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 [...]

Jennifer Pozner has an interesting piece up at the Daily Beast on the class-action racial discrimination suit against The Bachelor and The Bachelorette .

That calculus has governed casting on The Bachelor since its 2002 debut on ABC. Ten years, one spinoff (The Bachelorette), and 24 seasons later, every star of TV’s oldest reality romance franchise has been white. So were 22 [...]

Can’t lose, Mr. President. Can’t lose. Men are increasingly entering traditionally women-dominated professions. As one male dental assistant says, “The way I look at it is that anything, basically, that a woman can do, a guy can do.” Good point from Jamelle Bouie: For women, social issues are economic issues . Missouri passed a bill allowing employers or health [...]

Joyce Banda, who became Malawi’s first female president last month, is hitting the ground running. In her first state of the nation address, she announced that as “a matter of urgency” she’ll seek to repeal the country’s laws criminalizing homosexuality. Banda seems to have enough support in parliament to get the laws overturned, but Malawi is still a conservative [...]

At this year’s Cannes Film Festival, 22 films directed by 22 men will compete for the prestigious top award. But to feminist criticism of that dismal lineup, Cannes says, essentially, “Well, you can’t make us pick a girl just because she’s a girl.” Of course, those numbers are pretty standard for Cannes. Last year there [...]

Lashinda Demus of the US Olympic track and field team. More awesome Olympic portraits here . h/t Shakesville. “My mother died of femininity.” Interesting profile of the founder of Jimmyjane vibrators who’s aiming to make vibrators as well-designed as iPods . Conservatives have it backward: “Teen motherhood is much more a consequence of intense poverty than its cause.” Laurie Penney talks to Mona [...]

Spoiler alert: The answer is almost always PROBLEMATIC. Doing science? Sorry. You’re “reinforcing a masculine-supremacist view of intelligence.” Reading? Nope. After all, “the Western canon is white and male-dominated.” Watching sports? Please, that’s a “sort of miniaturized warfare.” Yep, it’s hard being a marginally acceptable feminist full-time. But it’s still feminist to watch Friday Night Lights . So that’s a relief . Riding two dolphins [...]

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 [...]

We’re all pretty pissed about the incredibly watered-down Violence Against Women Act reauthorization bill the House passed on Wednesday. But perhaps no one is more outraged than Rep. Gwen Moore–and with good reason. The legislator from Wisconsin shared her personal history with sexual violence during House debate on the bill earlier this year. And yesterday she spoke out [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

Register for Girls for Gender Equity’s 10 year anniversary fundraiser with Anita Hill! We’re co-sponsoring it! Check out these posters that celebrate Asian-American masculinity . D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton is not allowed to testify during a congressional hearing on a bill banning abortions in D.C. after 20 weeks . Sure, because it’s not like it’s an issue that affects her [...]

The latest Mad Men episode primarily had the Feministing writers tearing their hair out over Betty’s weight gain storyline. Betty joins Weight Watchers, tries to manipulate Sally to undermine Megan and Don. I stayed awake through this episode. Barely. Unsurprising–Betty has never been particularly mature. Also, her weight is the most annoying plotline because it’s not [...]