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The Sioux Falls Argus Leader is running a poll about whether or not the South Dakota abortion ban should be overturned. Right now it's split exactly 50/50.
The petition was filed Tuesday afternoon with the secretary of state’s office. If at least 16,728 signatures are certified as valid, the scheduled July 1 implementation of the ban would be nullified and voters would be allowed to decide the issue in a November election.
“This law is just not feasible and is just very extreme,” Dr. Maria Bell, an obstetrician who helped sponsor the petition drive, said at a news conference.
Thelma Underberg, executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice South Dakota, said “South Dakotans signed up to fight this threat to women's health. It is an attack on the fundamental values of freedom and privacy that we cherish.”
The movie shows a classic struggle of a lost girl and her misfit friends finding their way, against great odds and in the face of risk to reach their full potential. Many of the scenes and themes in this classic movie can be allegories for today's youth.
Ok, you want a cheesy conference theme? Sure. But the wicked witch of abstinence-only ed, Leslee Unruh, is taking it to the next level.
Just check out some of the panel titles:
If I Only Had a Brain: The Effects of Sex on Brain Physiology
A Horse of a Different Color (This is a group of hip hop dancers. Ahem.)
And my personal favorite: Ding, Dong, the Witch is Dead! Which Old Witch? (The "Safe-Sex" Witch)
The New York Times reports the ghastly news that petites sections are disappearing from high-end department stores, and some short, older, mostly wealthy (these stores are expensive) women are upset.
While stores may appear to be "long obsessed with that Seventh Avenue archetype, the tall, thin, leggy lady," I can say definitively, as a slender woman who's 6'2", they don't actually make clothes to fit us, either. My inseam is 36 inches. which means the average pair of pants is between six and four inches too short for me. Sleeve length is an even bigger issue-- I've gotten used to bare wrists.
I certainly have nothing against shorter women, but I can't help but get pissed off when I read articles like this. Women who are shorter than 5'3" have more clothing options than many of us on other ends of the spectrum. You can always have clothes taken in and shortened, but you can't magically extend sleeves and pant legs (or expand waistlines or bustlines, for that matter). So some while short women are whining about not being able to find whole sections of clothing tailored to fit them, I have NEVER seen a section of a store devoted to attire for the long-limbed.
But I'll also say that I've never met any woman who doesn't complain about finding clothes to fit her body. The traditional sizing system is seriously flawed. It doesn't work for women of a variety of shapes. Stores that have switched to more specific sizing-- a variety of cuts, lengths, widths, etc.-- have been met with rave reviews.
This is why I learned to sew. I'm much happier for it.
Indie rock legends Sonic Youth burst out of the summer music pack with their latest album, Rather Ripped, to be released June 13 on Geffen Records. Though predictably unpredictable in terms of musical experimentation, the group delivers its characteristic guitar renderings and thoughtful lyricism, appealing to devoted fans and new initiates alike.
The former five-piece has been trimmed to four, as producer and multi-instrumentalist Jim O’Rourke left the band to pursue his film studies. Over the final days of 2005 and into early this year, the band recorded and mixed twelve new songs, each with a touch of sonic splendor and liberation that SY is known for.
Rather Ripped begins with driving tracks “Reena” and “Incinerate” and quickly transitions to curious and midbeat “Do You Believe in Rapture?” The trademark guitar sound is present on “Sleeping Around” and “Turquoise Boy.” Quirky, art-punk verse is found throughout. On “Rats,” a song that speaks of closeness and separation with lyrics such as “You could be my open road/You could be the reason why/You could ease my heavy load/But I’m gonna freeze you out.”
For those familiar with Sonic Youth, the new album doesn’t map much new territory, but for newbies, the only thing you can expect about the noise rock troubadours is their inventiveness. The band’s appearance on the season finale of Gilmore Girls further confirms the group’s status in the mainstream. In sleepy album closer “Or,” co-vocalist Thurston Moore asks, “What comes first, the music or the words?” Thankfully for us, both aspects are present, strong and carry through to the end.
SY+YYYs in an empty Williamsburg pool this August = Y can't I be a New York girl? Presale tix start in mere hours, so get on with it here.
Peep the song titles and lyrics and stream the album here.
We're moving up in the world. The fabulous Angie Vo has just joined Feministing as a Reviews Editor. (Again, we like titles.) So please give her a warm welcome.
Angie, 23, is a Missouri-born, Wisconsin-based journalism grad who focused on Biology and Women’s Studies. Every Wednesday, this pop culture maven will review music, books, movies, you name it. So if you have something that needs reviewing...you know who to go to.
We're super excited to have her on and to defer to her judgment on all things pop.
Ohio's anti-gay law lets another unmarried abuser off the hook
An Ohio man's domestic violence conviction was voided last week because he wasn't married to the woman he abused. Dallas McKinley was convicted of a fourth-degree felony after he pushed his girlfriend, hit her and threw objects at her. The ruling, as it stands, leaves prosecutors with the option of seeking a lesser charge.
This is all because the state of Ohio would rather allow domestic violence without consequences than let gay couples get married. The state's constitutional amendment banning gay marriage has made domestic violence law only applicable to married couples.
Elections had been scheduled for summer 2007, the first since women were given the right to vote and run for office in 2005. But on May 21, Kuwait's ruler, Sheik Sabah Al Ahmed Al Sabah, dissolved the all-male 50-member parliament because of a rowdy dispute over election laws and ordered early elections June 29.
Women who thought they had more than a year to plan their campaigns had only five weeks.
''The advantage is that we will be working and concentrating harder,'' said Fatima al-Abdali, who submitted her application to run on the first day of registration last week.
Um, yeah. But damn that can’t be easy--especially when folks are still getting used to the idea of women in politics. 17 women have registered as candidates so far.
From what I know I believe there’s 80% of women, between 80 and 85% of women that are struggling with homosexuality were either raped by someone they knew or somebody outside of that normally there’s some type of rape or some kind of molestation in our past.
So watch out gals, rape will make a lezzie out of you.
...but my newly-bought Stella scooter is being delivered this week and I am freaking psyched. And naturally I'm cooking up a Feministing logo decal for it. I have no shame.
A new website denouncing contraception has cropped up, touting itself as part of the Contra-Contraception Movement. But unlike the wacky folks that are “mischaracterized” in a recent NY Times mag piece, Contra-Contraception.com claims that they are a secular group simply pushing the benefits of “organic sex.”
Many women, in an effort to live healthily, who have turned to organic and unprocessed foods. They have come to also realized that artificial contraception isn't very healthy either, and that its numerous side effects should be avoided. They believe that thee [sic] negative effects of artificial contraceptives should not be minimized for sake of convenience, and the truth should not be distorted for the sake of political ideology.
Organic foods have come of age, so isn't it time that "organic sex" comes of age also? More and more couples believe so.
But what exactly is organic sex? Its sex without contraception -- natural sex of course! Pregnancy can be avoided or achieved through the use of Natural Family Planning (NFP).
It’s the Age of Aquarius, didn’t ya know? Advocating natural family planning on this site wouldn’t bother me so much if it wasn’t completely disingenuous. Contra-Contraception isn’t some site run by organic-sex loving folks who are worried about the health implications of hormonal birth control--it’s actually a (very) thinly-veiled anti-choice site run by the same people who created No Room for Contraception. The language on Contra-Contraception is almost identical to that of No Room for Contraception, and all the “news” links lead there. Real slick.
It never ceases to amaze me how easily anti-choicers--who claim to be in the moral right--will resort to lying and misrepresentation to push their agenda.
Lung cancer will kill 72,000 women this year--more than breast, ovarian, uterine and cervical cancers combined.
[Dr. Kathy Albain] is heading a National Cancer Institute-funded study that is recruiting 720 newly diagnosed lung cancer patients to examine what hormones, genes or other molecular factors explain why lung cancer behaves differently in men and women, smokers and nonsmokers.
"We're learning what's going on in the lung, and whether or not this is a real thing that can be exploited for cancer treatment," she says.
Estrogen already is a leading suspect.
One study reports that estrogen may “act as a fuel for lung tumors just like it does for many breast tumors, and that blocking estrogen with the same drugs that breast cancer patients use might also work in the lungs.” Another study looking at an experimental cancer drug shows that women (who took the drug) with the most estrogen in their blood had the best survival rate. Go figure.
