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), [...]

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 [...]

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 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 [...]

Janet Mock has launched a much-needed campaign, #GirlsLikeUs, to lift up the voices and issues of trans women of color. Darby Hicky on transgender motherhood . An interview with Vanessa Rochelle about how the murder of Brandy Martell, an African-American trans woman who lived in Oakland, is impacting her community. Jaclyn Friedman is writing at The American Prospect all this week [...]

Feministing’s own Chloe was on the Melissa Harris-Perry Show this weekend talking about same-sex marriage. You can watch the whole episode online here . Here’s video of the first part of the conversation: Visit msnbc.com for breaking news , world news , and news about the economy I haven’t been able to find transcripts for the Melissa Harris-Perry show online. Assuming they’re not online [...]

*Trigger warning* Lorena Escalera was a person. She was a performer in the ball scene. She died in a suspicious fire on Saturday. And she sure as hell does not deserve the treatment she’s getting from the New York Times . This is how the paper’s article about her death opens:

She was 25 and curvaceous, and she often [...]

A Queer and Pleasant Danger: The true story of a nice Jewish boy who joins the Church of Scientology and leaves twelve years later to become the lovely lady she is today is the new memoir from Kate Bornstein, author of Gender Outlaw and My Gender Workbook . The long subtitle outlines the narrative of the book. Kate takes [...]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fkIPwx7_6Vg From Rookie , noted grown man Jon Hamm offers advice to girls. Most of it is really good, some of it is a reminder that Jon Hamm is not a sex ed expert (unfortunately I haven’t seen a transcript yet). One of the members of Against Me! comes out as a trans woman in the latest issue [...]

I guess the president’s overblown, over-long “evolution” on the issue of same sex marriage has reached its inevitable end. President Obama’s views have finally “evolved” to support same sex marriage. This just so happens to come shortly before the election, at a time when his support among LGB folks needs to be shored up and [...]

Mother’s Day originated as an anti-war event, but it’s been turned into a way to push a normative idea of motherhood – you know, the one you see in that isle of Hallmark cards every year. The Strong Families campaign has put together a collection of cards for mamas who don’t fit the image of a [...]

For a movie about dudes with big muscles who punch things, The Avengers  treats its few female characters pretty well. Which isn’t a big surprise, since the movie is written and directed by  Buffy creator Joss Whedon. But the film’s advertising has featured Black Widow in the standard “look at my ass!” poses we’ve sadly come to expect for our female [...]

A complete guide to hipster racism . aka racism. Definitely a form of racism I need to work to unlearn. (Also, this is not actually a complete guide, but an introduction to some of the more obvious examples of a problem people of color have been calling out for a while.) Amanda Hess on building alternatives to happily [...]

Samhita, Vanessa, and I had a blast speaking at Tufts University on Monday. While we were there, a couple students introduced us to their Tumblr Humorless Feminists . It follows the basic concept of Tumblrs featuring mash up images, but with feminists. And it’s amazing: Yes. A few more of my favorites after the jump. (Ewe-cault) Check out the [...]

Four African men school us about Hollywood stereotypes.

On Maryland’s approach to trying to prevent domestic homicide.

Newt Gingrich is dropping out of the presidential race. Wait, he was still running?

Here we go with this week’s take on the latest Mad Men from the Feministing crew. This episode was pretty wild and got seriously intense. Let’s jump in and get discussing. As always, tons of spoilers follow . Peggy I absolutely loved this episode. Coming off 4/20 I thought it was perfectly done. Peggy’s temper tantrum in the Heinz meeting [...]

Steph Herold has a brave and necessary piece at The Abortion Gang today about the reproductive health, rights, and justice movement’s dirty secret: we’re full of organizations that are toxic places to work.

A co-worker once told me that in her 10+ years of working in the reproductive health field, her peers in other movements validated [...]

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has ruled that employment discrimination based on gender identity is covered by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. From Metro Weekly :

The EEOC decision, issued without objection by the five-member, bipartisan commission, will apply to all EEOC enforcement and litigation activities at the commission and in its 53 field offices [...]