Dr. Jean Pakter , who did important work to make sure abortion was a safe procedure, died Tuesday at 101. Today’s “No duh” study : about half of Latino voters find the term “illegal immigrant” offensive. And in a poll sure to make some people’s heads explode (you know, the same folks panicking about the lack of white babies), [...]

Whether you loved or hated Bridesmaids, Indisputable Feminist Wisdom posits that Kristen Wiig is the best ever . She’s smart, funny as hell, and not afraid to shy away from real conversations about what it’s like to be a woman in what can be a truly– let’s face it– sexist a$$ industry. Haliegh Collins over on Policy Mic even [...]

A woman who tried to travel wearing a pro-choice t-shirt was barred from an American Airlines flight yesterday because of her fashion choice. According to RH Reality Check , she was coming home from a meeting of pro-choice activists, and was about to change planes for the second leg of her travel when this happened (this comes from [...]

Last Wednesday, House Republicans stooped to a new low by throwing their support behind a ridiculous, callous and watered down version of the Violence Against Women Act . As we detailed last week, the heavily edited H.R. 4970 now moves backward on VAWA reauthorization, with the version that the House passed actually denying protection of undocumented immigrants, Native/indigenous people [...]

Can you imagine if the US government gave out free condoms at the Super Bowl? That’s basically the equivalent of what will happen in Poland next month, when the country is one of the hosts of Euro 2012, Europe’s annual football tournament held every four years (that’s soccer to all us ignorant Americans). The tournament runs from June 8 [...]

The best thing on the internet today.

The worst–a man is deported and while trying to get back to his family dies in the Arizona desert, leaving behind 5 children.

Are men who have stay-at-home wives more sexist in the workplace?

In a rather lenient sentencing, a New Jersey judge sentenced Dharun Ravi to 30 days in jail also suggesting that he not be deported. This is a probationary sentence for Ravi, who earlier this year was convicted of bias intimidation and a handful of other hate crimes for bullying his Rutgers roommate Tyler Clementi. Why did [...]

OK, maybe not exactly what Reince Priebus, RNC chairman, said over the weekend on CNN–but he did essentially blame the Obama administration for calling out a Super PAC plan proposing race-baiting. According to Priebus, the Obama team wants to focus on this instead of the real questions about his leadership at hand. Well, if that is the focus [...]

The NAACP voted to make the wise decision to join the bandwagon and get on the right side of history by  publicly endorsing same-sex marriage. Not only is the right decision for them (because it’s just the right thing to do!), in terms of being an organization committed to advancing the rights of disenfranchised people–but it is [...]

At MTV’s culturally-defining prime, SuChin Pak was in the center of it all. As the first Asian correspondent, SuChin created tidal wives for generations of young women who looked up to her. She’s covered the MTV Movie Awards, the MTV Video Music Awards and as a correspondent for MTV Daily News, she’s interviewed everyone from Mary [...]

Maya interviews Lizz Winstead on her new book over at Mother Jones.

Shakesville with more on white fear of brown babies.

Are women underrepresented in HIV research?

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We deal with a lot of issues related to motherhood on the blog, and in feminism writ large: paid maternal leave, work/life balance, stay-at-home moms, single moms, mother’s day, breastfeeding. And the list goes on. But an aspect of motherhood that is sometimes overlooked in feminist spaces is maternal death, when a woman dies in pregnancy [...]

These days, there’s a fairly broad consensus– among public health advocates,  educators, parents, the media, and the porn industry – that condoms are GOOD. Whether one is penis-possessing or just along for the ride, most of us have been told to “wrap it up” since before we were performing acts that required us to do so. So why [...]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zufp5zVN86I The beautiful and influential queen of disco, Donna Summer passed away today at 63 . Is it really  straight marriage that has evolved? Cautionary words from Chloe about how Australia must not follow the US in it’s assault on repro rights. On this week’s Opinionated, Amanda and I talk about that horrible article in the NYTimes about black women and [...]

(Spotted by my friend Karlos Gauna Schmeider from the Center for Media Justice –two headlines, backwards ideology and the new moment on race in the US) That inevitable moment that conservative Americans have been dreading is finally here. According to census data births of white babies has been surpassed by brown babies. The AP reports that for the first [...]

The Feministing crew is currently planning our annual retreat for June. It’s incredible how much we can get done when given the opportunity to meet face to face. Work that might take a year to hash out over the interwebs happens almost instantly when we’re in the same space. Since Feministing doesn’t have offices (some [...]

House Republicans have stooped low in their all-out war on women by turning an issue that has never been bipartisan–that violence against women is a bad thing–into a partisan one voting 222-206 in support of a ridiculous, callous and watered down version of the Violence Against Women Act . As Vanessa noted Tuesday, it was slated to [...]

Pic of the day. (Via) A remarkable speech from 1970 on gay rights by Black Panthers co-founder Huey Newton. Starting tomorrow, Amplify Your Voice is hosting an  International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia Blogathon. Samhita at The American Prospect on marrying yourself . Kelley at the community blog talks about the abysmally antiquated and sexist selection of online games for [...]