Results matching “purity balls”

Feminist backlash: Better than spinach!

Via Wendy Norris at RH Reality Check, we find out that the Christian conservative think tank Family Research Council wants dudes to be more manly. Apparently, the way men become more manly is by fighting back against feminism.

According to the seminar description on "The New Masculinity," Pat Fagan, senior fellow and director of FRC's Center for Family and Religion, will discuss how "feminism has wreaked havoc on marriage, women, children and men. It is time to redress the disorder it has wrought and that must start with getting the principles and ideals for a new 'masculinism' right."

What always strikes me as odd about conservative discussions of masculinity is how closely they're tied with feminism and a fear of all things 'woman'. As if the only way to be a "man" is to not be a woman. This oppositional definition of masculinity not only seems to give men a pretty short shrift, but also just furthers misogyny. (It reminds me a lot of Stephen Ducat's great book, The Wimp Factor: Gender Gaps, Holy Wars, and the Politics of Anxious Masculinity and its discussion of femiphobia.)

Seriously, why is it that conservative masculinity is completely dependent on misogyny and keeping women in their supposed place? How many purity balls, dates with Dad and anti-feminism diatribes does one need before you feel like a "man"?

The latest Rolling Stone cover seems like a ridiculously apt illustration of what I was reading in Jessica's new book, The Purity Myth, just last night:

Touting girls and girlhood as ideal forms of sexuality is simply another way of advancing the notion that to be desirable, women need to be un-adults--young, naive, and impressionable. Being independent, assured, and grown up has no place in this disconcerting model.

...the 'perfect virgin' is at the center of the movement's rhetoric, and its goals revolve largely around convincing girls that the only way to be pure is to abstain from sex. This means there's an awful lot of talk about young girls' sexuality in the movement, from T-shirts to abstinence classes to purity balls. By focusing on the virginity of young women and girls, the movement is doing exactly what it purports to abhor--objectifying women and reducing them to their sexuality.

Oh, and the totally unsubtle ploy to titillate dudes with girl-on-girl fantasies is duly noted. Really original Rolling Stone.

Thanks to platoformboots for the heads up.

Don't act like you don't love this track.

It is appalling that for a culture as saturated with sex as ours, it is in the arena of education that certain groups want the most censorship and control. Perhaps because it is one institution that parents can have some control over through PTAs, charters and community organizations. It is unfortunate that what is being taught in school isn't matching up to the level at which youth internalize the sex in the media and have sexual experiences whether it be with peers, through pornography, video games or watching movies. Whatever it is, youth are exposed to sex and have a variety of sexual experiences. It is unfortunate that it is not therefore discussed honestly in school.

So I was excited to see this article in the Boston Globe about a church community that teaches real sex ed, you know, the kind that talks about sex.

A joint effort by the Unitarian Universalist Association and the United Church of Christ, OWL aims to help teens understand sexuality. As Detwiler recalls the sessions of three years ago, the pictures demonstrating what sexual intercourse looks like were "shocking to kids, but also helpful. It helped them to grasp another dimension of sexuality." So did the frank discussions about dating norms, the chance to pass around condoms, and informal conversation about the way sex is portrayed in magazines, movies, and music. OWL is among a handful of sex-ed programs that take a position more radical than it may, at first, sound: namely, that sexuality education should actually talk about sex. While events like the spike in teen pregnancies in Gloucester last year or the bulging bellies of youthful pop stars (or Alaskan first daughters) can prompt outcries for better sex ed, most of what we call "sex education" is really about preventing the bad stuff. As one Newton teacher puts it, "It's all been reduced to two issues: teen pregnancy and STDs. That's all really important, but I feel we're losing other important things."

Check out the rest here. This stuff makes sense! Yesterday in the Yes means Yes live chat we got into a conversation about sex education teaching youth that their body can be for pleasure and the fear that that promotes among some parents that this is somehow "pro-sex" or "pornographic." Let's face it, youth are going to do exactly what you are "afraid" of. It is an unfortunate reality that many Americans are afraid of sex that is for the purpose of pleasure, yet our media is obsessed with sexuality (often to the point of sexualizing women.) Schizophrenia anyone?

RELATED:
One more time with feeling: Virginity pledges don't work.
Knocked up by Gossip Girl?
Abstinence shocker: Engaged couples don't want to forgo sex.
Pure lies: Inaugural Edition
Time Magazine hearts Purity Balls
The hypocrisy of abstinence-only education.

I was really glad to see that The New York Times picked up on the misplaced moral panic over teenage sex.

Parents have worried for generations about changing moral values and risky behavior among young people...

...The talk show host Tyra Banks declared a teen sex crisis last fall after her show surveyed girls about sexual behavior. A few years ago, Oprah Winfrey warned parents of a teenage oral-sex epidemic.

The news is troubling, but it's also misleading. While some young people are clearly engaging in risky sexual behavior, a vast majority are not. The reality is that in many ways, today's teenagers are more conservative about sex than previous generations.

But what reporter Tara Parker-Pope left out is that this isn't just about panic over teen sex - it's about about panic over girls having sex.

After all, it's not boys who are being called prostitots and "girls gone wild." It's not boys who are targeted by abstinence only education and purity balls. And it's definitely not boys who have been the subject of books like Prude, Unhooked and Girls Gone Mild. It's us.

But that aside, it was refreshing to see a story about how well young people are doing. And they are. Teenagers are using contraception more (if they haven't been privy to abstinence only education, of course, in which case they don't use contraception and have increased rates of oral and anal sex) and more effectively.

Now if we could just get the media (and conservatives, and anti-feminist authors) to stop obsessing over young women's sex lives...

Well, this is just rich. According to this commentary by Kathryn Lopez for the Washington Times, the reason abstinence-only education doesn't work isn't just because of our slutty, sex-obsessed culture, but because we don't respect teens enough to make their own choices. Because apparently, giving them only one choice is respecting their ability to choose. Huh?

But the problem goes beyond lumping in a simple, cut-and-dried oath with the complicated issue of abstinence education. The conundrum boils down to this: It's not all about sex. It's no shock to anyone who understands human nature, never mind kids, that any virginity pledge that fixates on brute carnal relations is not going to work. Repeating the mantra "Don't do it," even when you've got a teen doing the repeating, isn't enough. How could it work? Popular culture is obsessed with sex. We can't even manage a family dog movie ("Marley & Me") without Jennifer Aniston taking off her clothes. And until that changes, of course, a hormone-mad teenager will be sorely tempted to join in the seemingly ubiquitous fornication, pledge or no pledge.

So naturally, abstinence-only education and purity pledges that focus on brute carnal relations will work? Seriously, am I missing something? She is setting up the perfect rationale for why her agenda is failing. Failing, as in-it-has-been-proven-over-and-over-again, that is doesn't work. But I digress.

Does that mean we pass out condoms at school because we're not going to change the culture anytime soon? No. It means kids need support and reasons engage in activities other than sex. Abstinence has to be about saying "yes" to something in order to work. We need to focus on the idea kids can actually think, and should want more from a relationship than sex. We need to be open to programs that aren't all about copulation, but about character education.

What is up with the fear that passing out condoms in schools means all other extra-curricular activity will stop? That condoms are somehow promoting sex? Young people are having sex, with or without condoms.

Read the rest, mainly for the humor value and all the blatant contradictions.

RELATED:
One more time with feeling: Virginity pledges don't work.
Knocked up by Gossip Girl?
Abstinence shocker: Engaged couples don't want to forgo sex.
Pure lies: Inaugural Edition
Time Magazine hearts Purity Balls

Tracy Clark-Flory has a really interesting piece up at Salon about the chastity industrial complex that's so pervasive these days--abstinence only education, a slew of books about the "dangers" of hooking up, and purity balls among the primary culprits. I really like Clark-Flory's take because she's not afraid of getting personal.

I'm a 24-year-old member of the hookup generation -- I've had roughly three times as many hookups as relationships -- and, like innumerable 20-somethings before me, I've found that casual sex can be healthy and normal and lead to better adult relationships.

So many of the people arguing that "casual" sex (what they really mean is pre-marital) hurts young women rely on stories from college girls about how sucky it is not to have a boyfriend or how having "friends with benefits" made them depressed. So it's nice to see some anecdotal battle-back!

Some of you may already know that I'm working on a book about this culture of purity and chastity, and how it's America's obsession with virginity, not Girls Gone Wild and hooking up, that's fucking young women up. And Clark-Flory's piece really gets to some important themes:

[P]erhaps young women are putting feminist ideals of equality into sex by refusing shame and claiming the traditionally male side of the stud/slut double standard. Also, the idea that a woman has to test a man by withholding sex -- as many abstinence advocates actually argue -- relies on a paradigm of inequality in which women are forced to rely on such desperate power plays. It isn't that feminism has taught women to have sex like men, as the argument commonly goes, but that withholding sex isn't women's sole superpower; coitus isn't women's kryptonite.

I'd just add (because it's all I'm thinking about these days!) that there are two things that really, really get to me about the chastity crap.* The first is how it's assumed that women don't like sex, but that we're just using it to get what we really want--husbands and stability. Women liking sex never enters the equation with purity-pushers; if we're having pre-marital sex we're either self-hating or fooling ourselves. And if we do actually enjoy sex (the horror!), then we're simply bad people--sluts and whores the lot of us! And that's the second thing that bugs me--how these books put a moral value on sex, specifically the sex that women have. They've taken the joy out of sex, and commodified it (I'm "saving" it! I'm "worth" the wait!) more than any Girls Gone Wild commercial ever could.

*And no, I'm not saying being chaste is crap, but the way that it's presented to young women as an either or--chastity/promiscuity, good/bad--is incredibly crappy.

Pic from Time.

I nearly lost my mind when I read this gushing piece from Time Magazine about purity balls.

What was amazing to me about the reporting of this article was despite hearing all of these creepy anecdotes - and admitting that girls as young as four are participating in a ceremony about their virginity - writer Nancy Gibbs still managed to be smitten over the whole shebang. (One of the subheads actually reads 'A Delicate Dance')

But first...a creepy anecdote.

Kylie Miraldi has come from California to celebrate her 18th birthday tonight. She'll be going to San Jose State on a volleyball scholarship next year. Her father, who looks a little like Superman, is on the dance floor with one of her sisters; he turns out to be Dean Miraldi, a former offensive lineman with the Philadelphia Eagles. When Kylie was 13, her parents took her on a hike in Lake Tahoe, Calif. "We discussed what it means to be a teenager in today's world," she says. They gave her a charm for her bracelet--a lock in the shape of a heart. Her father has the key. "On my wedding day, he'll give it to my husband," she explains. "It's a symbol of my father giving up the covering of my heart, protecting me, since it means my husband is now the protector. He becomes like the shield to my heart, to love me as I'm supposed to be loved."

Paging Dr. Freud! But Gibbs is loving it.

Leave aside for a moment the critics who recoil at the symbols, the patriarchy, the very use of the term purity, with its shadow of stains and stigma. Whatever guests came looking for, they are likely to come away with something unexpected. The goal seems less about making judgments than about making memories.

And making sure young women think their worth is dependent on whether or not they're sexual. So, no Ms. Gibbs, I think I won't "leave aside" that very real and very dangerous message. Thanks anyway!

Gibbs continues to totally miss the point:

Purity is certainly a loaded word--but is there anyone who thinks it's a good idea for 12-year-olds to have sex? Or a bad idea for fathers to be engaged in the lives of their daughters and promise to practice what they preach? Parents won't necessarily say this out loud, but isn't it better to set the bar high and miss than not even try?

Are families who don't expect their daughters to promise their virginity to their dads promoting sex for 12 year-olds? Can't dads be engaged in the lives of their daughters without worrying about the state of their hymen? And is telling women that their moral compass lays in between their legs really setting the bar high?

Flowery language and valorizing these days doesn't change what purity balls are about: the ownership and fetishizing of young girls' sexuality. Perhaps someone should remind Time of that fact.

The New York Times has caught on to the daddy-knows-best-for-your-hymen horror shows that are purity balls.

The first two hours of the gala passed like any somewhat awkward night out with parents, the men doing nearly all the talking and the girls struggling to cut their chicken.

But after dessert, the 63 men stood and read aloud a covenant “before God to cover my daughter as her authority and protection in the area of purity.�

The gesture signaled that the fathers would guard their daughters from what evangelicals consider a profoundly corrosive “hook-up culture.� The evening, which alternated between homemade Christian rituals and giddy dancing, was a joyous public affirmation of the girls’ sexual abstinence until they wed.

Good times! I guess if your dad is going to be pledging ownership over your body, you might as well get some "giddy dancing" in! There's also a creepy slide show to boot.

Picture from The New York Times.

Yeah, yeah, we've heard it a million times: sex sells. It's often used as an excuse for why advertisers use pictures of half-naked women to sell just about every product imaginable. It shouldn't be surprising, then that anti-sex also sells. (via Jezebel) Conservative Christian don't-have-sex publishing has taken off! Publishers Weekly puts the bestsellers into a few broad categories: Chasing Chastity, AIDS Awareness, and Sexual Integrity for Men. Let's take these one by one, shall we?

Chasing Chastity

The article mentions Lies Women Believe, a book by two women who have both written "purity" guides. It's a perfect example of the near-porniness of some "abstinence" writing. The book begins with a description of what was going on in Eve's head when she ate the forbidden fruit (I'm not kidding):

First, I just listened and looked. In my heart, I pondered, I questioned, I debated. Adam had reminded me many times that God had said we must not eat the fruit from that tree. The creature kept looking into my eyes and talking in a soothing voice. I found myself believing him. It felt so right. Finally, I surrendered. I reached out -- cautiously at first, then more boldly. I took, I ate. I handed it to Adam. He ate. We ate together -- first me, then him.

Those next moment are a blur. Sensations deep down inside that I've never had before. New awareness -- like I know a secret I'm not supposed to know. Elation and depression -- at the same time. Liberation. Prison. Rising. Falling. Confident. Afraid. Ashamed. Dirty. Hiding -- I can't let Him see me like this.

Alone. So very alone. Lost. Deceived.

Ah yes, I go through those same feelings every time I eat an apple. We could have a Freudian field day with that passage. I can see this prose causing guilt-ridden titillation -- a surefire recipe for bestseller success.

AIDS Awareness

The abstinence-only crowd promoting "AIDS awareness"? How hypocritical. Just look at what they want to do to PEPFAR (the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief). They basically want to strip everything effective from our international AIDS strategy. It's not so much an anti-sex movement as an anti-health movement.

Sexual Integrity for Men

The no-sex-until-hetero-marriage movement has set up "men's integrity" as the flip side to "women's purity." Hence, you have the hilariously titled "Integrity Balls" for boys, which emphasize not "ruining" your girlfriend for her future husband. See, maintaining women's "purity" should be the goal of both men and women. So again, this isn't so much an argument against sex as an argument against women violating their Eve-like innocence and purity by having sex. Also: This "integrity" line of reasoning has always caused me to wonder: Does this mean dudes can maintain their integrity by just sleeping with other dudes? Makes sense to me.

January
We saw Nancy Pelosi sworn in as the first female Speaker of the House, and watched Hillary Rodham Clinton announce her candidacy for president. Predictably, rampant sexism ensued.

We learned about Purity Balls for dudes, where -- surprise! -- they don't tell boys their self-worth depends on virginity.

Rush Limbaugh and Tony Snow went all feminist police on our asses.

February
Drew Gilpin Faust was named the first woman president of Harvard.

After Camel introduced cigarettes marketed toward women, we wondered: Will the cancer be pink, too?

The Bush administration threatened to axe the budget of the Office on Violence Against Women.

A DePauw University sorority dismissed 23 sisters for being "socially awkward" -- aka overweight, black, Korean, or Vietnamese. Classy. (The sorority was ousted from campus shortly thereafter.)

A Florida town was so embarrassed by the actual name for the female anatomy that it performed the "Hoohah Monologues."

Texas Governor Rick Perry made HPV vaccination mandatory.

March
Bush appointed crazy anti-choicer "Dr." resigned.

We marked the gray rape".

The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that businesses don't have to cover your pills.

We were disgusted by America's Next Top Dead Model. And Dolce and Gabbana pulled its offensive "fantasy rape" ads.

We reminded everyone that it's not ok to make death threats toward feminist bloggers.

The Brooklyn Museum opened a wing dedicated to feminist art.

Texas officially put a price on motherhood: $500.

April
We noted that guys doing housework should be standard practice, not something dubbed "porn for women."

We watched the Duke rape case wind down.

Girls Gone Wild douchebag Joe Francis was ordered to do jail time.

Don Imus made his infamous "nappy-headed hos" comment about the Rutgers women's basketball team.

The Supreme Court upheld the federal law said it all. Leslee Unruh reveled in the shopping-spree-like ecstasy.

Jessica's Full Frontal Feminism hit bookstore shelves! So did Courtney Martin's Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters.

We were honored by Choice USA!

We created a feminist "gang sign."

The Supreme Court said it's totally cool with gender discrimination at work.

May
We tackled patriarchy, violence, and honor killings.

We gently reminded the mainstream media that feminism is not to blame for girls "going wild."

We gently reminded the mainstream media that feminism is not to blame for girls "going wild."

Fashion mags found yet another body part for you to feel insecure about. And we decried the latest in "designer genitalia."

June
We got another reminder that street harassment and catcalls are in fact a big deal.

Jessica rocked the Colbert Report.

Israel partnered with Maxim to "improve" its image by publishing photos of half-naked former Israeli Defense Forces soldiers.

July
We were once again grossed out by Real Dolls, this time by a documentary. Even Ryan Gosling couldn't really take the creepy out of this trend.

Courtney launched her Not Oprah's Book Club feature.

We called out the modesty movement's appropriation of feminism.

Jane magazine went belly up. Luckily, Jezebel was there to take its place.

We pointed out that that dancing girls in bikinis do not equal compelling political discourse.

We noted how race and culture factor into the wedding-industrial complex.

Birth control prices kept going up and up and up.

August

Ohio told women they may have to ask the father's permission to have an abortion.

We recoiled in horror at the concept of "Christian Domestic Discipline."

New York City considered banning the word "bitch."

The Air Force charged a woman with her own rape.

We found out Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary offers a bachelor's degree in ladylike submission.

We celebrated the first anniversary of prescription-free Plan B.

Julia Serano railed against the sexualization of transpeople's motives.

September
We debunked the bullshit concept of a "reverse glass ceiling."

We posted (belatedly) on the Jena 6.

Security guards at a school in upstate New York pulled girls from class to ask if they're menstruating.

Southwest becomes the official airline of Dawn Eden and Wendy Shalit.

Lactivists in 30 states held protests at Applebee's restaurants.

We fought for the new Planned Parenthood clinic in Aurora, Ill.

October
A teenage girl was beaten, expelled and arrested for dropping a piece of cake in the school lunchroom.

We laughed at the idea of hymens as bling.

November
We noted that 30 years of the Hyde Amendment is way, way too many.

We stopped avoiding the issue of porn.

We asked people to use grown-up terms for the female anatomy, not words like "vajayjay."

We demanded that male politicians stop playing the gender card.

Don Imus returned to the airwaves.

The Employment Non-Discrimination Act passed Congress -- without gender identity protections.

We defended our logo

Jessica gave us a sneak peek of her second book.

Anti-choicers attempted to define a fertilized egg as a person.

We won a Bloggers' Choice Award for Best Political Blog!

December
Wal-Mart tells girls their honey pot is their money pot -- but later stops selling the offensive panties!

R.I.P.
We mourned the deaths of activist Yolanda King, writer Molly Ivins, Pakistani minister Zil-e-Huma Usman, Jamaican diplomat Angela King, author Madeleine L'Engle, The Body Shop founder Anita Roddick, civil rights hero Irene Morgan Kirkaldy, feminist health pioneer Lorraine Rothman, former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto.

Offensive Quotes of the Year
“She got what she wanted. She’s an overtly sexual person.�
-- Defense attorney Al Stokke, whose client, a cop from Irvine, CA, ejaculated on a woman (who happened to work as a stripper) during a routine traffic stop.

"You don't get there when you're young," he said. "There's a considerable amount of lag time."
--Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, after being asked why the Court has just one female justice.

"By getting married, the woman has consented to sex, and I don't think you can call it rape."
--Anti-feminist Phyllis Shlafly

"I like lesbians, but they shouldn't be allowed to run for king."
-- Erich Logan, 18, on the first transgender high school student to run for prom king.

"I think 'rape and incest' is a buzzword."
-- South Dakota state Rep. Joel Dykstra

"If we took away women’s right to vote, we’d never have to worry about another Democrat president. It’s kind of a pipe dream, it’s a personal fantasy of mine, but I don’t think it’s going to happen."
-- Right-wing hack Ann Coulter

"If you believe abortion, if you believe that doesn't affect you... I contend it affects you in immigration. If we had those 40 million children that were killed over the last 40 years, we wouldn't need the illegal immigrants to fill the jobs that they are doing today. Think about it."
-- Disgraced former Rep. Tom DeLay, speaking to college Republicans.

"I'm not, like, a crazy feminist. I think women definitely need men. Like, I couldn't imagine having a girlfriend!"
-- Hilary Duff

"Do you find it difficult to debate a woman?"
-- MSNBC's Chris Matthews, to Democratic presidential candidate Chris Dodd

"I love when my laundry gets so clean/ Taking care of my home is a dream, dream, dream!"
-- The Rose Petal Cottage advertising jingle

I'm getting pretty sick and tired of antiquated notions of chastity and purity being touted as "revolutionary." I'm sorry, folks--there's nothing cutting edge about believing that girls' moral compass resides somewhere in between her legs.

In a recent Chicago Tribune piece on purity balls, reporter Dahleen Glanton refers to girls promising their virginities to their dads and dressing "modestly" as "controversial," a "movement" and "counterculture."

If girls and women really want to rebel against the sexified pop culture that breeds Britney Spears and The Pussycat Dolls, purity balls aren't the way. In fact, they're just more of the same. Pop culture tells women that their bodies are public property and that they have to be sexual in order to be desirable and loved. Purity balls and the like tell women that their bodies are private property (though not our own of course--our bodies belong to our fathers, husbands, and the men in our life) and that they have to be virginal in order to be desirable and loved. In either case women's sexuality belongs to everyone but women. There's nothing counter-cultural or cutting edge about that.

Glanton puts a couple of feminist quotes in her article, but seems to really buy into the notion that purity balls are revolutionary. Hell, she doesn't even seem to question that all of this moral tsk-tsking is directed only at women.

"Girls are going into marriage with 12 sexual relationships. That brings so much baggage and regret that it breaks down the marriage," said Janet Hellige, a volunteer who organizes the biannual Father-Daughter Purity Ball sponsored by The Christian Center in Peoria. "Girls have a wonderful gift to give, and we don't want them to give all of themselves away. What we want them to do is present themselves as a rose to their husband with no blemishes."

Now if that sentiment doesn't make you want to start a revolution, I don't know what will! (Ugh.)

Interestingly, it seems that the purity ball folks are starting to recognize how, well...creepy people are finding these events.

I never get tired of purity ball stuff. Note the pink boxes (ahem) on the table--I believe they're what the girls give to their dads with the pledge. *Shudder*

Everything you ever wanted to know about men's rights activists, but were afraid to ask.

Hot local Purity Ball action! Organizers say there have been more than a thousand of these things in the past year. And apparently, not all of the sorta similar events for boys are called "Integrity Balls." Some are "a Knight to Remember." Ahahahahaha.

Reviewing Susan Faludi's new book on gender in post-9/11 America. (Terrible headline, huh?)

I have mixed feelings about Newsweek's cover story on women leaders. Check it out for yourself.

"If you are kidnapped or missing, it helps to be the right race, age, social class and gender. Otherwise, don't expect the media to cover your story."

On honor killings in Iraq's Kurdish region.

A Catholic college rents space to a conference on teen pregnancy, and the Catholic hierarchy is not pleased.

On the heels of the WaPo piece, the New York Times notices how white the runways are.

In his new book, Tom Perrotta tackles the "only oral/anal sex until hetero marriage" movement.

The South Dakota Campaign for Healthy Families is knocking on doors, asking people to sign a petition asking the legislature not to consider any more abortion bans. (One local media outlet called this "silencing the debate." As if that were possible.)

Margaret Cho talks about her new show, The Sensuous Woman.

Check out Feministe's hilarious Twelve Days of Christmas Pussy.

Home Depot decides to open stores that cater to the ladies. That is, ladies who aren't into hardware, only home decorating. Or something. And how, um, toolish is the store's name, Her Depot?

A woman is thrown out of the women's bathroom in a New York restaurant because the bouncer wouldn't believe her when she said she was a woman.

On making work/life balance a campaign issue.

Contraception access on college campuses is declining dangerously.

I talked with New Voices magazine about my experience in talking to Al Jazeera English about Israeli's Maxim PR campaign.

On the NY Times Book Review poor history with feminist authors.

"Can evangelicals and liberals come together over abortion, gay rights, and the role of religion in public life?" No.

A judge tells a criminal defense attorney she has a "nice butt" in open court. Classy.

Rebecca Traister sits down for a chat about the movie business with ten powerful Hollywood women.

A pretty general piece on the gender of the Democratic frontrunner...

Vancouver sexworkers are creating a cooperative brothel in anticipation of the 2010 Olympics.

A display honoring those killed by domestic violence was vandalized in Wisconsin. Cara has more.

An appalling story about a guy who raped at least 30 women he met on Match.com.

On the state of abortion rights in the South.

Finally, a group calls out Unilever's hypocrisy.

The declaration from the first-ever Black European Women's Congress

How messed up is the concept of MyFreeImplants.com? Ugh.

More on Nicaragua's first year as a "pro-life" nation. Death toll so far: at least 80 women. (Check out the HRW report for more details.)

"Video vixen" Karrine Steffens talks to NPR.

Marion Jones's admission to using steroids leads Robin Givhan to ruminate on the strength and glamour of female athletes.

What life is like for women in Kashmir.

And more and more and more nooses. Dumi writes, "While these incidents may be isolated in the forensic sense they are bound in the sociological sense by their support of a White supremacist ideology. A noose is not a joke, a noose is not a prank, a noose is a symbol of violence and threat."

I've gotten a TON of emails about this crazy-creepy website, Marry Our Daughter. And while the site has been outed as a hoax site, I think it's worth mentioning. Because there's something severely fucked up about the idea that women are in such a bad place that a site like this seemed like it could be real.

After all, with things like purity balls and abstinence-only education teaching young women that their only value is as future wives--something like this site doesn't seem so far-fetched.

Luckily, the actual purpose of Marry Our Daughter is to bring attention to a somewhat related issue:

Contacted through MarryOurDaughter this morning, [site creator John] Ordover quickly conceded the page was a parody aimed at drawing attention to inconsistencies in state marriage laws. States consider it a crime for adults to have sex with minors, but they allow kids as young as 12 to get married with parental and sometime judicial permission.

Ordover is also a co-creator of the super controversial "Technical Virgin" website that Melanie Martinez was fired over.

So I'm actually kind of pleased about this--assuming that the issue gets some attention. In fact, I wrote about this in my book (shameless plug alert). People are up in arms about teenagers (well, teenage girls) having sex, but only if they're not married. Best example ever: the 13-year old in Nebraska whose parents married her off to the 21 year-old man who got her pregnant. You know, so she'd still be "pure."

UPDATE: Amanda has more. And it's disturbing.

A pastor in Australia who recently pled guilty to raping two of his teenage daughters said he only did it in order to teach them how to be good wives:

The man told the court the sex was not about fulfilling his desires but about teaching his daughters how to behave for their husbands when they eventually married, as dictated in scripture.

Just a thought--how far off is this from Purity Balls?

After all, it's all about fathers owning their daughters' sexuality and preparing them to be "good wives." And while incest isn't explicit in the purity ball madness, it sure is implied. Thoughts?

Yes, yes--I know that a lot of Feministing readers don't expect much from women's magazines. But I'm an optimist. And lately it seems as if magazines like ELLE, Glamour and Marie Claire have stepped it up; they're covering hard news issues, talking about feminism, and supporting great women's organizations.

So I was more than a little disappointed when I looked at this month's Marie Claire only to find a bevy of squirm-inducing stories. Check them out after the jump.

A little birdie tells me Dr. Phil did a show this week about purity balls. Please tell me someone has the video.

Whatevs, Bill. We were so on this before you were.

Female soldiers face threats of sexual violence from within the U.S. military. And MADRE has a new report on gender-baseed violence in Iraq.

I reviewed Laura Sessions Stepp's Unhooked for Campus Progress.

A West Virginia man is sentenced to probation for making threatening phone calls to an abortion clinic.

Kroger grocery stores pledge to ensure that emergency contraception is available to any woman who requests it.

Dove's latest pseudo-feminist ad.

An off-duty airline employee was arrested for ejaculating on a female passenger.

Bulgarian brothel owners say they're having an easier time with staffing these days, because global warming has shortened the ski season and there are fewer resort jobs for young women. This is dubious, to say the least.

After $10,000-worth of fertility treatments, a woman decides shoulder the risks and not to reduce her pregnancy with triplets.

Feminist artists show their work at L.A.'s Museum of Contemporary Art.

Washington legislation will require medically accurate sex ed.

Members of Congress push for increased funding for breast-cancer research.

Dubious Hillary Clinton analysis: Women who don't support her are just afraid the country isn't ready for a woman president. And supposedly she has a lot to learn from Katie Couric's tanking ratings.

It's hard out there for a prominent female physicist.

ABC picks up the Purity Balls story.

Feminism is not responsible for Girls Gone Wild.

1969 counter-protest signage: "Repent, Women!"

A brief cultural history of breasts and bras.

What Sandra Day O'Connor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg have to say about feminism.

Canada wants to prosecute violent "pro-lifer" James Kopp because of a shooting he committed across the border in the 1990s.

California legislation that purports to help women inmates is actually just a way to hand out private-prison contracts.

A new book by Egyptian feminist Nawal al Saadawi is being recalled because it supposedly "offends religion."

Brazil plans to install condom machines in schoools.

The Urban Institute examines the effect that caring for an elderly relative has on women's careers.

Sterva ("bitch") schools in Russia teach women how to be successful in life and land a man. The reporter claims that "these classes are very much about feminism," but it sounds nothing like feminism to me. The lessons include "all Russian women are lonely," "the more a man boasts, the more he should be praised," and "omen have lost their femininity during decades of pursuing careers." But do they teach you how to land a man who won't bet you in a game of poker?

Why does Diane Keaton -- who is truly awesome -- end up in such crappy movies?

Jennifer Baumgardner writes about Purity Balls in this month's issue of Glamour.

The National Women's Law Center just released "Don't Take No for an Answer" (PDF), a guide to pharmacy refusals, policies and practices. It's a great resource.

Bush's budget is requesting another $28 million for abstinence-only education.

Cardio-striptease workouts make their way to China.

Why you should only see doctors who are pro-choice.

The politics of sex selection.

Gloria Steinem points out yet again that women won't vote for Hillary just because she's a woman. Also, of course we're ready for a woman president.

Female athletes are at higher risks for developing eating disorders, so a debate is underway over whether their weight should be made public.

Harvard plans to name its first female president.

A Canadian breast cancer organization refused a donation because it came from a group of exotic dancers.

Virginia Postrel on Dove's "Campaign for Real Beauty."

This year's New York Fashion Week featured a symposium on eating disorders.

Donatella Versace tells Hillary Clinton to stop wearing trousers and dress more feminine. Now can somebody please advise Donatella to put down the bottle of platinum dye and step away from the tanning bed?