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There's a trend among fathers documented by sociologists Emily Shafer and Neil Malhotra. Their article measured the effect of a new baby's sex on a parent's gender ideology.  Their findings?  Men's support for traditional gender roles weakens after they have a daughter; no similar result was documented for new mothers. More »
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Police in Davos, Switzerland detained and later released three Ukrainian women who were denouncing the World Economic Forum of insidious rich people, armed only with their bare breasts and pithy chants such as, "Poor because of you." The women were members of the group FEMEN, which has been gaining attention recently for its criticism of the sex trade, as well as similar protests outside the Paris home of former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn and St. Peter's Basilica during an address the Pope delivered in November. Inna Schewcenko, a representative for the group, said that the Ukrainian women braved the freezing temperatures in Davos to deliver a message to the economic cabal that "we are poor because of these rich people who now sit in the building." Schewecenko added, More »
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Despite the millions of magnetic car stickers that demanded Americans Stand United, the opposite's happening. The wealthy highbrow elite are moving culturally further and further from their Cheeto dust huffing, sexy mudflap buying dirt-folk, and the cultural class divide's only going to widen. That is, unless we college educated snobs start acting more disappointed with poor people. Why didn't anyone think of using shame before?! More »
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Good news, ladies! Thanks to the women's rights movement, over the course of the last century or so, American women have made great advances in income equality, education level, and overall ability to have it all-ness. Well, rich women have. Poor women are still getting about equally as hosed as they were in the 1970s. More »
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I was a plucky little girl, but I never related to the rough-and-tumble icons of children's lit, like Pippi Longstocking or Harriet the Spy. Even Ramona Quimby, who seemed cool, wasn't somebody who truly spoke to me. She was scrawny and scrappy, and I was soft and sarcastic. I connected instead to Miss-never "Ms."-Piggy; the comedienne extraordinaire who'd swoon over girly stuff like chocolate, feather boas or random words pronounced in French, then on a dime, lower her voice to "Don't fuck with me, fellas" decibel when slighted. She was hugely feminine, boldly ambitious, and hilariously violent when she didn't get her way whether it was in work, love, or life. And even though she was a pig puppet voiced by a man with a hand up her ass, she was the fiercest feminist I'd ever seen. More »
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Given the interest that everyone suddenly has in the vacancy rate of your uterus, it should come as no surprise that in 2011 (that's 2011, not 1911), 50% of Americans still believe that a woman should be legally required to take her husband's last name after marriage. And because of this, our collective inability to mind our own damn business, it's still an issue that we continually revisit. Should married women change their names? Should they not change their names? Should America get a hobby? Hope you've got your Judgepants on, because it's time for some judging! More »
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A UK judge has ruled that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange can be extradited to Sweden to face trial for sexual assault. Assange says he will continue to fight the ruling. More »
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In 1961, Julia Chase-Brand was a 19-year-old sophomore at Smith College when she did the unthinkable: register to run a 4.75 mile road race alongside men. She was met with derision, condescension, and paternal concern from the public. Running for longer than half a mile, after all, would be detrimental to her femininity, threaten her future fertility, and upend gender roles that were there for a reason. Running while female, until surprisingly recently, was among the most righteous and rebellious things a gal could do. More »
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Single as a "choice" is the holy grail of feminist self-preservation while single but "looking for love" puts you in the position of nonstop speculation as to why you can't find love. On an interpersonal level, when you are single, no one believes that you can be happy even when you say you are. More »
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Soon you may be able to forget what you learned in French class about when to call a woman "madame," and when to use "mademoiselle" (if you haven't already forgotten every lesson from high school French). Two French feminist groups have launched a new campaign to do away with titles that refer to a woman's age and marital status. More »
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Last night, Gloria Steinem was on Colbert to promote the new HBO documentary about her life. As Stephen Colbert put it cheerfully, it's "only seventy five percent as long as documentaries about men." More »
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When we asked for a new word for feminism — hoping we could do better than Beyoncé, who suggested something "catchy like 'bootylicious'" — we were, obviously, being tongue-in-cheek. There's nothing wrong with the word feminism, and if you believe in equality, you really should embrace the word — there's strength in numbers. However, for many it's not so simple. More »
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Larry David is a feminist. There, I said it. I know, I know, that jerk? Allow me to explain. More »
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Judging from The Playboy Club executive producer Chad Hodge's declaration that the NBC drama is all about "empowering" women, he didn't bother to read Gloria Steinem's ground-breaking essay about going undercover as a Playboy Bunny. However, Steinem did read up on the new show and shockingly enough, she doesn't think TV needs a soapier version of Mad Men that celebrates all the sexiness of the period without that pesky social commentary. More »
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This week at the Television Critics Association panel for NBC's The Playboy Club — the new drama set in the 1960s and revolving around Hugh Hefner's infamous Bunny cocktail waitresses — executive producer Chad Hodge said, "Really, the show is all about empowering, and who these women can be, and how they can use their position to get what they want." His comment is a clear indication that this show will not be NBC's answer to Mad Men, as far as accuracy in portraying how these women really lived. Didn't this guy bother to read Gloria Steinem's infamous essay "I Was a Playboy Bunny" for research? More »
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"Any feminist out there that disagrees with me, I am sorry, but it's gone ridiculous now." So said Kelly Ripa this morning as she and Regis discussed dining etiquette. More »
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The Westboro Baptist Church is one of America's most infamous hate-mongers, using the bible and Christianity (at least, their brand of Christianity) to justify savage and hateful messages targeted at almost every group imaginable: homosexuals, abortionists, Muslims, Jews, Roman Catholics, even the United States military. When they're not stomping the American flag with soccer cleats or posting hateful parodies of popular songs on their website (the homophobic buggers even had the nerve to parody an Elton John song), they travel thousands of miles from their cozy coven in Topeka, Kansas to picket military funerals, gay pride events and Jewish community centers. They even went so far as to picket the funeral of Matthew Shepard, a young man who was murdered in 1998 for no other reason than the fact that he was gay. More »
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"You're a woman. Women judge other women. Harshly," said Stephen Colbert to Janny Scott last night. More »
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Yesterday, actress Elisabeth Sladen died. She played Doctor Who regular Sarah Jane Smith, one of sci-fi's first feminists, and a character dear to my heart. More »
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In Wisconsin, Sarah Palin cited the Badger women's hockey team: "Maybe I should ask them if we should be suggesting to GOP leaders they need to learn how to fight like a girl!" Cue a Fox News morning host's interpretation of what that is: "They gossip, they do it behind your back. Just kidding, ladies!" More »
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After last week's article—"Why Feminism Is the Anti-Viagra"—likened feminism to actual boner-killing, we've noticed that Psychology Today has been particularly hard on the women's movement over the past few years, blaming it for everything from unhappiness to sexual harassment to just plain evilness. Here, we collect some of its greatest hits of He-Man Woman Haters posts. More »
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According to Psychology Today, women are twice as likely as men to report an inability to get turned on by their partner. Also according to Psychology Today: "Gender equality inhibits arousal." More »
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Evolutionary psychologist Satoshi Kanazawa has made it his mission to oppose feminism, which he defines as "the radical notion that women are men." His latest column — on why all women are essentially prostitutes — inspired us to take a look back at his mansplaining oeuvre. More »
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Last Friday, on his HBO show Real Time, Bill Maher called Sarah Palin a "dumb twat." Since then, Fox News—home of Palin's political commentary—has apparently been harassing the National Organization for Women to come out against Maher in defense of Palin. Yesterday NOW told the network, that it's a "known fact" that it does not correspond with FOX News. But in her blog NOW's communications director Lisa Bennett said, "Listen, supposedly progressive men (ok, and women, too): Cut the crap! Stop degrading women with whom you disagree and/or don't like by using female body terms or other gender-associated slurs." But Bennett went on to call out the right-wing media for its duplicitous interest in sexism after years of ignoring the matter: More »
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The events of last night's series finale were shocking for some, but what's even more surprising is the admission by the show's creators—in a post-show interview—Mark Olsen and Will Scheffer that Big Love "has always been a feminist show." Really? Yes, really. More »
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Former teacher and current socioeconomic expert Suzanne Venker has teamed up with her aunt — none other than Phyllis Schlafly — to explain to everyone how feminists rule the world and are totally fucking it up. She recently promoted her upcoming book took up the cause of truth via an interview with BU Today, a publication out of her alma mater. Below, some choice quotes. More »
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The conservative activist and infamous opponent of the ERA was recently interviewed in a piece for HuffPo about a claim she makes in her new book (The Flipside of Feminism: What Conservative Women Know—and Men Can't Say): "Feminists love divorce." According to Schlafly, feminists "wanted to be independent of men and liberated from the duties of marriage and motherhood. So, their first legislative goal was the adoption of easy-to-get divorce," with no-fault divorce policies being adopted across the country. This, she says, contributes to America's high divorce rate. So if feminists really "love" divorce so much, and were able to achieve this goal of "liberation," then wouldn't that mean that—according to Schlafly's ideas of feminism's intentions—feminism has won? No, she says. It's failed. More »
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Her song "Pretty Girl Rock" — with lyrics like "Get yourself together don't hate (never do it)/ jealousy is the ugliest trait (don't ever do it)/ I can talk about it cause I know that I'm pretty /And if you know it too then ladies sing it with me" — is sort of an anthem for confidence (or, um, lookism?), and Keri Hilson obviously wants to be encouraging to the ladies. She tells My Yearbook, "I was inspired by the fact that I feel women seek validation in so many things, and I felt it was time that they had an example of how to feel about themselves no matter what anyone says." More »
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Phyllis Schlafly is the lady Michael Jordan of hypocrisy. If there were such thing as specialized footwear worn by sayers of one thing and doers of another, they'd surely be called the Air SclaFLY and they'd be heavily advertised on Fox News. Throughout her illustrious career of growing famous and powerful by telling other women that they cannot be powerful, working full time to tell women that they should not work full time, she's said a lot of whiplash-givingly stupid things (including a turn at CPAC this past week), but a lot of those stupid things follow a fairly predictable pattern. Scientists have recently cracked The Schlafly Code, and now, for the first time, you can make your own Phyllis Schlafly speech. More »
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Emma Goldman was an anarchist feminist boat rocking force to be reckoned with, and this afternoon, you can catch a one woman play about her life live from your computer. More »
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Ab-tastic Men's Health has a new blog on its website, written by a woman for its male audience. And it uses the F-word. Huh. More »
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The anniversary of Roe v. Wade is a perfect opportunity for National Organization of Marriage's chief bigot, Maggie Gallagher, to talk about how gross she thinks anal sex is. "This should be a feminist issue," she writes. Come again? More »
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We're always fascinated by stories of Femen, the bare-breasted and be-wreathed Ukrainian feminist activist collective. Their message? "Our God is woman, our mission is protest, our weapons are bare breasts." In freezing weather, no less! More »
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This 1915 Boston Journal ad—warning that women's suffrage is the enemy of "Christian civilization" and threatens the sanctity of marriage—is demonstrative of how, a century later, the same methods of political rhetoric are used to vilify progress. [BoingBoing] More »
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What we know of the story of Vivian Maier's life and work, and of how 30,000 of her negatives came to be acquired at a Chicago estate auction by a 26-year-old real estate agent and amateur historian, is breathtaking. More »
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• Worst-selling, that is. Swift's April Elle issue sold the fewest copies of the year, and her covers of Glamour and Marie Claire were nearly as bad. Blake Lively bombed on Vogue and Esquire, but weirdly sold well for Allure. [WWD]

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"Sweden is the Saudi Arabia of feminism," Julian Assange has said in a recent interview. "I fell into a hornets' nest of revolutionary feminism." And there's something the Guardian left out of its report on the accusations against him. More »
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Nowadays, women are taking over the entire world. Geez, men. Get it together. More »
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Babs was on Larry King Live last night, discussing her first book—My Passion for Design—about her hands-on remodeling of her Malibu estate. One contractor got mad over her micromanagement and perfectionism, which she chalked up to "annoying" sexism. More »
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