay Americans. But I think Pam says it best:

If victories make us complacent, it is our defeats that rally us to a new level of community and activism. We stood up after mortal blows from Anita Bryant pushing her anti-gay vitriol in Florida. We rallied to the bedside of Matthew Shephard in his family's time of tribulation. More recently, we re-committed our vows to protect our youngest members in the wake of the murder of Lawrence King by a fellow classmate. In the wake of the passage of Prop 8, we see now and will see another historic re-awakening of our community.

I've seen lots of videos of the election night celebrations, but this one from Jay Smooth is by far my favorite.

Yes we did!

Pic from :tiOn: wanna glitza*.

Leah, a blogger at the college anti-feminist organization the Network of Enlightened Women, has the following gem of wisdom to share about Obama's win:

This certainly is a historic night and only time will tell if this is to be a historic night for change a new generation has been hoping for or a night of change the founders feared hundreds of years ago.

Um, for serious? That is fucked.

The Feministing editors are getting over last night's festivities and I'm on my way to Ramapo College to speak, so things may be a little slow here this morning. So talk it up in comments in the meantime...how is everyone feeling?!

Also a reminder that the awesome event we plugged earlier this week, The Day After: A Feminist Town Forum, has switched locations for those of you attending in person in Boston. The new venue is:

LESLEY UNIVERSITY AMPITHEATER
1815 Mass. Ave in Cambridge

And of course, those of you who can't make it in person, check the Feministing homepage at 7pm EST tonight to follow the conversation virtually.

Obama wins! OMFG! I don't know that I ever thought I'd write these words, but here it is: The US has elected its first African-American President. And I'm an emotional mess. Like many of you, I'm celebrating with family. I'm sure I'll have more to say tomorrow, but for now, I'm going to go do a happy dance and cry some more with my nearest and dearest.

In the meantime, let us have it in comments!

MSNBC and others are reporting that the proposed abortion ban in South Dakota has failed. Woot!

Make sure to send your thanks to Planned Parenthood Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota and the South Dakota Campaign for Healthy Families!

Rebecca Traister brings us this great video of kids voting - it's cute, it's heart-warming, and it takes away some of my election night jitters.

Click to enlarge

I'm super excited to announce that we've revamped our comments section to make them more organized, and more community-friendly. Here are the new functions in comments; let us know what you think!

Threaded comments: This means you can not only reply to the post, but you can reply to a particular comment (like I did above). This will help the conversations to stay more organized.

Rated comments: Similar to recommending posts, this "liked or disliked" function allows readers to put their two cents in about comments as well. I find this really helpful because if you don't have time to read a long thread, you can choose to ignore the comments that got a lot of low ratings from the community and focus on the higher rated ones. I think it's also a great way for the community to help moderate the thread.

Reporting abuse: Speaking of moderating...anyone who is a regular Feministing reader knows that we still have our fair share of problems with trolls. And now that we also have the Community site to moderate, it's become even more difficult to keep track of all the active threads. Here's where you come in. If you see a troll or an abusive comments, simply click on "report abuse." It will immediately send us email with a link to that comment. That email will also tell us what user reported abuse, so abusing the abuse button (heh) isn't possible.

Please let us know how you like the new format... And we're planning on bringing you more new additions to the site in the coming weeks, so be on the look out!

Obama, responds to the latest manufactured controversy from the McCain camp:

"I don't know what's next. By the end of the week, he'll be accusing me of being a secret communist because I shared my toys in kindergarten. I shared my peanut butter and jelly sandwich."

And irritates me to no end: When you do a Google search of "Obama," the top related search is "obama citizenship." Wait, it gets worse:

Please tell me everything is going to be okay. Please?

The fabulous National Advocates for Pregnant Women reminds us why voting pro-choice is so important - to all women.

Please pass this video along to your friends and run it on your blog, website, or social networking profile!

Ad appearing on NYC subway, via bxlee.

The folks at Manhattan Mini-Storage, who we just love for their pro-choice ads that caused a ruckus a while back, now have an anti-Palin ad up in New York.

Gothamist has more.

Remember anti-feminist Roy Den Hollander, who is suing Columbia University over its Women's Studies classes? Well the school has struck back, filing a motion to dismiss the suit, saying it "reads like a parody."

Now this is rich. Kevin Burke, a proponent of the invented "post abortion syndrome," writes that the criticism of Sarah Palin "may have a relationship to the collective grief, shame, and guilt from personal involvement in the abortion of an unborn child." Here I thought voters made decisions based on the issues that matter to them - little did I know that women across the country who don't support Palin are simply depressed about all of those abortions we've been having!

Burke gets even classier when he brings Palin's pregnant teen daughter into the mix:

If Bristol Palin had quietly aborted, Sarah Palin would have been spared the politically untimely focus on this very personal family issue. The problem would have quietly gone away. But Bristol, like countless post abortive women, would have paid a high price to protect her mother from the political heat that her pregnancy brings to the campaign. We know from our work with thousands of women who feel pressured to abort for various reasons that she would surely suffer many of the common post-abortion symptoms; depression, promiscuity, drug and alcohol abuse, sleep disorders, and relational problems. But she would have suffered in silence; no one would know her secret. No one would acknowledge that she has reason to grieve or have symptoms after abortion. Sarah Palin would have lost not only her precious grandchild...she likely would have lost her daughter Bristol to the silent ravages of post abortion suffering.

Wow, given that one in three American women will have an abortion in her lifetime - there must be millions of tired, addicted, slutty, depressed, single women running around voting Democrat!

Seriously, conservatives need to get their heads out of their asses - and out of our uteruses. (Sorry, not the best visual.)

Part 2 after the jump.

Via Jack and Jill Politics.

Heart disease is the leading cause of death for American women, but according to Consumer Reports many women could be in danger because of a misdiagnoses:

If you have chest pain, breathlessness or an irregular heartbeat, you'd expect your doctor to check you out for heart disease. But if you're a woman, it's possible that might not happen. Instead, you might be told your symptoms are caused by stress.

A study presented at a recent conference looked at decisions made by 230 experienced American physicians. The study showed that doctors were more likely to put these symptoms down to stress if a woman appeared anxious, or if they knew she had been through stressful events.

When the same symptoms were presented for men, the doctors didn't relate it to stress - and instead indicated that they would send the man to a cardiologist or start him on heart medication. Scary.

It seems pretty widely known that heart disease is not just a health issue that impacts men, so I'm curious as to why the participants in this study were so quick to attribute symptoms to stress. Does it have something to do with the longstanding tradition of labeling women as neurotic? (Just putting it out there...)

For more information on women and heart disease, click here, here, and here. Also check out the Go Red for Women campaign.

Thanks to Meredith for the link.