"For the last two years she has been going through torture and made to feel like she is worthless. She thinks she is ugly, fat and smells because that is what she hears at school," Nadia's mother, Lindsay Dorrington, tells the Daily Mail, "When I saw the video I was so angry and upset. It is a nasty, vicious attack. I was in shock and I properly realised how bad the bullying actually was." Three of her attackers have already been suspended for their role in the attack, and Debbie Godfrey-Phaure, the school's Headteacher, claims the school has "a zero tolerance policy about bullying at Avonbourne. We simply do not tolerate it.Every allegation of bullying in this case has been fully investigated but it is only now with this video clip that we have the evidence we need."

The incident is reminiscent of the videotaped attack on a 16-year-old in Lakeland, Florida that occurred last year, when six cheerleaders beat a classmate so badly that she suffered a concussion, hearing, and vision loss. The cheerleaders taped the incident and proudly displayed it on YouTube. When they were arrested, one of the cheerleaders actually laughed about the incident, and, according to Polk County, Fla., Sheriff Grady Judd, showed little to no remorse: "When we had them arrested and in detention, they were laughing and joking, ‘Guess we're not going to go to the beach on this spring break.' One girl actually asked our detective, ‘Am I going to be released in time to go to cheerleading practice tomorrow?'"

A similar attack occurred in North Babylon, NY, in 2007: three girls beat a 13-year-old girl and posted the clip on several web sites. The fight was reportedly over a boy, and several students can be seen watching the fight without intervening, even as the victim screams for help. After the attack, the girls are seen "running away, then laughing and boasting about how easily they overcame the girl."

The level of brutality in these attacks, as well as the seeming sense of pride that the attackers display, even after they're punished for their crimes, are extremely disturbing reminders that we live in a world where the ability to disconnect is frighteningly easy. The girls seem more interested in achieving some sense of notoriety, or even fame, for being willing to kick the shit out of one of their peers: though this time of bullying is as old as the school system, the ability to share one's "victories" with others is still relatively new. This is a generation with very blurred boundaries between "real" life and an online identity: just as they share their favorite movies, songs, and quotes online, they share their fears, their flaws, and, apparently, the bleaker parts of their lives. A videotaped beating then becomes as ordinary as a video of a dance recital, or a party, or a goofy parody of some song. Life, as they know it, is meant to be documented, edited, and shared with the universe.

Though one hopes that these videos would provide insight into the bullying that girls face on a daily basis—both taped and untaped—and provide justice for the victims, as well as an eye-opener for any girls currently bullying their classmates, it seems that these taped beatings only normalize the process, as other girls hop on the bandwagon, consequences be damned. Being infamous, it seems, is the next best thing to being famous. And it doesn't matter who gets hurt along the way—as long as the rest of the world gets to see it.

3 Girls Arrested In Videotaped Beating [CBS]
Teens Videotape Revenge Beating [MSNBC]
Four Schoolgirls Suspended As Police Probe Vile YouTube Attack On Girl, 14, By Classmates [DailyMail]

Dickerson, who once denied Barack Obama the right to describe himself as black, says, in her blog on MotherJones:

Today's feminists need to blog less and work more. If women want reproductive choice to remain more than rhetoric, they'd better stop assuming these clinics will be there when they need them.

Apparently, we should also stop appreciating irony, like when a blogger tells other bloggers to stop writing so much.

But wait: Debra has a plan.

But you young chicks maybe need to go the Northern Exposure route, sending folks to med school in exchange for a few years running an abortion clinic.

Question: Who exactly is she talking about? Perhaps this will clear up the confusion!

Pole-dancing, walking around half-naked, posting drunk photos on Facebook, and blogging about your sex lives ain't exactly what we previous generations thought feminism was. We thought it was about taking it to the streets.

Yes, critiquing the feminist "cred" of other women is exactly like taking it to the streets. (I'm sure Debra was the only feminist currently writing on the web today who was on the Mall in 2004, handing out tens of thousands of stickers for NARAL during the March for Women's Lives.)

She adds:

Tell me exactly what today's feminists are doing for the struggle. Besides posting disses against old chicks like me. You got that covered.

Okay, Debra: Shall we start here?

The Future Of Abortion Providers [MotherJones]
Passing The Repro Rights Torch [Feministing]

Related: Colorblind [Salon]

[Picture via MotherJones]

While in Mexico, some of the Bad Girls entered a "wet body contest" and became enraged after losing to a local woman. Most wanted to leave the club immediately, but one girl was still inside, dancing and having fun. This pissed them off even more, and they beat the shit out of her.

This show has a strange way of completely reeling me in emotionally. I mean, I love the trashiness and some of the drama, but the behaviors on display often truly disgust me. And I'm not talking about the drunkenness, or the sex, or the flashing, or the incorrect use of words. I'm talking about the cruelty inflicted by females on other females, whether those women are familiar roommates or strangers they encounter while out on the town.

Listen, I don't believe that all women have to get along - or even like - one another. But there needs to be some kind of rationale for so publicly (and violently) attacking another person. Not with these women: Their immaturity and cruelty CAME out in full force when they saw another female not only having a good time but rising above caring what others think. What's most disturbing to me is that not only did these abusers gloat about their actions the next day, some of them continue to do so, as evidenced by their Oxygen blogs.

The behavior? Verbal abuse, job sabotage, misuse of authority and destroying of relationships. Explains Klaus: "While women have come a long way in removing workplace barriers, one of the last remaining obstacles is how they treat one another. Instead of helping to build one another’s careers, they sometimes derail them — for example, by limiting access to important meetings and committees; withholding information, assignments and promotions; or blocking the way to mentors and higher-ups." And yet, writes Klaus:

Despite all the money spent annually on women’s leadership conferences and professional development programs, you’d be hard-pressed to find a workshop on women mistreating one another at work. Don’t get me wrong: I’m a huge proponent of women’s leadership programs. But teaching career skills is not enough if we ignore one of the most important reasons for holding these events in the first place: learning to value one another so we can all get ahead.

It's also interesting that recent research shows that girls who are bullied at a young age are more likely to remain victims than boys. In other words, if you're getting beaten up at age six, you're probably going to be teased and verbally threatened at age ten. What are the chances some of this stays with you when you're 22, or 32?

Of course, you'd think that if there are multitudes of women out there who have experienced sabotage and abuse, there would be a a horde of women willing to speak out against bullies in the workplace. Except that means admitting a woman mistreated you, Klaus explains. "We fear that bringing our experience into the light and talking about it will set us back to that ugly gender stereotype we have fought so hard to overcome: the one about the overemotional, backstabbing, aggressive (and you know what’s coming) bitch."

So what's the answer? A push for females to be kinder and gentler in the workplace? Or a course called Dealing With Bitches 101?

A Sisterhood of Workplace Infighting [NY Times]
Girls Twice As Likely As Boys To Remain Victims Of Bullying [EurekAlert]

Authorities say that 21-year-old Williams sent a lewd text message to a 17-year-old girl whom she had heard was involved with her boyfriend. The specifics of the text message were not released, but some voicemails that Williams and others had left the girl threatened rape.

Williams' lawyer, Michael Kielty, claims that the new law which his client is accused under is poorly written and makes something illegal which wouldn't be under other circumstances:

Kielty said Missouri's revised harassment measures are bad law. "It's probably one of the worst written laws I've seen in my career," he said.

He said kids used to say things face to face or pass notes in school commenting on someone's looks or weight. The new law "criminalizes behavior that otherwise wouldn't be illegal except for the medium," he said.

"It's not criminal. It might be mean-spirited, but it's not criminal," he said.

One of the problems with Kielty's arguments is that Williams' behavior would in fact be considered criminal in another medium. The prosecutor of the Williams case notes that telephone harassment (which is essentially what Williams did) has been a crime for years in Missouri.

Kielty argues that because dumb kids say dumb things to each other about their looks or weight (he carefully avoids talking about threatening sexual violence) that Williams' harassment should not be seen as illegal.

Anyone who has been in high school in the past 15 years knows that harassment akin to the Meier's and William's cases are common. Kids do dumb things on the internet all the time, but now the dramatic influence of bullying and girl-on-girl crime are getting national attention. Are we—as some of the commenters on the Wired blog fear—turning into a coddling nanny state by expecting laws to save us from any uncomfortable moment? Or would ignoring these cases of bullying just make it okay for people to make threats of sexual and non-sexual violence just because they did it over a text message or a Myspace bulletin and not to the victim's face?

Prosecutors Charge Seven People Under New Cyberbullying Law [Wired]
Woman Accused Under New Cyberbullying Law [CBS News]

At first, I thought perhaps the context of Mirren's statement would make it less nonsensical. I mean, why is Mirren even bringing up rape in an interview in the first place, much less for the second time in less than a year? I can't really imagine Julia Roberts weighing in on rape when talking to Redbook. But the context makes Mirren's statements even more damning, since she brings up rape apropos of nothing. First, Mirren claims to love women more than men, but then the reporter, a woman named Chrissy Iley, brings up the fact that in the past, Mirren has requested male interviewers instead of female ones. To that, Mirren says:

I prefer male journalists because there's a streak of female journalism - the bitches - who are mean-spirited and nasty because you are another woman and want to make you feel crap. It's very upsetting. I'm more careful when I'm being interviewed by a woman because, from experience as well as reading articles about other women, I know there is a little stiletto knife hidden behind the back.

Right after that, she launches into the part about rape cases quoted earlier. Perhaps the saddest part of all is the fact that Illey agrees with Mirren. "She's laughing as she sizes me up," Illey writes, "But she's right. On the whole, women don't like other women, because women are competitive with each other." Even more odd is that Illey spends the entire article basically drooling over Mirren's looks, describing her"simmering sexual presence" and skin-tight suit. "She’s wearing a cotton suit in milky beige and a white T-shirt. As she bends down, the skirt stretches over her bottom and thigh. Extremely tight." Then, after all that rape talk, Illey describes how Mirren aggressively flirts with her: "As I get up to go, she stops me and says, 'And thank you for the view.' I blush. I was jet-lagged, I had no clean underwear, so I’d gone without. I didn’t think she’d notice. But she did. And she laughs, the minx."

In this interview as well as the GQ piece, Mirren talks about how she has been raped before. "She has said in the past that when she was forced to have sex against her will it was the lethal result of a combination of feminism — not wanting to be a victim — and innocence — not knowing how not to be a victim," Illey writes. "She has said that it wasn’t about just saying no, because the man wouldn’t take no for an answer."

Great Britain has a pathetic record when it comes to rape prosecution — only 10% of rapes are reported and of those, only 6% get convictions — and as such, activists are furious with Mirren. Solicitor General Vera Baird tells the Daily Mail, "This is just such an ignorant thing to say, to suggest that the defence or prosecution have any involvement in the selection of a jury…It's such a shame that a person who has a high profile feels qualified and able to put forward this nonsense. It's capable of being quite dangerous because someone in that position saying that sort of thing, suggesting that she knows more than she actually does."

What remains a mystery is why Mirren continues to insert her feet firmly into her mouth. Is it because her ego is so huge she thinks she can do whatever she pleases without repercussion? Is she just projecting her own feelings of hate onto other women? Is it something deeper and more personal? Or is she just an asshole? In her interview with Illey, Mirren says, "I learn from the positive, not from the negative, but I do believe in getting on with it. Taking responsibility for yourself and not blaming other people is an incredibly important thing."

Helen Mirren: Perennial Pin-Up [Times of London]
Helen Mirren: Sexually Jealous Women Jurors Think Rape Victims Are Asking For It [Daily Mail]

Earlier: Helen Mirren on Being Raped And Why Women Should Just Learn To Work It Out
The Rape Conviction Rate In Britain Is Pathetically Low

Related: Me And My School Photo: Helen Mirren [Daily Mail]

Exclusive: Beaten Florida Cheerleader Speaks Out [ABC News]

Earlier: The Meanest Girls At School Are Often The Most Popular
Cheerleaders May Face Life In Jail For Beating Fellow Teen

The argument that seems to pop up the most in Watson's article is insecurity on the part of female fans. As PR "guru" Max Gifford tells Watson, "You get a pretty girl, and the women will say, ‘Look at the size of her bum.’ It’s getting worse, because it’s increasingly difficult to be a woman these days — there are so many more opportunities for self-improvement, and the more pressure women feel, the nastier it gets.”

Watson also lays part of the blame on celebrity culture and women's magazines, as she writes, "The media has to take some of the blame, with gossip magazines encouraging us to focus on women’s looks, bodies and clothes, rather than on the attributes we should be celebrating, such as kindness and wit," and notes that woman are a LOT tougher on celebrities who seem to have everything come easily to them.

It's easy to hate on someone who appears to live a charmed life; our hate is merely a form of what we believe is innocent jealousy. You can go online and call Keira Knightley a stuck-up bitch even though you've never met her before, because the odds are, you never will, and she'll never know what you said. But does that make it okay? Does putting out negative energy toward any successful woman do any of us any good? When there are so many things to hate in this world, to get angry about, to fight against, do we really need to spend 30 minutes a day writing about that "nasty homewrecker" Sienna Miller?

I know we've all had our slips; it's easy to forget that the women in the magazines and on the tv screens and in the Snap Judgment pictures are, well, women too. (Just like us!) And it's very easy to say, "She comes across as a bitch, and therefore I can call 'em like I see em." But Watson makes a fair point about the hypocrisy that comes along with celebrity disdain and worship: "One thing is certain, whatever the motives, we do ourselves a disservice by attacking one another. We tell ourselves we have our reasons, yet the truth is that you can never guarantee who is going to win women over and who is going to wind them up. Sarah Palin, anti-abortionist and bear-killer — how has she ended up on the rave list? Where exactly did Gwyneth Paltrow slip up? Angelina Jolie is surely no friend to women, yet we’d rather save our sniping for the harmless toy-dog-owner Geri Halliwell."

In the end, Watson says, "Maybe, in the end, there is no mystery: we just need to be nicer to each other."[Times Online]

Here's what happened. I went in to buy a plain tote to silk-screen with a stencil of my brother's face, like you do. The gal ringing me up — maybe 20, if that — was humming along to some semi-ironic rendition of "What Do You Get When You Fall In Love" on the soundtrack, so I said,
"Someone was just telling me that Jerry Orbach was the first one to ever sing this song! Isn't that interesting?" Or something.

And she shot me a three-second, eyebrow-raised look that said, "You are a loser I don't know nor care what you're saying how dare you presume to talk to me let alone say something so weird and asinine I don't know who Jerry Orbach is nor do I wish to and if I did I would surely be dismissive of Law & Order generally and Lenny Briscoe in particular and if this were high school I could totally be a bitch to you but fuck you I have to wait on you unfortunately but just shut up so I can consign you to the 'weird' category that holds everything I don't know about and go away."

This look cut me to the quick. I've gotten the look before, of course; it was a staple of my teen years. But as you get older, The Look becomes rarer; people are less defensive, or more secure, or kinder, or just more polite. Anyway, I'd forgotten how it feels. Nothing is more dismissive in the whole world. When this happens on Privileged, you feel for Megan because there's no way to rebound from The Look; even if it's based on petty cruelty, it's inarguable - it effectively wins any confrontation. It's like the distillation of some primitive form of irony, Teflon-coated and razor-sharp. There's teenage ennui in it, but it's more than that; there's always a social dynamic to it. Because The Look doesn't exist in a vacuum; rather, behind it is the assurance that everyone else in the world agrees with the Looker, that you are isolated, alone, pathetic. Both Looker and Target know this; therein lies its power. Use it wisely, ladies. Take it from me, it can still ruin your day.

Privileged [Official Site]

That's a whole load of bull hockey for a number of reasons. First, let's look at the wording of the original HuffPo post, shall we? "Vogue editor Anna Wintour is the international arbiter of fashion, recognized in an instant by her haircut and large sunglasses. But what does she really look like? Thanks to the strength of today's digital cameras and the below AP photo from Thursday's Tommy Hilfiger show, cropped several ways to show every pixel, now you can know." But why do we desperately need to know what Anna Wintour looks like close up? Some could argue that she perpetuates an industry obsessed with looks, but it seems counterproductive to obsess over Wintour's looks as a way of revenge. In fact, it's just continuing the cycle.

And here's what Huffington says about aging in On Becoming Fearless, via Haber, "We need to be in touch with the natural cycle of life and let our preoccupation with appearances fade as we become more engaged in causes larger than ourselves." So, the way to be less preoccupied with our appearances is to zoom in on someone else's. Um. Ok!

Here's some more wisdom from Ms. Huffington of the anti-beauty agenda. "The first step to becoming fearless about our physical appearance is knowing that our fears of inadequacy are manufactured and mass-marketed. The fear-generating message of perfection we measure ourselves against comes not from Moses on the mountain-top but from the multibillion-dollar cosmetics and fashion industries whose profits are directly tied to our levels of insecurity." That's pretty rich coming from a woman whose 1986 wedding to Michael Huffington cost $110,000, according to a December 2005 profile of Arianna in Vanity Fair. Her dress alone cost $15,000, and that's 1986 money! But I guess all that was when she was a Republican, and now that she's a woman of the people, she's very strongly against embracing the "multibillion-dollar cosmetic and fashion industries." That's probably why last week the HuffPo had a user's guide to walking in five-inch heels.

Huffington Post Editor Explains Anna Wintour Post [NY Observer]
Anna Wintour Up Close [Huffington Post]

Earlier: Loose Lips

Because, you see, then came Cintra Wilson's piece in Salon today, and, oh boy, let me count the sexist and/or just plain offensive smears. No, really, let me count 'em!

1. "fuckable"
2. "Christian Stepford wife"
3. "she is their hardcore pornographic centerfold spread"
4. "Sarah Palin is a bit comical, like one of those cutthroat Texas cheerleader stage moms."
5. The part where she compares electing Sarah Palin to allowing child-rapist Warren Jeffs to babysit her kids.
6. The part where electing Palin "is akin to ideological brain rape."
7. "this Republican blowup doll"
8. The part where electing a Republican woman into office equals "women being downgraded to second-class, three-holed chattel."
9. "the self-abnegating, submissive female Uncle Tommies"
10. "she has done everything but volunteer for her own circumcision."
11. "She tacitly promises a roll backward into old-fashioned sexual roles" (despite being a breadwinner and the more powerful spouse).
12. "We must regard Sarah Palin as the Carmella Soprano of the GOP — an enabling wife of organized crime"
13. Being a female Republican is performing an "ideological lap dance" for men.
14. "Sarah Palin is the White House [Playboy] bunny."
15. "Here's an It Girl vice president who is easy on the eyes."
16. "She's like a grown-up version of Mary Ann from 'Gilligan's Island.'"
17. "Women, even if they are vice president, can always look pretty, worship their husbands in the fear of God and never, ever resist invasions from unwanted sperm."
18. "Sarah Palin and her virtual burqa..."
19. "She's such a power-mad, backwater beauty-pageant casualty..."

So, to summarize: according to Wilson, despite being the governor of a state and a candidate for Vice President, Sarah Palin is, basically, a too-pretty Republican bimbo too stupid to realize she's being played by men, completely subservient to her husband and the men of the Republican party with few independent thoughts of her own who is unwillingly impregnated by her husband but too submissive to resist. Um, ugh? Just because she disagrees with feminists doesn't give us the right to forego our (supposedly) strongly-held beliefs about the inappropriateness of sexism.

I know plenty of Republican women who understand everything I have — or anyone else has — to say about choice or social justice or pay equity and still vote Republican. They vote Republican because they have strongly-held and often (I know this might be shocking) well-researched beliefs about everything from taxes to defense to choice issues. And I respect their right to hold those beliefs and vote those beliefs without resorting to calling them "stupid cunts" or anything else because I don't actually believe that they are stupid or cunts. I believe that they are wrong on those issues, but they're not ill-informed or tools of some nebulous patriarchal conspiracy.

So, look, I really, really want to talk about the issues I disagree with Sarah Palin on. I want to talk about her shifting position on earmarks; about how she hasn't said a word about most of the issues facing the country today; about whether 8 years as mayor of Wasilla and 2 as governor of Alaska prepared her to lead this country; about the firing scandals; about the appropriateness of airplane-assisted wolf hunts. There are lots and lots of things I want to talk about and want to rip into her about and even some good points in the midst of Wilson's sexist and disgusting hyperbole that need to be made about Sarah Palin. But I first want to stop shouting into the darkness about how sexism doesn't just hurt women when it's directed at liberal women. Being sexist to Sarah Palin hurts us by reinforcing stereotypes about women and by allowing conservatives to point fingers at us and call us hypocrites.

By assuming she's a Republican because she's too stupid to know better, we're driving the Reagan Democrats and centrist Republicans and conservative independent voters into McCain's arms, because no one wants to vote for the candidate that makes them feel stupid. This is how George Bush won two elections and this is the genius of Karl Rove's strategies — he doesn't ever make those people vote for him, he gets us to do it for him. So, stop with this shit, please. Let's try assuming Sarah Palin is a capable, intelligent politician with whom we disagree and start disagreeing with her as a politician.

Why Aren't Women Furious About Sarah Palin? [Salon]

Mirren told GQ:

If a woman voluntarily ends up in a man’s bedroom with her clothes off? It’s such a tricky area, isn’t it? Especially if there is no violence. I think she has the right to say no at the last second. But I don’t think she can have that man in court under those circumstances.

Mirren admits that she couldn't have reported her date rapes when they occurred, but, apparently, it's better that way. "I guess [date rape] is one of the many subtle parts of the men/women relationship that has to be negotiated and worked out between them," she says.

The attitude — as demonstrated by the Daily Mirror's Sue Carroll — that all date rape victims are women who wake up next to a guy they don't like and go running to the cops is so beyond ridicule that it's hard to even try. Carroll says:

Though in recent years we've become confused by the endless court cases where rape charges are totally demeaned by scorned, ruthless women seeking revenge against men.

Right, naturally. Carroll obviously lacks quite a bit of familiarity with both the legal system and "feminists" — who she accuses of encouraging women to report rapes that weren't rape-y enough for her taste.

Reporting a rape involves a physical examination of all your orifices (without lubrication, by the way, so as not to contaminate the samples) and hours of questioning by police officers, if not a search of your home and the confiscation of your possessions. It involves meeting with prosecutors if someone is even arrested and if you decide to prosecute, "pretend" cross examinations intended to make you cry and question yourself, and lots and lots and lots of talk about your sex life and other personal habits — the rape shield law doesn't shield you from much, actually. Cops will question your friends, they'll ask your significant other (if you have one) to submit a DNA sample and basically your whole life will be rooted through for quite a while to make sure you're not the half-mythical woman crying wolf. Like a rapist, the kind of person who would falsely report a rape is a seriously disturbed individual and not someone who slept with someone regrettable and is looking for some kind of excuse.

So, no, Dame Helen, women and men can't just work it out amongst themselves — unless women and (normal) men agree that all "date" rapists are just, you know, rapists. Knowing him, however briefly, or kissing him does not give him the right to force you (and it didn't give Helen's rapists the right to force her) and every woman should have an absolute right to prosecute her rapist. And a few sick women who get off on falsely accusing men shouldn't tar the rest of the world's victims or be held up as the reason the rest of us shouldn't be allowed to prosecute any more than a few sick men who get off on raping wome,n should be the reason I don't kiss a man I want to kiss, or hang out with a guy I don't intend to fuck.

Mirren Criticized Over Rape Remarks [Time]
Helen Mirren Talks About Being Date Raped, Loving Cocaine [LA Times]
On Helen Mirren: Women Must Wake Up To The Reality Of Date Rape [Mirror]

Anyway, so the "evidence" cited by Dr. Pam that all single women of a certain age (mine) are unhappy is that they come into her office and tell her they are. They're denying biology! They're denying thousands of years of civilization and 30+ years of socialization that couplehood is the only way to go! And, less obviously to the Not Good Doctor, they're sitting in the chair of a judgmental and uninsightful therapist whose goal is to help them get coupled with someone so they can be happy.

What's really going on behind that confident demeanour [of a single woman that declares herself to be happy]and fulfilled exterior is crushing loneliness and desperation.
Single women become adept at playing the isn't-life-grand game.
They have to do it around men so they don't appear desperate.

One thing that Pam misses is that by relying on her patients — who are seeing a therapist because they are unhappy, great self-selection in your unbiased sample, Pam — she's talking to women who are actually unhappy about it, but that doesn't mean the rest of us are. And, um, to a woman, they all admit that they spend a great deal of time and energy pretending not to be unhappy because to admit to their actual feelings would be too humiliating. So rather then, I don't know, talking to these women about how to openly express their actual feelings to people they care about, or counseling them that constantly feeling like "a fraud" and "putting on a facade" isn't emotionally healthy, she helps them get boyfriends. That's obviously the solution to your life's problems, and God knows, entering into a relationship when you have so much trouble acknowledging your feelings and expressing them to the people that care about you is totes a good idea.

As far as I'm concerned, there's a reason the phrase "settling down" contains the word "settling," and that reason has a hell of a lot to do with the divorce rate. There's this social drum beat to marry, marry, marry that I think many women (and men) mistake for their supposed biological clock, and so they run off and pick the most likely candidate and off to the Grown Up Races they go. You know what really sucks? What makes a woman really, really, really unhappy? A fucked up relationship. I've found that you can actually be lonelier in an unhappy relationship with someone than being single.

And I'm single, and I'm not unhappy about it. I'm single because last year I ended a 4-year relationship in which I was so deeply unhappy and so deeply unfulfilled that I'd actually sunk into a deep depression that required therapy. Did getting out of that relationship suck? Yes. I spent as much time crying in my wine after it was over as I did before it ended. Am I "happy" now? I am no longer desperately unhappy and, for someone who suffers from depression, that's a pretty decent start. I am happy to not be miserably coupled. Do I regret being single? Not at all. I'm not defensive about my status, or my age, I'm not inwardly seething at weddings except when there's no more booze to be had (or none to be found) and, in fact, I'm planning on strapping on some extremely cute shoes in September to serve as a bridesmaid in my younger sister's wedding and to flirt with the photographer my mom's told me is extremely attractive and single. And I won't have a date, and I'll be happy about it, because someone needs to flirt with cute wedding photographers and I hear boyfriends frown on that.

Forget This Tosh About 'Freemales' - Single Women Who Say They Are Happy Are Lying [Daily Mail]

Despite that misstep, Wheatcroft does point out an interesting double bind that the wife of a very powerful man faces:

Just as, without her husband's name, Hillary might be a candidate for president of Vassar but not president of the United States (to borrow Maureen Dowd's phrase), so too a little-known barrister named Cherie Booth might be invited to address legal conferences for what's called an honorarium (Latin for 'not much') or to write books for modest sums, but she would not pick up $150,000 for three U.S. speaking engagements or pocket $2 million for her memoir. As columnist Catherine Bennett has said, what Cherie likes to think of as her 'enlightened self-assertion' always 'rested on a very traditional foundation: her husband's career.'

It's a minefield for any woman to tackle, but Cherie doesn't really acknowledge her privilege — whether it be through her husband or their collectively earned wealth — at all. She describes herself as a "socialist" but has two homes worth a combined $14 million, according to Slate. She judges Princess Margaret "a stuck-up old slapper" but then discusses her own randy youth, sleeping with three men simultaneously (one of whom was future husband Tony).

And worst of all, Cherie doesn't seem to care that her husband brought England into the Iraq war based on questionable evidence. She blithely dismisses Tony's detractors, writing, "If Tony tells me, as he does, that if we don't stop Saddam Hussein the world will be a more dangerous place, then I believe him, and in my view you and I should be supporting our men in these difficult decisions, not making it worse by nagging them." See? Cherie deserves the heap of criticism she's getting from people — despite their gender.

No Cherie Amour: The British Press Lays Into Cherie Blair's Memoirs [Slate]

Other possible causes for violent acting-out in teen girls include alienation, alcohol abuse, poor parenting, and early development (if you ask the Daily Mail, feminism is to to blame! Imagine that!). Those early blooming girls who become larger earlier "might then become the more vicious bullies because they have grown bigger and faster than their peers," the BBC posits. [What? whatever, dudes. -Ed.] The good news is that many of these girls are only one-time offenders, and some social scientists believe that the number of female offenders has risen merely because the number of girls, period, has risen. Though if you see Amy Winehouse outside the pub, you should probably back away as quickly as possible to avoid potential head butting.

Crimes Committed By Girls Up 25% [Guardian]
Are Our Girls Getting More Violent? [BBC]
Fire-bombs, Mugging And Gang Warfare - Just What Has Gone Wrong With Girls? [Daily Mail]

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