April 2006 Archives
ABC News fuels the "Mommy Wars." Meanwhile, more firms are staying in touch with prized workers who took maternity leave.
Some Bach works may actually have been written by his second wife.
Women cleaners are suing the NY Stock Exchange for sexual harassment. The $51-million lawsuit alleges one woman was told, "Baby, you need some beef on that ass and then you would be perfect for me."
A group of gay gun enthusiasts call themselves the Pink Pistols. Their motto? "Armed gays don't get bashed." (Has it come to this?)
Kenya considers passing its version of a Violence Against Women Act. It took female legislators to make this happen.
A sex worker (who's also a blogger and author) may be changing Brazilian attitudes toward sex.
Rick Santorum holds a forum for professional women, and manages not to mention he thinks they all should be stay-at-home moms.
After a judge denied a Department of Justice motion to reduce charges against three of four US marines accused of raping a 22-year-old Filipina in November, the four accused refused to file a plea during their arraignment.
More than a third of American women are clinically obese.
NYPD cracks down on brothels in Queens, and undercovers a major sex slavery problem.
Many breast cancer survivors stop getting mammograms.
Prohibitively high prices for sanitary towels are forcing thousands of women in Zimbabwe to use old newspapers, rags, tissue paper or even leaves during menstruation. Vaginal infections have increased as a result.
Chastity jewelry makes the perfect present for Daddy's Lil' Virgin. Shudder.
The Duke rape case is being tried in the court of public opinion.
Womens E-News covers the REAL hot 100!
Headlines read: “Duke Lacrosse Stripper Cried Rape Before!� and “Duke Lacrosse Gang Rape Accuser Made Similar Claim in ‘96.� Shocker.
News has come out that the woman who alleges that three Duke students raped her filed a report ten years ago that she was raped by three men. Which clearly means she's lying. You know, because women can't get raped more than once.
The report was made ten years ago, the case was totally different from this one, and the woman said she didn’t press charges because she was in fear for her life--yet the defense will naturally use this as a way to discredit her accusation. (Rape shield laws may prohibit the information from being given to the jury.)
For continuing coverage, go to Justice 4 Two Sisters.
While we’re some years away from actually have male contraception on the market, it’s exciting to see some coming to reassuring conclusions concerning its testing.
Over 1,500 men have taken part in tests for male hormonal contraception, and on average, it took only about 3-4 months for men to gain their fertility back.
Dr. Peter Liu from the Los Angeles Research Biomedical Institute has looked at 30 studies on male hormonal contraception, and came to the conclusion that the two forms that have been tested, an implant and an injection, are both safe and effective.
"Our data provide strong assurance that the previously described efficacy of hormonal male contraceptives is coupled with highly predictable recovery to sperm characteristics that are compatible with fertility.These findings thereby increase the promise of new contraceptive drugs allowing men to share more fairly the satisfaction and burden of family planning."
Good shit.
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I happened to see a billboard a few blocks away from house the other day and almost barfed. While I’ve listened to New York’s 92.3 KROCK’s music here and there, I was a bit shocked to see a huge picture of the woman above, The RadioChick, and the two sentences that threw me for a loop.
“Built like a woman. Thinks like a man.�
Ew.
I checked out her site and it doesn’t get much better. The first program description I read was about The Chick on Chicks, where she assures men that she’ll help them with their “women� issues, including:
“Want to cheat on your girl and not get caught? She’ll tell you how. Maybe your girlfriend is pressuring you to get married, and you’re not ready...the chick will tell you how to string her along successfully.�
Other shows include Gay for a Grand, The Wheel of Wife Beaters, and The Flaming Stripper BBQ. While I haven't been able to find specifics of the programs, I’m anticipating that they aren’t too tasteful.
Has anyone heard this chick (ha, that was totally accidental) on the air?
Planned Parenthood Golden Gate has started a “Safe is Sexy� outreach campaign targeting teens and young adults in the Bay Area.
They’ve been kicking ass with this project, particularly with their “Safe is Sexy� ad, which is being featured on MTV. Click here to watch why power tools are a girl’s best friend. (I bet you were wondering what the pic above was about.)
On Monday, Lamba Legal filed suit with the California Supreme Court regarding a lower court decision that allowed doctors to refuse infertility treatment to a lesbian patient because of their religious beliefs.
The doctors have claimed that being fundamentalist christians allow them to not have to comply with California’s civil rights laws and refuse treatment to a lesbian, in this case, Guadalupe Lupita Benitez. Yet the case conflicts with a California Supreme Court decision in 2004 ruling that Catholic Charities, a social services agency, may not violate civil rights laws.
The lower court ruling has confused whether the Catholic Charities case applies here, which is pretty much the determining factor in the very request for review by the Supreme Court.
Lupita Benitez was clear with her feelings on the case:
“I trusted my doctors and then they humiliated my family and me by refusing to perform the insemination procedure after they’d been treating me and promising it to me for nearly a year. . . Doctors are supposed to treat their patients, not make religious judgments about them, and I don’t want anyone else to have to suffer the humiliating treatment by their doctors that I endured.�
I wonder if they knew she was a lesbian before or after the year that they gassed her into believing she was going to be inseminated? Either way, it looks like this “conscience clause� bullshit is evolving. The question is -- who will be the next victim?
So why didn't CBS choose a woman like Nina Totenberg, Lesley Stahl, Christiane Amanpour as its evening news anchor? They're too threatening.
But not Katie Couric. Columnist Valerie Takahama hypothesizes that Couric was picked not because she's an outstanding journalist, but precisely because she isn't. Or at least she isn't perceived that way. Apparently we Americans want to hear our news from a perky NewsMommy, not Tom Brokaw with lipstick and a wig.
Pamela Ezell, an assistant professor of English at Chapman University and a television producer, points to Couric's personal tragedy and the sense that she rose to the challenges of coping and recovery as central to her popularity."She's had the ability to weather that storm publicly. That gives us the sense, oh, we can trust her," Ezell says. "She seems very warm, and there's also this assurance that her kids came first."
Nevermind that she's interviewed world leaders like Kofi Annan, Tony Blair and Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah.
...most viewers also see Couric as Katie, the mother of two young girls, the widow of a man who died at a premature age from colon cancer, [...] and a tabloid favorite who's been spotted out and about with a TV producer, a pop jazz trumpeter and others.
But what if that's a good thing? Should we be happy that Couric doesn't have to downplay her role as a mother in order to get ahead in her career?
"With Barbara Walters, you didn't even know if she had children. ... When these guys [Brokaw, Jennings, et al.] were coming up, you didn't talk about your families," [Kate O'Brian, director of ABC News in Seattle] said. (Walters [...] has one daughter.)
It's problematic, though, when a woman's role as wife/mother becomes such a huge part of her professional life and public persona that she commands less respect as a journalist. It's not just Couric who's been criticized for "lacking gravitas." Her fellow NewsMommies Meredith Vieira and Elizabeth Vargas have taken similar hits.
Outgoing CBS anchor Bob Schieffer said it all when he described Couric as "a wonderful person and wonderful mother who will be nurturing of our correspondents."
Not so much a "wonderful journalist who will challenge and improve our correspondents."
I’m so upset right now, I can’t even deal with writing. Just read.
Two white teenagers severely beat and sodomized a 16-year-old Hispanic boy who they believed had tried to kiss a 12-year-old white girl at a party in Spring, Texas, authorities said.The attackers forced the boy out of the house party, beat him and sodomized him with a metal pipe, shouting epithets "associated with being Hispanic," said Lt. John Martin with the Harris County Sheriff's Department.
And fucking assholes have the nerve to say that racism is an “ugly memory.�
Rio De Janeiro just started to run women-only subway cars this week...they’re pink striped.
How Brazilian women actually feel about the sex-segregated cars is something that remains to be seen. A Reuters headline screams Women applaud no-men, pink-striped metro cars, but another article says that women aren’t fans:
“Separation (of the sexes) is a throwback to my grandmother's era. It's a big step backward in the fight for women's equality," said Rogeria Peixoto, head of a Brazilian women's group.
I know I’ve said this before, but whatever: while I understand the need for immediate safety concerns, putting the responsibility on women not to get harassed rather than on the men to stop harassing is really problematic.
A California woman is seeking $1.2 million in damages after she was spanked in front of coworkers--as part of a team-building exercise.
What the fuck?
You know, I didn't even want to comment on Fox News pundit Tony Snow being tapped as the new White House press secretary. I mean, it's just too easy.
But then I saw this quote from Snow over at Pandagon:
“Here’s the unmentionable secret: Racism isn’t that big a deal any more. No sensible person supports it. Nobody of importance preaches it. It’s rapidly becoming an ugly memory.�
Because seriously, who knows more about the prevalence (or apparently absence) of racism that Mr. Snow? What an idiot.
Sally Jacobsen, the Northern Kentucky University professor who was put on leave for encouraging her students to destroy an anti-choice display, has been charged along with her students with criminal mischief, theft by unlawful taking and criminal solicitation. Yikes.
Jacobsen is accused of encouraging her students to dismantle a display of 400 crosses that were set up by a campus anti-abortion group. The crosses were supposed to symbolize aborted fetuses.The six students were charged with criminal mischief and theft by unlawful taking.
Originally there was some confusion as to if Jacobsen took part in the destruction or just urged her students to do so. Apparently though, the student newspaper published pics of her destroying the display. Again, let’s leave the property destruction and harassment tactics to the anti-choicers. I know shit is frustrating, but we’re better than that.
Blac(k)ademic has a very articulate post up about a comment that she received when guest-blogging at Alas, A Blog and in my eyes really brings out how mainstream feminism is in fact still dominated by whiteness, despite so much work done by feminists of color, third world/black feminists and anti-racist white feminists. Mainstream understandings of feminisms (in many cases, far be it for me to essentialize here) still show to be obsessed with the reduction of issues, in this case the belief that gender could possibly *trump* race.
...it is ridiculous to lay claim to the idea that all women are oppressed on equal terms, simply because they are women. obviously, oppression is more complicated than that and i personally think that gender does not trump anything. instead, there are interlocking systems of oppression that women face based on gender, race, class, sexuality, religious background, nationality, citizenship status and so forth. it is very naive and very, very 2nd wave-ish to say, "well, gender trumps race." i can't even understand how one can come to such a conclusion.in the case of the current duke scandal, some folks feel that we must pay attention to the issue of gender before race since, she is a WOMAN and was allegedly attacked by MEN. however, i don't see how we can only pay attention to her as a woman, or as just a black woman, or even as a economically disenfrachised black woman, for that matter--all of her identities must be taken into account. her race is already determining who believes her and who doesn't, how bad of a parent she is (the myth of the bad black mother), and it's determining how she is misrepresented in the media. additionally, we must not forget that we exist in a media saturated world that continuously reproduces negative images that deem black womens bodies as disposable sex objects. it is all too impossible to deny that those images do not play a strong part in concluding how she was/is/will be treated by men of all races. furthermore, if one believes that gender trumps race in this specific situtation, then they deny the harm of the racial slurs that were hurled at the dancers, which i personally see as a form of violence towards these women--no matter what.
I couldn't agree more. And to add to it sexism and racism (among other issues, but this is not my dissertation) are not only intersected but they continually reinforce each other. Things like the feminization of poverty (that women of color are the poorest sector of our society) or the emasculation of men of color (black men being systematically raped in the criminal justice system asserting white male paranoia, anxiety and dominance over *them*) describe moments when issues of class, race, gender, sexuality are interrelating to create new types of realities, differing moments of oppression, that would simply go ignored if we are to look at singular categories of *oppression*. This type of thinking is useless for me. No one ever sees me and thinks "a woman!" they immediately see my race (fuck half the time they hear my race) and that could never *trump* my experience as a woman.
Furthermore, feminists of color are often (and continually, usually subversively) asked to put their race (among other) *issues* to the side to call for some kind of fictional universal sisterhood fighting towards a type of equality we may not even agree with (and an equality the men of "our" diaspora never had). This is in no way a new critique but one that has been discussed and hashed out several times over by many different feminists. But reading the comments to her post (and thinking about all the times I cringe to read the comments when I write about women of color) I realize little has changed...
Ultimately I have to wonder, what is the mainstream face of feminism? All the work we (women of color) have done, has it trickled to the mainstream? Or are people still under the belief that patriarchy functions in a vacuum and is the sole root of oppression? (clearly this discussion is for people that recognize that patriarchy is oppressive...)
Jessica and I were talking the other night about all the posts we have done on women of color and third world women and how ultimately the posts that get the most discussion, the most comments, the most attention are the ones about dating, or differences between men and women, or body image. Of course these discussion are important (and often humorous), but can they *really* be had without rigorous analysis and incorporation of class, race, sexuality etc. And is it still that difficult to engage in discussion about/with/around women of color or are we still strategically and instinctually left out of the dialogue of mainstream feminism?
This is just the tip of the iceburg but since we are a mainstream feminist blog and I am a woman of color writing for a mainstream feminist blog, I thought it was really important to bring this discussion here.
Thoughts?
A little last minute gender parity.
Last year, the Women's Bar Association of Massachusetts blasted the Republican governor for what it described as a dismal record of boosting the number of women and minorities on the bench.
In response Romney has nominated four women to be judges with the hope that this will increase the diversity of his appointments to reflect the diversity of his constituents.
Kathleen O'Connor, president of Women's Bar Association of Massachusetts, praised Romney for the slate of women nominations, but said it seemed like an 11th-hour effort to boost his numbers during his last year in office."It does sound like catch-up," she said. "At least there has been enough attention brought to this matter and he has begun to pay attention. I hope he continues with the time he has left."
If feminism is dead, why do they have to keep trying to kill it?
Nathan Tabor at Renew America comforts other scared-of-girls conservatives with the promise that The feminist furor has finally passed. Whew. Finally.
In cities across the U.S., women are chucking the corporate world and embracing Barney's world instead. They have found fulfillment where their grandmothers did — in the home, raising their children, offering love and support to their husbands. Many do not consider domestic work a drudgery — rather, they see it as a comforting alternative to the 24/7 career life.
Definitely. I actually cuddle with my vacuum cleaner. Seriously though--since when is “career life� 24/7? But cleaning up after people, cooking, taking care of kids and all that shit is just from 9-5?
But what has brought about this seismic shift in American life? Feminism may, in fact, be responsible. Young women have seen the fallout from feminism and, as a result, they want no part of it. Public opinion polls generally show that younger women flinch at the thought of being called "feminists."
Two for flinching!
They may have been raised in the broken homes spawned by the nation's divorce culture, and they don't want their own children to suffer the fate that they did. In essence, they suffered parental loss early in their lives because their mothers were rarely home long enough to be a nurturing force. Instead of tugging on their mothers' apron strings, they were left to tug on the telephone cord that connected them to their working mothers' offices.
What a writer! See how he turned the whole “tugging� idiom around on you? Bet you didn’t see that one coming. Genius. (Yeah I'm just filled with the spirit of snark today.)
So ladies, I guess we’re just going to have to pack it in and get our asses back in the kitchen. But before we do, make sure you thank Mr. Tabor for clueing us in on what young women are thinking.
This the first video that comes up when you do a search for "women" on YouTube. Just saying.
The Drinking Liberally Memphis chapter held a Keep Your Hands Off My Dildo party this past weekend in response to legislation proposed in Tennessee that would ban sex toys.
The legislation, which is almost identical to bans in other states, would have made it a criminal act to “knowingly sell, advertise, publish, or exhibit to another person any three-dimensional device designed or marketed to be used primarily for the stimulation of human genitalia.�
Luckily the Tennessee bill died in committee, but that didn’t stop the Drinking Liberally folks from raising awareness around the anti-sex legislation by throwing a party and selling some sex toys. Great stuff.
To find a Drinking Liberally chapter near you, click here.
Today is the National Day of Silence, "the largest single student-led action towards creating safer schools for all, regardless of sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression."
A project of the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) and the United States Student Association, the National Day of Silence was created in 1996. Participating students (high school and college) take a day-long vow of silence to protest anti-LGBT discrimination, violence and harassment.
More than 450,000 students participated last year. Sounds great. Too bad assholes had to ruin it.
Pam at Pandagon points us to the Alliance Defense Fund's The Day of Truth event:
The Day of Truth was established to counter the promotion of the homosexual agenda and express an opposing viewpoint from a Christian perspective...It is important that students stand up for their First Amendment right to hear and speak the Truth about human sexuality in order to protect that freedom for future generations.
Students are encouraged to pass out cards and wear shirts denouncing the Day of Silence. Lovely.
The Center for Reproductive Rights is suing to force the FDA to approve over-the-counter access to emergency contraception, Plan B.
As part of the case, Lester Crawford and deputy operations commissioner Dr. Janet Woodcock have been ordered to testify in depositions to be taken by CRR lawyers. The lawyers plan to specifically ask about a bizarre 2004 memo:
In the memo released by the FDA, Dr. Curtis Rosebraugh, an agency medical officer, wrote: "As an example, she [Woodcock] stated that we could not anticipate, or prevent extreme promiscuous behaviors such as the medication taking on an 'urban legend' status that would lead adolescents to form sex-based cults centered around the use of Plan B." (Emphasis mine.)
Sex-based cults. Well it’s nice to know that the FDA had such a good reason for all the stalling.
Sublime Stitching has pretty bad-ass Roller Derby embroidery patterns for those who like being all artsy.
Unfortunately I am neither crafty or athletic. So I'll just have to get into Roller Derby from the comfort of my couch.
Too cool. Richard Roeper featured the REAL hot 100 in his Chicago Sun-Times column today, Beyond Smart Hot: It's not all about the look.
The best part? Roeper found out about the campaign from reader Alan Robinson, who just happens to be the proud papa of Madeline--a REAL hot 100 co-founder.
"I couldn't agree more with your ideas on 'Smart Hot,' and I guess we raised our daughter right. She, along with several of her friends, have a Web site taking nominations for a list to counter Maxim's Hot 100...At www.therealhot100.org, you will find photos and bios of women nominated as 'young women of accomplishment.' The short bio of my daughter, Madeline Halperin-Robinson [is included]. I am flush with pride over her accomplishments and progressive work toward change."
Too cute. Thanks, dad!
Don't forget, the REAL hot 100 will announce the final 100 women next month (with a big ass party to follow.)
Michigan’s initiative to change the state constitution to legally define life beginning at conception is getting some help from a national anti-choice leader.
Judie Brown, president of the American Life League, was in Michigan this week campaigning for the proposal, which Brown and Michigan Citizens for Life hope will eventually challenge Roe v. Wade.
Interesting/weird fact: “The state's largest anti-abortion organization, Right to Life of Michigan, is not supporting the Michigan Citizens for Life campaign.�
Looks like I forgot to mention that yesterday was Equal Pay Day. My bad.
Check out Amy Joyce's Washington Post column, Now It's Time For Women To Get Even for inspiration and to debunk the myth that the pay gap doesn't exist:
So let's just get this straight right now, says [economist Evelyn] Murphy: That 23-cent differential is not because some women take time off to give birth or raise children. The pay-gap figure measures only women and men who work full time, for a full year. It does not include women who took time off during the year or worked part time.But don't women earn less over time because they might more often take time off to give birth or raise a child? According to Murphy, that's an incredibly lame argument. Most women who can take time off and go back to work full-time earn more in the first place. Any drop in salary they might experience would not pull the average down, she argues. (Emphasis mine)
Murphy is the author of of "Getting Even: Why Women Don't Get Paid Like Men -- and What to Do About It." Get more information on the pay gap and action you can take at Murphy's website, the WAGE project.
I was totally remiss in forgetting to wish the very fabulous Gwynn Cassidy a happy birthday last week. Gwynn is the founder of Girls in Government, co-founder of the REAL hot 100, and an all-around great gal.
For her birthday celebration (scary close-up after the jump), a bunch of Gwynn's friends were treated to a cheese and wine class at the Artisanal Premium Cheese Center. Yeah, she's all classy and shit.
I digress. The class was amazing, so I wanted to point out (for those in NY) that Artisanal is hosting a class this summer called Femmes Fatale: Women Cheesemakers, in which some of the top women cheesemakers guide you through a tasting. I'm totally there.
If you're in San Fran, stop by and say hi to the gals at Bitch magazine.
Independent Press Spotlight - Bitch Magazine
446 Valencia (btwn 15 & 16)
San Francisco, CA
Tuesday, April 25, 2006
7:30 pm
$5-15/sliding scale
All Ages
I meant to post on this yesterday, thanks to Broadsheet for the reminder.
Apparently Germany is uber-resistant (sorry, couldn’t help myself) to the idea of working mothers. They even have a name for those so selfish as to have a career: Rabenmutter. I know it’s supposed to be an insult, but damn does that sound bad-ass.
It means raven mother, and refers to women who leave their children in an empty nest while they fly away to pursue a career. The phrase, which sounds like something out of the Brothers Grimm, has been used by Germans for centuries as a synonym for bad parent. Today, it is at the center of a new debate on the future of the German working woman, prompted by the first woman to lead the country, Chancellor Angela Merkel.
The piece focuses on Merkel’s newly-appointed minister for family affairs, Ursula von der Leyen. Von der Leyen, a doctor and mother of seven, is using her position to work on policies that encourage working women to have children and to challenge anti-working mom beliefs.
Good shit.
Phyllis Schlafly’s latest, Does Feminism Control The Bush Administration?, will have you rolling.
Is President George W. Bush a feminist, or is he just a typical gentleman who is intimidated by feminists and unable to cope with their unreasonable demands, tantrums and rudeness? When it comes to public policy and personnel appointments, the result is the same.
Yeah, feminists are so intimidating. We rule politics with an iron fisting...I mean fist.
I know pointing out that Schlafly’s anti-feminism is definitely one for the duh-files, but I couldn’t help it. This reoccurring theme of all-powerful feminists pulling the strings of national policy is just too funny.
I didn’t like Caitlin Flanagan before. Now, I’m just terrified by her. Check out snippets of her appearance on The Colbert Report from Salon's Video Dog. Trés creepy.
Jennifer Pozner at the brand-spanking-new WIMN’s Voices blog has more.
An Op-Ed in The Baltimore Sun today, Women as bait, takes issue with a local bar’s version of ladies’ night:
During "Ladies Lockdown," held twice a year from 9 p.m. to 11 p.m. on a Saturday night, only women are admitted - mostly the University of Maryland students who are the principal clientele of this popular hangout - and they can drink virtually for free.…young women are encouraged to drink as much as possible until 11 p.m., when young men arrive expecting to find them in an accommodating state.
Whatever the motive, hosting such evenings is an irresponsible business practice that at best encourages binge drinking and at worst has predatory overtones.
Irresponsible, yes. Predatory? I don’t know. The whole ladies’ night thing is something I gave a lot of thought to back in my SUNY Albany days. Dear lord, was a lot of drinking going on there.
Clearly ladies’ night is a way to get more gals to the bar because the reasoning is the guys will follow. And I agree that encouraging binge drinking (which is so 1998) is kind of gross. But when the argument shifts to the idea that bar owners are trying to get women drunk to set them up as “bait� or easy targets for sexual propositioning (or assault), shit gets a little complicated. I mean, as much as folks may not like it, alcohol is used by young and older people alike to help move things along socially.
Unfortunately, there are many alcohol-related rapes—especially on college campuses. So binge drinking is a real concern. But positioning any woman who is out having fun as a potential victim just because she’s drunk is really problematic. First of all, it assumes that we’re all victims-in-waiting who shouldn’t be drinking:
Here's a suggestion: Don't single women out, ply them with beer and shots, and turn them loose late on a Saturday night.
Turn us loose?
This kind of thinking also uses alcohol as a diversion—the real focus should be on perpetrators and the culture of rape. Once the argument is about being out drinking, you get the whole women-should-know-better nonsense. But then again I have friends that would argue that ladies’ night is not just an innocuous bar promotion, but a way to facilitate women getting more than a little buzzed—but dropping down drunk—for easy targeting. Thoughts?
The prize money at Wimbledon this year will be to $1.17 million for the men’s champion and $1.1 million for the women’s.
Wimbledon is the only grand slam tennis event not to pay men and women equally.
(Somewhat late this week, I know...)
Missouri wants to force Planned Parenthood clinics to give back state family planning grant money that's already been spent. The state also just approved tax breaks for crisis-pregnancy centers.
Equality means better sex. (Liberals do it better, indeed!)
Apparently the operating room is an old boys' club.
Gwen Ifill says it's not easy breaking barriers in TV news.
Ohio considers making it a felony for a woman to have an abortion... even if she goes outside the state to get the procedure.
Saudi women pose for a Wahhabist pinup calendar.
Australian cheerleaders are told to cover their midriffs. Not because they look like sluts, but because they "encourage eating disorders."
Jamaica may be the most homophobic nation on the planet.
A Pennsylvania teacher was suspended for discussing her anti-abortion views with students in her social studies class.
Anti-choice pharmacists stoop to a new low by refusing to dispense abortion-related antibiotics.
Has Madeleine Albright been hanging out with Maureen Dowd?
It has become a cliché to say that powerful women scare off husbands and lovers. Do you think it is true?
I don't think I ever would have been secretary of state if I had stayed married. But I loved being married. I was married for 23 years. I was very sorry when it ended.Will you marry again?
I doubt it.Why not?
Why?Companionship?
I have lots of companionship. I am about to be 69 years old, and I have three daughters, three sons-in-law and six grandchildren. I am not looking to meet men. I also truly can't imagine who is out there who might be interested in someone like me. I'm intimidating, don't you think?I wouldn't want to have to arm-wrestle you.
I work out three times a week, and I can leg-press up to 400 pounds.
The fact that she doesn't see any need to get remarried? Awesome.
The fact that she doesn't think anyone would be interested in her because she's a powerful, accomplished woman? Sad.
Just so you know, that’s an actual headline.
An online study says that British women just love love love to do housework:
In an age when women are making economic strides and excelling in the workplace, the one thing that gives the majority a sense of empowerment is a good go around the house with the vacuum cleaner - followed by some cleaning and dusting....One-third of all women claimed "cleaning gives them more satisfaction than sex."
Cause who needs love, sex, or a career when you have a vacuum cleaner? (Insert hose joke here.)
The “study� was commissioned by Discovery Home and Health TV for their new series, Cleanaholics.
I’m super late on this one, but boy is it worth writing about.
On the April 11 edition of MSNBC's The Situation, host Tucker Carlson asserted that the testimony of a woman allegedly raped at an off-campus party hosted by members of the Duke University men's lacrosse team "is to be taken ... a little differently" from that of "an ordinary person" because she is "a crypto-hooker" who "hires herself out to dance naked in front of and ... sometimes sleep with ... strangers."
Is it just me, or does the term “crypto-hooker� sound like something out of Total Recall?
Watch the video here. (I think Wendy Murphy's face says it all.)
Broadsheet has more on the media coverage of the case.
A U.S. appeals court ruled last week that public schools can ban clothing that have hateful slogans. The case was originally brought by a student who wore a shirt that read: Homosexuality is shameful. The Poway High School student wore the shirt in response to a “Day of Silence�—a protest organized by the school’s Gay-Straight Alliance.
School officials made him take off the shirt and he subsequently sued, claiming they violated his free speech rights.
Writing for the panel's majority, Judge Stephen Reinhardt affirmed a lower court's decision against an injunction against the school and said schools may bar slogans believed to be hurtful.Students "who may be injured by verbal assaults on the basis of a core identifying characteristic such as race, religion, or sexual orientation, have a right to be free from such attacks while on school campuses," Reinhardt wrote.
"The demeaning of young gay and lesbian students in a school environment is detrimental not only to their psychological health and well-being, but also to their educational development," Reinhardt added.
Good stuff, but it’s upsetting that this shit was an even an argument. The outcry among conservative Christian groups is that the kid should be able to wear the shirt because being anti-gay is part of his religious beliefs. Please. What’s truly shameful is using religion as an excuse to hate. Would this case have come so far if the shirt had carried a racist message instead of a homophobic one?
While reading a column in today’s Seattle Post-Intelligencer about the anti-choice movement’s opposition to birth control, I came across this great piece of information:
Also, [Christina] Page suggests we ask ourselves why one of the biggest supposedly pro-family groups in the country, Concerned Women for America, doesn't offer maternity leave to its employees. If having and cherishing babies is its foremost agenda, why wouldn't that group?
Good job, gals. Nice to see how “concerned� you really are.
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, president of Iran, has said that women should be allowed into sports stadiums because their presence will “promote chastity.�
Women have been barred from attending matches, such as national soccer games, in big stadiums and have long complained, particularly when female fans of visiting foreign teams were allowed in.A state television announcer reported that Ahmadinejad "ordered the head of the sports organisation to provide facilities in the stadiums to watch national matches."
The president was quoted as saying: "The best stands should be allocated to women and families in the stadiums in which national and important matches are being held."
Iranian women have been fighting for the right to attend games for some time now, they’ve even had problems with the police when they tried to enter dressed as men or snuck in with foreign fans.
Because when the rest of the world is on the internet you are teaching second grade and you miss things like this.
Blog Against Heteronormativity Day!
Check it before you wreck it.
via Blac(k)ademic (the blog with which I am beginning to have an inappropriate relationship with, ahem, anyways..)