Very interesting story ...

Quoted: "She can have a bank account. She can vote in elections -– and she did, by the way," Blanton says. "Or, if she goes back and puts on a dress and tells everyone that she's Jennie, she has just lost her entire life."

Really interesting article from Vogue on how Hollywood can't produce a respectable and likeable career woman character...even when all women are the creative forces behind the film. The reasoning is that strong working women don't appeal to adolescent boys -- movie audiences' key demographic.

Quoted: Predictably, it’s the lewd beast who schools the brainy, high-powered beauty. ... This would all seem like business as usual except that when The Ugly Truth opened last weekend, exasperation with such misogyny reached some sort of tipping point. Not only did critics assail the film’s sexism, they also pointedly called out by name the women behind it: actor-producer Heigl, screenwriters Nicole Eastman, Karen McCullah Lutz, and Kirsten Smith, and Sony Pictures cochairman Amy Pascal, who runs Columbia Pictures.

Amen. It's bad enough that I can't even locate old college friends on Facebook because they've abandoned the name portion of their identities, but profile pictures too? Is there anything left of YOU?

Quoted: You click on a friend's name and what comes into focus is not a photograph of her face, but a sleeping blond four-year-old, or a sun-hatted baby running on the beach. Here, harmlessly embedded in one of our favorite methods of procrastination, is a potent symbol for the new century. Where have all of these women gone?

I agree. Enough with the goddamn princesses. Where are Disney's strong female characters?

Quoted: In a recent New York Times article, critics railed on whether or not Tiana conquers racial stereotypes. Forget about all that. The problem is with the princess mentality.

This female pastor takes Elizabeth Edwards to school for her phony doormat book job. I love it. Grow a pair, political wives, cancer or no. If you don't stand up for yourself then you are perpetuating the mistress rights myth of men in power.

Quoted: We want you to step out of your coached role as "helpmeet" and "long suffering" wife. We want you to be the first political partner in American history to write the first political truth about the political powerless of political wifery.

This is a fascinating interview. So much so that it made me miss my gym class because I couldn't get out of the car on Monday when I started listening.

Quoted: Fresh Air from WHYY, April 13, 2009 · In her new book The Means of Reproduction: Sex, Power, And The Future of the World, Journalist Michelle Goldberg argues that granting reproductive rights to women internationally can help to control overpopulation, banish poverty and slow the spread of AIDS. Goldberg is also the author of the bestseller Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism. She previously worked as a senior writer for Salon.com and her work has appeared in Rolling Stone, The Guardian and The New Republic. In 2008, The Means of Reproduction won the J. Anthony Lukas Work-in-Progress Award.

Wow. I just learned about a new movement within the conservative movement -- Quiverfull. Apparently, the whole Duggar, John and Kate + 8 and other multiple-birth shows springing up (Table for 12, the newest among them on Discovery), are examples of this movement, the ideology of which, besides aiming to completely reverse the women's movement (and then some), is also a massive misrepresentation of God's purpose for women. The levels of crazy this movement is spewing, leaves me speechless. So, just two things -- 1) 'be fruitful and multiply' was a mandate given by God when there were roughly 10 people on the planet -- not billions. 2) God didn't design anyone to be slaves. Period.

Quoted: Quiverfull's pronatalist emphasis is linked to a companion doctrine of strident antifeminism among conservative Christians who see the women's liberation movement as the origin of a host of social ills, from abortion to divorce, women working and teen sex. "Feminism is a totally self-consistent system aimed at rejecting God's role for women," Pride wrote in 1985; since then, the movement she helped create has erected an opposite and equally self-consistent system of "biblical womanhood."

Interesting article on the environmental hazards of various types of birth control. While a valid concern, it pales immensely in comparison with what it aims to prevent ... Given the rate at which Americans are reproducing and the Earth's certain inability to support us all in our current lifestyles down the road (about 50 years), daily pill swallowers such as myself should be praised, if not rewarded, instead of brow-beaten over effeminate fish.
How about green tax credits for everyone who gets themselves fixed? Or, free tubal ligations and vasectomies for everyone who wants one after age 25?

Quoted: All this being said, the Green Lantern has a single piece of advice when it comes to contraception: Use it. No matter what type you choose, it's guaranteed to have less of an impact on the environment than the unwitting creation of a fossil-fuel burning, diaper-wearing copy of yourself. (For that matter, if you're absolutely sure you don't want children, you might opt for a permanent method of birth control like tubal ligation or vasectomy.)

I'm very excited to see what Hillary is going to do for women around the world as Sec. of State.

Quoted: Our foreign policy must reflect our deep commitment to help millions of oppressed people around the world. And of particular concern to me is the plight of women and girls, who comprise the majority of the world's unhealthy, unschooled, unfed, and unpaid. If half the world's population remains vulnerable to economic, political, legal and social marginalization, our hope of advancing democracy and prosperity is in serious jeopardy. The United States must be an unequivocal and unwavering voice in support of women's rights in every country on every continent.