Also, why haven't we seen Michelle raise her voice above an "appropriate" decibel level? Michelle Obama doesn't seem to be anything like the image of black women that we see on TV and in films. Who is the real Michelle Obama? Get ready for it:

Michelle Obama is totally normal. A normal, well-educated wife of a politician and mother of two.

Samuels points out that Michelle is a type of black woman that many Americans don't get to see, since mostly, black women are portrayed in the media as either sassy, abrasive and angry or drug-addicted, poverty-stricken and AIDS-infected. But there are many different types of black women out there in the world. Some of whom — gasp — have a college education (complete with gender/race related undergraduate thesis), a good job and generally fit into the "normal" idea of upper-middle-class Americans. You just rarely see them on TV:

Usually, the lives of black women go largely unexamined. The prevailing theory seems to be that we're all hot-tempered single mothers who can't keep a man and, according to CNN's "Black in America," documentary, those of us who aren't street-walking crack addicts are on the verge of dying from AIDS. As writer Rebecca Walker put it on her Facebook page: "CNN should call me next time they really want to show diversity and meet real black women that nobody seems to talk about.''

Like Walker, I too know more than my share of black women who have little in common with the black female images I see in the media. My "sistafriends" are mostly college educated, in healthy, productive relationships and have a major aversion to sassy one-liners. They are teachers, doctors and business owners. Of course, there are those of us who never get the chance to pull it together. And we accept and embrace them—but their stories can't and shouldn't be the only ones told.

Like the fictional Huxtables before them, Samuels sees the Obamas serving as an example to both blacks and non-blacks through their upper-middle-class regular-ness. Perhaps Michelle has "softened" her image throughout the campaign, but if she becomes the First Lady she'll have to figure out her role in the White House amid criticisms much in the same way that Jackie Kennedy and Hillary Clinton did before her.

And even though Michelle will probably never gain acceptance from some of her critics, Samuels still sees her life in the spotlight as a way for Americans to see a "regular African-American woman" in action, showing "what we think and what we face on a regular basis." Some may argue that Michelle doesn't need to "teach" Americans about what it's like to be a black woman, but Michelle's prominent position in the public eye will invariably shape both black and non-black American's perceptions of what a black woman is, and can be.

What Michelle Obama Can Teach Us About Black Women [Newsweek]
Barack Obama Again Dances In A Slightly Embarrassing Manner On 'Ellen' [Wonkette]

Earlier: Following Criticism, 'Mom In Chief' Michelle Obama Charms Americans

• Meanwhile, a judge has ordered a woman from Iowa to stay away from her fiance on Monday after she bit his hand and drove over his foot. • The National Education Association says that male US teachers are at a 40-year low, with a measly number of them in early education. • A Canadian man is currently on trial for two counts of first-degree murder because two of his former girlfriends died from HIV-related cancers after he had unprotected sex with them and lied about his HIV-poisitive status. • Meanwhile, inSPOT, a website that provides free, anonymous STD-anouncement e-cards for people who have STDs to send to their former sexual partners has sent 49,500 cards since 2004. • Studies say that the often-recommended cup of coffee to cure headaches related to post-lumbar puncture procedures is not effective. • A 38-year-old New York man was charged with assault after he hit his 62-year-old girlfriend in the eye with a roll of toilet paper on Sunday. • A former HS cheerleader is fighting a RIAA lawsuit that says that she must pay $7,400 for pirated music she downloaded when she first entered high school. • Try to hide your shock: A new study reveals that the LAPD is more likely to stop and search black and Hispanic residents than whites. • Taffey Anderson, a mom from Oregon, says she plans on burning The Book Of Bunny Suicides, which her teenage son checked out from his high school library, because she thinks the book is "not OK."• An 85-year-old table tennis champion says that it is hard to find worthy competition in her age range. • Residents of the city of Plymouth in the UK are upset that a strip club that has opened near the historic Mayflower Steps will deter tourists from the area. • The lawyers of Lisa Nowak, the astronaut accused of attempting to kidnap another female astronaut, were back in court today fighting to keep away potentially incriminating evidence from being admitted into her trial because she was taken advantage of by the police when the evidence was obtained. • A study of university students has found that an emphasis on the way that skin cancer will ruin a person's appearance is the most effective way to get people to reduce their use of indoor tanning beds. •

• This just in from assuming crazy things from statistical studies: polygamy makes men live longer! Spoiling grandchildren helps older women live longer! • Anti-abortion activists in India target Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft for allowing ads to appear on their websites that advertise letting couples learn the gender of their fetus (which could lead to abortions of unwanted female fetuses). • Is the old wives' tale that morning sickness indicates a mother is pregnant with a female baby true? Probably, but only if the morning sickness is severe. • The funeral for Sandy Allen, the tallest woman (coming in at 7 feet, 7 inches) drew 200 people and she was remembered for her kind generosity. • A US researcher claims that Australian women are too timid at work, and struggle with appearing too pushy at work. • Horror story! A hospital in Japan mistakenly removed a woman's left breast after they confused her ID number with that of a cancer patient. • Bev Street has entered the record books by catching the largest freshwater fish ever caught by a woman in Britain. It was a 69 lb. catfish.

MEGAN: Fucking top of the fucking morning to you, motherfucker!

SPENCER: How's my favorite bitchcuntwhore this morning?

MEGAN: This bitch is kind of feeling like a complete asshole for a number of reasons, not the least of which is the fact that my shitty fucking mouth allowed some cocksucker at the Washington Times to write an article about how cuss-filled the liberal blogosphere is. Also, what the fuck? Does he not live in D.C.? Casual workplace profanity is a lifestyle here.

SPENCER: Here's what I love about this asshole:

The top 10 liberal sites (Daily Kos, Huffington Post, Democratic Underground, Talking Points Memo, Crooks and Liars, Think Progress, Atrios, Greenwald, MyDD and Firedoglake) have a profanity quotient of 14.6.

MEGAN: Hey, one of your homes makes the list! Bitchin'!
SPENCER: FDL hosts my blog, and ThinkProgress used to, and I worked for TPM before that. NOBODY BUT NOBODY cursed on ThinkProgress before I got there and no one curses now that I'm gone, so I'm responsible for TP's entire profanity quotient.

MEGAN: That's an impressive fucking accomplishment.

SPENCER: TPM is entirely sweetmouthed, with the occasional dirty word in comments, but not even that often. this no-Polk-award-having douche put TPM in this list to smear it, discrediting its achievements on, say, getting Alberto Gonzales to resign and exposing McCain's big oil connections.

MEGAN: Also, you know my significant fucking methodological problem with his study? There's no distinction made between Republican trolls swearing on liberal sites or vice versa. If all the cussing is done by Republicans on Kos — not that it is — then his entire thesis is off.

SPENCER: ...on FDL we curse and curse heartily, though. Yes, very good point.
And you know who encourages trolling like a fucking Dungeonmaster? John McCain!

On McCain's Web site, visitors are invited to "Spread the Word" about the presumptive Republican nominee by sending campaign-supplied comments to blogs and Web sites under the visitor's screen name. The site offers sample comments ("John McCain has a comprehensive economic plan . . .") and a list of dozens of suggested destinations, conveniently broken down into "conservative," "liberal," "moderate" and "other" categories. Just cut and paste.

MEGAN: I know! And then their webmaster will go check on it for you!

SPENCER: First McCain wanted to ruin the country, but now he wants to ruin the internet. this shit has gone TOO FAR. Notice, however, that McCain's blog, run by a Weekly Standard asshole who tried and failed to get me fired from ThinkProgress, is too pussyassed to allow comments.

MEGAN: Did you see his list of approved liberal sites? ColoradoPols, Crooks and Liars, DailyKos, MyDD and Think Progress.

SPENCER: It's a good strategy for him: troll, so our communities can fuck the trolls up. Someone needs to explain the internet to him. McCain's desire to throw soldiers into unwinnable wars makes a lot more sense now!

MEGAN: What is hilarious to me is that they pick 5 liberal sites, 5 "moderate" sites — including Politico and the Washington Post's "The Fix" blog — and 10 blogs they classify as "other"... and then 35 right-wing blogs.

SPENCER: This suggested talking point for trolls is AWESOME.

There are serious issues at stake in this election, and serious differences between the candidates. And we will argue about them, as we should. But it should remain an argument among friends; each of us struggling to hear our conscience, and heed its demands; each of us, despite our differences, united in our great cause, and respectful of the goodness in each other.

HAHAHAHAHA yes the McCainiac trolls will take to dKos to spread this one.

MEGAN: It's like... who even is going to buy that shit on the Internet? Also, I don't have to struggle to hear my conscience, it's saying "Don't vote for the weird old guy who wants to take away your right to an abortion but doesn't think it's important to pass pay equity legislation." Or something like that.
SPENCER: hahahaha someone put an Obama 08 sticker on the Straight Talk Express.

MEGAN: It might also be saying "You should call your mom." Oh, wait, that was andBegorrah once. Damn her!

SPENCER: I should really call my mom, but I hate using the phone with the passion of 1000 supernovas. Anyway, you know what question I'm dying to ask Condoleezza Rice? The one Mike Allen of the Politico asked:

When asked her Hollywood crush: “Oh, I’ve got lots of them. I mean, doesn't everybody love Denzel Washington?”

MEGAN: Man was that his way of fishing for the lesbian question? Oh, no, just being a sexist.

SPENCER: 1) She's the fucking Secretary of State. You think he would ever ask Colin Powell that?

MEGAN: Actually, would he ask Madeline Albright that?

SPENCER: 2) Yes, he was obviously trying to get her to say "Why, now that you mention it, I'm a — what's the term they use on Jezebel? — right, right, Lezebel. I am a lezebel. Are you happy now? Feel proud of yourself, professionally?"

MEGAN: I think it's important to chuck into the mix here the fact that he wouldn't ask Maddie that, either. But a black woman was fair game. There's been a lot of talk about how African-American women are either angry finger-snappers or over-sexualized in media portrayals, and then Mike Allen asks her about her fantasy life in an interview.

SPENCER: That didn't occur to me, honestly. I should have read your comment before I tapped out an angry email to a listserv that I'm on with Allen
internet feud! Good for exercising my profanity muscles. The ones below my delts.

MEGAN: I mean, also, can you imagine the uproar if she's said someone else? Someone too young or (gasp) not black? Although, I'd give her props if she referenced the upcoming Bush movie and said Josh Brolin (who is portraying Bush) and thus made fun of the question and the whole "she's in love with George" theme.

SPENCER: You know what I'd ask Condoleezza Rice, whose secretary has declined every interview request I've ever put in? Anything but trivial shit about her personal life. I mean, this is a fucking enabler to a war criminal we're talking about! I'd ask her how she feels about the 500th U.S. troop death in a war she cares about not at all.

MEGAN: That's what I was going to ask you about, actually?

SPENCER: I get these troop death emails from the Pentagon, and the last three months or so, the Afghanistan death notices — practically a trickle in 03-05 — have been as torrid as during the worst days of the Iraq war.

MEGAN: You know what? If McCain used email, I'd want him to get signed up for those emails.

SPENCER: Nor are they going to stop — if I can link my Windy piece this morning, Barry McCaffrey just came back from A-stan, and this is what he found:

As U.S. military casualties mount in Afghanistan, a retired four-star Army general, who just returned from reviewing the six-plus-year war effort, said the country "is in misery" and describes the war as "a 25-year campaign."

MEGAN: Well, at least the troops won't have far to go when McCain ends the Iraq War in 2013. Of course, by then, it'll be a 50-year campaign in Afghanistan, but no worries. We'll surge again and again and again. Or not, because they only have heroin and not oil. Can you make ethanol from poppies?

SPENCER: I did an interview yesterday with the Afghan ambassador to the US, I should've asked him that.

MEGAN: I mean, if you can, we should stop forced eradication programs and just set up a few ethanol plants or something, and then they'll have fuel for our cars and something else to do with the poppies.

SPENCER: As Al Gore says, though, you can't skin-pop your way out of the energy crisis.

MEGAN: Actually, I kid. You can make ethanol from anything, including grass and sugar cane (which is how they do it in Brazil). You can make it from agricultural waste products. Just, you know, not here because Chuck Grassley made sure that that it's all-corn, all the time. Plus we keep super-high import tariffs on ethanol, but if Afghanistan and Iraq are going to be Empire America's newest colonies, I'm sure we'd learn from the British example and not impose high tariffs on manufactured goods shipped in from the colonies. Of course, if we were going to learn from the British example, we probably wouldn't take on colonies that require huge military outlays.

SPENCER: It took the British quite a while to learn that lesson, I recall.

MEGAN: Well, if we're only in Iraq for 100 years, then I guess we'll be better than them. So, fuck it.

ANNA: A few weeks ago a reader wrote in to me complaining about the items we've
done on women in, specifically, India, saying that she was sick of the fact that we link to the more horrific stories regarding women and girls on the Indian sub-Continent...rape, murder, abuse, etc. The blog post she was upset about regarded a piece in a British paper we linked to about pre-teens selling their virginity to adult men in India in order to financially help their families. The reader referred to our — and by "our" I mean the editors and the commenters — "smug First World selves" and railed against our collective "ignorance" and "condescension". I responded to her saying that I understood where she was coming from but that in terms of stories about women and India, we were strapped: 99% of the stories that concern women that we find coming out of that area of the world are negative and/or upsetting, and we don't even post 90% of THOSE. I added that we work with what we can find, which, in the English language media, is coming either from American news sources, British news sources, or news sources in India that are available in English. We want to acknowledge the problems and horrors faced by women in other countries, but we often get attacked for doing so. What are some tactics that we — and other American, Western media properties — can approach these with more sensitivity?

LATOYA: Ha. I completely understand where she is coming from. Often times, western media tends to promote the things that are sensationalist like teen girls selling their virginity to feed their families or what Ebony magazine termed "disaster pornography" - things like famine, starvation, and suffering that tend to get people to wince and then open their wallets. I can't specifically speak to India, but since I notice this a lot with stories about the African continent. For example, take the elections in Kenya that happened late last year. If you were paying attention, you would know that there was a lot of tension leading up to those elections - so an allegation came in that someone won unfairly and riots broke out. However, when this news was reported, the headline was "Tribal Warfare Breaks Out in Kenya!"

Sensationalist stories grab our attention a lot faster than regular, day in the life stories. It's like the piece with Malawi I posted on last year - the article about how badly the World Bank and donor nations (US) screwed Malawi over in terms of offering them aid money with conditions attached that would keep them dependent on foreign aid dollars. Since people in Malawi were starving, the government made an executive decision to risk losing the money - and we are talking hundreds of millions of dollars - and to instead try to save their people from starvation. And they did it! That article got no play, whatsoever. Buried in the world section of the NY Times.

Late last month I read that profile of Madonna in Vanity Fair and saw all of these assertions about Malawi - and by extension Africa - and they rang false to me because of articles and books I had read earlier. And the article Madonna/Vanity Fair had all kinds of biased reporting - saying Africa when it really meant one specific country, asserting that Africans practice witchcraft when most Africans are Christian or Muslim, saying AIDS is killing the continent but never discussing how things like cuts to international family planning funds, the global gag rule, and allowing faith based programs to use development dollars to take their "abstinence only" ideas overseas. But, as many of my readers pointed out, they would have never made the connections from one thing to the other; since we have all been fed the idea that Africa is poor just because, we never question things like asking WHY African nations are so indebted or WHY AIDS is still spreading at alarming rates. We would just rather fill in our assumptions and keep reading about Madge's new album.

So part of the battle is asking the question "Why?" You'd be surprised at where that will lead you.

It's important that we begin to familiarize ourselves with international policy and politics. Keep in mind, when we read newspapers and other forms of media, there are subconsciously things that we skip - things that don't really pertain to our lives and don't make sense to us. Keep in mind, I read most of the same news sources you do. But the things I read make more sense to me because I acquired some background knowledge on some of the more intimidating topics.

Finally, realize that things aren't always death, destruction and horror - those are just the discussions that jump out at us the most. Over the last month, I've read articles about the development going on in African nations that revolve around technology. The NYT Magazine did a great article on Jan Chipchase who studies human behavior for Nokia and goes into developing nations to figure out how to sell them cell phones. Fast Company just published a piece on how Google is moving to create an internet presence in Africa, even though only 5% of people have access to internet. They feel it will be a huge growth project. Another business magazine talked about how the internet played a huge role in the rise of India's development - by mastering English, the population has been able to take advantage of the lucrative outsourcing market. And they also discussed the rise of cities and changes in traditional culture, as well as how "call center culture" has launched chick-lit novels and movies and the new prototype of the young urban Indian professional. So there is tons of information out there in mainstream media sources - we just tend to overlook it.

ANNA: I hear you on this. I think what I keep coming back to is 1. Issues of
time (we don't have the luxury of time to educate ourselves as broadly and quickly as we'd
like - blogging is quick business!) and 2. Women-specific issues (most of the stories we find regarding women are negative in nature because women around the world are, for the most part, not treated very well.). But here are some other questions: Is it "disaster pornography" to pick up on the stories written by actual, mainstream media outlets about the plight(s) of women around the world? Do we have to ALWAYS ALWAYS question them, at least those that seem pretty clear-cut? Why can't 12-year-old girls selling their virginity in India just be what it is, which is — to many cultures — horrific? Why CAN'T people put value judgments on such things sometimes without being accused of being colonialist, paternalistic, patronizing...even racist? And lastly, what do you think the inherent problems are with Westerners reporting back from non-Western countries, particularly on women's issues? Can a white, European woman living and working the Mideast never tell the full "truth" of her adopted society because of her background? Can an Asian-American woman in, say, South Africa not do the same? And lastly, because so many areas of the world (particularly the female populations in those areas) are in need of support, both financially and politically, what is so wrong with getting people to wince and open their wallets, particularly in an era in which superficial shit like celebrity adulation is so rampant that we have pageant contestants calling Iraq "the Iraq" and a decline in newspaper and book readership?

LATOYA: Anna, you have to understand that those excuses are just that - excuses. Here's why I say that - you all are great (seriously, fucking great) at calling out sexist assumptions about women in the media. You read an article and can instantly pick up on all the bullshit buzzwords and baseless assumptions that someone has concocted to prove their points about women being weaker/less intelligent/more emotional, etc. It's second nature to you, right? But I bet it wasn't always that way. You have to educate yourself about these issues in order to have that framework in your mind to challenge them. So the same way you learned to critically dissect the lies that women's magazines use to sell issues - it's the same thing. No one wakes up with a working knowledge of sexism, power dynamics in sexual relationships, eloquent critiques of impossible beauty ideals and a deep understanding about how strict adherence to gender roles in society causes tons of issues. You had to learn that.

So, in this case, the answer is learn. You aren't going to be able to fully comprehend everything about everything out of the box. Like I said in one of my posts on Racialicious, it took me about three months to stop fighting against the mass media programming that poorer nations are just a bunch of whiny complainers who want to be like America. So it will take a while.

Women are treated like shit around the world, this is very true. Women are also treated like shit in beacon of freedom America, particularly when you start considering issues like race, class, and immigration. But, just like there are kick ass things American women do every day, there are kick ass things that women around the world are doing too.

But to specifically answer your questions:

1. Yes, we always have to question because if we don't, we contribute to that whole narrative that the US is this great paragon of equality and every place else is some kind of human cesspool. Again, back to the Madonna/Malawi example - you could post on "starving babies in Malawi" and people go "oh no!" because that's what they are conditioned to do and we go buy a $24.00 bracelet that sends a dollar overseas, we mention about the horrendous situation there with our friends over cocktails and then roll right back into whatever stuff is affecting us right this minute. And no one talks about the World Bank, which is the leading reason why kids in Malawi are starving to death, and business moves as usual.

I am not saying that every other nation has no problems and nothing bad ever happens. But, it is kind of strange when we can post about the horrible shit that goes on in say, Italy (like your post on how 70% of Italian gynos refuse to perform abortions, even though they are legal) and have counterposts talking about cool/interesting things like how the Italian police department petitioned for more fashionable uniforms or the issues with modern dating in Italy. It provides a balanced view of the country. But that kind of balanced view never manages to make it over to African or South East Asian countries. So while we can read the literature and watch the movies coming out of those countries - there has to be SOMETHING else going on, some kind of larger social/cultural scene that is creating these works of art and lit - for some reason, our news reporting pretends that the only time they are worthy of our notice is when someone is suffering or something horrendous goes down. The answer is not to stop reporting on these events completely - just to be aware that these events do not exist in a vaccuum.

2. Value judgments are a tricky thing. In general, there is a problem with people conflating two separate issues and making them one. So, for example, let's take the treatment of women in Saudi Arabia. I think we can all generally agree that it is fucked up when some citizens are entitled to more rights than others based solely on gender, and that's what Saudi Arabia does. However, the problems come in when people start sticking blanket value judgments that don't necessarily apply to that situation - like saying Islam is responsible for the situation in Saudi Arabia. Umm, no. Some fuckheads in power got together and said this is how it's going down and we're going to justify it using Islam. There are 52 nations that are Muslim Majority countries and that's not how they roll. Look at Turkey - it is a nation that is 99% Muslim. 99%! And they have a very secular government system. Malaysia, Ethiopia, Morocco, Indonesia, Bangledesh - plenty of nations are Muslim and they have different systems set up. But people tend to stick one issue in because that's what they think that is what is happening and miss the bigger picture.

Fatemeh, the publisher of the Muslimah Media Watch blog also points out how condescending it is to want to "help" women in a foreign country without listening to them. We tend to infantilize them (example here) and act as those these poor poor women don't have minds of their own and can't speak for themselves, never realizing that they are actively engaging in these issues - just not necessarily where we can see. From the little I know about Muslimah feminism, people who still actively adhere to Islamic principles tend to work within those guidelines while fighting for equality. Our idea of equality may not be the same as what they want. So, for western people, it's a really big fucking deal if Muslim women take off their veils and wear lipstick. To them, it's kind of whatever, they want to focus on employment options and pay equality.

3. In terms of wincing and wallets, let me just say that there is nothing wrong with being informed. The problem is that we respond, crack the wallet, and we aren't informed. So who knows where the money is going and what it is being used for? Think about it this way - we give out billions of dollars in foreign food aid per year - so why haven't we solved world hunger yet? We waste enough food in America to feed quite a few nations, so the issue is more complicated than just food. We need to critically look at where this money is going and who is benefiting. There are also great ways to get involved that don't involve much money and make a longer lasting impact. Want to end hunger? Start lobbying congress, volunteering with NGOs, raise awareness about how the IMF is "the Typhoid Mary" of international development. (Yes, Jeffrey Sachs' said that — read this sitting down.) Or, looking at how governmental organizations and non governmental organizations have tons of money but can't seem to get it together do fix actual problems, even when said problems could be fixed for about $10,000 (see here). So, there are steps to take that would be more helpful in the long run but people just don't ask questions.

By the way, westerners can report on non-western issues, as can expats living in other countries. The issue is not that they are not entitled to have an opinion, it is just that many times that opinion may be ill-informed and may not have the whole story. So, I think western journalists in particular have an obligation to tread lightly in areas that are not directly our own - after all, since we shape of lot of world policy, our words may have serious consequences.

Related: Meet The Neo-Colonialists: Madonna And Vanity Fair [Racialicious]

We're asking you to add a 15-word or less phrase to a gender speech that we will create in this post. Please number your comments. Our beginning will be part 1. The first comment, therefore, should be numbered 2. The comment after that should be 3. Each comment should build on what the previous comment expressed. Make sense? We realize the comments can often be wonky, so if there are several number 2s and 3s and 4s, that's totally fine. It will be a wild west feminist free-for-all!

We said we'd start, so here goes nothing.

On August 26, 1920, women were given the right to vote in the United States. We've come along way since then, but the current campaign for president has unearthed just how much misogyny is acceptable in public discourse. We live in a country where women still make less money for doing the same jobs; where sexual abuse and harassment continue to run rampant through every city and state; where only 14% of the senate is female. We need to keep fighting to make these inequalities dissipate and to do so means never giving up the struggle.

Now you go!

Help Us Write "The Gender Speech" [Huffington Post]
Obama Race Speech: Read The Full Text [Huffington Post]

Earlier: Why There Will Never Be A Race Speech About Sex

But this joyous occasion did not come without a price. In a personal essay in the Advocate, Thomas writes about all of the prejudice he faced when trying to find adequate medical care. One doctor, "after a $300 consultation, reluctantly performed my initial checkups. He then required us to see the clinic's psychologist to see if we were fit to bring a child into this world and consulted with the ethics board of his hospital. A few months and a couple thousand dollars later, he told us that he would no longer treat us, saying he and his staff felt uncomfortable working with 'someone like me.'" Even Thomas's own brother was unkind, telling Thomas after his first pregnancy turned out ectopic, "It's a good thing that happened. Who knows what kind of monster it would have been."

Thomas isn't the only transmale facing difficulties. In last Sunday's New York Times Magazine, there was a story about the opposition transmen are facing at women's colleges. The piece profiled Rey, a college freshman who started his university career at Barnard, only to transfer to Columbia because of the number of issues he faced. According to writer Alissa Quart, Rey is not alone in his alienation: "Many trans students feel themselves to be excluded or isolated at women's schools and at coed colleges. Some talk of being razzed or insulted by fellow students." But Quart also discusses the question of how colleges meant for women are supposed to serve people who no longer identify as women in the first place.

Will society ever be able to accommodate all the facets of the gender spectrum? Or will cases like Thomas's and Rey's always be a struggle for acceptance and personal freedom?

Labor Of Love [The Advocate]
When Girls Will Be Boys [New York Times]

That sentence comprises the first 45 of over a thousand words devoted to female circumcision in Sunday's NY Times. (Sorry guys, this is the last of our Blue Monday-type stories for today.) According to Lukman Hakim, a (male) chairman of an Indonesian foundation that sponsors mass circumcisions, the benefits include the "stabilization" of a female's libido and balancing "her psychology".

The article, written by Sara Corbett, also features a series of upsetting photographs by Stephanie Sinclair (a slideshow, including the newly-circumcised, teary 9-month old girl pictured above, can be found here). Asks Jezebel reader Elizabeth: "What kind of person can stand there and photograph little girls screaming while parts of their genitalia are removed? This isn't a question of religion, or yearning to understand another culture more — it's recording barbarity with an objective lens, which somehow makes it okay."

A Cutting Tradition [NY Times]
Inside A Female Circumcision Ceremony [NY Times]

Gloria goes on:

Sexism is still confused with nature as racism once was; because anything that affects males is seen as more serious than anything that affects "only" the female half of the human race; because children are still raised mostly by women (to put it mildly) so men especially tend to feel they are regressing to childhood when dealing with a powerful woman; because racism stereotyped black men as more "masculine" for so long that some white men find their presence to be masculinity-affirming (as long as there aren't too many of them).

Steinem also posits that the younger generations might be failing to see what she terms the "sexual caste system," (i.e., the idea that women are always considered inferior to/ taken less seriously than men) while "Iowa women over 50 and 60, who disproportionately supported Senator Clinton, proved once again that women are the one group that grows more radical with age."

U.S. News & World Report also believes that the failure of young women to support Hillary in Iowa might signify a " decline, or perhaps the maturation, of American feminism." Because our generation was not constricted by the shackles of domesticity like our mothers' generation, U.S. News senior writer Michael Barone says, we don't "feel a need to be liberated from restraints that were never urged" on us, and therefore don't feel "transfixed" by a female running for President.

I "feel" like that argument is tenuous at best, because I would hope that our feminist foremothers thought about what a candidate's politics were instead of just voting based on gender lines. All the same, do you think the younger generation is ignoring Hillary because they think sexism no longer exists?

Women Are Never Front-Runners [New York Times]
Young Women, Feminism, and Hillary Clinton [U.S. News & World Report]

Earlier: Moe: "It's Not Crying If There's No SNOT." Megan: "No, I Cried Without Snot At American Pie!"

• Eating disorder charities are asking websites like MySpace and Facebook to have stronger rules about their content, after they found that some girls are using the sites to promote the pro-ana mentality. But where will Nicole Richie post her teeny tiny baby bump pictures? [Daily Mail]
  
• Feminist author Taslima Nasreen, who's been a critic of Islam's treatment of women, was attacked by Muslim lawmakers at a book signing in Hyderabad, India. Show your support the capitalist way, by buying her books on Amazon. [Reuters]
  

• Feministing took issue with Hillary Clinton referring to herself as a "girl" during the AFL-CIO's debate the other night. Which we agree with. I mean, what man, besides Flava Flav, refers to himself as a "Boyyyyyyy"? [Feministing]
• Speaking of Hil, the Post (who would seriously sell more papers if they could hate on the Presidential candidate during the entire 2008 election) cites a new poll that has Senator Clinton toppling our handsome boyfriend Barack Obama. Booo! [Ed: Okay, so this opinion doesn't represent all of the Jezebels— at least not yet.] [NY Post]
• Bloomberg's daughter Georgina is makin' it with an Irish equestrian. It seems kind dangerous to horseback ride after 15 pints of Guinness. [NY Post]
• The Department of Investigation reports that at least 10 kid deaths could have been prevented if the Administration for Children's Services wasn't so piss poor incompetent. Apparently, ACS would just clear parents of any abuse charges based solely on their denials. Next you're going to tell us that the "guilty" ones only had to write their kids an apology note. [NY Post]
• Trouble is a-brewin' behind the scenes of the Barney's sale. And we're not even referring to the chick we clocked in the face for trying to rip the 90%-off Marc Jacobs dress out of our hands at the Warehouse close-out. [NY Times]
• Well at least there's some justice in the world... Sort of. A homeless Queens man was sentenced to 40 years in prison for the rape of a woman last year. Enjoy that roof over your head and daily ham sandwich while it lasts — for the next 14,600 days, asshole. [NY Times]
• Peace activist and thorn-in-Bush's-side Cindy Sheehan is running as an Independent against Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi in San Francisco. No word yet on how she plans to pay for her campaign or woo the gays. [SF Gate]
• A lawsuit against San Francisco's O'Farrell Theatre says that the exotic nightclub acted illegally when it set impossible quotas for its dancers — causing some of them to have to pay out of pocket when they came up short. See the suffering that occurs when Ben Affleck gives up lapdances for marriage and kids? [SF Gate]
• SF Gate writer Violet Blue's guide to conservative sexual fetishes — Michelle Malkin, this one is for you! [SF Gate]
• If all husbands were judged by the ones who write in to Brian Alexander's "Sexploration" column, the chances of marriage would not look good for our boyfriend. [MSNBC]
• Maryland prudes are fighting Montgomery County's new sex ed program in court. They want topics like homosexuality, gender identity, and proper contraception use to only be discussed if a student asks about them. Maryland students, here's an example: "Teacher, if I were a gay and liked to wear my mom's high-heels while I had sex with my best friend Kyle, how would I roll on the rubber?" [Ms.]