on claims that there's a double standard in the entertainment biz, and critics of her sexually-charged performances. [Access Hollywood]

Andrea sent us a link to a post at Carpe Diem about the growing sex gap in college degrees. Current Department of Education estimates have women earning over 60% of all college degrees within 8 years:

This week the UN gave Iran a four-year seat on its Commission on the Status of Women. But some activists criticize the decision, saying "Iran's discriminatory laws demonstrate that the Islamic Republic does not believe in gender equality." [FOX News]

Determined to challenge society's double standards when it comes to going topless in public, Ty McDowell and roughly two dozen other women walked through the streets of Portland, Maine yesterday sans shirts. The protest had mixed results:

[New York, February 22. Image via Getty]

The World Economic Forum released its annual Gender Gap Index yesterday, and Iceland — that's Prime Minister Johanna Sigurdardottir, not only a lady, but the world's first openly gay leader, at left — kicks everybody else's ass at gender equality.

In this Sunday's New York Times Magazine, Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn make the provocative claim that ending discrimination against women and girls may end poverty and even terrorism.

Last year, ten Nepali women, representing various ethnic groups and castes, made up the first all-women expedition to summit Everest.

• A five-week-old seal pup has astonished caretakers by refusing to eat fish. Staff at a marine sanctuary say that this is the first time they've seen a seal with a fish phobia. •

Tally up another one on your list of Things Women Can’t Do. Ski jumping is still the only sport in the winter Olympics that doesn’t allow females to compete.

Inspired by American Bedu's list of what Saudi women can and cannot do, we've compiled a corresponding list for American women.

Last summer, Moe wrote a rebuttal to a Linda Hirshman OpEd that came down to "I just think that, when one is being judgmental, one should be right." This is advice that Ms. Hirshman maybe should have taken before writing her latest OpEd about how Barack Obama's proposed stimulus plan is discriminating against women.

Back in the '70s—when comic books were still read by kids as well as adults—Marvel published a special Planned Parenthood issue of Spider-Man, in which an evil man has plans to control the brains of America's youth by encouraging them to be sexually irresponsible and not use protection, so that they ruin their lives…

A new study from the University at Buffalo suggests that the transition between high school and college is an especially fraught one for young American women: According to researchers, the increasing number of sexual assaults on freshman females can be explained by a number of things, including "psychological symptoms…

A very long, but insightful and interesting story in today's WWD attempts to tackle the issue of women in fashion. More and more females are heading big-name fashion houses or are gaining prominence with their own labels. "In the early Nineties," says Floriane de Saint Pierre, head of a consulting firm in Paris, "the…

• 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]
  
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