Today, Laura Liswood, co-founder of the Council of Women World Leaders, writes about why it is important to look at the shifting rankings of certain countries in the fight for equality.

In its annual measurement of global progress in the lives of women and girls, released October 27, 2009, the World Economic Forum reported some major improvements in surprising places. The 2009 Global Gender Gap Report-which, country by county, examines data indicating the resources and status of women compared to men-ranks Lesotho, for example, in the top 10, a marked improvement from its place at 16 last year and 43 in 2006. By contrast, the United States moved down three slots since last year and now ranks 31st.

It is important to note that no country in the world has achieved full gender equality. However, it is important to note that Norway has legislation that demands all public institutions "promote gender equality, and these efforts are to be documented each year." The top ranking country, Iceland, passed this type of legislation back in 2000 as the Act on Equal Status and Equal Rights of Women. Finland employs an "Ombudsman for Equality, the Gender Equality Unit, and the Council for Equality" in its pursuit of gender parity. And in Sweden, there is an Ombudsman on Discrimination, as well as measures taken in schools and workplaces to ensure women do not face bias. Interesting how in the top four countries, all of them have taken an active role in eliminating discrimination.

Liswood explains how the remaining countries are ranked:

The countries, explains Saadia Zahidi, fall into roughly three major groupings:

* Group I Countries making almost no progress to close gaps (Yemen, Chad, Pakistan);
* Group II Countries making progress on health and education but cultural constraints create barriers to economic and political participation. Such countries as Jordan, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia are investing in health and education in girls but not getting the concomitant return on their investment as women are not actively engaged in the workplace and in the political process;
* Group III Gaps in these countries (including the United States and United Kingdom) have been almost completely closed in education and health; progress is occurring on economic and political participation. What is lagging is women's presence at the highest levels of power be it management of a business or head of state or government or parliament. Countries that adopt quotas for business or politics often see an immediate jump in their standing once these mechanisms kick in.

She then goes for the jugular:

Data collection alone can't make the sea level rise, but many political and business leaders hide behind the excuse that women must ‘make the case' for change. The case can rarely be made without information that proves what women may intuitively already know. And looking at a gender gap that has been indexed should give leaders pause if they are not fully utilizing 50 percent of their talent.

Why the lag between education/health and economic and political empowerment? One might have thought that once girls were educated and kept healthy then they would ‘naturally' find themselves in the workplace and in political positions of power. Power is probably the operative word in looking at this pipeline failure problem. Allocating health and education resources is in and of itself less threatening to the powers that be than relaxing control of the purse or political positions. Dominant groups rarely voluntarily relinquish their power.

Global Gender Gap Report: Some Gains in Africa [WMC]
The Global Gender Gap Report 2009 [World Economic Forum]
Gender issues [Research Council of Norway]
Gender equality in Iceland [Tea for Two]
Gender equality in Finland [Tea for Two]
Gender equality in Sweden [Sweden.se]

Which is to say, Iceland's not perfect, but none of the other 133 countries studied (representing 93% of the world's population) did better. Let's have a look at how that happened:

Iceland's women are surpassing Iceland's men in college enrollment and in attaining professional and technical jobs, and have achieved near equal labor force participation. The country also ranked No. 1 in political empowerment. While women there hold 43% of parliament seats and 36% of ministerial positions, Iceland also named a new female prime minister, Johanna Sigurdardottir, this year. The combination of powerful female role models and progressive government policies, like three months of paid maternity leave, are working to close the gap even further.

The U.S., on the other hand?

The U.S. fell to No. 31, down from last year's No. 27 ranking and even farther from 2006's placement at No. 23. The U.S. has always done well on measures of education and economic participation, but has been held back by mediocre scores in women's health and political achievement. The U.S. gap in political empowerment is below the world's average, having closed only 14% of its gap. This year, small changes in economic opportunity—female labor force participation and wage equality fell slightly—pushed the U.S. down the list.

And of course, we've still got it pretty good, in the big picture. Although 67% of countries were found to be improving in terms of gender equality, 33% are getting worse — and even a marked improvement is not always saying much in a world where women are still at risk, as Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn have recently been reminding us all, of "sex trafficking, acid attacks, bride burnings and mass rape," not to mention dying in childbirth, contracting HIV, and simply disappearing. But of course, as Anna North pointed out, the increased attention to these human rights abuses tends to revolve around the idea that finally addressing them might lead to greater economic prosperity — with the fact that it might lead to fewer sick, abused, maimed, dead and missing women being presented as something of a bonus. And as she said, "What happens if women decide to spend their newly earned money on alcohol instead of their children's education? What if they spend it on weapons? And what if, even though they spend it on all the 'right' things, their countries still fail to develop economically? Treating women as agents of social change risks leaving them out in the cold if they don't effect the change we want."

Or what happens if empowered women do help a country develop economically, only to be continually marginalized in less attention-grabbing ways? In response to the news that the U.S.'s ranking has dropped, ambassador-at-large for global women's issues Merlanne Verveer said, "We have our work cut out for us... We've been the model but also have a ways to travel." Unfortunately, I wonder if the U.S. isn't still a model of what actually happens when women are afforded basic human rights: A certain level of economic stability is achieved, and then people start complaining that women already have equality, and if they aren't making as much money or holding as many offices, it's probably their own fault.

"It remains a simple fact that no country could prosper if half its people are left behind," says Verveer, "Yet, women are still largely under-represented also in parliament and legislatures of nearly every country, and I might add so too in the boardrooms of corporations." But that's still painfully true in the U.S. and recession aside, we are still an obscenely wealthy nation. Which means this country did, in fact, prosper while half its people were left behind in numerous ways. If future economic success is the best motivation we've got for supporting gender equality, it only goes so far.

U.S. Slips In Global Gender Gap Index; Iceland Leads the Pack [Forbes]
Nordic Countries Top Gender Gap Index Again [MSNBC]

Earlier: Are Women The New "Deserving Poor"?

Kristof and WuDunn (the first married couple in history to win the Pulitzer Prize) argue that the "sex trafficking, acid attacks, bride burnings and mass rape" of women around the world constitute not just a humanitarian crisis, but a major source of "global poverty and extremism." We ignore the murder, abuse, and marginalization of women at our peril, they argue, because providing women with education and safety will not only improve gender equality but solve a variety of seemingly non-gender-related problems, like economic underdevelopment and terrorist violence. They make a compelling case, but it's not without its problems.

Though they've clearly done their homework, conducting in-depth interviews with women in India, Pakistan, and Zimbabwe, Kristof and WuDunn can seem paternalistic at times. Especially odd is their analysis of gender and spending habits in the world. On "the dirty little secret of global poverty," they write,

[S]ome of the most wretched suffering is caused not just by low incomes but also by unwise spending by the poor - especially by men. Surprisingly frequently, we've come across a mother mourning a child who has just died of malaria for want of a $5 mosquito bed net; the mother says that the family couldn't afford a bed net and she means it, but then we find the father at a nearby bar. He goes three evenings a week to the bar, spending $5 each week.

They add that the world's poorest families spend ten times as much on "alcohol, prostitution, candy, sugary drinks and lavish feasts" as they do on education, and that "if poor families spent only as much on educating their children as they do on beer and prostitutes, there would be a breakthrough in the prospects of poor countries." Their solution — focusing economic development efforts on women, who apparently tend to spend more money on education and nourishing food for their children — may be an effective one, but their statements about supposedly spendthrift men are still somewhat troubling. Is it really their place to determine what spending is wise or unwise? Might men be spending more money on alcohol than education because they don't see benefits from schooling — and might this situation be remedied by improving education and public awareness of educational opportunities, rather than cutting men out of the equation? I'm perfectly willing to believe that women in developing countries spend a larger percentage of their income on children than men are, and that this makes them a more effective vector for helping families. But the idea of selecting the "wisest" spenders, by Western standards, and then directing aid their way has a whiff of moral judgment and social engineering — it recalls the centuries-old notion of the "deserving poor." This is compounded by the suggestion that women are more docile than men, less likely to rock the boat. Kristof and WuDunn write,

It has long been known that a risk factor for turbulence and violence is the share of a country's population made up of young people. Now it is emerging that male domination of society is also a risk factor; the reasons aren't fully understood, but it may be that when women are marginalized the nation takes on the testosterone-laden culture of a military camp or a high-school boys' locker room. [...] Indeed, some scholars say they believe the reason Muslim countries have been disproportionately afflicted by terrorism is not Islamic teachings about infidels or violence but rather the low levels of female education and participation in the labor force.

It may be true that a society is more peaceful when women are empowered, but the idea of promoting women's equality in order to reduce terrorism is still problematic. First, as WuDunn and Kristof are no doubt aware, there are plenty of examples of female terrorists. But the very idea of helping women because they behave the way we want — not drinking, whoring, or planting bombs — implies that we have a certain ideal of how developing countries should operate, and we want to shape them according to that ideal. It's also not necessarily good for women, who must continue to behave well in order to retain their status as model recipients of aid.

This is not to say that the kind of aid Kristof and WuDunn propose — mostly microlending, which helps women become economically self-sufficient — necessarily shackles families to Western benefactors. In fact, microlending can empower women to make their own choices and assert their autonomy within families. WuDunn and Kristof tell the story of Saima Muhammad (pictured), who started a successful embroidery business with a small loan from a microfinance organization. She's now the undisputed head of her household, and no longer has any problems with her once-abusive husband. Her children, too, are doing well, bearing out Kristof and WuDunn's claim that economic independence for women is often good for kids.

Indeed, all the programs the authors support — from improving girls' education to reducing sex trafficking to repairing obstetric fistulas — are good ones. But their central thesis — that we should help women because it will reduce poverty and violence — is flawed. It relies on the notion that women are deserving of economic and social power because they are good citizens, not simply because they are human. What happens if women decide to spend their newly earned money on alcohol instead of their children's education? What if they spend it on weapons? And what if, even though they spend it on all the "right" things, their countries still fail to develop economically? Treating women as agents of social change risks leaving them out in the cold if they don't effect the change we want.

The reason WuDunn and Kristof structure their argument the way they do isn't because they don't care about women's rights. Their description of their emerging awareness of violence against women and girls — both in the Times Magazine and in a Glamour interview — shows they are passionate about women's equality. However, they write,

Traditionally, the status of women was seen as a "soft" issue - worthy but marginal. We initially reflected that view ourselves in our work as journalists. We preferred to focus instead on the "serious" international issues, like trade disputes or arms proliferation.

This perception still exists, and WuDunn and Kristof's approach seems, in part, like an attempt to turn a "soft" issue into a "serious" one. By linking the persecution of women to global poverty and violence, they may be hoping to reach people who might not otherwise care about women's rights. They may succeed — and again, their practical recommendations sound solid. But there's a problem with treating the empowerment of women as a means rather than an end — what happens if women, once empowered, pursue ends we don't like?

Image via New York Times Magazine.

The Women's Crusade [New York Times Magazine]
Women's Issues: How Helping Women Will Change the World [Glamour]

Seven of the "Everest Women" will begin touring and giving presentations about gender equality and global warming. "We want to show kids that success comes with hard work and education; that neither age, religion, caste or the region you are from matters if you really want to achieve something," said Shailee Basnett, a 24-year-old journalist and member of the Everest team. They hope that their achievement will help dispel the notion that adventure sports are only for wealthy men. [OutsideBlog]

• Archeologists in Northern Ireland have begun searching for the unmarked graves of unbaptized babies in the hopes that they will be able to give the children a proper burial. • Gender equality we don't support: research shows that English men between the ages of 20 and 24 are just as likely to be abused by their partners as women in the same age group. • Bad news for Nadya Suleman: children who are looked after by their grandparents are more likely to have problems socializing with their peers and exhibit behavioral problems than those who spend their time in a daycare center. • Although a little slow on the uptake, we're glad to hear that the chief executive of Consumer Focus, Ed Mayo, is speaking out against the sexualization of clothing and toys marketed toward young girls. Mayo also successfully lobbied for WH Smith to drop its range of Playboy-themed stationary for school girls. • A new study has shown that women are more attracted to a man's "sexual sweat" than his "neutral sweat." While the test subjects did not recognize either scent immediately as human, their brains showed recognition and excitement when sniffing the "sexual" excretions. • Indian women have launched a Facebook campaign titled "The Consortium of Pub-going, Loose and Forward Women" in response to the recent attack on "un-Indian" women who were out drinking in a bar (which we mentioned yesterday). They plan to send pink underwear on Valentines Day to the group that lead the attack. • Children's publisher Scholastic Inc. has been accused of misusing its book club to push video games and jewelry to kids. • A forthcoming study in the journal Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery analyzed the faces of 186 pairs of identical twins and found that if you want to look better as you age, you should be willing to gain a little weight. • Click here for an interesting article on the history of peanut butter. Did you know that peanut butter did not become popular until World War II, when meat was scarce? • A 66-year-old man called the police after Burger King employees told him that they had run out of lemonade. I wonder if this guy's related to me, since my sister once dialed 911 about a lack of deli meat. • Last year, drugmakers spend hundreds of millions of dollars to raise awareness for fibromyalgia, an ailment that some call a "murky illness" due to the lack of knowledge about causes and treatments. • Over at Nzingha's Soapbox there is an interesting post on the difficulties Saudi women face when trying to find jobs. • Sick of his freedom (or maybe just a little lonely), a wild otter broke into Florida's Jacksonville Zoo and Gardens. Zoo workers found the wild otter hanging out with the only otter in the zoo's exhibit. • A new study has found that kids with multiracial identities are better adjusted at school and report better personal well-being than students who hail from one ethnic group. • A piece titled "The Funeral of Mona Lisa" by Franco-Chinese artist Yan Pei-Ming is set to be displayed in the Louvre in the room next to the original. The exhibit is part of the Louvre's ongoing efforts to bring contemporary art face-to-face with the old masterpieces. • An injured deer in Ohio managed to find its way into a vet clinic where it received dissolvable stitches before being set free. • The Delhi High Court has ruled that if a man has consensual sex with an adult woman after proposing marriage, and then later retracts his promise, it amounts to rape. • Two women are struggling to survive after undergoing disastrous cosmetic surgery procedures aimed at giving them 'J-Lo' style butts. • A riot in a club in Brazil was apparently started when one woman, wearing very high heels teetered and fell, starting a domino effect. • A middle school counselor is facing a lawsuit after forcing a 12-year-old girl to take a pregnancy test. The counselor heard a rumor that she was knocked up, but like most middle school gossip, it was untrue. • Several days ago, exotic dancerRoberta Busby was attacked outside her place of work, doused with flammable fluid, and set on fire. Busby is currently in the hospital, in stable condition. If you are interested in donating, Feministe has information on where to send money. • New research suggests that simply providing women who have reported engaging in unprotected sex with home pregnancy tests can have a substantial impact on the health of potential newborns. • In the past 14 years, Christine O'Leary, 38, has won a $6,000 nose job, a concert with Lenny Kravitz, a cruise, spa trips, and many other prizes. O'Leary says that her winning streak is more about perseverance than luck. •

The International Olympic Committee claims that they don’t not want women, but that there simply aren’t enough ladies competing (and the ones that are apparently just aren’t good enough!) However, the Canadian Olympic Committee begs to differ. Although they petitioned to add women’s ski jumping to the 2010 Olympics, and the International Ski Federation voted 114-1 to recommend that addition, the IOC chose not to include women in the upcoming competition. IOC head Jacques Rogge claims that including women would “water down” the medals. In response to this news, 15-year-old jumper Katie Willis said: ''It's a huge shock because you're thinking that this has a great chance because of all the momentum that was building up about gender equity. It's kind of depressing actually.'' No kidding.

Women Can't Jump, Olympic Panel Says [NPR]
Ski cross in, women's ski jumping out at 2010 Olympics [West Canadian News Service]
Women ski jumping would `water down' Olympic medals, Rogge says [Vancouver Sun]

Related: What American Women Can And Cannot Do

American Bedu points out that while Saudi women can't drive or visit a graveyard, they can own property and businesses. Here's our list of the rights and restrictions for women here in the US of A.

American women can:

— drive
— vote
— run for President
— be really rich (but it helps if you're a Walton)
— join the Navy
— compete in the Olympics (but not in boxing)
— top the New York Times Best Seller List
— become men

American women cannot:

— walk alone at night without fear of being assaulted
— buy birth control pills without a prescription (except Plan B)
— marry another woman (except in Massachusetts and Connecticut)
— be a Navy SEAL
— play professional baseball
— get fat without apologizing for it
— look plain without getting shit for it
— look hot or get drunk without "asking for it"

Now add your own!

What Saudi women can and cannot do [American Bedu]

Hirshman writes:

The bulk of the stimulus program will provide jobs for men, because building projects generate jobs in construction, where women make up only 9 percent of the work force.

It turns out that green jobs are almost entirely male as well, especially in the alternative energy area. A broad study by the United States Conference of Mayors found that half the projected new jobs in any green area are in engineering, a field that is only 12 percent female, or in the heavily male professions of law and consulting; the rest are in such traditional male areas as manufacturing, agriculture and forestry. And like companies that build roads, alternative energy firms also employ construction workers and engineers.

This, on its face, is relatively true, though it could certainly be argued that expanding job growth and opportunity in these areas, particularly in the long term, would encourage more women to enter into the field, etc. It is, nonetheless, a fair criticism of what the stimulus package — as written — would do.

Here's where Hirshman ruins her entire argument — an argument, notably, that has been made by others before her.

But today, women constitute about 46 percent of the labor force. And as the current downturn has worsened, their traditionally lower unemployment rate has actually risen just as fast as men’s. A just economic stimulus plan must include jobs in fields like social work and teaching, where large numbers of women work.

Yeah, see, um, that part? It's not true.

Megan McArdle of The Atlantic, Daniel Drezner and The Economist all point to a story in last week's Boston Globe that shows the exact opposite to be true. There is a net job loss among men in this country to the tune of more than 1,000,000 male jobs — and women have added a net 12,000 jobs, even in this economy.

Men are losing jobs at far greater rates than women as the industries they dominate, such as manufacturing, construction, and investment services, are hardest hit by the downturn. Some 1.1 million fewer men are working in the United States than there were a year ago, according to the Labor Department. By contrast, 12,000 more women are working.

This gender gap is the product of both the nature of the current recession and the long-term shift in the US economy from making goods, traditionally the province of men, to providing services, in which women play much larger roles, economists said. For example, men account for 70 percent of workers in manufacturing, which shed more than 500,000 jobs over the past year. Healthcare, in which nearly 80 percent of the workers are women, added more than 400,000 jobs.

Heck, The Economist even points out that, given the expected layoffs in the auto industry, the gender gap in the downtown is likely to be even more pronounced — and more in favor of women. Drezner even adds that if you look at the percentage of unemployment among men and women before the start of the recession in September 2007 and as of last month, Hirshman's still wrong.

Monthly data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that Hirshman’s assumpton is a flat-out falsehood. Immediately prior to the start of the recession (November 2007), the unemployment rate for men was 4.7%; the rate for women was 4.6%. As of November 2008, the unemployment rate for men has increased to 7.2%, while the unemployment rate for women has only risen to 6%.

Look, is there a rationale for arguing that the stimulus ought to include more jobs in traditionally female sectors of the economy? Sure, though I don't see where teachers and social workers come into it (or where they have faced layoffs, other than in a few libraries that Hirshman cites). Why not in the health care sector? In, um, media (or is that too self-interested)? Many of the women I worked with when I worked in banking doing backroom transactional work have probably been laid off as a result of the financial and housing crisis. Of course, one might also easily note that many of these groups of workers (and women) would be helped as part of Obama's other spending priorities and stimulus plans — and Hirshman does, but just dismisses it as not good enough.

The problem is, as again The Economist notes, that the stimulus is intended to provide assistance to the fields that are facing layoffs, cutbacks and hard financial times that are not otherwise affected by other legislation (like the financial bail-out). In most cases, these are male-dominated industries. But choosing to ignore both the facts of the gender gap in unemployment today and arguing that the stimulus needs to include more female-dominated sectors (like teaching) that are actually not nearly as affected as the male-dominated industries, Hirshman isn't arguing for parity or making a case for gains by women. She's arguing that we use the economic crisis to reduce the gender gap in wages and employment in this country by using limited resources to help women, possibly at the expense of men. By being, you know, wrong on so much, she negates the impact of the few things on which she might have arguably have been right.

Where Are The New Jobs For Women? [NY Times]
Women's Work [Megan McArdle]
Clearly Linda Hirshman Doesn't Read This Blog. What A Sexist. [Daniel Drezner]
Which Gender Needs More Stimulating [The Economist]
Losing Jobs In Unequal Numbers [Boston Globe]

Related: Looking to the Future, Feminism Has to Focus [Washington Post]
The Feminine Mistake [Washington Post]

Earlier: What You Get When You Pick On "Old School" Feminists' "Bedside Manner"

The survey's authors talked to 1,260 people who were married or living together as couples about their decision making in four areas: planning weekend activities, household finances, major home purchases and TV watching. "Across all decision-making realms, it tilts to the woman,"says Rich Morin, lead author of the study, who says she was surprised by the percentage of men who made no decisions in any of the areas and were just bystanders.

The survey finds there is disagreement about who actually controls household finances. Forty-five percent of women say they manage the family's money, but only 30 percent of the men admit that their wives control the finances. Thirty seven percent of men say they are the sole financial decision maker, and 28 percent say they made decisions jointly. Despite this discrepancy, Andrew Cherlin, a professor of sociology and public policy at Johns Hopkins University, claims the rise in shared decision-making is a big step. "I think that's a big change from 50 years ago," Cherlin says. Back then, he says, "some wives didn't even know what their husbands were making." He finds it less surprising that women are taking charge of weekend activities and major household purchases, which are related to home life.

The fact that 31 percent of couples share decision making is even more impressive considering that couples were not given that choice during the survey; they all volunteered it. And it seems that men are not opposed to sharing decision making with their wives, or letting their wives call the shots, with 80 percent of the couples reporting that they are happy with their family situation and its dynamics.

Women Are Gaining Ground In Family Decision Making [The Washington Post]
Women Rule The Roost, And That's OK With Men [USA Today]

According to Science Daily, Buffalo researchers speculate that "The physically disinhibiting effects of alcohol for new drinkers may cause them to be more reactive, possibly verbally aggressive, or more likely to call attention to themselves, thereby putting themselves at risk for physical aggression in social drinking situations." And then there's the news that young women are out-drinking boys. James Garbarino, a member of the humanistic psychology department at Loyola University, tells the Washington Post, "When you take off the shackles, you release all kind of energy — negative and positive...By letting girls loose to experience America more fully, it's not surprising that they would absorb some of its toxic environment." We need those shackles to save us from ourselves, apparently! But Deborah Prothrow-Stith, a professor of public health at Harvard, asks the question that's also on our lips: "'Why wouldn't you expect girls to behave [like boys]?' Girls and women are closing all the other gaps." Should this necessarily be a cause for alarm? Not that alcohol abuse is ideal or should be encouraged in young women, but why should women be expected to have fewer vices than men do?

Drinking And Abuse: Dangerous Transition From High School To College For Women [Science Daily]
Catching Up To The Boys, In The Good And The Bad [Washington Post]
Sex, Drugs And Alcohol: Parents Still Influence College Kids' Risky Behavior, Study Shows [Science Daily]

Pamela Golbin, curator of 20th-century fashion at the Museum of Fashion and Textiles in Paris, notes that Coco Chanel, Madeleine Vionnet, Jeanne Lanvin, Elsa Schiaparelli and Madame Grès were the queens of Paris fashion in the early part of the century. After World War II, women "went back to the home," and the post-war names in design were men like Christian Dior, Pierre Balmain and Cristobal Balenciaga.

Men still dominate high fashion, but women seem to be gaining. "I sincerely hope we are witnessing a major and permanent change, not only in the fashion industry, but also in society in general," says Marni's Consuelo Castiglioni. Donatella Versace adds, "The worlds of banking and management are opening up to women at long last. But in fashion, specifically, I think it points to an understanding that women are instinctively in tune with the female customer." Versace also says Italy is leading the way in appointing female designers and that this fits in with the nation's culture, "as we have long been a matriarchy!" (See: Gucci designer Frida Giannini, Miuccia Prada, Angela Missoni and new hires Alessandra Facchinetti at Valentino and Christina Ortiz at Salvatore Ferragamo.)

Could it be that women are actually better at designing clothes for women? "When seeing the Milan fashion shows and then immediately going to Paris, one sometimes has the sense of going from real clothes to fantasy-made-for-the-catwalk clothes," said Mary Gallagher, a Europe-based associate at Martens & Heads, a New York executive search firm. "Maybe that's why there are so many prominent women designers in Italy. They are the ones wearing the clothes, so they know what feels and looks good on them and what works in a woman's busy life."

The argument is that men tend to be more "conceptual" but less concerned with the practical. And since the fashion world is becoming less and less focused on couture, women who design with "practical" aspects in mind will succeed. The problem there is the underlying prejudice: If couture is art, for which men are celebrated, then a woman's ready-to-wear becomes mass market seamstress patternmaking, and the respect and impact are sucked out.

The truth is, if the fashion world had any kind of equality in it, women and men would design for women — and men.

"I would like to think that a good design speaks for itself," added Linda Fargo, senior vice president and fashion director of Bergdorf Goodman. "When we use our senses, whether it's taste, sight or hearing, for example, we don't first think, hmm, was this chef a woman? Or, was this music performed by a man? Hopefully, we have evolved enough not to judge these things first through a sexist or ageist prism, but through the strength and merit of design."

Standing Toe to Toe: More Female Designers Take Control in Fashion [WWD]

• We always wondered why Rachel Zoe and Teen Vogue's self-promoting interns had never joined forces before. They're like the peanut butter and jelly of DANTE'S INFERNO, after all. Current intern Elana Fishman will pose in the gagazine's October issue as a model in a fashion spread. EWWWWWWWWW. [Fashion Week Daily]
  
• Dolce & Gabbana President Glenn McMahon is headed to St. John, where he'll be CEO. Now what we'd really like to see is what peroxidific St. John spokesexecutive Kelly Gray could do with Dolce. [WWD, sub req'd]
  
• Polo Ralph Lauren's stock dropped by 12% yesterday despite a rise in profits, maybe because of all the extra bad karma generated by those massive fucking logos. [WWD, sub req'd]

• The oil sheiks: Back in the lead for ownership of Barneys! Japan's Fast Retailing bowed out when the price reached $942 million in cash. [WWD, sub req'd]
• Italian label Acquascutum discovers that women mostly buy clothes and it should probably start catering to them. [Vogue UK]
• After much crusading, some senators — mostly representing blue states but also Orin Hatch — introduced a bill that would somehow protect fashion designers from "piracy." Embittered rant from Moe TK. [Fashion Week Daily]
• "Budget shopping": Dead in England? God, we hope not. [The Budget Fashionista]
• We don't care that Kate Moss is carrying it: We think the new Longchamp bag sorta looks like a Hefty bag masquerading as a purse. [FabSugar]