On Presidents, Apron Strings, and Second Shifts.

I’m starting to wonder if this presidential election might hinge on apron strings. In the wake of the last debate, we’ve all been caught up in binders and trapper-keepers and funny Facebook memes – along with some hijinks on Amazon, where a bunch of smartypants hijacked several binder pages.  I think we’re missing the point. […]

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The War Against Women is a War Against Everyone

That gagging sound you heard last week, when Ann Romney bellowed in her best Oprah voice, “I love you, womennnnnn!”? That was me. And not because I don’t love women; I do. And not because I don’t believe that Ann Romney loves women; I’m sure she does. It’s because, at best, this sentiment is utterly […]

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Squawking Points: The War on Women Goes Stupid.

It’s not so much the right-wingers’ war on women that pisses me off — it’s the fact that they think we’re dumb enough to buy their talking points. Case in point, a Bloomberg op-ed by Ramesh Ponnuru that attempts to make the case that the gender wage gap is nothing but nonsense: we make less […]

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Are You ___ Enough?

Between “Are You Mom Enough?” (aka the extremely controversial Time Magazine breastfeeding cover) and Elisabeth Badinter’s extremely controversial book The Conflict, which cast a critical eye on the current trend (among some sets) toward attachment parenting, and the Daily Mail’s latest offense, about the “ambitious career women” who don’t want kids and “enforce childlessness” upon their partners, […]

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Whose Family? Whose Values?

With the recent rise of Republican Rick Santorum in the Iowa caucuses, we’re sure to hear a couple of words again and again as the right-wing’s quest to rebuild America continues: Family. Values. I can’t help but cringe every time I hear that catchphrase.  Not because I dislike families – I have a terrific one […]

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Feminism Needs Sarah Palin Like a Fish Needs a Bicycle

Guess who’s calling herself a feminist? I’ll give you a hint: she doesn’t read much but cooks a mean moose chili, and while she isn’t a big fan of hopey changey stuff, she has been known to engage in such enlightened chants as “Drill, baby, drill.” (Though she’s been conspicuously quiet on that subject as […]

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Ideology vs. Identity: Of Burning Bras, Sarah Palin, and Health Care Reform

Given the –well, the shitstorm that’s erupted over the attempt to saddle health care reform with the cynical, sabotaging, decidedly anti-choice Stupak-Pitts amendment, it’s fitting to revisit an issue that simply will not go away. Us versus Them. But first. There’s some awesome, mandatory reading currently waiting for you over at the New Yorker‘s website, […]

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Baby Bumps and the Beauty Myth, Plastic Surgery and Politics: Or, What Jessica Simpson Has To Do With You.

Isn’t it funny, at a time that’s been described as The End of Men And The Rise of Women, during an election season that’s been touted as hinging on the “female vote,” during an era in which young adult humans of the female persuasion have never known a world in which Gloria Steinem wasn’t an […]

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Let’s Talk About Sex

Everyone else seems to be. They’re talking about women and sex and “Girls” and sex and feminism and sex and HBO and sex and the sexual revolution as failure and the sexual revolution as success. It feels a little weird to be writing this, honestly, being that it’s 2012 and all. But with whom and […]

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Gag Me: The War on Women Goes Global

Surely you have heard that the Republican-controlled House of Representatives has voted to reinstate the Global Gag Rule that prevents any family planning agencies that provide information about abortion service from receiving any U.S. foreign aid. Who gets hurt?  Women, children and anyone who believes the conversation about women’s issues needs to move forward. But […]

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