Today’s Lady News: California Prankster Tries To Ban Divorce To Save “Traditional Marriage”

• “Saturday Night Live” has hired another female writer! Jessi Klein is the third person with a vagina (not including performers) to grace the current “SNL” writing team. [The Wrap]—Could it be that Klein was hired in response to criticism by former “Letterman” writer Nell Scovell, who complained in Vanity Fair about nearly all-male comedy show writing staffs?
• John Marcotte, a rabble-rouser with a great sense of humor, is trying to get a measure on California’s ballot box to ban divorce to make a statement about same-sex marriage, which was outlawed in 2008 to protect so-called traditional marriage between straights. Marcotte told CBS News, “Since California has decided to protect traditional marriage ... it would be hypocritical of us not to sacrifice some of our own rights to protect traditional marriage even more.” He has a point! [CBS News]

• Diane Sawyer will begin her tenure as news anchor on ABC’s “World News” shortly after Charlie Gibson retires Dec. 18, according to the show’s executive producer. Hooray for prime time female news anchors! [The Hollywood Reporter]
• Ex-governor Sarah Palin stars as a heroine in her very own children’s books. However, Help! Mom! Radicals Are Ruining The Country! (yes, that’s actually the title), by Katharine DeBrecht, sounds a bit obtuse for actual children. [Fox News]
• Jeremy Phan, a Dartmouth (a co-ed school) student doing an exchange program at Wellesley (traditionally an all-girls school and the college that Hillary Clinton attended), is getting blasted after posting a rant against his female colleagues on a Wellesley student message board. His opening paragraph begins with “You are all a bunch of whores,” and the next paragraph continues with “You are all undeserving of the education and opportunities you have received.” Finally, the ending paragraph claims: “You are all too easy.” Hmm ... “You are all whores” and “You are all too easy” are basically the same I-have-nothing-else-to-say-so-I’ll-call-you-a-slut argument, only phrased a different way. And he attends the Ivy League institution of Dartmouth College, you say? [Jezebel]
 
• Muslim women in Baltimore have their very own women’s shelter which meets the needs of their religious and cultural beliefs, like removing shoes at the door, not serving pork in the kitchen, and sequestering an area of the shelter for prayers. Asma Hanif, who runs the shelter, explained, “My biggest problem was that if you send a Muslim woman to be counseled in a shelter that’s run by Christians, then what the people say is the reason why you’re being beat is because of that religion. We do not want Islam to be the focal point of domestic violence.” [NPR]
• Nothing says chutzpah like a T-shirt that says, “I want my tax dollars to support abortion access,” available for $3 on Etsy.com. [And it doesn’t even have a lady flower on it!—Editor] [Feministing]

INTERNATIONAL

• On today, World AIDS Day, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, the First Lady of France, has spoken out about HIV/AIDS to say it is “unfair” that women and children in developing countries often do not receive treatment. HIV is especially pernicious, Bruni-Sarkozy said, because it can be passed from mother to child via breast milk. [BBC]
• The head of education at Cambridge University in the U.K. will tell a conference tomorrow that teaching boys and girls separately in single-sex classrooms leads them to pay more attention in class. [Daily Mail UK]