August 2005 Archives

I just don't get it. This is the tenth article I’ve seen on sex differences in cell phone use this month, and in my irritation I felt the urge to point out its meaninglessness.

“The first national study of mobile phone users has found 34 per cent of Australian women bought ringtones in the past year compared to 27 per cent of men.

As for games, 15 per cent of men had bought them in the last 12 months, compared to only 10 per cent of females.”

Astounding! Not only are the differences pretty insignificant, but who gives a fuck anyway? Jeez.

In a campaign to expand the range of their products, Amazon.com has recently started selling sex toys. Awesome.

It’s actually a shitload (around 37,000) of sex products, ranging from condoms and lubricants to dildos and vibrators, located in the Health and Personal Care section. Condoms and lubes have been the top sellers of the products, reaching the top 100 best sellers on the site.

So kudos to Amazon for expanding the personal care of their customers! Click here to check out the products o’ pleasure. After all, who can resist when the vibrators are decorated with daisies.

Check out this Salon article, “Why Women Matter,” where the author examines Iraq’s draft constitution and explains why women’s equal rights are essential for the success of a stable democracy.

The author points out that many basic fundamental rights are given to women in the draft, such as the right to vote, to run as political candidates, the right to pass citizenship on to their kids, and 25 percent of parliamentary seats have been set aside for women. Yet there are other parts of the draft where murky language leaves opportunities for oppression:

“For instance, freedom of expression, freedom of the media and freedom of association and peaceful protest are only guaranteed by the state if they do not ‘violate public order and morality.’ A parliament dominated by religious extremists could use this loophole to restrict actions, particularly those of women they deem immoral.

Another provision allows Iraqis to choose whether they will follow secular law or sharia law in family matters, such as marriage, divorce and inheritance. What is not clear, however, is whether men will have the right to make that decision even if their wives and daughters disagree. The power of clerics on the courts is also unclear, especially with regard to their ability to push the adoption of Islamic law and negate the constitution's protections of religious freedom and the rights of women.”

We’ve posted in the past on Iraqi women’s fear of ambiguous language and implementation of Shariah law into the draft, which could leave women’s rights in jeopardy. Looks like this new draft isn’t too far off.

Hmmm...I wonder why. Susan Wood, Director of the Office of Women’s Health and Assistant Commissioner for Women's Health, sent around the following email to her friends and colleagues:

I regret to tell you that I am leaving the FDA, and will no longer be serving as the Assistant Commissioner for Women's Health and Director of the FDA Office of Women's Health. The recent decision announced by the Commissioner about emergency contraception, which continues to limit women's access to a product that would reduce unintended pregnancies and reduce abortions is contrary to my core commitment to improving and advancing women's health. I have spent the last 15 years working to ensure that science informs good health policy decisions. I can no longer serve as staff when scientific and clinical evidence, fully evaluated and recommended for approval by the professional staff here, has been overuled. I therefore have submitted my resignation effective today.

I will greatly miss working with such an outstanding group of scientists, clinicians and support staff. FDA's staff is of the highest caliber and it has been a priviledge to work with you all. I hope to have future opportunities to work with you in a different capacity.

Sincerely,

Susan

Damn! Kudos to her for taking a stand, but this still just makes me sad.

ms. musings points to a report by the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) that says network television still falls short in its depiction of homosexual characters.

Atrios highlights racist media coverage of Katrina. Apparently black people “loot” and white people “find.” Nice.

Meghan O'Rourke at Slate says that there’s nothing wrong with men who don’t want to watch their partners give birth. You know, cause vaginas are gross. Hugo and Amanda respond.

Pam’s House Blend tells us that the latest radical, feminist, homosexual threat is none other than the Girl Scouts. (Move over Sponge Bob!) Bitch PhD, however, insists that it’s coffee we have to worry about.

SistersTalk introduces lesbian superhero Faggot Girl (she promises an interview soon!).

This is so fucking depressing:

In a finding that is likely to intensify the debate over what to teach students about the origins of life, a poll released yesterday found that nearly two-thirds of Americans say that creationism should be taught alongside evolution in public schools.

The poll found that 42 percent of respondents held strict creationist views, agreeing that "living things have existed in their present form since the beginning of time."

Sigh. Who the hell are these respondents? I’m going to go cry into my ice coffee now.

Check out today’s NY Times editorial on the Kansas craziness I wrote about yesterday. Glad to know I’m not the only one freaked out by logic that says statutory rape is all good so long as you get married:

The fact that parents are willing to go along with these unions does not make them right. Chances are that in most of these cases, as apparently happened with Mr. Koso's family, when the parents found out that a baby was on the way, they were eager for the child to be born to married parents. But neither parental nor state approval makes it right to tie a girl as young as 12 to another person in what is supposed to be a lifetime commitment.

The Census Bureau reports that the nation’s poverty rate rose to 12.7 percent of the population last year; there were 37 million people living in poverty, up 1.1 million people from 2003.

Legal Momentum reported last year that women are 40 percent more likely to be poor than men in 2003. (If they come out with another study for the 2004 Census findings, we’ll let you know.) Ninety percent of adult welfare recipients are women.

Yeah, I know. I’m a downer.

As a Women’s Studies baby, this is absolutely terrifying to me:

"Academic freedom" may not sound like an expression to strike fear in the hearts of women's studies departments.

But as more and more schools and states pass legislation based on a document called the Academic Bill of Rights--Pennsylvania most recently joined the list in July--and support builds for it in Congress, many women's studies departments can expect increased intrusion this September.

One national organization is truly alarmed. "If one student believes that only one side of a topic was presented," a grievance could be filed, followed by a lawsuit, warned Ruth Flower, director of the department of public policy and communications at the Washington-based American Association of University Professors. "Women's studies would have to try to litigate or close down," she added, noting that the legal battles could deplete the already meager funding for many women's studies programs and departments.

Women's eNews intern/writer Rachel Corbett goes on to point out that women’s studies isn’t the only discipline in danger:

In a handbook published by Students For Academic Freedom, a Washington group driving the legislative push to restrain what they see as liberal bias on campus, National Campus Director Sara Dogan singles out women's studies--along with cultural studies and English literature--as primary foes of intellectual diversity.

So I guess my BA in English and MA in Women’s Studies makes me like a minion of the intellectual devil...

According to Corbett, 16 states have already introduced “academic freedom” legislation in the past two years, and that the Academic Bill of Rights Resolution is gaining increasing support. She also makes the very good point that proponents of this type of legislation are co-opting progressive language (i.e. diversity, equality) to push a super right-wing agenda.

"There are already mechanisms in place that protect this principle, and they work well," reads a rejoinder from the American Association of University Professors. "Not only is the Academic Bill of Rights redundant, but, ironically, it also infringes on academic freedom in the very act of purporting to protect it."

Super.

What I find hysterical: The people who support this legislation because they think Women’s Studies is “dangerous” are the same folks who argue that it's obsolete. If feminism is dead then why do they need to kill it?

Last month Feministing wrote about a 22 year-old man being brought up on criminal charges in Nebraska for having sex with a 13-year-old girl. The kicker? After she got pregnant, the parents brought her to Kansas where she married the man being charged with her rape. Sigh.

The New York Times covers the same story today, and it only gets more complex (and depressing).

Matthew and Crystal started “dating” when he was 20 and she was 12 years old. Despite Crystal’s mother filing a restraining order (though it seems she didn’t do much else to stop the relationship), Crystal became pregnant. Nebraska doesn’t allow marriages for people under 17 years old, so Matthew and Crystal went to Kansas to get married where children as young as 12 can wed. Nebraska is now bringing charges against Matthew for statutory rape.

"We don't want grown men having sex with young girls," said Jon Bruning, the attorney general. "We make a lot of choices for our children: we don't allow them to vote; we don't allow them to drink; we don't allow them to drive cars; we don't allow them to serve in wars at age 13, whether they want to or not; and we don't allow them to have sex with grown men."

Here’s what kills me: people are pissed that Matthew is being prosecuted because he “did the right thing” by marrying Crystal. Now, I take issue with a lot of consent laws because I don’t think it’s right to imply that a teenage girl can’t make her own decisions about sex. So I’m not going to argue whether their sexual relationship (or any other) was wrong or not. What is fucked up and needs to be addressed is that the only reason folks are backing this guy up is because they got married. If they hadn’t, people would be calling for his head on a platter.

Vanessa's 25th birthday was actually yesterday (I'm such a bad sister), but I was holding out for some pics from her Friday night bash. Alas, we have none as of yet so I'll just have to deal with Vanessa's wrath over stealing this "bass master" picture from her Friendster profile. But really, what are big sisters for if not public embarrassment?

Hopefully we'll have some pictures from her party soon--Samhita was in from San Fran so it was especially fun.

Happy Birthday, Viso--we love you!

Yeah, you heard right. A new law in Texas could mean that docs who perform abortions without parental approval would face capital murder charges.

Find out more at BushvChoice.

New research reports that UK women earn about 27 percent less than their male counterparts.

The biggest gap was in London, where men earned an average of £39,022 and women 35% less at £28,833, salary comparison site PayFinder said.

A spokeswoman said: "Women need to be diligent and take the lead in checking that their pay is fair and equal."

PayFinder's figures were compiled from data given to the site by around 40,000 workers between August 2004 and 2005.

PayFinder spokeswoman CJ Brough said: "Despite the significance to our lives, salaries are a notoriously hush-hush subject.

She described as "nonsense" that gender should be used to determine salary levels.

"Before anyone cites female job choice as a possible cause, PayFinder also shows that regardless of industry and indeed role, men still earn more than women."

If you’re a glutton for punishment like I am, check out all the depressing coverage on the FDA’s bullshit EC delay:

The New York Times: Morning-After Pill: Politics and the F.D.A.

Los Angeles Times: FDA Delays Ruling on 'Morning After' Contraceptive

USA Today: FDA abandons its standards

Bloomberg: FDA Delays Decision on Barr's `Morning After' Pill

Reuters: Regulators delay decision on Barr's 'morning after' pill

Associated Press: FDA Delays Decision on Morning-After Pill

CNN: Morning after pill will have to wait

NPR: Age Issues Delay FDA Ruling on 'Plan B' Pill

This is just too much.

The mayor of one Budapest district wants female City Hall staff to wear miniskirts only if they have "completely perfect legs" and the skirts are no shorter than 2-3 centimeters (about 1 inch) above the knee.

...[Gabor] Mitynan also dislikes crop tops -- popular in Budapest -- saying "few women have well-trained bellies worth showing to people" and wants the city to legislate on stocking thickness, proposing 5-10 denier for summer, 15 for spring and autumn and 20 for winter.

By the way, I couldn’t find a pic of Mitynan, but I’m willing to guess that he isn’t miniskirt-worthy himself.

UPDATE: Thanks to Peter at BlogAds for finding this pic of Mitynan for us. Yeah, that's what I thought.

Some good news!

Nadia Zepeda, whose story the lovely Gwen Beetham brought to you earlier this month, was granted parole. Zepeda was sentenced to five years in prison after being illegally detained and arrested on a bogus drug charge. Zepeda was also beaten and raped while in custody.

Now the next step is to show that Zepeda is innocent. Go to Centro de Derechos Humanos (if you speak Spanish) for more info.

Statistics show that with each child they have, women lose ground on wages when compared to non-mothers.

It's been dubbed the "Mommy Wage Gap":

For the first child a woman has, the wage differential in comparison to nonmothers is from 2 to 10 percent less.

For the second child, the gap is from 4 to 16 percent less than for women with no children.

It's not surprising that the primary caretaker's wages suffer as the family grows. But I can't stand the fact that this conversation never revolves around mothers' and fathers' respective levels of involvement in parenting.

Indeed, polling shows "American workers are divided as to which parent has to work harder to achieve work/life balance."

Oh, come on. If that's really true, then why isn't there a Daddy Wage Gap?

Kentucky governor Ernie Fletcher is considering giving pardons to ten women released from prison in 1995. All the women were in jail for violent crimes against the men that abused them.

Former governor Brereton Jones recommended that the women be freed after he saw a quilt they created depicting their abuse. The quilt was displayed at a state fair ten years ago.

Gov. Fletcher has just asked the Kentucky Commission on Women to review the cases.

As if Monday morning wasn’t bad enough...

The Washington Post reports today that repro rights are doing fairly shitty on a state-level.

This year's state legislative season draws to a close having produced a near-record number of laws imposing new restrictions on a woman's access to abortion or contraception.

An Australian politician resigned today after it came out that he grabbed a female journalist’s ass and called an opponent’s Asian wife a “mail order bride.” And all at one partry! Lovely.

New South Wales Opposition Liberal Party leader John Brogden told a hastily-called news conference that he regretted his “inappropriate” behaviour and would quit the post that could have seen him become state premier.

He denied being drunk at the party thrown for the media by the Australian Hotels Association three weeks ago but admitted drinking six beers to celebrate the recent resignation of the long- ding Premier, Bob Carr.

Um yeah...I think he’s better off saying he was drunk. Does this guy really want to admit that he’s that much of an asshole while sober?

You have got to be kidding me. Still? We still have to wait for a decision?

From the Associated Press:

The government on Friday put off its long-awaited final decision on whether to sell emergency contraception without a prescription, saying the pill was safe to sell over-the-counter to adults but grappling with how to keep it out of the hands of young teenagers.

...The FDA will allow 60 days of public comment on how to take such a step and enforce an age limit.

Um, how about you don’t? Young women are the women who need EC the most. And as we’ve pointed out before, many American teens can get abortions without parental notification or consent--so why in the world would we want to give them a hard time about preventing a pregnancy? I’m too disgusted to write anymore.

As an update to Jessica’s post on the recent study claiming women are less intelligent than men, we’ve found that one of the researchers is not only sexist, but a eugenicist as well.

Lakshmi from The L-Files got the scoop from Atrios on this creepy mofo, Richard Lynn. He has apparently influenced the work of the authors of “The Bell Curve,” and has published works in a number of eugenicist journals. Here’s just a taste of his thoughts:

"What is called for here is not genocide, the killing off of the population of incompetent cultures. But we do need to think realistically in terms of the 'phasing out' of such peoples.... Evolutionary progress means the extinction of the less competent. To think otherwise is mere sentimentality."

People scare me.

Check out NARAL Pro-Choice America's new television ad on John Roberts' appalling record on privacy and choice. The ad highlights a memo he wrote in 1981 to the U.S. Attorney General stating that an established liberty is a "so-called 'right to privacy'," as well as a brief he wrote beseeching the overturn of Roe v. Wade.

NARAL President Nancy Keenan made this statement:

“At this point in our nation’s history, we need a Supreme Court nominee who respects our fundamental right to privacy, freedom, and personal responsibility. John Roberts dismisses our ‘so-called’ right to privacy – letting politicians into the most private decisions of every American and their families. NARAL Pro-Choice America will continue to be a vocal advocate for women’s fundamental freedoms. There is just too much is at stake to let John Roberts become a decisive vote on the Supreme Court.”

Word.

While the Indian Parliament has been pussyfooting around the Women’s Reservation Bill for quite some time, we find that women in India may not have their legislation anytime soon.

Women have been working their asses off in the fight to gain 33 percent of seats in the Lok Sabha and state legislatures, yet the government has had problems coming to a consensus. The government made it clear that they intend to introduce the bill, yet they met on Tuesday and Wednesday concerning the matter and left with differing opinions and no bill signed. Sigh.

On a happier note, Lok Sabha unanimously passed a bill on Wednesday protecting women from all forms of domestic violence, harassment and exploitation from family members.

A Pentagon task force has made an official call to crack down on sexist and misogynistic behavior at U.S. military academies, due to an overload of misconduct and harassment that continues to be ignored.

The panel singled out two academies in particular -- the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, NY and the Naval Academy at Annapolis, MD -- for their continuously crappy treatment of women, and urged for more intense, anti-sexist training.

While they admitted that the academies have improved in addressing some sexual harassment and assault issues, the basic training and education given for these problems was deemed “inadequate.” The academies also tend to avoid admitting women as cadets and midshipmen.

Delilah Rumberg, co-chairwoman of the task force and member of the Pennsylvania Coalition Against Rape, blamed much of these problems on the “sexually permissive civilian culture” effecting the students.

“Sexually permissive” sounds a bit off to me, but I must give props to the task force for making some moves on this.

Feministing wishes the 19th amendment a Happy 85th Birthday today!

In 1971, the U.S. Congress designated this date as “Women’s Equality Day” in recognition of women’s right to vote, which was achieved in 1920.

The National Women’s History Project gives us some ideas of how to celebrate this special day, like praising women in your workplace who have made significant contributions, making timelines and posters to put on display, or putting together a scrapbook about significant women in your community.

While I dig the scrapbook suggestion, these ideas make me feel like I’m in the 5th grade. Does anyone have more innovative and fun ways we could celebrate -- whether it be something small, like blowing a party horn in your sexist co-worker's face, or having a big ole Happy Hour O' Equality?

Ellen Goodman’s most recent column hands out sexism awards. Really great stuff.

Here are my faves:

...Speaking of Danica, it was Formula One boss Bernie Ecclestone who sneered at her, saying: "Women should be dressed in white like all other domestic appliances." To Bernie we award our Superstar in Sexism Prize and a two-week vacation in our favorite appliance: a deep freezer.

Could Tom Cruise chill out too? He wins the Raging Hormonal Imbalance Award for trashing Brooke Shields because she took medication for postpartum depression. We send him our home-brewed antidote for testosterone poisoning.

What, then, should we give Rick Santorum, who worked so hard this year to grasp the much-coveted Backlash Award? First he blamed the problems of families on ''radical feminists," and then he opposed ''artificial birth control" as harmful to women and encouraging sex out of marriage. We send Rick to remedial sex ed class to learn that you don't have to be single or female to use birth control.

As for sexism education, how 'bout them bureaucrats? We give the Male-practice Award to those folks who approved Medicaid payments for Viagra, etc., to 800 sex offenders. Our gift to them: all the side effects on the Viagra label.

I just love that Goodman manages to get Tom Cruise in there. Make sure to check out the whole piece. (Keep an eye out for a similar brand of awards coming out soon from Feministing and Alternet’s L-Files.)

This is just awesome.

Curly Grrlz Board Sports is a skateboard company created with the sole purpose of providing girls with awesome skateboards and accessories.

Ever wonder why girls had to skate on guys skateboards or why nobody ever made cool skateboards for girls? So did we! That’s why we did. These aren’t spin-offs from a boy’s line, mind you, but are specifically designed for girls.

Sweet. The Curly Grrlz site also features accessories, a blog, a Curly Grrlz street team, pics of girls doing their thing, and an “emerging talent” section where the coolness of 9 year-olds will put you to shame.

I had a skateboard when I was 8 years old; it was pink and black and had flamingoes on it and I fucking loved it. Unfortunately, I was never a graceful child and busted my ass pretty much immediately. My subsequent skateboarding endeavors were limited to riding around my block sitting on the board. Yes, I am that lame.

Props to Gwen for letting me know about this. (Though I'm jealous, Curly Grrlz sent her a sticker that says "Girls NOT skateboarding is a crime." I want it.)

Women's eNews ran an interesting story today on the plight of the female DJ. Apparently, while hired less often and compensated less well, women are breaking into the DJing profession at a steady rate. The article states:

...[W]omen are heading to DJ school in record numbers. For example, when the pre-eminent Scratch DJ Academy opened in Manhattan in 2002, the male-female student ratio was 80-20. Now, says Mike Cannady, the academy's director, "Our courses are about a 50-50 split between men and women. We just opened up an academy in Los Angeles, which was about 50-50 from the start. I think this shows a major change in the DJ industry as a whole."

One explanation for the influx of women DJs is the creation of female collectives and support groups sprouting up in the community. Groups like Sister SF, Shejay, and Girlsdj.com help female DJs get gigs, vent their collective frustration at the sexism of the industry, and network with other like-minded women.

If you're interested in spinning records but not sure where to start, you're now a click away from finding hundreds of women to help.

This photo (from the Associated Press) made my day.

Bill Moyer, 73, wears a "Bullshit Protector" flap over his ear while President George W. Bush addresses the Veterans of Foreign Wars.

You just know that this guy is a bad ass. He’s that grandpa who makes you pull his finger every time you see him, gets drunk as shit at all family occasions and has no problem telling your obnoxious uncle to go fuck himself. And you love him for it.

Via Wonkette.

From ABC News in Australia:

A Melbourne court has heard a man killed his former lover as revenge for the abortion of his child and the relationship breakdown.

In his opening address Crown prosecutor Douglas Trapnell told the jury Anita Pochopien, 32, was killed in cold blood in the driveway of her Chadstone home in April last year.

Pisey Praseour is charged with her murder.

This is just so sad.

Hey, why beat around the bush and just focus on math and science? Turns out men are just smarter, period.

A study to be published later this year in the British Journal of Psychology says that men are on average five points ahead on IQ tests.

Paul Irwing and Professor Richard Lynn claim the difference grows when the highest IQ levels are considered.

...Dr Irwing, a senior lecturer in organisational psychology at Manchester University, told the Today programme on BBC Radio Four that up until the age of 14, the study showed there was no difference between the IQs of boys and girls.

"But beyond that age and into adulthood there is a difference of five points, which is small but it can have important implications," he said.

Excuse me if I don’t take this very seriously. When I used to teach SAT classes for The Princeton Review, the biggest lesson was to make sure kids knew that the only thing the SAT measured was how well you took the SAT. I’d say I feel the same way about IQ tests. You can’t define intelligence by a test. Especially when factors like sex, class and race discrimination aren’t taken into account.

But the study’s authors believe that their research shows why men outnumber women in “achieving distinctions of various kinds, such as chess grandmasters, Fields medallists for mathematics, Nobel prize-winners and the like.” Of course. Here I thought that systemic sexism and discrimination were to blame for the disparity. Turns out, women are just big dummies.

Just came back from my first eye exam in over a decade and my eyes are numb and creepy feeling. So I just can’t bring myself to stare at the computer screen for as long as it would take me to write a full post. Instead, I’ll leave you with this interesting blog-related question from Trish Wilson (via The Heretik):

What women of the past would have been a killer blogger in her day?

I say Mata Hari...though the whole blogging spy secrets thing probably wouldn’t have worked out too well.

Ohio has joined the shameful ranks of Indiana and Kansas in its attempt to seize women’s private medical records. You know, to look for crimes and stuff.

Read more at BushvChoice.

The AP reports that new research from scientists at the University of California, San Francisco has found that fetuses cannot feel pain until around the seventh month of pregnancy -- 28 weeks. And as a result of their findings, these scientists are recommending that doctors not be required to discuss fetal pain with women seeking first and second-term abortions.

Anti-choice Senator Sam Brownback (R-Kan) introduced legislation earlier this year that would "require doctors to inform women seeking abortions after the 22nd week of gestation that their fetus feels pain and offer to anesthetize the fetus." Brownback says that in light of the new study he's gearing up for "a robust debate." (sigh). I bet he is...

Check out the full article for details on the study...

On August 26, 1920 the 19th Amendment was ratified, making Friday the 85th anniversary of women's right to vote. To commemorate the big day, the Library of Congress has created a web-based slideshow of 448 photos documenting the suffrage movement.

The National Woman’s Party, representing the militant wing of the suffrage movement, utilized open public demonstrations to gain popular attention for the right of women to vote in the United States. Women of Protest: Photographs from the Records of the National Woman's Party presents both images that depict this broad range of tactics as well as individual portraits of organization leaders and members. The photographs span from about 1875 to 1938 but largely date between 1913 and 1922. They document the National Woman’s Party’s push for ratification of the 19th Amendment as well as its later campaign for passage of the Equal Rights Amendment. This online presentation is a selection of 448 photographs from the approximately 2,650 photographs in the Records of the National Woman’s Party collection, housed in the Manuscript Division of the Library of Congress.

The site also has a timeline of movement and an essays section that includes a historical overview of the National Women’s Party, profiles of selected leaders and tactics of the suffrage campaign.

Enjoy the slideshow, rent Iron Jawed Angels, and toast your right to vote!

Christine at ms. musings points to Gloria Steinem’s stint as a contributor to NPR's This I Believe. So go listen to Steinem's essay, "A Balance Between Nature and Nurture," or read it here.

Here’s the first bit (to get you all excited and shit):

Is it nature or is it nurture, heredity or society? In that great debate of our time, conservatives lean toward the former and liberals toward the latter.

I believe both are asking the wrong question. I believe it's nature and nurture, and this is why.

Now go read the rest.

The National Review Online loves them some boobies. So much, in fact, that they actually have an entire article devoted to whining about feminists trying to take away their boobilicious fun.

Author Sally Satel (who recently wrote a book with Christina Hoff Sommers—that should tell you a lot) fancies herself quite the comedienne:

The Breastapo are at it again, trying to dictate what American women should and shouldn't do with their breasts. On August 9 they were at the National Press Club, speaking out against the recent FDA decision to approve marketing of silicone breast implants (under FDA negotiable conditions) for cosmetic augmentation. The National Council of Women's Organizations hosted the event and featured speakers from the National Organization of Women, the National Women's Health Network, and Public Citizen, among others.

We are "so concerned about this... because it is uniquely a women's issue," said Martha Burk, spokeswomen for all women "and it uniquely affects the health and lives of many, many women. No one wants another Dalkon Shield." "They're making women sick," Kim Gandy of NOW weighed in. "Women will risk a lifetime of grave complications from faulty breast implants because the Bush administration and their appointees value short-term profits over women's long-term health."

Satel’s argument is basically breast implants aren’t that dangerous, and that feminists are just ruining everyone’s fun. I mean who really minds a little silicone leakage, right? What’s more disturbing than her dismissive attitude towards the health risks involved with breast implants is that her concern over this issue seems more about her anti-feminism than anything else:

The objections of the Breastapo are driven by feminist body politics which say that women should love their bodies as they are, not change them to please men. Apparently, in the feminist mind, a woman only has the right to choose what she does to her body as long as she chooses the "right" thing.

This argument is sooo tired. I must have missed the part where Gandy and Burk argued that saline breast implants and plastic surgery in general should be outlawed. Please. Feminists trust women to make their own decisions about their bodies. But we also intend to hold the government accountable when they put dangerous products out there.

Related: FDA, Bush administration favors fake tits

This is just too great. The Independent Women’s Forum (the anti-feminists we love to hate) is holding an essay contest for women undergraduates:

Please discuss your experience on college campus as an independent woman. How has your college or university helped or hindered your intellectual and personal growth? Please describe what you think it means to be an independent woman in the year 2005.

Ampersand thinks that feminist undergrads should enter the contest and find out just how despicable you have to be to win some IWF cash. (He even gives some genius sample essay themes.)

This totally reminds me of this piece of shit I just saw in The Washington Times, Foibles of feminism. It’s written by Danielle Sturgis, University of Iowa student and recipient of the Phillips Foundation Clare Boothe Luce Journalism Award from the Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute. If you’re unfamiliar with the Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute--whose mission is to “prepare young women for effective conservative leadership”-- just check out their terrifying Great American Conservative Women Calendar. (Oh yes, it’s back.)

After taking one women’s studies course, Sturgis decides that feminism is yucky. She explains as much to high school students at a “mentoring luncheon”:

“Harmless” is perhaps the perfect description of how feminist activity seems to those, like my high school lunch companions, who have yet to experience the hateful wrath of the actual movement.

...After the mentoring lunch, a ninth-grader wrote to me, "I learned that most feminists are very confused." I couldn't have put it better myself.

Sturgis’ analysis of her class (oh, I’m sorry--the hateful wrath of feminism) is the same old tired crap, it just upsets me that some high school girl may be forever warped because of it. All of a sudden I want to start a feminist mentoring group...

Oh how I love good news. The Washington Post reports that federal funds have been withdrawn from the Silver Ring Thing abstinence program because the org has been using tax money for religious activities. An abstinence program pushing religion? You don’t say...

Teenage graduates of the program sign a covenant "before God Almighty" to remain virgins and earn a silver ring inscribed with a Bible passage reminding them to "keep clear of sexual sin." Many of its events are held at churches.

In filings with the Internal Revenue Service, the organization describes its mission as "evangelistic ministry" with an emphasis on "evangelistic crusade planning."

Spokespeople from the Silver Ring Thing say that they are a faith-based group, but maintain that they didn’t use public funds for their religious activities:

"Any religious teaching that goes on is separate in time and place from what the government is funding," said Joel Oster, senior litigation counsel at the Alliance Defense Fund, which is representing the Silver Ring Thing. "They offer a religious program and they offer a secular program; kids can choose which one they want to go to."

In an advertisement on its Web site for a set of educational materials on DVD, Silver Ring Thing promises: "A secular program is also in development."

Sure it is. While I’m certainly pleased that the group won’t be getting federal funding (at least for the time being), it annoys me that the only reason they’re getting cut off is because of the whole God-loves-virgins thing. What about the fact that abstinence programs give out false and potentially dangerous information? I guess we can let that one go...

A new study to be published in the journal Stress, Trauma, and Crisis, says that women professors are more stressed out than their male counterparts.

The study, conducted by education professors Jennifer L. Hart of the University of Missouri at Columbia and Christine M. Cress of Portland State University, also says that women’s stress levels are justified. (Often, the report says, women professors’ stress is attributed to women just being “worrywarts.” Lovely.)

Such data could, of course, be read as a comment on how women experience stress, not whether they are justified in feeling more of it. But the authors of the study then went to examine university records on teaching loads, and they found that women there, on average, are doing more teaching than are men.

The data found that female full professors taught more courses and independent study units than did their male counterparts. At the associate professor level, men taught more regular courses, but far fewer independent units. And at the assistant level, men and women were equal in teaching regular courses, but women taught more independent units.

In interviews, the researchers found that women cited a variety of reasons for their increased workloads and stress associated with students, and many women attributed much of the problem to sexist patterns or attitudes — from their colleagues or students.

The article report also lists recommendations to improve women professors’ stress levels.