A few weeks ago we vaca
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Profile for Jessica Wakeman
Quote Of The Day: David Duchovny Talks About His Sex Addiction
“There is never a personal-life connection between my characters and myself. I’m a professional and I can access what I need to access, so there’s no bleed-over. I didn’t need to believe in aliens to play Mulder. As for my personal life, everything is fantastic right now.”
—David Duchovny denies how his treatment for sex addiction at all helps him play a womanizer on “Californication” [The Daily Beast] Keep reading »
Jessica Valenti Of Feministing Proves Feminists Can Get Hitched, Too
If you call yourself a “feminist“—which basically means you believe women deserve the dignity, rights and respect afforded to men—then you can relate to how peeps come out of the woodwork to tell you you’re either being “too feminist” or “not feminist” enough. Some people think feminism should be a spartan existence where there’s no frivolity allowed, on principle: no makeup, no “Sex & The City, and definitely no getting married!
The dumbest criticism of feminists we’ve ever seen happened when some people freaked out over the engagement of Jessica Valenti, co-founder of Feministing (and one-time Frisky blog!) to her boyfriend, Andrew Golis, deputy publisher of the politics blog, Talking Points Memo. Gettin’ hitched, apparently, is “antithetical” to feminism. Keep reading »
Miss California Pageant Takes Off The Swimsuits
Beauty queens in next month’s Miss California Pageant (where everyone’s favorite homophobe, Carrie Prejean, got her start!) won’t strut down the runway in bikinis, but will instead model individual outfits. Sashes will also be eliminated and two winners will be crowned, instead of the usual one. ““This year’s event will be bigger and reflect the progressive attitudes of the contestants as well as our forward-looking state,” said Keith Lewis, executive director of the Miss California Organization. “It will change the essence of Miss California USA from a bathing suit beauty contest to the style of a runway show during fashion week.” Well, that’s not quite the same as ditching the high-heels-and-bikinis parade because it objectifies women’s bodies and applauds an ideal woman’s shape that most of us can never achieve. But, hey, we’ll take what we can get! You can probably still count on false eyelashes, clouds of hairspray and fake boobies, though. [NY Daily News, L.A. Times] Keep reading »
Today’s Lady News: The End Of Heinous Menstrual Cramps?
- Doctors are working on a new drug for women who suffer painful menstrual cramps, also called dysmenorrhea. The drug is named VA111913, manufactured by a British company, and it’s being tested on 128 women who say awful cramps interfere with their daily lives. [NY Daily News]
- A woman who was raped 24 years ago, before the advent of DNA testing, is fighting a backlog on “rape kits,” in which DNA information is collected to identify the attacker. Lavinia Masters’ rape kit was finally opened in 2005, two full decades after her assault occurred, and the DNA in it matched up with a man who was already serving time in prison for other rapes. [CNN]
- An Arizona mother of three will give birth to her fourth child 300 miles away at a hospital in Phoenix. Why? The closest hospital to her home refuses to assist with a vaginal birth after a woman has had a C-section (called a VBAC). [CNN]
I Call B.S. On “Abortion Addiction”
Irene Vilar rebelled against her “controlling” husband in the most unique of ways: by having abortions. Lots of ‘em. From ages 16 to 33, Vilar said she had 15 abortions and now calls herself a recovered “abortion addict” and mother of two.
Have you ever heard of “abortion addiction”? No, me neither. But Vilar has written about her “abortion addiction” in her new book, Impossible Motherhood: Testimony Of An Abortion Addict, which describes how when she was a young woman, Vilar said she married a 50-year-old man who jerked her around emotionally, so she would skip her birth control pills just to rebel against him. Discovering her pregnancies excited and scared her at the time, a rush Vilar likened to the same kind of “high” that a “druggie” feels. Vilar also tried to commit suicide several times.
Considering how ashamed and fearful many women are sharing they’ve had one abortion, it’s pretty annoying that a woman gets a book deal for telling everybody how she’s had over a dozen. Yes, it’s Vilar’s right to have as many abortions as she’d like, and it’s great Vilar is still pro-choice after all this. But everything about Impossible Motherhood is unrepresentative of what an average women’s experience with abortion is. Keep reading »
Chubby Baby Denied Health Insurance
When it comes to babies, our throbbing ovaries tell us the chubbier, the better. We could just coo and squeeze 4-month-old Alex Lange, weighing in at 17 pounds, all day! (Before coming to our senses and handing him back to his mommy, that is.) But Rocky Mountain Health Plans denied health insurance for this cutie-patootie because he’s a “high-risk patient” with a “pre-existing condition of obesity.” WTF?!? Alex is in the 99th percentile for height and weight for a baby, but, apparently, Rocky Mountain Health Plans won’t provide health insurance to babies who rank any higher than the 95th percentile. “I could understand if we could control what he’s eating. But he’s 4 months old. He’s breastfeeding. We can’t put him on the Atkins diet or on a treadmill,” said his father, Bernie Lange. His parents also made a joke about putting Alex on SlimFast once he’s eating solid food. Hey, don’t give anyone any ideas! [Denver Post]
UPDATE: This Monday, Rocky Mountain Health Plans changed its policy to cover Alex and “other healthy babies.” It’s still not OK that only “healthy” babies get coverage, but at least this insurer has stopped with this obesity silliness. [Denver Post] Keep reading »
(Another) Quote Of The Day: Karl Lagerfeld Says It’s “Fat Mummies” Who Complain About Size 0 Models
“These are fat mummies sitting with their bags of crisps in front of the television, saying that thin models are ugly. [Fashion deals] with dreams and illusions, and no one wants to see round women.”
—Chanel‘s Karl Lagerfeld wears on our last nerve in Focus magazine [Guardian UK] Keep reading »
