Is Bigger Better?

OK, so we've all lived through the great starving model controversy of Fashion Week 2006. The fashion world, the ones who parade their skinny-girl clothes for their celeb audience for a teeny lucky few who wear them and the masses who buy the fashion mags suddenly seemed horrified by what they'd produced: the demand for super-thin models.

Cut to today. In the San Francisco Chronicle today in the Style section there's a story about a plus-size model who's been getting more work these days. The reason? Obesity rates in Europe went up 10% this year. So, more fat people. And fat people buy larger clothes. The use of the "zaftig" model is supposed to be good. The onset of obesity in Europe is bad.

If there are more fat (sorry, just can't do the Rubenesque thing) models, are we embracing a positive image of women or a negative result of health? Is anyone else out there confused? Are we truly worried about what's being portrayed in the fashion industry when the general population is hardly suffering from skinniness? It all just seems, well, silly.

Remember Your First Time?

Unmarried women make up the fastest growing demographic in America -- and the least likely to vote. Women's Voices Women Vote are working to turn that around. And if just imagining the power that all those unmarried women could have if they stepped into a voting booth isn't enough to pursuade you, there's always a TV commercial to push all those voting virgins to do it on Election Day.

Ladies' Man

Feminists do have a sense of humor! Just ask Stephen Colbert. His "Salute to the American Lady" show had me rolling on the floor, for real. Special guests Jane Fonda and Gloria Steinem proved that when Stephen gives you apples, you make apple pie jokes. Check it out.

Court Says No to Doe

In S. Dakota, the poll numbers are looking good -- those who plan to vote to appeal the ban are in the majority. Just like the number of Americans who believe in choice are.

So, as the right does so well, the anti-choicers are simply seeing what's working and putting out the message, wait for it: feminism is a woman's right to motherhood. That has a very surreal Stepford wives ring to it, doesn't it? I mean, right to motherhood, from a union of incest? of rape? Coz that's what this ballot measure says. I don't call that right. I call it wrong.

Meanwhile, the Supremes said No Thanks to re-thinking a part of their 1973 decision legalizing abortion. Take that, S. Dakota.

Not So Ordinary People

Check out the new show that's up on the B-Side Web site.

Have You Had One?

Well, seems we haven't come so far along, baby. In fact, if you don't want to have a baby, the laws are getting more and more restrictive. Your phrarmacist may refuse to fill your prescription. And you may have to plead with a judge to end a pregnancy you never wanted in the first place. This isn't the 60s or 70s, but retro, when it comes to telling women when and how they can be mothers, is in.

So Ms. Magazine had the idea to do something that was groundbreaking when it was first published, maybe will get some attention once again. The We Had an Abortion pledge. Made public. In their magazine. Hey, maybe we'll have to fight to have Ms. back, too. Ah, good times.

Educated Women Have More Orgasms

Not my opinion, just a new survey out from Canada. How does someone get funding for that kind of study? While I can't vouch for the scientific rigor of it, I can enjoy
the headline.

This might be the best argument for educating women I've ever heard.

Good Freakin' Idea

Women, if you're living in D.C. and are poor -- here's what you need. A man. And a wedding ring. Because we know, that's what solves socio-ecnomic problems for women: men. Men with no jobs or housing or direction. But if they're husbands, well, this changes everything -- at least if you're in D.C. That's what the "marriage-incentive" program being considered by Congress would have us believe.

Recipe for Success

Here's a perfect example of thinking creatively to make movies women will want to see:

Nora Ephron is writing the screenplay to The Julie/Julia Project -- the book by Julie Powell that was a blog about cooking every recipe in Julia Child's cookbook.

Ephron, one of my all-time fave screenwriters and who knows a thing or two about love and cooking (remember Heartburn? You can read it or rent it on Netflix)is the perfect match for this really fun read -- about an almost-30 secretary hating her life and job, married and living in a tiny Queens apartment post-9/11 New York City, and focuses her energies and talent on going through Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Every night. After work. She cooks. She cries. She writes.

Now, how cool is that for an idea for a great movie? No explosions. No big budget. I can't wait.

Hollywood, Why Don't You Call Us Anymore?


I make a habit of it to meet my best gal pals for movies and dinner when we really get excited about some chick flick. Recently, it was the Devil Wears Prada. We're also anticipating the Sofia Coppola teen-queen movie on Marie Antoinette, due out in a couple weeks. But in-between, we stick mainly to dinners. Because there's nothing out there for us.

The most recent issue of Entertainment Weekly has a cover story that asks where are all the women? In movies, in the studio, in the audience? And it makes clear, in dollars and cents, that this is an issue that Hollywood is not making sense on. Simply put, women make up half the audience. And, the movies we like are ones with a good script, not good explosions, which are much cheaper to make, and tend to do really well over time. Plus, there's an incredible talent pool. So, what's up Hollywood? Although EW is right to point out obvious lack of movies by and for women, I'm ticked for a different reason. I think Hollywood doesn't give a rat's ass about me or my girlfriends looking for a good time without our men on a Saturday night. They think that I'll just roll my eyes and let myself be dragged to X Men or Superman or whatever movie my man wants to go see, the more special effects the better.

Well, Hollywood, you can't get away with that. It's lazy. It's greedy. And it sure won't win you any awards. So get off your duffs and start making movies that the other half of the movie population wants to see. Better yet, hire some more women in high places and I won't have to waste this space explaining why making movies for the other half of the population makes sense.

Dame's Eye View

One of my fave all-time writers, Joan Didion, writes about the most reviled of all public figures, Dick Cheney, in the most recent issue of NY Review of Books. You should not be reading the piece near any heavy objects that will break or do damage if thrown across a room.

Also, watch for the Lowell Bergman Frontline (yes, the guy made famous by his expose on 60 Minutes of the tabacco industry, as portraed by Al Pacino in the Insider) on sleeper cells. He operates out of the Berkeley journalism school, which is very low-key about his presence there. He was on the Colbert Report the other night talking about it and it sounds Tivo-worthy.

BlogHer

Check out my comrade Jen Nix's blog posts at FireDogLake. She is fun, sassy and is on the march to make blogging something more than dismissed by the mainstream media. (It's coz they're scared of us.)She went after ABC on that ridiculous ABC fake-o-drama on 9/11 and her goal is to make the media accountable, whether they like it or not. Go Jen!

Beauty Junkies, Take Note

I'm not normally one to shill for a makeup brand, but this is too good a find to pass up: the new brand e.l.f (eyes face lips) is selling tons of beauty goods for a buck a pop to get the word out on their brand coming to Bloomies (opening this week in SF, by the way. Not that I'm excited about that. Not by a long shot.)

Best of all: they don't test on animals. And there's a fabulous co-promotion for a $5 tweezers that supports the Humane Society. On the ergo tweezer it reads: fur free. Indeed.

Marie Antoinette Makeover

If you want the non-fiction version of Marie Antoinette before Sofia Coppola's film comes out later this month, check out David Grubin's take on the teen queen. On PBS tonight. I saw a preview two weeks ago and while I think it's problematic in some ways (how do you discuss Marie Antoinette and leave out the details of the French Revolution as so much background noise?), but the first hour had some very juicy details that you may not know. Apparently some PBS stations will be censoring the political cartoons (yes, from the 18th century) that denigrate the queen with the best tool available: enormous penises. Check it out.

Our Bodies Overseas

Over the weekend I found myself discussing the best place to have a baby in the Bay Area. Several hospitals were compared, one was high-tech, the other respectful of women who want to bring in a mid-wife or birth coach. And then I picked up the Sunday New York Times. There I read Nicholas D. Kristof's harrowing tale of a young woman in Cameroon who needlessly dies in childbirth. He even goes so far as to donate his own blood. He writes:

Prudence, 24, was from a small village and already had three small children. As she was in labor to deliver her fourth, an untrained midwife didn’t realize she had a cervical blockage and sat on Prudence’s stomach to force the baby out — but instead her uterus ruptured and the fetus died.

Prudence’s family carried her to the hospital on a motorcycle, but once she was there the doctor, Pascal Pipi, demanded $100 for a Caesarian to remove the fetus. The fetus was decomposing inside her, and an infection was raging in her abdomen — but her family had total savings of only $20, so she lay down in the maternity ward and began to die.

I arrived the next day, interviewed Dr. Pipi about maternal mortality — and found Prudence fading away in the next room. Dr. Pipi said she needed a blood transfusion before the operation could begin, so a Times colleague, Naka Nathaniel, and I donated blood (yes, the needles were sterile) and cash.

The transfusion helped Prudence, and she grew strong enough to reach out her hand and respond to people around her. Dr. Pipi said the operation would begin promptly, and Prudence’s family was ecstatic. But as we waited in the hospital lobby, Dr. Pipi sneaked out the back door of the hospital and went home for the night.

It wasn’t just the doctor who failed Prudence, but the entire system. He did operate the next morning, but by then the infection had spread further — and the hospital had no powerful antibiotics. Prudence’s breathing grew strained, as her stomach ballooned with the infection and the bag of urine from her catheter overflowed. The nurses couldn’t be bothered with a poor villager like her.

That night she began vomiting and spitting blood. She slipped into a coma, and a towel beside her head grew soggy with blood and vomit. On Tuesday afternoon, she finally passed away.

Intellectually, I knew that women in Africa had a 1-in-20 lifetime risk of dying in childbirth. But it was wrenching to see this young mother of three fade and die so needlessly.

As Gloria Steinem pointed out in discussing the need for the Women's Media Center, it goes un-noticed that 6 million women around the world die every year just for being women. "It's a holocaust of women every year," she said.

My mom called me crazy in tears after watching Christiane Amanpour's report on AIDS orphans in Kenya.

My question is, how many women and children must die on camera or in a column before this country cares? Kristof points out that we spend more on pet food in this country than it would take to provide maternal health care around the world. Please. Women's health must rank somewhere near our favorite pets. Even if they are women we never see or hear about.

Where Are All the Women?

After meeting Gloria Steinem and hearing about her latest project, the Women's Media Center, and thinking maybe it was a little old-school, it's a good reminder to see that, well, actually, this focus might be timely after all.

In Broadsheet today there's a little piece about WomenTK.com, started by an editor at Glamor, which tracks the woeful lack of women writers in major magazines like New Yorker and Vanity Fair. The ratio of men to women is a pathetic 3:1.

If we don't want gender to be an issue, we have to get to a point where there are so many women writers that it doesn't matter who's writing what. But we're not there yet.

Can You Be Too Thin?

There was a great moment on Project Runway a few episodes ago where Heidi Klum, who hosts the competition, announces the next challenge: designing for the everyday woman. Then in come the everyday women: the contestants' moms and sisters. Instead of the usual wire-hanger stand-ins, they actually had to design for women's bodies: soft, round, curvy, short, fat. You could see the shock on their faces. But who exactly do these wanna-be designers think buy clothes, anyway?

I was thinking about this because in today's New York Times Style section is a story out of Fashion Week: When Is Thin Too Thin?

Apparently, those in the biz think it's now. Fashion insiders are shocked, shocked! that models are so very, very thin. Of course, to be a model, that is the job description, but these women are serious over-acheivers. The desire for models to look as close to a hanging bag has pushed the models to scary skinny. Of course, they push, or purge, or whatever they do to look like that, themseleves, to get the jobs the designers want. (Michael Kors, who is a judge on Project Runway, has a model showcased in the piece that looks like the walking undead.)

Waif is out. Chemo patient is in.

With actual people in the world starving, it seems a little awkward to be sending starving models down the runway. The Madrid Fashion Week has officially banned anyone who doesn't fit the World Health Organization's weight/height metrics considered normal -- 125 pounds! Where will they find anyone who weighs that much in the fashion industry? Methinks the fashion industry protest too much.

I Just Met Gloria Steinem!

And she looks marvelous. She, along with Jane Fonda and past Planned Parenthood Director Gloria Feldt started a new women's organization called Women's Media Center. Steinem is working on a guidebook for journalists called "unspinning the spin," which will reframe some of the oldies but goodies: preferential treatment, the death tax, pro-life, etc.

The GreenStone radio project came out of the Women's Media Center. But I'm thinking it's a little old school -- they seemed a little wary of blogs, even through their site links to many good feminist ones. Gloria's name gets the kind of press many bloggers and nonprofits would kill for. But who cares if their organization rehashes the same old feminist tune. I met Gloria Steinem. This just in: the revolution is still on.

I Am Woman, Hear Me Roar -- on FM

Forget about a room of one's own -- how about a talk-radio station? Since the all-male, all-talk format has supposedly been chasing women away in droves, this women's network launched by Gloria Steinem, who else, will be the female answer to Rush and Howard.

What I hope is that all-women doesn't mean all-fluff. I guess we'll find out if we tune in. After all, women is rather a broad swath -- and Oprah's women are different from NPR's women are different from, well, Rush's women.

I couldn't figure out if this is on FM or AM -- does anyone know? You can listen on their Web site.

Has Anybody Read It?

That was the question Sociology Professor Nancy Whittier posed to a standing room only crowd this weekend at Smith College to remember Betty Friedan and The Feminine Mystique. Whittier asked her mom, who was in Friedan's generation, to comment in preparation for the symposium. Her mom admitted: she hadn't read it, but it changed her life.

Maybe it didn't matter if anyone read it. It sparked a movement.

This panel got personal when discussing the political.

Betty Friedan was difficult. Like Moses, a prophet. And maybe an ego to match. Her rivalry with Gloria Stienem was petty, but real. Gloria got an honorary doctorate from Smith in 1971, before Ms. and years before Friedan. "Was it because of the story she wrote about the bunny?" Friedan reportedly fumed to Barbara Seaman, also there to talk about her colleague. But this being a panel from the sociology department, the conversation came back to this:

Would the women's movement have happened without her and The Feminine Mystique.

Walking the grounds of Smith at the start of the academic year left me feeling energizied. It's hard to explain the feeling of being in a room full of smart women. It's unspoken, but so powerful. This must have done something to Friedan. She said she was re-born at Smith. She went out into the world to change it.

Would the women's movement happened without Betty Friedan? Of course. But the book sparked the movement, it crystallized a profoundly unpopular sentiment: that women who should have been happy, were not. It got women talking to each other, it got them to raise their voices.

Would the French Revolution have happened without Marie Antoinette? Probably, but she helped unify the French people against her. Strange to be thinking about those two women from very different times this year, but both women are being re-examined this season and were the inspiration for revolution.

Head Over Heels for Teen Queen

The madness for the Queen of France continues with a historical version of her story that, while doesn't call for her head, does lay the blame of the French revolution squarely on her overly dressed shoulders. Different queen, different outcome? You can check it out on PBS.

Remembering 9/11

A lot has happened in five years. Five years ago, the trade centers stood. And then they fell. I remember being unable to reach my mother that day, who lives in Manhattan and worked in Brooklyn. I reached my father by e-mail, whose loft boasted a picture window that looked on to the towers, where he suddenly had a first-row view of people stuck on the upper floors of the towers hurtling to their deaths.

New York is my adopted home, where my parents live, where my sister went to high school, and where my grandparents came to start their lives. My sister, a designer, and her collaborator Andi, created a a T-shirt design in 2001 to raise money for the 9/11 fund, which was showcased in Graphic Design. Today I think about the design, and the destruction of the towers, those inside, and of loss.

The Pygmy in the Zoo

Yet another Radio Diary from Joe Richman is airing today on NPR's All Things Considered -- The Pygmy in the Zoo, about a man from then Belgian Congo who lived in the monkey cage in the Bronx Zoo 100 years ago.

Can We Handle the Truth?

So this ABC fake-o-drama "Path to 9/11" about the events leading to 9/11 that down plays the Bush administration's mistakes and plays up or makes up ones from the Clinton years leads me to wonder: do they think we can't handle the truth? Who benefits from thinking that the Bush administration did everything it could, when we know it didn't? You know how we know? The bipartisan 9/11 Commission report. That's how. Joe Conason's piece in Salon today details how the ABC fiction is telling a tale that never happened. The New York Times review says of course everyone made mistakes and that the bloggers are just a bunch of whiners. Oh, those things called facts can really get in the way of a good drama, can't they? I mean, Bush was no action hero. He was huddled with school kids reading about a goat when the planes hit the towers. He didn't know what to do. He wanted to clear brush at the ranch, not read memos about Bin Laden determined to attack in U.S. It's not pretty. But that's the truth. And no gauzy made-for-TV movie is going to change that.

Where We Are Now

This Labor Day weekend I flew to southern California to hit the beach and rememeber what a hot summer feels like. At the airport I forgot to take my sunscreen out of my bag and had it confiscated by a stern dude wearing fatigues. At least, as my husband consoled me, it wasn't the expensive sunblock, which was safely tucked away in a checked bag.

But it made me think. Is this all we have to show for the 9/11 attacks? Does taking my sunscreen away make me safer? We're at war, thousands have died. There's no guarantee that we won't be attacked again. And, to quote Tom Lehrer, everyone still hates the Jews.

We had a 9/11 Commission, a fat report whose recommendations still haven't been adopted. We have airports where moms' breast milk is viewed with suspicion, and my sunscreen is taken away. And we now have made entertainment around 9/11, movies like Flight 93, World Trade Center, and apparently a docudrama on ABC filled with inaccuracies and the right-wing conspiracy theory that places the blame of the attacks at Clinton's feet. (Memos that scream "Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside United States" aside.) We have first responders with lasting health problems.

Hendrik Hertzberg's New Yorker essay this week talks about how we squandered a post-attack unity, when the headline in France was "Nous Sommes Tous Americains." But five years later, what we have to show for it is being treated like the enemy at the airport.

Katie Couric: Meow Fest


Cattiness aside (her publicity photo re-touched, outfit more debated than her output), Katie Couric's debut behind the anchor desk at CBS news is not about the triumph of feminism in network news. I mean, she's a pioneer the way any woman with her star wattage and a dream can attain.

But that list is a little short. I bet Oprah would be available to take over at ABC news -- that would be just the kind of ratings jump they need.

This Breastfeeding Policy Sucks

A story on the front page of the New York Times today discusses the big-time class chasm between working women with good jobs and big offices who can breastfeed at will vs. women who are lucky if they can breastfeed in the public bathroom.

Since women have been brow-beaten to breastfeed, and many go back to work while they're still lactating, the work place should make it easy to do. But like so many other issues that break along class lines, women with good jobs often are provided special lactation rooms with comfy chairs, fashion mags and e-mail access. While women at low-wage jobs (even at the same company) are left to fend for themselves with milk-filled breasts and nowhere to pump. One woman said,

I feel like I had to choose between feeding my baby the best food and earning a living.

The news now is not that high-powered women breastfeed at work. It's what's happening with the low-power ones that's a worry.

Fashion Fur-Pas

Check out this latest Humane Society's anti-fur campaign just in time for New York's fashion week. Jay McCaroll, Project Runway's first season winner, and a fur-free designer, is recruiting people to sign a fur-free pledge.

Our Right to Shoes

The other day, when Lisa Jervis and Andi Zeisler were on KQED's Forum to promote Bitchfest, their anthology of 10 years of Bitch magazine, a woman called in. The second-wave feminist was bemoaning the backlash of back-breaking shoes. I thought we'd won this war, she said. But now women are running around in ridiculous shoes again. I think she may even have thrown in Sex and the City as Exhibit A of the bad-for-you-shoes.

Then I talked to my mom a few days ago. Actually, she called me from the streets of Manhattan to tell me about a shoe sale I was missing. A good one. She was trying on a pair of shoes that were just perfect. Buying them, and wearing them out the door. She called back to tell me they were very comfortable. At four inches, she told me, the shoes felt so comfortable it was like walking in slippers.

My mom, I might add, also of the second wave. She marched. She attended hootenannies. She even, in high school, protested the no-sandals dress code by wearing boots in the summer. Don't think feminism isn't without a sense of humor.

I guess one woman's battleground is another woman's suit of armor. It is, after all, a right we've won. Our right to shoes.

A Space of Our Own

B-Side Radio -- the show I help produce -- has finally caught the MySpace vibe -- a little late, but better than never. Check out our MySpace page. You can listen to some recent shows and, you know, send us love notes, or be our friends, or whatever it is you do with MySpace.

The Billie Jean Way

I love that the woman who beat the pants off Bobby Riggs in the battle of the sexes tennis match back in 1973 and opened doors for women athletes and, well, women in general, in countless ways, now has the U.S. Open Tenns Center named for her.

Marie Antoinette: Style Queen

Apparently I'm not the only one with an eye on the monarchy. This Sunday's New York Times Style magazine insert featured Marie Antoinette as a French fashionista. The teen queen had a passion for fashion, and, as Antonia Fraser notes in her book on the style icon, the craze of her courtiers to follow in her oh-so-chic shoes led more than one husband to go bankrupt. Suddenly the look of Marie Antoinette is once again now.

What are we to make of this trend? A woman beheaded as the last Queen of France, during her reign of incredible excess (hers) and incredible hardship of everyone else? Maybe it's fun to popularize that century's real-life Cruella DeVille. After all, would she have been remembered if she hadn't made the notorious remark during the Flour War when people were starving, to "mangent de la brioche" when bread -- the food staple of the French -- cost half of a working person's income?

A little bit of style certainly goes a long way.

The Forbes Mystique

How did this one slip past the editors at Forbes.com:

An article that could have been at home in the 50s found its way on the Forbes Web site: Don't Marry a Career Woman. Really. Are career women too uppity for the delicate sensabilities of the Forbes.com readers? And, given that Forbes is a business publication, wouldn't these same working women that Forbes warned their male readership away from actually be the target audience of Forbes?

Turns out, not very many people at all read Forbes. The New York Times reported today that their readership is overblown, despite their feminist-baiting articles.

Plan B Prescription-Free

Finally, the FDA approved Plan B to be available over the counter (but still behind the counter) to women over 18. Plan B will be in your local drugstores (we hope) by the end of the year. Was that so very hard to figure out?

By the way, Planned Parenthood recommends heading to one of their clinics to pick up a package of Plan B to have on hand as back up birth control. This seems especially good advice if you're under 18 and need a doctor's note. You never know when you'll need to go to Plan B.

Cake Eater

She was spoiled, young, misunderstood. And she was the Queen of France. She thought she was beloved, but the jewels and outrageous outfits and opulance of Versailles were far more expensive than the taxies levied on the people of France. They cost her her head.

Marie Antoinette is making a popular come back. I'm reading the tome by Antonia Fraser. A movie starring Kristen Dunst as the teen queen and directed by Sofia Coppala comes out this fall. And a documentary film by David Grubin (who I once interned for in college) will be airing on PBS.

Certainly she is fascinating, in the way a car crash attracts attention -- you can't look away. And her story is larger than life, great fodder for melodrama no matter how it's staged. Still. It's a little creepy to know that in some ways, she'll be viewed with sympathy. Her mother, Austrian royalty, ruled her family and husband while telling her daughter to submit to her French king. She married off her youngest at the age of 14 to form a successful alliance in France. Fraser in her book even describes Marie Antoinette as a spy and a sleeper cell for her mother.

Apparently, Sofia Coppala's homage is post-modern, with the cake-loving queen clad in Converse sneakers and rocking out to Siouxsie and the Banshees. The movie was booed at Cannes, although I'm not sure if it was because it was an impressionistic rather than historic portrayal, or if it was simply too kind to the woman who inspired a revolution. Or if that's just French.

Lovely Lush

"I don't care what is written about me so long as it isn't true."

Okay, Dorothy Parker, here goes.

I can't sign off tonight without a toast to that literary luminary, whose birthday is today. She was quick with the quip, and quicker with the liquor.

Her wit was dry, even if she was never without a drink.

She fought depression and alcoholism her entire life. She would probably say she didn't fight them at all.

But who better to lay out her accomplishments as one of the most quoted American writers than Dorothy Parker herself.

I'm never going to accomplish anything; that's perfectly
clear to me. I'm never going to be famous. My name will never
be writ large on the roster of Those Who Do Things. I don't
do anything. Not one single thing. I used to bite my nails,
but I don't even do that any more.

What a dame.

Plan B Gets A-OK

Bush's news conference gave me one piece of news I didn't already know: he supports Plan B. Did I hear that right? Bush-backed birth control? Apparently, this is so. And so the FDA should make it so. Get Plan B out. Now.

Fear Factor

I always thought that the reason that amusement parks had been built was to manufacture fear that we, as Americans, could never experience by living in this cush of a country.

But as this latest terror threat reminds me, fear is an amazingly effective tool. (Panic attacks over hand cream? Terror in my lip gloss? You can't make this up.)

A preview for the movie Snakes on a Plane announced a long list of phobias. Fear of flying. Fear of snakes. Fear of small places. In some ways, these kind of fears are so quaint. We have drugs to deal with these little inconveniences, people. But drugs to deal with bomb-wielding terrorits? Or how about drugs to deal with endless lines at the airport and forgetting to take your toothpaste out of your carry-on luggage? It's no surprise we're all looking for a little suspension of reality, when real-life has become more cinematic than any movie could have imagined. One review called it Flight 93 without the tears.

So I was wondering how this blogger-fueled madness for the movie Snakes on a Plane would do, even with Samuel L. Jackson. Even with snakes. On a mother ***** plane.

Of course, this kind of horror-tainment is closer to the amusement park rides than any real-life event. And yet. When a beauty product or a bottle of water marks you as a potential threat, maybe this is a move whose time has come. Snakes bringing a plane down? Now replace snakes with toothpaste and you have our summer blockbuster.

Michael Krasney Said Bitch!

Lisa Jervis and Andi Zeisler, founders of Bitch, are being interviewed on KQED's Forum program right now celebrating 10 bitching years. Check out their interview, or better yet, buy the book, Bitchfest.

What's the Plan for Plan B?

To paraphrase Gloria Steinem, if men needed to take Plan B, do ya think the FDA would be stalling to get it approved the way it is now? This is a no-brainer, people. It's safe. It's effective. It would prevent abortions. What more of an agument do you need? Apparently, much more. Tell the FDA to just do it.

It's the Exceptions, Stupid

Check out this latest poll about the South Dakota abortion ban that shows that even more people are against the no-rape-or-incest exceptions law.

It's pretty amazing that in such a conversative state, people are being forced to confront their anti-abortion views against the hideous idea that a woman who was sexually assaulted would be forced to bring to term the outcome of that union.

But there it is, in black and white, right in the ban. Not only does it clearly not hold water constitutionally, it doesn't hold weight with S. Dakota residents, either.

Exploding Lip Gloss

I've been told that my collection of lip stick, lip gloss, lip blam, sheer tints, chap stick and the like is a bit much. But explosive? That's a first.

Since the feds have banned liquids or gels from being carried on planes due to the thwarted terrorist plot to bring on bottled chemicals that looked like your average Dasani bottle, I've had to re-think my lips. I'm not sure how the leap from liquid explosives to lip gloss came about, but there it is. That must be one powerful ingredient that could fit into a lipstick tube to bring down a whole plane.

Not that I'm questioning the feds. I mean, if anyone knows how to keep us safe, it's them. Maybe, as Condi Rice would say, this crisis also means opportunity. Maybe someone can invent some special kind of terror-free lip product that's airplane friendly. FAA requirements met. It might go on a little thick, but that's to make up for the feds reasoning, which is a bit thin.

Update: August 14
Hooray! CNN just reported that "Ladies, you can now bring a tube of lipstick on the plane." Still no lip gloss -- that's still too explosive.

Pining for P-Town

It's summer and the world is heating up, terrorists are causing fear in airports in real life and snakes are causing fear on planes in the movie theaters, and I am thinking about P-Town.

That's Provincetown, Cape Cod. The little funky town where my mom and her parents would decamp from New York City, where she spent all her childhood summers, and then where my sis and I spent ours. We stayed at 535 Commercial Street, known to us as the Kibbutz (and about as close to one as I've ever come). Aside from my grandparents, who had rented a small apartment right on the water there year after year, was Roz Roos, who held a famous literary salon in New York, Al Jaffee, of Mad magazine fame, Art Bloom, the clarinetist who taught Woody Allen (but he was better known for having the best door to play hand ball) and Chaim Gross, artist. My mom threw a birthday party for my sis, August 12, and the entire Kibbutz would turn out. Often, we were the only kids there. Even though it wasn't a typical type of birthday party for a kid, it felt terribly glamorous and Carolla always got so many presents she never seemed to mind.

For two kids who spent most of the year shuttled between divorced parents and daily life with a very protective mom, P-Town was our playground for a few glorious weeks a year. Where the kids left the house at sun up and didn't come home till after dark. The water lapped the piers and usually once a summer some storm would rip the staircase that led down to the beach straight off. The staircase was about 10 steps down to the beach, and the tide came in so high we could start swimming from the steps. Then went out so far we could run and play tag on the flats for miles.

We collected shells, sand crabs and minnows, stubbed our toes, begged for empty cigar boxes from the 5 and dime and scrounged for forks that fell through the cracks of the restaurants on the pier next to ours. It was P-Town where I first saw the Wizard of Oz (my sister was so scared by the wicked witch my mom had to leave early and buy her ice cream), where I discovered the stark beauty of the dunes and had my first date. (I was nine. He was 10. He took me to the drive-in. His mother drove.)

I read today in the New York Times that everyone, and hey, myself included, is avoiding summer vacations these days. But noone would if they had a time like we had in P-Town.

The Plan for Plan B

Looks like the FDA is serious about getting Plan B over the counter. The catch? Only those 18 and over can partake. Right, because anyone can buy a condom, but I'm sure the only ones that break are the ones used on women who are also old enough to vote.



The Onion has thought through the ramifications of Plan B for the over-18 crowd, too.

Worlds Are Colliding

Bitch has hit big-time: Bitch magazine co-founder Andi Zeisler was Deborah Solomon's interview subject in the Sunday New York Times magazine. As snarky as Solomon's question got, Andi lobbed back. Example: on naming the magazine Bitch:

Q.: But is the goal to rouse an entire generation of women to become bitches?
A.: We have always sort of concentrated more on the active form of "bitch." As in, to bitch. And, actually, as grammar nerds, that was one of the big factors in choosing "bitch." Hey, it's a noun and a verb.

The angle of Solomon's interview was basically summed up in one of her last questions about whether feminism is being undermined by, of all places, Bitch:

"Doesn't the obsession with pop culture risk trviliazing feminism?"

OK. So it's not enough that feminism has brought about the expectation of gender equality in, oh, I don't know, the workplace. Schools. Domestic life, even. But Bitch isn't serious enough because the mag bills itself as feminist but deals with sexuality and not policy? TV shows instead of TV news? People, we live in a culture that is over-exposed to media, advertising and images that need to be addressed from a feminist perspective. Because if Bitch doesn't do it, who will?

Bitch is getting noticed for celebrating 10 um, bitching years. For me, it's personal. It was one of the first places I ever published. My first piece for the newly minted 'zine was all about the Wonder Bra. I should better say, I ranted about the Wonder Bra. Since then, we've had the Miracle Bra, the bareley there bra, the T-shirt bra. I have still never worn a bra that claimed to be wonderful. But Bitch sure is.

P.S. The other great thing I forgot to add: heh, heh: New York Times said "bitch."

Goy Gone Wild

Global warming. Horrific violence in the Middle East. Mel Gibson. Does one of these things not go with the others? In the midst of global death and destruction, I was shocked, shocked to hear that Mel Gibson, of all people, director of The Passion of the Christ, son of a Holocaust denier, founder of bizarre sect of Catholicism that even the Pop eschews, is an anti-Semite! But only when drunk.

To avoid the press, and I guess, the Jews, he’s slinked off to the Betty Ford center swearing off tequila and what-not and now everyone seems to have a suggestion about how he can repent! (That sounds very, um, Christian, doesn’t it? Can’t we do something more Jewy, like have him just feel bad for the rest of his life? I like that idea so much better. Oh, wait, he could throw money at the problem! That’s tres Jewish!)

On top of that, it’s been such a fun water-cooler topic trading tips on what Mel might have said. He might have called the officer who pulled him over “Sugar Tits.” This from the man who co-starred opposite foxy Rene Russo in all those Lethal Weapons flicks? I guess I should have stopped expecting much from him long ago.

But still, you have to wonder how a guy who's been in Hollywood so long could still harbor so much provincial hate -- after all, he's not someone who's never met a Jew before. He really has run out of excuses.

You know, the saddest thing is how far he’s fallen. From being the guy whose impish face and hot bod I’d see up in my girl friends’ dorm rooms for a little hero worship to being the same face that now works fine for target practice. Oy!

Poll Tells It All

The good news: A poll on the S. Dakota abortion ban says a majority of S. Dakotans disapprove of such a punitive law with no rape exception. The ban, intended to be a challenge to Roe v. Wade, was so extreme that even the extremists are having second thoughts. But we're not there yet. The ban still needs to be overturned by voters in November.

Why We Fight

Today in Salon, Michelle Goldberg writes a chilling tale from Mississippi from the frontlines of the abortion wars. You can get a day pass to enter the site and read the piece for yourself. But here's a taste:

"We're not waiting for the president, we're not waiting for the Congress, we're not waiting for the Supreme Court," Benham told me a few days before the rally. "This issue can't be won from the top down." At Benham's side for much of the week was Norma McCorvey, the Jane Roe of Roe v. Wade, who since 1995 has been an evangelical antiabortion activist. "It would really please the Lord God if Mississippi becomes the first abortion-free state," she said, as she stood in front of the Jackson Women's Health Organization one scorched morning. "Then all he'd have to worry about are the other 49." She happily reeled off the names of states where abortion bans have been introduced or passed: "South Dakota, Ohio, Louisiana…"

Revenge of the 80s

First I kind of laughed when people (my mom especially) started wearing leg warmers outside of dance class. Again.

My laugh was more of a grimace when I heard Miami Vice was back, this time as a movie. A movie that critics seem apologetic at liking so much despite how basically dumb it is.

And my grimace turned to outright swearing when I saw the latest trend is, wait for it, leggings. You may remember leggings from their front-and-center turn in my college years, striped ones, patterned ones, black ones. Worn with long flowy shirts and paired with chunky shoes. Sound familiar? The flowy shirt is now a bubble shape and the chunky shoes are there, this time as sky-high platforms.

I am also sorry to report that it doesn't end with skin-tight legwear that ends at the ankle. As I was glancing through my special edition of In Style magazine,* I paged through tips on how to wear jumpers (!) and neon so it didn't look too 80s. Too late!

I guess what I'm confused about is this: is the fashion industry so bereft of ideas they can't wait even a generation to reach back into the worst fashion mistakes of all time and bring them back? Is this some kind of sick joke?

Well, I will not be wearing any of those items mentioned above. What will I be wearing? At The Grocery Store, not actually a food market but a boutique out in my 'hood, the assistant manager suggested a turquoise cashmere sweater with a skull decked out with a jaunty red kerchief. I think she took offense at my reaction (pure hilarity) because she said quickly: "skulls are very now. Haven't you seen Pirates of the Caribbean?" Great, so when it's not the fashion-industrial complex telling me how to get dressed, it's Disney. Arrrrrgh!

*Yes, I subscribe to In Style. Why? I'll tell you. I like fashion, but I could care less about reading about it, or any faux-celeb reporting with its obsequious PR-machine formulaic crap that gives me little dirt and lots of useless details about what kind of shampoo so-and-so uses. With In Style, I look at pictures. No reading required. 'Nuf said.

A Terrible Tale

OK, I promise to write about something lighter tomorrow, but for now, this just has to get some ink. Turning to Iran. It's bad enough that the country since the revolution, has considered Islamic law its highest authority. It's worse that this law includes punishment of death for sex outside of marriage. But when that law is turned on a 16-year-old girl, something finally has to be done. While we worry about nukes in Iran, what about the explosive issue of the treatment of women. While Iranians may be building bombs, they're also burying girls -- and the facts surrounding the abuse and death. Here's what the BBC reported.

Could It Happen Here?

I know the Middle East is blowing up right now, and it's horrifying and tragic. But whenever the news focuses solely on one area of the world, I start worrying about Africa. It's a whole continent with every kind of strife -- civil war, religious war, gun-running, drug-running, oil-rich, disease-ridden and famine plagued. Don't get me wrong, there is plenty that is great about Africa -- I did spend six months in Kenya. But I fear that the problems don't sway the world powers the way some other regions do.

If we keep going this way, we'll end up like Kenya: no health insurance, no reproductive rights, and lots of unwanted pregnancies, poverty and pollution. With help from U.S. foreign aid, which only directs aid to countries that agree to the global gag rule -- no talking about abortions -- we are creating my worst nightmare. It's unclear to me why those who claim the moral highground think that forcing a woman to give birth every time she conceives, without being in charge of her reproduction, in countries where women are not in charge of much, helps.

But it can always get worse: women seeking abortions can be treated like criminals.

It's Election Season

I really hate waking up to news that a bunch of old white men are once again deciding the fate of teen girls. Really, really hate that. I know it only happens in election season, when politics trump rights and reason, but really, where will the madness stop?

This time it's to take up a bill that persecutes people helping teen girls cross state lines from an anti-choice state to a pro-choice state where they can get an abortion without parental consent. EEEW. Are we going to have a start an underground railroad, now, so teens can get the help they need?

Once again, this movement to force teen girls to give birth is promoting punishment for girls or women for making a mistake. It is sick. It is hateful. And it's going to be law.

Happy anniversary!

Of what, you ask? See my post on the Bitch blog to find out.

We Had Abortions

In 1972, yes, before Roe v. Wade was legalized, 53 women in Ms. magazine signed a petition asserting they'd had an abortion, seeking to fight the stigma around the procedure. Ms. has decided that things have gotten so bad that they need to do it again.

Pooch Posturing

On the stairmaster this morning I was surfing channels. (Love to multi-task on the stairmaster, helps kill the deadly boredom of the gym. In fact, starimasters have so little popularlity these days, having been replaced with the sleek elliptical trainers, the tough treadmills and the spinning bikes, that my stairmaster -- and it is mine -- noone else uses them, and even the gym staff call it mine -- faces the wall instead of the prime real estate of the window. But I digress.)

Eager to not watch Bush spew his pandering rhetoric to the NAACP, which was being taped live on most cable news networks, I was looking for relief. I thought I had come across some kind of View-like talk show with Daisy Fuentes interviewing that woman who is on all the time and I never recognize her from any actual show, but her name is Rinna. Anyway, they were talking about pilates. How does Rinna always look so good (and with so much makeup on, not sure how Daisy could tell, any who.) and Rinna says, oh, it's the pilates. Then they cut to her doing her little pilates routine and she's talking about how after she had her second child, her stomach was "shot." As an ad for the pilates tape flashed on the screen, I realized I was watching an infomercial. Punked! Star after star gave their testimonial on camera. Virginia Madsen said it helped her lose her post-pregnancy pounds, since she wasn't one of those stars who just "bounced back."

I know it's a total fantasy, but I just kept waiting for Daisy to ask Rinna in her interview: so why is having a hard pooch so important? What does it give you? Fulfillment? Accomplishment? Fighting gravity? Fighting being fired? I know stars are held to a different standard, but they're beaming into homes at seven in the morning to women with their new-borns thinking: I can be like Rinna. But they were selling pilates like another quick fix to women who weren't really broken to begin with. At least it was more entertaining than Bush.

Frat Boy-In-Chief

Bush is taking the ugly American to new levels at this latest G8 summit. He's swearing. He's talking with his mouth full. He's annoyed and bored with his co-rulers of the world. But this unsolicited backrub of the German Chancellor Angela Merkel is just too icky for words. So let the picture Kos is running say it all.

Look Who's Talking

Creepiest report ever -- the Dems have discovered that so-called "pregnancy resource centers" that have recieved millions in fed money are actually anti-abortion fronts.

It's About Location, Location, Location

This does not bode well: an ABC story posted today about anti-choice groups who can't stand the idea of clinics providing abortions services are opting to buy the property and evict the clinic tenants.

The Gender Divide, Continued

Here's a piece that should have been part of the NYT series on the new gender divide in colleges across the country. Women in the naval academy. Even though there are a record number of women, that hasn't stopped men from behaving badly. Just because women have been on the scene for years does not stop their male counterparts from treating women like nothing more than a piece of ass.

The Woman Within Wants Out

Check out my post on Bitch.

Re-Writing Roe

Check out this fascinating blog by Jack Balkin, a Yale law professor who wrote a book on re-writing the Roe v. Wade decision. Here's an excerpt from the book, where he basically speaks of the forced birth movement, an idea that needs to get out into the mainstream as an answer to the scary growth in states of the fetal rights movement.

My opinion argues that abortion statutes violate both women’s liberty and their equality. Restrictions on abortion compel women to become mothers, with all of the social expectations and duties that come with motherhood. Whether fairly or not, women in American society still bear most of the responsibility for childcare. They are expected to make sacrifices for their children and they feel most of the brunt of social condemnation if their children are not properly cared for. Moreover, because of the strong social expectations about the duties of motherhood, women suffer stigma and shame if they give their children up for adoption. The right to abortion is the right to have a reasonable time to decide whether to take on the responsibilities of motherhood.

So That's the Problem

Who knew that The Devil Wears Prada picked up on such a hot-button social issue: bad women bosses. I realize that movie is practically a documentary in its realistic portrayal of the workplace. And apparently CBS found so, too, when they reported on this poll.

Are women harder to work for than men? Cattier? Well, natch. More competitive? Wait, is that supposed to be a bad thing?

As the young assistant in the movie says about her devil of a boss, "If she were a man, she'd just be good at her job."

Football: the Problem. And the Solution?

I never thought I would read, in a series on "the new gender divide," in the New York Times, about how football is the cure-all to too many women and not enough men on campus.

I mean, I see the ads during the Superbowl. It's obvious who their audience is. But according to yesterday's latest installment in this really strange series on gender inbalance (read: not enough guys on campus), football is touted as the instant makeover to give a jolt of testosterone to any campus with a little too much woman power.

I hope, New York Times, that your next piece is a good-news feature on how awesome and amazing it is that, despite everything women have been through -- and let's not forget that in the 80s men accused women of taking a man's place on campus -- that women's dominance at some smaller campuses is really a huge accomplishment.

Maybe the next piece in the series will take place at a women's college -- there's a thought.

It's Not Just S. Dakota

Legislation that holds up the rights to fetuses over the mothers bearing them are cropping up around the country. Check out this article in the Detroit Free Press.

Boys Just Wanna Have Fun

In keeping with the new gender-war hysteria (this time around, women 1, men 0) about boys not keeping up with girls academically, the New York Times is going all out with a series. With big photos, the piece by Tamar Lewen was packed with anecdotes about boys playing lots of computer games, becoming sexual predators on campuses with too great a gender imbalance, and preferring to hit the football fields and not the books. One guy even botched his laundry:

"There was so much freedom when I got here (to college), compared to my very structured high school life, that I kept putting things off," said Greg Williams, who just finished his freshman year. "I wouldn't do much work and I played a lot of Halo. I didin't know how to wake up on time without a mom. I had laundry problems. I shrank all my clothes and had to buy new ones."

Crisis! What should we do with young men who can't manage to figure out alarm clocks and the cold cycle? Where are we, as a nation?

Well, turns out, the guys of our nation are actually doing just fine (except for non-whites, and that is not an issue of gender, but class). First off, Ivy Leagues still have more boys than girls in their classes. Phew! The traditional gender inbalance is alive and well in the most selective colleges. (Can the New York Times look at that next, please? Since our presidents come from Yale, not State U.)

And in the workforce, despite these little detours in college where women are stealing all the academic honors they deserve from, maybe, not playing Halo, and not playing dumb, women still lose out in the end because of biology (and not all of these so-called gender differences that the author worked so mightily to insist there exist). As Lewen finally notes in the third to last paragraph of this piece that spreads over two entire newspaper pages:

Still, men in the work force have always done better in pay and promotions, in part because they tend to work longer hours, and have fewer career interruptions than women, who bear the children and most of the responsibility for raising them.

But, by the way, raising kids who grow up to get sucked into computer games and not know how to do laundry -- we have ways of making moms feel they've failed at parenthood, too.

As New York Times guest columnist Judith Warner noted recently in an excellent op-ed "What boy crisis?" that Lewen would be advised to read, she points out that boys are doing better than ever. But girls, well, they are on fire.

And while this may be disingenuous, and not exactly the point of the series -- although I'm not sure why not -- can we at least take a moment, a moment people -- to say girls: you go!

Doing the Right Thing

Looks like the HPV vaccine is going to be recommended as a required innoculation for 11- and 12-year old girls with no guff from the right. There were worries that the right would fight the CDC on this and call the HPV vaccine an invitation for wild sex parties, but even the Family Research Council praised the decision. I'm sure no-one really wants to be on the side that's against a vaccine that actually prevents cancer. That would probably look bad.

Activate!

Planned Parenthood Action Fund in Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota are organizing to overturn the S. Dakota abortion ban that's put to voters in November. Check out their Web site and more info about how to help.

Them's Fightin' Words

The first woman leader of the Oglala Sioux has been ousted from her post for proposing an abortion clinic on the Pine Ridge reserveration. Apparently the tribal council considered her definance of an unconstitutional law an impeachable offense. S. Dakota passed a horrifying abortion ban that is the sickest, most anti-woman law in the nation, with no exception for rape, incest or the health of the mother. The deposed leader says she will challenge the action. You can't keep a good woman down.


More from Ms. Magazine.

The Last Great Adventure

In 1993, my sister and her friend Melanie rode from Pittsburgh, PA, to my flat in the Haight in San Francisco.

She had little money, and even less experience on a bike. But she did have a huge curiosity about seeing this country. She didn't give me the full story about her trip until she was sick with cancer and the two of us were holed up on the guest bed in her house, talking about our lives. She knew at the time that I was terrified of the idea of her making this trip, two women, on motorcycles, with nothing but the rubber and the road and 3,000 loneley miles in-between. She didn't tell me about the falls, the flood, or the lack of funds, till 10 years later. When she was looking back on a life fully lived. Even at the age of 28.

Carolla always inspired me. She was four years younger, but so, so tough. Braver, stronger, and more confident in her risks. I read recently that there is a gene that you inherit that manifests this behavior. She sure as hell had it. I sure as hell don't.

Tonight two years ago, she died as we lay side by side. So I blow kisses to her and link to her story that played on B-Side, the story of her cross-country adventure.

Token Appreciation

No matter how safe New York gets, some things will never change. Take subways. Cops recently arrested 13 subway gropers -- and I'm sure that will hardly end the harassment that so many women and girls on their way to school -- experience on a regular basis. And say nothing.

My mom tells me tales of her hour-long subway rides to Music and Art High School in upper Manhattan from her 3rd street apartment, where on the way she was grabbed, flashed, robbed, harassed. If someone bothered me on the subway, she told me, I was to get off at the next stop and -- change cars. Not go to the police. Not yell. Just leave.

Seems like not all that much has altered since the 60s, the women's movement, the crive level. Reading that piece in the paper, I thought -- what is it about the subway that silences even the most outspoken women? Are you somehow violating the social fabric to point out when someone has been violating you?

Deborah Tannen weighed in yesterday with a New York Times op-ed on the subject, where she compares research she did years ago of Greek women facing issues of sexual assault vs. women on the subways. The Greeks yelled and screamed and even threw rocks. But she writes:

Most of the American women — like those recently interviewed in the New York news media — told me they had felt humiliated and helpless and had done or said nothing.

Last time I checked there weren't any rocks to throw at assailants on subway cars. And some women are the exception to the rule. One of my mom's high school friends was being groped on a crowded subway car years ago and spoke up when an unfamiliar hand got way too familiar: "Get your hand off my ass!" The man in a suit had no where to go and had to face the rest of the ride surrounded by pissed off people. All of a sudden, my mom's friend was in a car full of friends.

I faced this once on the metro in Paris in my college years riding with friends. I was the only one who spoke fluent French (although the language of "get the hell off me" is universal, trust me). We were on the train late night. A man was bothering one of my friends and she turned to me for help. I whirled around and out came a string of invectives that would have made my French teacher blush, then proud. There was something about speaking in another launguage that gave me a voice in the way that when I was in New York, I had none.

Deborah Tannen points out that the way the Greeks talk sounds to untrained ears like argument. There is an expressiveness that doesn't come with speaking English.

Maybe self-defense classes in New York should come with a Greek lesson to learn to say "fuck off."

Rumors of Boys' Demise Greatly Exaggerated

The idea that boys are having it harder educationally, as reported as some kind of crisis by the media, is, whaddya know, overblown and off-course. (Unless of course, the media was talking about black and Hispanic boys, who are actually underperforming compared with white boys. But of course, they weren't.)

According to a new study boys are doing better than ever at school. But girls are outstripping boys even as they do the best ever. But we'll give them an A for effort.

UPDATE: Judith Warner wrote about this study as a guest columnist for the New York Times:

According to "The Truth About Boys and Girls," a report from the nonpartisan group Education Sector, most boys aren't just not failing; they're doing better than ever on most measures of academic performance. The only boys who aren't — the boys who skew the scores because they're doing really, really badly — are Hispanic and black boys and those from low-income homes.

"But the predominant issues for them," wrote Sara Mead, who based her conclusions in the study on decades of government statistics, "are race and class, not gender." Mead's conclusions echo those of Prof. Caryl Rivers of Boston University and Prof. Rosalind Chait Barnett of Brandeis.

"White suburban boys," they wrote in The Washington Post earlier this year, "are not dropping out of school, avoiding college or lacking in verbal skills ... among whites, the gender composition of colleges is pretty balanced. ... In Ivy League colleges, men still outnumber women."

Dame's Eye View

Check out the story in WomenseNews today about how the leader of the Pine Ridge reservation stood up to the S. Dakota abortion ban by offering to open an abortion clinic on her rez. Now she's being asked to step down.

And, related to my post about bloggers to bestsellers yesterday, check out some of the women blogger links. Center for New Words has an extensive blog roll. Maybe there's a bestseller hiding in there!

From Blogger to Bestseller

If Glenn Greenwald and David Sirota can do it, well, a girl can dream about making the New York Times bestseller list, can't she?

It's cool to see bloggers making the difference if a book lives or dies in the public conversation. If you read the Jane Mayer piece in this week's New Yorker, you would d know to be afriad of the Bush administration, very afraid. As Daily Kos points out, the marketplace of ideas has been percolating up through the blogs to the mainstream media: the media conglomerates that bury the lede don't get to decide what's news any more. We've already decided. And we're reading it.

Great News! I'm Pre-Pregnant!

Let's revisit. In May, new federal guidelines advised all women of child-bearing age (and nowadays that seems to be 6-60) to consider their bodies in a permanent state of about-to-be-knocked up healthy readiness. It's not about your health, the guideliness imply, it's about the health of the baby you may have one day. With teen birth rates going down, not up, you can still never be too careful. So, from first period to menopause, think of yourself as -- forever pre-pregnant.

Here's a helpful illustration to explain how it works.

And Baby Makes a Mess

Did anyone else see this on CNN this morning?

It was a teaser story for an in-depth Paula Zahn report about a woman, paralzyed from the neck down, who recently found love and got married. Good for her! But wait, that's not sick and exploitative, so of course, there's more: they decide to have a baby. The old-fashioned way. So doctors go along with this, and apparently the story tonight is all about her labor and childbirth (which from rather graphic footage looks natural). Even though the reporter does say that the chances of this happening on a regular basis are infinitesimal, given the small percent of women of child-bearing age who are paralyzed, this didn't seem to beg the question: why should I care?

Now the woman's health is -- shockingly -- bad. She has such high blood pressure she's unable to get out of bed, much less care for her child. Cautionary tale? Or story of perseverance? You can guess which angle the network picked.

Another viewpoint from Mother Jones on Breeder Reaction that asks if everyone has the right to have a baby? And if so, who is getting fertility help and who isn't?

The Devil Wears Bad Pantsuits

In college, I once attended a career training seminar about why women are perfect for today's workplace, as opposed to those old white male dinosaurs. We're flexible, we're empathic, we don't have huge egos. We've been forced to develop skills -- like learning new technology -- that these men hadn't. We were way ahead! Men didn't even see us -- or changes to corporate America -- coming.

It didn't take me long to realize, as a temp, how ridiculous these assumptions were, especially when the dress code required me to wear skirts. How could I operate from a position of power when I had to show my knees, take notes and answer the phone?

The new movie The Devil Wears Prada inspired the New York Times to write about women leaders with the Anna Wintour-type editor played by Meryl Streep. The article admits that women can be hell to work for, too.

As quoted here:

BUT these instincts break down in certain circumstances, studies suggest, namely when women feel insecure because they are a token minority whose competence is in question, said Theresa Vescio, a psychologist at Penn State University.

"In these conditions, women tend to treat the lowest-ranking female workers as poorly as men do," Dr. Vescio said. The social skills that allow many women to be effective leaders also give them access to valuable information that hands-off or dictatorial types don't have. Collaboration not only engages colleagues but also helps expose them as possible allies or rivals. Helping others manage their careers and home life brings out gossip about hidden vulnerabilities and relationships in the organization. A manager, as she ascends, may use this information to protect others — or to keep them in check. (As in: "Can you take this job, given your family situation?")

I love the idea that women use their "collaborative" skillset to form alliances and then crush anyone in their paths. Brilliant! As long as you're not in the way.

For those of us x-ers, who had such a hard time getting so much as a foothold into the workplace (and the Devil plot has to do with desperation -- the lowly assitant gets hired because she's willing to work anywhere, for anyone, even the devil of a boss) without having to worry about whether we had a mentor who would help us. A tyrant, even dressed in Prada, maybe especially dressed in Prada, is still a tyrant.

Bagel Daze

Some people, like my husband, can't live without a good cut of steak. Others, many others, crave chocolate. I can do without all of that. But I can't go by a day without a bagel. And here is not the space where I wax on about the perfect bagel, do I prefer boiled versus steamed (who cares -- be glad you're not a bagel, one sign in town reads), so sorry, chowhounds. I even eat goy bagels -- the raisin ones. And whole wheat.

Well, I've been noticing for some time that the place where you go buy a bagel -- I guess back in the day it was a deli -- now is its own special place, with its own special name. Like Bagel World. Or Bagel Delight. Or, in the case of my neighborhood, House of Bagel. I'm not sure why it is that these kind of places always have such overblown names for such a small, holey piece of bread. When I was in New York there would be like 17 on every block, each with its own sort of unique name.

In my mom's neighbhood on the Upper East Side, TAL bagel is now all the rage. Where else can you go to hear a 70-year-old, otherwise perfectly normal, neurotic New Yorker tell his server to give him a bagel, but "scoop it out," and then spread the cream cheese on thick. I mean, it is bread, what did the guy expect?

It's also the place of new math. Buy two more it will cost $6, not $7. Buy three more and get five free. Really, it is truly impossible to understand the kind of sudoku logic. Especially if you haven't had coffee yet, the line is winding out the door, people are staring at you like you're an idiot, and maybe you are but you have no idea, because this formula wasn't handed down to you at birth as it seems to be for the guy patiently explaining, for the 11th time, why you should buy two more bagels and not the usual half dozen that you just ordered. Or maybe you didn't, because you weren't counting. But I digress.

So I'm picking up my weekly supply at House of Bagel today, and this place, it's been around for years. It's always been no-frills. Dingy may be the better word. Badly lit inside with simple racks of bagels and a refrigerator full of Philly cream cheese and generic OJ in back. They even let a homeless guy sleep in the doorway. But he's gone now, and in his place is a garish mural and a new sign (same name), and inside they've dolled up the place. Put in some seats, added a menu for sandwiches with names like the Geary Blvd. Don't ask: I mean, if Geary could be a sandwich, it would be full of dirt and traffic, so I'm not sure what is the inspiration. I think there's some turkey in it.

But ahead of me is a woman ordering a so-called breakfast bagel. "Give me a breakfast bagel," she says. And now that means something at House of. "And put bacon on it," she adds. "I'm sorry," the teen working the counter says, "we're Kosher. No bacon."
"OK, then ham." She doesn't even miss a beat. "Sorry, we're Kosher. No ham." "Out of meat today?" Clueless asks. "Only beef," she's told. And for the third time, "We're Kosher style." "OK," Clueless gives up. "Do you have any regular bread?"
Then it hits me. This is the reason for the big names on the signs. What part of BAGEL does she not understand?

I guess this is just the price Jewish culture pays for going white bread on the West Coast.

World's Oldest Accessory

And I thought I hung on to my neclaces for a long time.

Anthropologists have just discovered a 100,000-year-old shell that's been carefully perforated as if to hang on a necklace. See, even hippie chicks then were making cool jewelry.

So, even back in per-historic times, homo sapiens wanted to accessorize. Maybe this is what really separates us from the apes. I can just imagine putting on a necklace or two to assist with mating rituals, up my status or to take the emphasis away from certain other furry parts.

The vintage age of this accessory gives new meaning to the word antique, and also is a whopping 25,000 years earlier than had perviously been thought that people first adorned themselves. So advanced!

This week in the New Yorker my journalism school prof Cynthia Gorney writes about the extreme abortion ban in S. Dakota, and how the pro-life fanatics miscalculated that their extreme ban would simply get the attention of the Supreme Court and lead to a reversal of Roe v. Wade. Instead, it has galvanized regular people around the state to overturn the ban. And even people on both sides of the issue now think it should be put to a vote (the sodomized and insestously raped virgin argument that Bill Napoli made seems to have had an effect.)

Short Shoppers Saved by Saks

A business story in the New York Times today trumpets a victory for short shoppers: after being "scolded" by Saks, the tony department store is bringing back petites. So shorties still have their own section. I'm sure the plus-size department does a lot better these days, and frankly, I always find better small stuff in the kids department than the snoozer petite section (because if you're small, what you really want is really small suits for your really small boring life), but Saks has a plan: they're going to re-vamp it since they've apparently figured out that even short people like to wear clothes besides power suits. Genius!

This Just In: Newsweek Was Wrong (20 Years Ago)

Earlier this month Newsweek made news by admitting a news story that became so pernicious in our culture -- a faux stat that women would be more likely to be killed by a terrorist than married by 40 -- was actually made up. A clever journalist at Newsweek wrote that "killed by a terrorist" quip to describe a Yale study stat -- that never mentioned terrorists. But it stuck. Caryl Rivers, who I saw speak at the Women, Action and Media conference in Cambridge, MA this past spring, has an excellent opinion piece on Womens enews about this ridiculous claim -- that people knew at the time made no sense. Even the researchers of the study said it had been misinterpreted. Does it matter that Newsweek apologizes for getting the story so wrong, even 20 years later? Well, given that the wedding industrial complex seems to be humming along just fine, maybe only the terrorists have something to say about it.

Rape by the Numbers

New stats show rape is in decline in this country. Check out the Washington Post story on the piece, which looks beyond the good news to explore what the numbers really mean.

I'm wondering why no-one looked into college campus stats (not even sure if those are included on the FBI stats), which, as far as I've heard, still have a major problem.

Wedding Blues

It's June. And this signals the season for magazines to make a lot of money for wedding ads. But does that mean I have to read about it, too?

This Sunday's San Francisco magazine devoted its entire issue to the deep, all-consuming issue like: strapless gowns -- why you shouldn't wear one. How not to be a bridezilla. How to survive bridal boot camp. Every article helpfully pointed out various local vendors that you could pay for all these services to get you through your wedding day. Have the perfect dress, the perfect body, the perfect attitude. The style pages showcased women in white. Excuse me while I puke. Not that I expect much from the SF Chronicle, but if I want to read In Style magazine, I buy it. At the very least, I would expect a modicum of critical analysis, a dose of humor, an alternative perspective. But that would be expecting too much.

Today in History

Today is the 30th anniversary of the Soweto uprising. During apartheid, after Nelson Mandela was in prison, so many of those working to end apartheid had been killed, inprisoned or otherwise silenced.

Then, something amazing happened. School children found their voices. On All Things Considered today Joe Richman will air an audio history of this astounding and heartbreaking moment in history. Or you can go to his Web site to hear the story of the Soweto uprising.

Birthday Letter

I finally figured out why going to college is so great: you come out with friends for life who are the same age as you, not matter how old that is. There they are.

"It's great you could join us. Welcome to 37," came the phone call at 3 a.m. (from Paris). Then an e-mail at 11. A cellphone message at 3 from New York (eastern time). Brice Canyon came at 6 a.m. today since the caller was without access to phones the day before.

This is the only good thing about aging. That and presents. And shoe shopping. And being alive. These days, I try not to indulge in anything buy joy at whatever the next year, the next day, the next moment brings. My sister told me never to put anything off, so I try to live these words for both of us.

I got a card that gave multiple-choice options for what excuse my birthday gives me: time to start a revolution was checked off. Watch out. Thirty-seven, here I come.

Just Add Breast Milk. Stir in Guilt.

It's official. If you don't breast feed your baby for six months, they'll be susecptible to disease, infection and obesity. So suck it up for the pucker up from your baby.

That's what the World Health Organization is trying to get across to new mothers. So, Barbara Walters, no more complaining that it is so declasse to see women flashing a boob in your face on the airplane. Men, no more whining about exposed women with babies on the street. (Even if it's fine on billboards.)

The truth is, women get guff if they breast feed, and probably worse guff when they don't, or can't, because they spend a good deal of their time at work -- 60% of young mothers are in the work force, trying to carve out a private space to pump as their breasts fill with milk when they're without their baby.

As if moms aren't already wracked with worry about their kids' health. Here's one more reason to feel bad. If you don't breast feed, you could hurt your baby for life. Like smoking or drinking when pregnant. A Public Service announcement compares a pregnant woman riding -- and being thrown from -- a mechanical bull in a bar to depriving your little one of breast milk.

"You wouldn't take risks before your baby's born," the advertisement says. "Why start after?"

Puleeze. I could see maybe not feeding your baby. That would be cruel. But not feeding your baby the boob? That's taking it a little far.

Check out the New York Times piece online today.

Bloggers Rule

At least, progressive ones. At least, for the weekend. I loved seeing the coverage of the convention of bloggers into the atmosphere from the blogsophere as sort of a beweildered meeting of two species (old vs new media).

The idea that by turning on your computer and self-publsihing we, blogger universe, are helping to up-end the conventional wisdom of what sells, who reads, and who's in charge of the media, and the democratic party. Love that!

Approved!

It's front-page news.The FDA finally approved a vaccine that will hopefully stamp out cervical cancer and HPV for good for those who get it. Who gets it is still kind of up in the air, since the vaccine is for people who will have S-E-X, and despite what religious fanatics would have you believe, basically means everyboy, and so should be required and covered by health insurers. The NY Times reports that the median age for sex these days is 15, so recommended age to get the vaccine will be for 12- or 13-year olds.

Unlike much medical research that is based on men, this is a successful vaccine that's been developed exculsively for girls, although it's hoped that it will be expanded to boys (it does take two to tango, or to give and get gential warts). I wonder how many vaccines are like that in the world. Any?

Well, it's about damn time. Cervical cancer is the second biggest killer of women around the world. The world! And the idea that there is any judgement, or that women who have cancer should be punished for getting it by not making the vaccine required like any other, is an outrageous and hateful stance and makes no sense for public health, the fight to end cancer or STDs.

Marketing Cycle

This morning NPR reported on a pill that banishes the period altogether. In other words, get on this cycle and stop yours.

Not only is it fine, healthy, normal, not weird, say the health experts, but the whole forced period thing you get when on the regular pill was nothing more than a marketing ploy to begin with. When you're on the pill, you never really do get your period. So, why bother. Now the new marketing bashes the old marketing. They're pushing this pill without a period as the new normal.

Really, the only loser in this deal is the tampon industry.

Dame's Eye View

What I'm reading now: The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath. I'm nostalgic for the original chick lit produced by one of the most famous alums of my alma mater. Our hero is single in New York City working for a women's magazine . . . sound familiar? It's based on Plath's experience as a guest editor for Mademoiselle. But it's so much darker, better written and insightful than anything published since then on similar topics. It's ground-breaking, in an over-dramatic, girl meets city kind of way.

What I want to see: An Inconvenient Truth. The scariest movie of the season: Al Gore's dire and all-too-real warning on global warming. Did it just get hot in here?

What to do: did I mention the Anglo-mania show at the NYC's Metropolitan Museum of Art? It's so weird and off-beat I can't believe it's actually in that stuffy place. There are 3-d dioramas of 18th-century dress mixed in with British punk fashions. Then the wall text helpfully points out what's "tradition" and what's "transgression." Trust me, it's not all that subtle when the transgression is, say, a dress made entirely out of pink rosettes shaped into an ice-cream cone.

When to marry: later! According to the New York Times, women are getting married, they're just doing it later rather than sooner. And, they're not more likely to die trying. Still, the article couldn't help get in a couple of jabs at women who are still glad they made their When Harry Met Sally deadline (40, for those of you who don't own the movie or watch it on a regular basis.)

Speaking of Nora Ephron, I just finished her piece in the New Yorker while on the plane ride back from NYC. It describes her decades-long love affair with a rent-controlled apartment. My mom used to live just blocks from that building and I always wondered what went on behind those enormous gates. If you know anything about living in NYC, or if you don't, you must read it. You really must.

Then and Now


R. started out her Smith reunion at the hospital for stress-related issues, and maybe strep. Still, she powered through the cocktail parties and introduced herself to everyone she knew or didn’t. The vibe for the 15th was decidedly subdued. Overworked or under-entertained moms showed up for a break without the kids. Many came from places like Darien and Greenwich. One person came up to my friend K., who had a nametag with her Brooklyn address on it and exclaimed, “Brooklyn! I’m in New Jersey!” She wondered how to respond to that. R. wanted to know where the other art majors had gone. They sure weren’t in abundance at this reunion.

We, that is me, my husband L., K. and her husband M. and baby F., were late. As we got caught in Brooklyn-Danbury-Northampton perfect storm of evil holiday traffic, we were a good six hours longer than expected. I called R., already submerged in Smith activities, for updates. “Good purses.” She said. “Lots of bling.” “Better hair.” She was there with her mom’s class of '66. Her grandmother, a Smith alum, also made an appearance and the three generations enjoyed boxed lunches on the lawn before the eldest was driven back to her Connecticut home.

At Gloria Steinem’s 15-year Smith reunion, she delivered the commencement address to the class of ‘71. At our 15th the feminist movement was a bit AWOL. Gloria, where are you when we need you? We’d come back with the smallest non-representative percentage that enjoys a lifestyle of the rich and homebound. This is not how I thought my classmates would turn out. But there some of them were, telling me about their nannies and their charity work. Class of '91, meet class of '51.

At the parade of the classes on Ivy Day (faux Ivy Day, really, since this is a tradition that leads up to graduation, and for the classes ending in five, there is no graduation. That has come and gone the week before.) The women wear white, and parades by class year up to the quad where graduation takes place. We walk in order, the oldest class to the youngest, with signs and class-colored sashes, flanked by the graduating class on the sidelines making a garland of roses. They then bring up the rear of the long line of alums. The loudest, youngest, most excited women you’ve ever seen. And it’s their turn to take on the mantle of alums. It sounds weird and woman-schoolish, but I swear, if you experienced it yourself, you'd be jealous your school didn't have such a tradition of its own. After getting over the exhortation to wear white shoes (sneakers are OK), you just can’t help but be moved when the two remaining members of the class of ’31 are wheeled on to the route. They looked good, too, in their perfectly bobbed hair and sunny smiles.

For the off-graduating years, it’s no less moving, but certainly less exuberant. Each time we’ve gone through Ivy Day, we forget a few things about being back at Smith. One is that activities start early in the morning. Breakfast is at 7:30. Since we stayed in Morris House, a rather thread-bare rambling dorm with a shared dining room with neighboring Tyler, this meant shuffling over to our respective rooms to make sure we were all awake. (We were.) That we had something white to wear. (We did.) And that we were prepared to take in a large, heavy breakfast before shuffling over to the parade ground. (We were resigned to this fate.)

When we finally filed into the main field where we sat to hear Carol Christ, president of the school, give her special alumnae speech, I had a weird moment, looking at all these women in white and thinking – this is a dream. Will this really last too far into this century – the women agreeing to wear white, agreeing to support a women’s college and women’s education. I couldn’t figure it out – is it quaint and archaic, or radical and rebellious?

Well, it’s both. My doubts were somewhat allayed when a stunning young graduating class member who had benefited from alumnae funds spoke of her journey from Ghana to Smith, snow and physics. A Smith scholarship at her side all the way. Inspiring and that was the point. Maybe she’ll be the next Barak Obama. Maybe we'll fork over more gift money to the school than ever before. Let's get all the women of Ghana to Smith! Let's create an army of Smith physicists! Still, her speech said so much more than Carol Christ’s jingoistic listing of every Fulbright and prize a Smithie had received this year. Even if it does say something about the school. It doesn’t say everything.

Here’s a stat that should worry anyone thinking about going to college or sending someone else: $42,000. That’s how much one year of a Smith education runs these days.

Here’s another: 90%. That’s the number of students who can’t afford to pay for a Smith education. Here’s something else that doesn't add up. As I looked around at the small showing of our class reunion, where women were in the midst of major transitions in their lives – children, staying at home, balancing work and family, divorcing, single and urban, no one had figured out quite the right formula. One friend of mine felt disappointed by the tone. “There was no political discussion of women’s issues!” Smith without the politics? We may as well have been at Holyoke. We're not on our way to Stepford, but we're not out of the woods, either.