See this photoshopped image of Barack Obama ripping his clothes off like Superman to reveal a T-shirt that reads: “THIS IS WHAT A FEMINIST LOOKS LIKE”? That’s the cover of a special inaugural issue of Ms. Magazine, and it’s got some feminists upset. Ms. states the concept was born out of a meeting Feminist Majority Foundation chairwoman Peg Yorkin and Ms. had with Obama, in which the President-Elect purportedly told them: “I am a feminist.” According to Ms., Obama “ran on the strongest platform for women’s rights of any major party in American history.” Writing in the Daily Beast, Amy Siskind asserts the image is anti-feminist: “Who is looking out for the women of this country? Well, I will tell you who is not: Ms. magazine.” Feminist Law Professors say the image is a mockery: “[Is Ms.] symbolically looking to a male superhero to ‘rescue’ feminism? Very problematic imagery, in my view.” So, what do you think? Is Superobama the first feminist President, or is the idea of a guy feminist a joke?

Women, like 41-year-old mother and five time Olympic swimmer, Dara Torres, made a lot of headlines this year. However, we also made some incredible strides out of the swimming pool. In honor of all those hardworking, won’t take no for an answer kind of bad asses who made those achievements possible, here are the Top 5 Women’s Rights Wins of 2008:

1. Aborted Anti-Choice Legislation: As America enthusiastically voted in Obama, the overwhelming majority also rejected anti-abortion legislation that would have restricted women from their legal right to choose as dictated by Roe v. Wade. Way to go South Dakota, Colorado, and California!

The Times says there’s a new brand of feminist on the march: Noughties. Instead of old school feminism, in which, to varying degrees, women worked together to achieve a common goal, the new new feminism is like a gender politics remix: “It’s like a pick-and-mix feminism, where you can choose the bits you care about yourself.” Want to wear lipstick? Go for it. Want to grow your armpit hair out? Why not. Theoretically, at least, there’s no “bad” or “good” feminists, but a rainbow of feminist beliefs from which women can pick and choose as they see fit, whether it’s sexual politics in the bedroom or protesting against discrimination in the streets. While this new brand of feminism sounds a lot like the late 90’s post-feminist movement to me, the neo-feminists promise theirs is a diverse movement within which all women can finally unite. So, what do you think? Is feminism dead in the water, or is it alive and kicking? [Times]

According to Details, decades of feminism and political correctness have turned 21st century guys into total pigs. Because they’ve been forced to play Mr. Nice Guy and suppress their baser, manlier instincts for years, today’s men are starting to revert back to some of their less politically correct, more misogynist ways. Take, for example, “Dave”: “Dave, who was in college during the P.C. era of the early nineties, is part of a generation of men who have started to wonder why they’ve been so damn well-behaved all these years—and are now letting their long-repressed roguish instincts run free.” When Dave’s not busy being married and “co-parenting” his kids, he’s sneaking off to massage parlors for “happy endings.” What it means to be a man is no longer clear, and that’s causing a return to traditionalism. (Think Don Draper incarnate.) Tired of “Yes, Dear”-ing their wives, these guys are saying to hell with all that. (Take, for example, Guy Ritchie.) So what do you think? Are men regressing into jerkhood? [Details]

Hugh Hefner’s daughter Christie, who has sat at the helm of the $300 million Playboy Enterprises empire for the last two decades, stepped down from her post yesterday. The self-described feminist has faced a myriad of challenges on the job in recent years, including falling subscription rates for the company’s flagship magazine, in part due to the increasingly widespread availability of adult content on the internet. Most recently, there was talk of selling her father’s Playboy Mansion residence to raise cash for the corporation’s nose-diving portfolio. Three years ago, Christie was named one of the world’s most powerful businesswomen. Now, inspired by the Obama campaign, she’s making noises that suggest a shift into politics. So, do you think the former head of what some deem to be a pornographic magazine could get elected to a public office? [MSNBC]

If I have a daughter one day, among the many things I’ll teach her will be how to tie her shoes, to look both ways before crossing the street, to never end a sentence with a preposition, and to always let the man say “I love you” first. I’ll give her plenty of other relationship tips, too, like how it’s perfectly okay to ask a guy out, to make the first move, to even propose, but when it comes to the “L” word, the ball’s in the guy’s court. When this issue came up last week in my list of 30 things a woman shouldn’t do before 30, it caused a bit of commotion. “What is this, the Victorian era?” wrote one commenter, “if you truly love someone, tell them. Otherwise you’re just playing outdated coquettish games.” Another commenter put it more diplomatically: “I don’t think I’ve ever said ‘I love you’ first, but someone has to do it. It’s okay to take a few risks.” I appreciate both arguments and understand the sentiments behind them, but at the risk of having my feminist card revoked, I think it’s naïve for a woman to utter those three little words before a man does.

Growing up, my mom and dad shared the responsibility of bringing home the bacon…well, the proverbial bacon—we’re Jewish. Anyway, my mom was a realtor and good at her job, but I’ll never forget her main competitor. His wife didn’t work and he was a jerk, the kind of guy who used too much hair grease and put his cheesy head shot up at bus stops. While my mother kept me in enriching after school programs, this other slick Realtor dude would scam his clients for sympathy by dragging his son around to meetings. One particular prospective female client even told my mother she was going to go with this guy because he was really his family’s breadwinner. Puke—that’s some serious girl-on-girl crime! I was always proud of my mama for Mary Tyler Moore-ing it up in the face of sexist foolishness, but apparently this chauvinist realtor isn’t the only man who has cashed in on close-mindedness.

Full-disclosure: I did not vote for Hillary Clinton, for a variety of reasons, none of which I’ll get into here. But as a female, I was happy to see how close a woman got to winning the nomination, even though I didn’t personally want her to win it. After watching her speech last night at the Democratic National Convention, which I found to be profoundly moving, funny, and strong, I was struck by how important her role in this election truly was—love her or hate her, Clinton had an immense impact on history, as the first woman who almost captured the nomination for President of the United States. “My mother was born before women could vote,” Clinton said. “But in this election my daughter got to vote for her mother for president.”

A UK based academic says feminism should be taught in schools. As a feminist blogger, I couldn’t agree more. Dr. Jessica Ringrose at the Institute of Education in London has made the rounds recently, suggesting that feminism should be taught in schools to combat the increased sexualization of girls in the media and to give girls role models outside of celebrities like Paris Hilton and Britney Spears. Ringrose suggests teaching girls about historic feminist leaders, like suffragists, to balance out all the tripe they’re getting through pop culture. While I’m all about teaching feminism to younger girls (hell, start them in kindergarten!), as others have noted, I think we’re better off showing girls what kinds of amazing feminist action is happening right now.

Nowadays, we modern gals are too busy to worry about spawning.  It might be on some of our to do lists, but according to a 2006 survey, one in five women never have a baby. That’s double the number of childless women in 1976! While 30 years ago, 59% of women had at least three kids, now only 28% have popped that many out. The U.S. Census Bureau, who conducted the survey, speculates that societal factors, like people trying to conceive later because of careers and education, fertility rates steadily dropping since the ‘80s, and a wide range of socially accepted birth control options, are all adding up to less brats, er, bundles of joy.  Now you can point fingers at the empowered products of women’s lib all you want, but we’re willing to bet there’s an underlying economic issue here too. For instance, the birth rate keeps going down while college tuition keeps going up. Coincidence? We think not. Kids cost a lot more than condoms. [The Guardian]

Admitting you’re boy-crazy is a bit like admitting to alcoholism or to an embarrassing addiction to The Real Housewives of Orange County. It might be okay when you’re fifteen years old, and you plaster your room with posters of Leonardo DiCaprio and Barry Manilow (so I was a strange child). But, I find that increasingly, as I enter into the twentysomething world, I’m faced with a dilemma: I’m no less boy-crazy, but I’m a whole more embarrassed about it.

I’m a young woman who enjoys the typical girly things, like makeup, clothes and nail polish. But I can’t for the life of me figure out why I’m inundated with cleaning product commercials whenever I’m watching “girly programming,” like “What Not to Wear” or “Tori and Dean: Home Sweet Hollywood.” In the late ‘90s and earlier this century, it seemed ad men—and women—finally realized they were neglecting a major segment of the population that might actually want to clean up a spill or, you know, disinfect something, so commercials were changed accordingly. But now, this spic-and-span equal treatment has gone out the window.

The Guardian has a really long feature on whether it’s okay for feminists to like Sex and the City. If you skip to the last paragraph, you’ll discover that smart women everywhere can enjoy the show and upcoming movie as long as they realize SATC is not a guide to life (duh). “It does make for quite uncomfortable viewing,” said Professor Imelda Whelehan of De Montfort University author of The Feminist Bestseller: From Sex and the Single Girl to Sex and the City. “How do we respect [Carrie]? And Mr. Big is such an interesting element. Even his name is masculine. He is like this phallus at the center of it all.” So true, Imelda. Yet, even though the show depicts Carrie, Charlotte, Samantha, and Miranda obsessing over what men think a little too much, the show still treats women as important, and we are, so that’s nice. [The Guardian, U.K.]

So, what do you think of this t-shirt? Kind of hard to read right? Made by writer, journalist, and feminist activist Jennifer Baumgardner (author of Manifesta: Young Women, Feminism And The Future), the shirt reads, in small print, “I Was Raped” on a small placecard inside an image of a safe.  A follow-up to a shirt she made last year, which said, “I Had An Abortion”, Baumgardner hopes that the shirt will encourage women to be open about their experience with sexual assault and “divest themselves of some of the shame and secrecy of it.” Profiled in today’s New York Times, she also says, “By having an object like this” — a simple T-shirt — “that’s so mundane, it sort of forces it into everyday conversation….The wearer isn’t advertising that he or she was raped, but rather opening up to you, the viewer, and also saying that this is a small part of who he or she is.”

“I don’t think it makes me any less of a feminist because my emotions are affected. I think that I’m very independent and I don’t let guys affect my life. I think in the past I have, and I’ve learned from it. I don’t depend on men. I have my own career.”—Lauren Conrad, in response to The New York Times assertion that Heidi Montag is a feminist hero because she doesn’t pine after guys. [On a personal note, I cannot believe these two twits are who the Times wants us to choose from.] [Celeb Edge via Jezebel]

Our favorite craptastic TV show is back tonight and we’re so excited. However, just in case you haven’t been keeping as close of tabs as we have on Lauren, Heidi, Spencer, Brody, Audrina, and Whitney, here are some things you’ve might have missed:

For the record, I am not engaged. I suspect I will be engaged, however, anywhere between one month to slightly less than two years from now. Being that this impending engagement is pretty much around the corner, I’ve been doing alot of hemming and hawing about what to do should that joyous occasion arrive and I need to decide what to do about my last name. For many, if not most, women, taking their husband’s last name is a no-brainer, which is perhaps the aspect of this debate that bothers me the most. It’s not that I don’t acknowledge the convenience, the ease, even the, gag, romance of sharing the same last name as the hubs, but it seems to me that spending 28 years on Earth with one name and then just throwing it out like yesterday’s garbabe is a decision that should be weighed with a little bit of levity. I am weighing it with an extraordinary amount of levity and have found that there is a bit of a dialogue going on between two sides of my brain on the subject. Right and left battle it out, after the jump.