Tag Archives: feminism

Today’s Lady News: 25 Percent Of Women Feel “Meh” On Getting Pregnant

Amelia McDonell-ParryMay 13, 2010 //
  • A new study suggests that one in four women feels ambivalent about getting pregnant, essentially saying they could take or leave having kids. [Baby Chums]
  • Which may explain why women are waiting longer to have children and are more likely than ever to have them without being married. [Baby Chums]
  • Blogger Lena Chen discusses the “Rethinking Virginity” conference she planned at Harvard University and corrects those who think “rethinking virginity” means an overarching endorsement of abstinence and the abstinence movement. [Slate]
  • The murder of lacrosse player Yeardley Love has caused the University of Virginia to “consider changes to campus public safety policies and state laws to enable more information sharing between police and college administrators.” Love’s ex-boyfriend, George Huguely, has been arrested and charged in her death. [Security Info Watch]

Keep reading »

Has The Glass Ceiling Been Shattered?

Nikki DowlingMay 13, 2010 //

In an article that jumps to conclusions more than any I have seen recently, Bloomberg News is reporting that the glass ceiling has been shattered. The proof? The top 16 female CEOs are raking in salaries that average out to be 43 percent higher than the male CEOs. Also, female CEOs got a 19 percent raise in 2008 while dudes got a 5 percent pay cut. Some examples: Yahoo! CEO Carol Bartz is making over $47 million and Irene Rosenfeld of Kraft Foods is raking in $26.3 million. The article quoted a male CEO, who said, “When you see numbers like this, one can truly say that the glass ceiling in corporate America has been shattered,” and implied that women are being over-compensated so companies don’t get hit with sexism charges.

In my opinion, Bloomberg needs to slow it down. Keep reading »

Gardasil’s Scare Tactic Ads Do More Harm Than Good, One Woman Says

Susannah BreslinMay 12, 2010 //

Lux Alptraum has written an intriguing piece for Jezebel, “The HPV Vaccine’s Misguided Scare Tactics.” Alptraum argues that Merck, which manufactures Gardasil, the HPV vaccine, uses scare tactics in its commercials to push women to get the HPV vaccine, thereby driving more money into Merck’s deep pockets. One commercial features an animated woman going to the gynecologist for her annual pap smear and finding out she has full-blown cervical cancer. The music is grim. The tone is doomed. An alarmist vibe permeates the tale. In fact, Alptraum says, women who get annual pap smears are highly unlikely to develop cervical cancer, if HPV is caught early. In addition, the woman in the ad is white, while the fastest growing group of women getting diagnosed with cervical cancer is Hispanic women. Alptraum isn’t against Gardasil; she got it. But we agree that terrifying women is no way to get them to pursue good gynecological health practices. Watch the ad, read the story, and decide for yourself. [Jezebel] Keep reading »

Today’s Lady News: Betty White Celebrates Her “SNL” Triumph & Danny Dyer Gets Fired

Amelia McDonell-ParryMay 10, 2010 //
  • After hosting “Saturday Night Live” this weekend, Betty White went out and partied with the cast until 3 a.m. She cannot possibly get any cooler. Can she? [Life & Style]
  • A quote in this article about feminism — called “Are You A Faminist?” — refers to the birth control pill and abortion as “selfish and self-advancing,” while the article says that modern women are more about “the fam” then “the fem,” as if the two are mutually exclusive and OMG STFU, this article is stupid. [NY Observer]
  • Much to the disappointment of women’s groups, Michigan Democrat Connie Saltonstall ended her campaign to replace retiring Representative Bart Stupak after her party rallied around another candidate, Gary McDowell, who shares Stupak’s antiabortion stance. [Washington Post]

Keep reading »

Quotable: Martha Stewart Is Anti-Feminist But Pro-Pies And Tarts

Jessica WakemanMay 10, 2010 //

“I don’t think in a male or female way. I don’t differentiate between male and female. I never have. I’m not considered a feminist. … Do we really need to waste time saying, ‘I’m a feminist’? I never thought about glass ceilings. I never thought about glass floors. I was thinking about how many pies can I come up with for my pies-and-tarts book. Those are all original ideas.”

— Domestic goddess extraordinaire Martha Stewart, who I wish would explain what “glass floors” are. [New York Times Magazine] Keep reading »

Today’s Lady News: UVA Lacrosse Player Huguely Was Aggressive In The Past, Witnesses Say

Jessica WakemanMay 6, 2010 //
  • UVA lacrosse player George Huguely, who is accused of murdering his ex-girlfriend, fellow UVA lacrosse player Yeardley Love, got physically aggressive with her at a party two months ago, according to two people with knowledge of the incident. Two current and one former Unversity of North Carolina lax players allegedly separated Huguely from Love during the dispute. A member of Love’s family, speaking on the condition of anonymity, also said Love once portrayed Huguely as “aggressive” when asked about him. [Washington Post]
  • A California judge has granted Chaz (née Chastity) Bono‘s petition for a gender and name change, according to the Transgender Law Center. Bono, the child of Cher and Sonny Bono, began his sex change last year. [People]
  • Ban Ki-moon, secretary general of the United Nations, has penned an op-ed arguing the world needs to help the developing world lower the maternal mortality rate. “In the rich world, when a mother dies giving birth, we assume that something went wrong,” he wrote. “For women in the developing world, by contrast, dying in childbirth is simply a fact of life.” [San Jose Mercury News]

Keep reading »

Lesbian Couple Challenges The Defense Of Marriage Act

Jessica WakemanMay 6, 2010 //

Imagine being married to a State Police lieutenant who is killed in the line of duty — and then you learn that even though you are the widower of a fallen state employee, you’re not eligible for federal benefits that would be available to other widows.

Such could be the case for Kathy Bush, one half of a lesbian couple in Massachusetts. Bush and her partner, Mary Ritchie, married in 2004, when same-sex marriage was legalized by the state. At last, the couple didn’t have to worry about hiring lawyers to write contracts stipulating their parental rights and health care plans (something married, straight couples never have to do). But Ritchie and Bush still weren’t in the clear. Keep reading »

Tall Daughters Are Worth More Cattle In The Sudan

Susannah BreslinMay 6, 2010 //

The LA Times reports that taller daughters fetch more cattle upon the occasion of marriage. In Juba, young women are traded for longhorns, and the tallest of the prospective brides are considered to be of greater value as they “fetch more cattle because their daughters will quickly grow and can be married off to fetch even more cattle,” one tribal chief explained. For example, if, say, Catherine and I both lived in the Sudan, Catherine, who is 5’1″, would fetch perhaps as few as 20 head of cattle from a prospective suitor looking to reimburse her father for the loss of his hardworking daughter, while I, on the other hand, who am 6’1″, would demand as many as 60 to 100 head of cattle. “What do tall women think about marriage and cattle?” the reporter asks the chief. “‘Women have no say,’” is his reply. [LA Times] Keep reading »

The Kick-Ass Girl Power Message Of Miley Cyrus’ New Single, “Can’t Be Tamed”

Jessica WakemanMay 6, 2010 //


Confession: I’ve never listened to a Miley Cyrus song before in my life, save the one time I watched her strut around a stripper pole while singing “Party In The U.S.A.” at an awards show last year. I always thought she was a cheesy Disney star with crap parents who have bad judgment. But now I am obsessed — no, make that OBSESSED — with Miley’s new single “Can’t Be Tamed.” (And it’s not just because I want a giant nest and peacock feather wings like she’s got in the video.)

The reason I love Miley’s new song is because she’s a young, 17-year-old girl singing, “I can’t be tamed, I can’t be saved, I can’t be blamed, I can’t be tamed, I can’t be changed … They try to change me but they realize they can’t.” And that’s a message teenaged girls of America — hell, the women of America — couldn’t hurt to hear. I wish a song like this had been popular when I was a teen. Keep reading »

Today’s Lady News: U.S. Not The Best Place In The World For Mothers, Says Study

Jessica WakemanMay 5, 2010 //
  • The United States is the 28th best place in the world for mothers and their children, according to Save The Children’s annual report, given our inconsistencies on maternity leave, restrictions on birth control, and maternal mortality rate. Norway, where maternity leave is mandated and birth control is easy to access, clocks in at number one on the Mothers Index, followed by Australia, Iceland, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany. The worst offenders on the Mothers Index include Afghanistan, Yemen and Sudan. [USA Today]
  • Sunshine State News video caught Florida State Senator Mike Bennett looking at pornographic photos during a debate on an abortion bill. Sen. Bennett said he was “bored as they were debating the abortion bill,” but said he “clicked away from it right away.” I’m sorry, but a white male politician looking at porn while abortion rights are being debated is just the biggest cliche ever. [My Fox DC]
  • Paris has decided to lift a 1799 rule that forbade women from wearing “trousers” and made any woman who wished to “dress like a man” seek permission from the city’s police station. The French have tried to repeal the bill numerous times, to no avail, but recently 10 MPs submitted a draft bill to remove the no-women-in-pants law entirely. [Telegraph UK]

Keep reading »

  1. < BACK
  2. 1
  3. ...
  4. 135
  5. 136
  6. 137
  7. 138
  8. 139
  9. 140
  10. ...
  11. NEXT >
  12. ...
  13. »