"I love feministing.com and always learn from it." Katha Pollitt, The Nation
"Many people need a morning "fix." For some, it's coffee. For others, it's "SportsCenter." For me, it's Feministing.com." Katie Stone, The Denver Post
"Feminism is fun again! Every bit as edifying as your women's studies books from college, but with a biting sense of humor that keeps things punchy, not preachy." Marie Claire, December 2006
For 147 years, marriage vows in Mexico portrayed women as delicate, weak and potentially annoying.
These days, judges across Mexico are switching to versions that stress equality and mutual support, reflecting the growing power of women in a country still struggling with macho attitudes.
The old vows say that a husband should treat his wife with a "generous benevolence that the strong should give to the weak" and that a woman should "avoid awakening the most brusque, irritable and hard part" of her husband's personality. So no nagging, ladies!
Younger couples are opting for vows that are less, you know, stupid.
I guarantee that this party will have the hottest women in the country attending. Seriously.
The REAL hot 100 is celebrating 2006's hottest women with a big old party in New York City. It's going to be an amazing event, so get your ticket now!
If you can't afford to come (it is a fundraiser, after all), then please pass the info along to folks you know in New York. We want to make the inaugural party one to remember, so all your support is much appreciated!
Increase of HIV infection among Indian woman linked to cheating husbands
A new UN study says that in India, "a significant proportion of new infections isoccuring in women who are in monogamous relationships and have been infected by husbands or partners who have multiple sex partners."
The report also says that women account for about 39 percent of people in India living with HIV and that 60 percent of "the HIV-positive widows are nearly less than 30 years of age and staying with their natal families after being thrown out from their marital homes following the death of their husbands."
Women ordained as Catholic priests in forbidden ceremony today
Twelve women are participating in a forbidden ceremony today where they will be ordained as priests as deacons; the ceremony won’t be recognized (duh) by the Catholic church.
Similar ceremonies conducted by the group Roman Catholic Womenpriests have been held before in other countries, and most of the participants have been excommunicated. It's the first time the group is holding a ceremony in the U.S.
The Pittsburgh Diocese issued a statement saying the ordination would not be valid.
"This unfortunate ceremony will take place outside the Church and undermines the unity of the Church. Those attempting to confer Holy Orders have, by their own actions, removed themselves from the Church, as have those who present themselves for such an invalid ritual," according to the statement released by the Rev. Ronald Lengwin, a spokesman for the diocese.
So protesting against discrimination means excommunication?
These womenpriests are pretty hot shit though:
"We need to claim for women their equal right with men to be ordained. And we need to do this 'contra legem,' to break an unjust law and yet to remain firmly within the church," Patricia Fresen said last year at a Philadelphia conference on women in the church.
A top provincial court will decide within a few days whether to allow a mentally impaired 19 year old, four months pregnant, to have an abortion. Both Argentina's health minister and its most powerful governor back her family's plea.
Argentine law bans abortions except when a woman's life is in danger or a "demented" woman is raped.
For more information on repro rights in Argentina, check out this report from Human Rights Watch. And check back in a few days for the outcome of the case--I’m staying optimistic.
A federal judge rules against a small university that violated Title IX, which requires equal funding for women's and men's sports.
One of the women who participated in a Catholic ordination ceremony to demand female priests has resigned from her job with the Archdiocese of Boston.
Babytalk’s recent cover featured a baby and (gasp!) a breast, which “incited more than 700 letters to the editor, a record for the magazine.” Via Shakes.
A Zimbabwean political party plans to get older women to strip during forthcoming anti-government protests. According to traditional local culture, it's highly taboo for men to see elderly women naked-- so the older women are to be used as "weapons." Ugh.
While some of us were surprised to hear that the new Batwoman is a lesbian, comic geeks note that this new character "is on in a long line of lesbian characters in mainstream comics, and the fifth recent lesbian character in the Batman universe alone."
Now that the Senate has cleared the Teen Endangerment Act, the American Prospect explains the dysfunctional judicial bypass process that's supposed to allow minors to sidestep parental involvement. (Women's E-News has more on the Teen Endangerment Act.)
A North Carolina judge ruled against the state's "fornication and adultery statute." Now it's OK for two people to "lewdly and lasciviously associate, bed and cohabit together" without getting married first. Hurrah!
More and more women are going into broadcast news, causing some to fret that the boy crisis now applies to broadcast journalism. But not so fast: "Many observers suggest that [men's] departure reflects the transformation of TV news from a "glamour" business to a low-wage, no-growth field with limited career potential." Clearly, once a field becomes female-dominated, it's only a matter of time before it's known as a low-wage, no-growth career path.
Surprise! Average, normal women like sex toys. (This is news?)
Food Network junkies know them from their hit cooking show, “Too Hot Tamales” (1995-1999). But Chefs Mary Sue Milliken and Susan Feniger have known each other since 1978, and haven’t stopped working together since the opening of their first restaurant in 1981.
In 1988, they were the first women to receive the California Restaurant Writers’ “Chef of the Year” award. And in 1993, they were two of only 16 chefs worldwide invited to appear with Julia Child on PBS’s “Home Cooking with Master Chefs.”
Mary Sue and Susan took time out of their busy day to do a conference call with me. Mary Sue called in from Border Grill, their restaurant in Santa Monica, California; they also have a Border Grill in Las Vegas. And Susan called in from Ciudad, their restaurant in downtown Los Angeles
I know robbery is wrong and all that, but something about this story seems pretty bad-ass:
Gun-slinging females, some sporting fake beards, have conducted four stickups in Jasper County in the past 11 weeks in what investigators are calling an unusual, baffling crime spree.
One of the robbers was arrested recently, but the other members of this "quasi-gang of bandits" are still on the loose. Upstanding citizens and Tobacco Outlet owners of southeast Texas, beware.
Female genital mutilation is a very complicated situation. Many different groups of women activists and feminists have sought to stop it and change a tradition that is often very harmful to young girls and carries with them into adulthood. Britain has recently launched an awareness campaign as FGM has become prevalent in the immigrant communities of the UK.
The centuries-old practice, prevalent mostly in Africa, is now also being brought by immigrants to Western countries, like Britain.
"FGM is a huge problem in the UK," said Ensharah Ahmed, community development officer at the UK-based Foundation for Women's Health, Research and Development (Forward).
Forward estimates there are around 279,500 women living in Britain who have undergone FGM, with another 22,000 girls under 16 in danger of joining them.
This year London police launched an awareness campaign to coincide with the start of the summer school holidays -- a period, they say, when women who carry out FGM are most likely to come to Britain, or when families send their daughters back to their countries of origin where they can be circumcised.
As the detective notes, what makes this a difficult issue to tackle is that this is a cultural practice. Folks are doing it out of love and have been doing it for years. They believe it is necessary.
Legislation passed in 2003 makes it illegal for British residents to arrange FGM in Britain or abroad, and those guilty of procuring or carrying out the practice face up to 14 years in jail. No one has yet been prosecuted.
"It's not something you can stamp out in two seconds -- it's been going for thousands of years," Hamilton told Reuters.
"Most communities will say it's necessary, it's something they need to protect their cultural identity now they are living in another country," she said.
"I've been going to a lot of communities and I have spoken to a lot of women and men and they all tell me the same thing -- they have to do it.
The fear of losing cultural identity does indeed exaggerate practices, cultures and beliefs, indigenous to immigrant groups. If the West wasn't so obsessed with cultural hegemony, immigrants probably wouldn't feel so threatened. But let me not digress.
At what point can Westerners say anything on such a complicated issue? And should they be allowed to?
A female Delaware State Police trooper claims that she was punished and reduced in rank for reporting a fellow trooper that attempted to break into her apartment in 2003.
Furthermore, Elizabeth C. Dempsey, a six-year veteran of the state police, alleges the trooper she reported received a lighter punishment than she did and police officials worked to cover up the event.
Dempsey’s federal civil lawsuit, filed today, charges gender discrimination and breach of good faith by the state police and seeks damages and back pay for the time she was punished.
I'm blogging from the "networking" breakfast. The registration hall has some big name booths, including GM and Microsoft. GM will be test driving sports cars an hybrids in the parking lot later this afternoon.
The vibe is corporate, but we're being courted as consumers, not as players. There was a lot of wooing and sucking up at YearlyKos, but at least there was an acknowledgment the the "sellers" and the "buyers" needed each other to achieve some common goal.
Today's workshops are focused on the technical aspects of blogging, podcasting, and multi-media. The agenda for tomorrow is dominated by discussions of blogging and something known as "blog culture."
Click through to Flickr for more pictures of the conference.
