Over the course of my 6 years (whaaaaat?!) writing for Feministing, I have met a lot of readers of the site. They are almost always young women who are super intelligent, engaged in talking about gender, and excited about making change in the world. Every single burned-out Feministing editor has said it at some point: [...]

Despite the impassioned testimony of many lawmakers, on Friday the House of Representatives overwhelmingly voted to eliminate Title X funding, which supported clinics and programs that provide contraception and basic gynecological care to low-income women. This bill (which I like to call the “Anti-Pap Smear and Anti-Contraception Act” or the ” Encouraging Teen STDs Act “) passed with [...]

Despite the impassioned testimony of many lawmakers, on Friday the House of Representatives overwhelmingly voted to eliminate Title X funding, which supported clinics and programs that provide contraception and basic gynecological care to low-income women. This bill (which I like to call the “Anti-Pap Smear and Anti-Contraception Act” or the ” Encouraging Teen STDs Act “) passed with [...]

Some quotes from last night’s floor debate in the House over Rep. Mike Pence’s amendment to deny Planned Parenthood federal funding: The realest of real talk from Rep. Gwen Moore (WI): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5GOCfpE4RQ (For transcript, click here and ctrl-F “Moore”) More personal testimony from Rep. Jackie Speier (CA): Mr. Chairman, I had really planned to speak about something else, but the gentleman [...]

Some quotes from last night’s floor debate in the House over Rep. Mike Pence’s amendment to deny Planned Parenthood federal funding: The realest of real talk from Rep. Gwen Moore (WI): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5GOCfpE4RQ (For transcript, click here and ctrl-F “Moore”) More personal testimony from Rep. Jackie Speier (CA): Mr. Chairman, I had really planned to speak about something else, but the gentleman [...]

News broke today that CBS News correspondent Lara Logan “suffered a brutal and sustained sexual assault and beating” while she was covering the Egyptian protests in Tahrir Square. As Garance Franke-Ruta pointed out on Twitter, the fact that we’re hearing about this probably means that Logan was OK with making her assault public. This is an incredibly [...]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXBpW8GCDtY Transcript after the jump. While I’m happy Hillary is supporting the “It Gets Better” campaign, something about this rang a little hollow to me. As a top-level government official, she’s in a fundamentally different position than celebrities or everyday folks who have made similar videos. I, too, have a message: To all of the people in the [...]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXBpW8GCDtY Transcript after the jump. While I’m happy Hillary is supporting the “It Gets Better” campaign, something about this rang a little hollow to me. As a top-level government official, she’s in a fundamentally different position than celebrities or everyday folks who have made similar videos. I, too, have a message: To all of the people in the [...]

switcheroo by hana. The maker of the new ” female viagra ” pill is no longer pursuing FDA approval. Is It Sex? A helpful flowchart from Autostraddle. As the Afghan government negotiates with the Taliban, women’s rights are at risk . Why Did She Wait So Long? Later Abortions and the Implications of the New Nebraska Ban Liz Phair on 90s nostalgia . The New [...]

It’s the National Sex Ed Week of Action ! To celebrate, Planned Parenthood of NYC is giving away a package of safe-sex goodies to the Feministing reader who emails me ** with the correct answers to all five of the following sex-ed related questions. Pencils ready? And, go:

1. Name one of the two most common STIs (sexually transmitted infections) [...]

Just when you thought the finance industry couldn’t get any more dude-heavy, The Wall Street Journal (via Annie Lowrey ) reports that women are leaving the financial industry behind:

In the past 10 years, 141,000 women, or 2.6% of female workers in finance, left the industry. The ranks of men grew by 389,000 in that period, or 9.6%, according to [...]

Actually, I wasn’t that cool. Tavi is, though! Look at her rocking this sweater, a gift from Kathleen Hanna:

I need this sweater for fall. Can some enterprising Etsy seller please recreate it and sell it to me? kthx.

So appropriate. Apparently it’s fine to advertise Cialis and Viagra, but not sex drugs for women . Sex, race, ethnicity, and the recession. Confessions of a Former Comedy Chauvinist. “In the aftermath of violence in Kyrgyzstan, women are jump-starting peace talks across ethnic lines—and taking the security of their country in their own hands.” Why aren’t there more women music critics ? [...]

So appropriate. Apparently it’s fine to advertise Cialis and Viagra, but not sex drugs for women . Sex, race, ethnicity, and the recession. Confessions of a Former Comedy Chauvinist. ”In the aftermath of violence in Kyrgyzstan, women are jump-starting peace talks across ethnic lines—and taking the security of their country in their own hands.” Why aren’t there more women music critics ? [...]

Kevin Johnson and Michelle Rhee Yesterday I saw Going the Distance , the new rom-com about a dilemma faced by a lot of young professional couples: What happens when job opportunities put you in different cities? The movie — which I thought was better than a lot of films in this genre — is a pretty good depiction of how, [...]

So you may have heard that Obama has declared the Iraq War is now part of America’s past, not its present — in theory, fulfilling one of his campaign promises. But I’m of the same mind as Shark Fu:

When you take a shit in the middle of the room and then smear that shit all over the floor [...]

This week BET premiered a documentary about women MCs: My Mic Sounds Nice: A Truth About Women in Hip Hop . (Which takes its name from the Salt ‘n’ Pepa song .) (Apologies that I could not find a transcript on BET’s website.) “If a woman were to actually step up to you on the mic and hold her own, she [...]

Dahlia Lithwick on whether having three women on the Supreme Court will “change the court in any real way”:

For centuries, the Supreme Court has been zealously opining on whether or not women are fit to practice law, or tend bar, work a 10-hour day, support their families, use birth control, or terminate their pregnancies. For most [...]

Photo by Dewey Nicks for The New York Times If you haven’t yet, check out this New York Times photo gallery of women tennis players. The accompanying article is about how the sheer dominance of Venus and Serena Williams has changed the sport in all sorts of ways. At first I was annoyed by the Times‘ framing: all about how [...]