[Kabul, October 26. Image via Getty]

Afghan enterpreneur Hassina Syed, 27, president of privately run National Organization of Women (NOW), poses with ripe grapes at the Badam Bagh farm in Kabul on October 26, 2009. NOW's six hectare modern experimental farm is supported by the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and employs some 1,100 workers, most of whom are women, during peak harvest seasons for itsgrapes, tomatoes, watermelons, cucumbers and strawberries, of which 40 percent is exported to Dubai. AFP PHOTO / ROMEO GACAD (Photo credit should read ROMEO GACAD/AFP/Getty Images)

NOW's vice president told Radar today that the now-infamous Ralph Lauren/Filippa Hamilton ad made her want "to burst into tears." She continued,

What I would like to see is an open apology to her and also affirming ads to women of all shapes and sizes and a statement that these women are beautiful. Certainly apologies are due to her personally. But what I'm really concerned about here is the message that that has sent to millions of pre-teens, daughters, mothers sister – women around the country and the world.

Last week, NOW criticized David Letterman, issuing a statement that read, in part,

As 'the boss,' he is responsible for setting the tone for his entire workplace — and he did that with sex. In any work environment, this places all employees — including employees who happen to be women — in an awkward, confusing and demoralizing situation. [...] The National Organization for Women calls on CBS to recognize that Letterman's behavior creates a toxic environment and to take action immediately to rectify this situation.

NOW's president Terry O'Neill also called out Roman Polanski's supporters, saying, "making excuses for Roman Polanski is dangerous talk." But some are asking whether NOW is focusing too much on big media stories, at the expense of issues that affect women more directly. In an AP interview, O'Neill brushed these questions aside, saying,

Men behaving badly is exactly the problem in this country. It's not a diversion - it's at the core of why women are unequal, why they are kept in second-class citizenship.

She adds,

We're living in a time when women who put themselves forward as leaders are subjected to vicious misogynistic attacks - it's very analogous to sexual harassment in the workplace. The message to other women is, 'Stay in your place.'

Ending sexual harassment is certainly an important goal for any feminist organization, but O'Neill overstates the case a bit when she says, "The question is whether the atmosphere in that workplace was poisoned by that lord of the manor, where everybody is made to understand that the women are there for sex and the men are there for work." While Letterman's involvement with employees was problematic, nobody's suggesting that the atmosphere on the show was anything like this. And in a time when, as the AP's David McCrary points out, the issue of healthcare reform has real and immediate consequences for women, NOW may be spreading itself a little thin.

I'm really of two minds about this. On the one hand, I obviously work for a website that has criticized both David Letterman and Ralph Lauren, and I think a fair working environment and accurate representations of women in advertisements are both worth fighting for. I also tend to get annoyed when people are too restrictive about what constitutes a feminist issue — it can be just a way of dismissing women's legitimate concerns, of telling us not to get our panties in a twist. At the same time, not every feminist organization have to talk about every feminist thing, and NOW has a pretty clear statement of priorities on its website. Its six core issues are "Advancing Reproductive Freedom, Promoting Diversity & Ending Racism, Stopping Violence Against Women, Winning Lesbian Rights, Achieving Constitutional Equality, [and] Ensuring Economic Justice." Criticizing Letterman's conduct could maybe be a way of "ensuring economic justice," but there are many more direct routes. And while taking Lauren to task could be a form of "promoting diversity," I can think of some stronger ones.

Again, it's not that Lauren and Letterman don't deserve a tongue-lashing. It's just that delivering said lashing may not be the best thing for NOW. As the self-proclaimed "largest, most comprehensive feminist advocacy group in the United States," NOW has real clout with policymakers in Washington — clout that may be weakened if the organization gets involved in too many arguments outside its core mission. And O'Neill's claim that "men behaving badly is exactly the problem in this country" is just simplistic, not the kind of statement we need from someone in a position to help solve the country's real problems. If anything, NOW's willingness to get involved in the Letterman and Lauren scandals seen like an attempt to piggyback on high-profile stories. But this piggybacking could end up hurting women if it makes NOW seem unfocused. Commenter Pantra said it best: "NOW needs a better PR person."

Exclusive: National Organization For Women Demands Ralph Lauren Apologizes To "Too Fat" Fired Model [Radar]
Women's Group Blasts Letterman Over Sexual Affairs With Staff [CNN]
NOW's Top Six Priority Issues [NOW]
NOW's New President Takes On Men Behaving Badly [AP, via Yahoo News]
NOW President Terry O'Neill Calls Polanski Furor "Dangerous Talk" That Could Set Back Women's Rights [NOW]

"NOW is the organization that fights for the rights of all women no matter the circumstances of their birth, their race or sexual orientation, no matter if they live in poverty or are trying to escape violence," says O'Neill, "My experience with domestic violence, as an abused wife left me humiliated and embarrassed. I only began to talk about this publically five years ago as I realized that to keep quiet was to continue the abuse. I want to empower women and telling my story does just that. Women are fed up with persistent inequality and are ready for change. I am honored and eager to lead NOW in making that change."

NOW Elects Maryland Woman Its Next President [AP]
NOW Activists Elect New President Terry O'Neill To Succeed Kim Gandy [NOW]

Interestingly, the original Playboy article (cached, in part, here) has been removed; in its place, is an error page offering readers a free week in the company's "Cyber Club".

Earlier: Playboy On Conservative Women: "Castration Has Begun To Look Appealing"

According to ABC News, while introducing Governor Palin at a rally in California over the weekend, Mandell said, "I'm a life-long Democrat ... I don't agree with Gov. Palin on several issues…I know Sarah Palin cares about women’s rights, she cares about equality, she cares about equal pay, and as Vice President she will fight for it. She cares about our children and she cares about women's lives. She's an athlete and she knows what Title Nine did for girls like her."

How, pray tell, does Palin "care" about equal pay when her running mate vocally opposed a recent fair pay act? She cares about it by…playing basketball in college? Of course, Mandell is an individual who can endorse whomever she pleases, but the NOW brass are understandably furious that she's used her position to support a ticket that stands against some of NOW's most basic mission statements.

California NOW president Patty Bellasalma issued a statement after Mandell's public support of Palin: "The use of Shelly Mandell’s Los Angeles NOW title was apparently intended to mislead the public, and indeed has resulted in local television outlets and internet reports misstating that LA NOW has 'endorsed' Sarah Palin or that she has a record of supporting women’s rights. This in fact is not the case," Bellsama said. "I can assure you that there is no local or state affiliate of NOW, including LA NOW, which endorses or supports the McCain/Palin ticket. John McCain and Sarah Palin oppose many of the rights and freedoms we have fought for throughout NOW's 42 years, and we will not be pushed back to the days of back-alley abortions, forced pregnancies, and pay discrimination without remedy."

We were curious about this Mandell character and so we checked to see if her previous stances could somehow explain her vocal support for the McCain-Palin ticket. In September, 2003, she went on CNN to decry the gubernatorial candidacy of Arnold Schwarzenegger because of some anti-woman comments Arnold had made. "He's obsessed with body parts. I really don't think that he gets it, that women are human beings that are more than their body parts," Mandell said. But John McCain truly thinks women are more than just body parts, like that time he called his wife a cunt. In addition, Mandell donated $500 to Clinton during the primaries, and has perhaps bought into the idea that all that matters in a candidate is their genitalia.

Even curiouser is this little tidbit from Mandell's past: in the early 80s, Mandell secretly alerted police so that her NOW rival, Ginny Foat, would be arrested. Here's the story. Foat was a rising star at NOW, but she had a sordid past that included her second husband (who beat her) being arrested for multiple murders. This ex-husband, John Sidote, told police that Ginny was his accomplice, and as a result warrants were issued for her arrest.

According to the New York Times:

Despite having spent three months in jail while she unsuccessfully fought extradition to Nevada (Mr. Sidote eventually refused to testify against her there when advised his testimony would not assure him leniency) and without even checking whether the Louisiana warrant for her arrest was still extant, Mrs. Foat could still launch a campaign for the national vice presidency of NOW in 1982. Rather than face the authorities to clear up the matter, she had a paper prepared on battered women to hand out to the press. MRS. FOAT might never have been arrested at all a second time (on the Louisiana charge) had she not been betrayed by a former close friend in NOW, Shelly Mandell, who told Miss Hawkes she agreed with others who thought Mrs. Foat was on ''a power trip.'' It was Shelly Mandell - who insisted she only wanted to appoint Mrs. Foat to a local governmental board - who secretly wrote to Louisiana authorities and alerted them to Mrs. Foat's identity. At the time, Shelly Mandell and her close friend Elaine Lafferty were feuding with Mrs. Foat and her close friend Kay Tsenin. Significantly, Shelly Mandell and Elaine Lafferty were also with Mrs. Foat on the night she broke down sobbing and confided to them about her life with Mr. Sidote.

That's the curiousist of all! Btw, in this situation Gloria Steinem sided with Foat, calling her "a political hostage." When she was stumping for Palin, Mandell said she was "proud to support Sarah Palin, a woman who will fight for women's rights…a woman who will, Lord knows, shake things up." Apparently Mandell supports shaking a lot of things up, including her own completely malleable belief system.

LA NOW Prez On Palin: 'America, This Is What AFeminist Looks Like' [ABC News]
Behind The Scenes At The March for Women's Lives [Salon]
Sororocidal Warfare [NY Times]

Am I supposed to believe that these are Republicans and conservative independents who crossed over to vote for Clinton despite the polls at the time showing that Obama had the lead in self-identified independents? Or am I supposed to believe that they include the likes of Geraldine Ferraro, New York NOW Chapter President Marcia Pappas (she of the "psychological gang bang" statement), Missouri NARAL Chapter President Pamela Sumners and former New York Governor Mario Cuomo, who are all quoted within stating their opposition to anyone but Clinton for VP? One would think that if anyone could look gimlet-eyed at the political situation in this country — especially in regards to the candidates and reproductive rights, where Obama and McCain sharply disagree — it would be the likes of women who head state-level reproductive rights organizations, a former Democratic governor nearly excommunicated from his Church over his stance on choice issues or the first female candidate for the Vice Presidency. But is the irrationality of continuing to insist that Hillary Clinton be the Vice President the new rationality for twenty percent of Clinton voters? Is insisting on combating sexism in the media by electing the male Republican candidate the new normative behavior? It begins to get disheartening when the same people who insisted 6 months ago that people, if they looked at the issues, would nominate Clinton would now ignore the issues to express their disappointment that she didn't get the nomination.

And it's even worse to me when you have a potential First Lady — Michelle Obama — who isn't talking about cookie recipes or standing by her man or the other potential First Lady's patriotism, but about juggling work and family and how to have difficult conversations with your children on issues like racism, slavery and sexism. She even talks about those thousands of Hillary Clinton supporters that haven't yet come around in a far more rational and conciliatory way that I've yet been able to manage:

For me, it's not personal. The way I see it? There are a lot of people like me, like how I am about my husband, my candidate. They invested their hearts and souls into Hillary Clinton, and many of them did this for years. They have to figure out how they want to leverage their political power. I understand that. Politics is a patience game. You can't do this unless you have patience.

That's rationality, and attributing to Clinton supporters some sort of minimally-irrational rationality that, in some cases, I'm not sure is actually there.

So, maybe if we're all going to be irrational and ignore the issues we used to pretend mattered to us and vote based on who is taller, or not-too-thin, or more handsome, or didn't beat Hillary Clinton in the primaries or whatever, maybe we can be perfectly irrational and just choose who we'd rather see as First Lady. Michelle's got my vote either way. But it might just be because she always looks so stylish and didn't put a silent "H" in her daughter's name

VP Pick May Chafe Hillary Supporters [Politico]
Obama's Independent Edge [RealClearPolitics]
NOW Head Described Treatment Of Clinton A "Gang Bang" [HuffPo]
Michelle Obama: I'm Still Me [Creators.com]

They're getting caught giving bonuses to employees who can find ways to boot sick people off their rolls. Because, see, health insurance is only profitable for companies when they can sell it (and the fear of really large medical bills you can't pay) and they don't have to actually, you know, help you pay those bills.

So, in California, the law forbids insurance companies from tying any compensation for claims reviewers to their claims decisions. This leetle tidbit of legal information apparently passed over the heads of some people at Health Net Inc., who openly praised and provided bonuses to one of their underwriters for her excellent work in rescinding the insurance policies of sick people, claiming she was an underwriter, not a claims adjuster. Between 2000 and 2006, the company avoided paying $35 million in medical expenses through the work of this underwriter and her colleagues. Um, yay? The information is all coming out because one of the people whose policies they rescinded — a 51-year old hair salon owner — is suing to get her chemo for breast cancer covered after they rescinded her policy.

Like, great job health insurance companies! You wonder why people think even the government can do a better job than you, despite the fact that nearly every poll shows we regard large swaths of our government with contempt? It's because you do shit like this all the time. Everyone knows someone who's been screwed by a health insurance company, everyone has gotten dicked around at least a little by a health insurance company and, frankly, everyone is paying out the ass anyway for health insurance (except for the 47 million Americans who don't have any). So, maybe, you should take some of the $1 billion dollars you and your insurance compatriots spent on just lobbying the federal government (and God only knows what untold gobs of money on your army of lawyers) and try spending that on patient care, mmkay? I'll bet it might actually cost you less than figuring out ways to screw us all over.

Congress OKs Expanded Kids' Health Care [ABC News]
U.S. Health Care Politics [CBS News]
Health insurer tied bonuses to dropping sick policyholders [LA Times]
Lobbying Spending Database [Opensecrets.org]

'Totally sincere. I thought it would be funny, because obviously Spike TV is very in the opposite direction... but you know, I'm from Berkeley, California, I can't go into that thing wholeheartedly. I had to put a little wink in somewhere to let everyone know back home that I hadn't gone all the way.'

Peter Smith, who interviews Samberg for the piece, mentions how although Hot Rod (which was originally written for Will Ferrell) received mixed reviews from Variety, the trade paper did make mention of Samberg's sex-appeal. Samberg responds:

"I never know how to respond to that. I don't consider myself like that, and certainly don't put myself in that category, and when I look in the mirror I don't see what they're saying. I've got a bit of a haircut, I guess, and maybe that puts me ahead of the pack or something."

I think fame's just something people are attracted to. Generally, that's not the way I want to be viewed. That's as shallow as it gets. I still see myself as a big dork; people just give me nicer clothes now.'

Q&A: Andy Samberg [Nerve]
Earlier:
Is Andy Samberg A Bad Feminist?
Related:
Andy Samberg: Pro-feminist or ironic hipster douche? [Feministing]

• The women at Feministing wonder if Andy Samberg was being an "ironic hipster douche" when he wore a "National Organization For Women—Berkeley" tee to a Spike TV awards-show. Our verdict: Samberg may be a hipster but he's probably not being ironic; he grew up in Berkeley. [Feministing]
  
• The British women who think we're bad feminists pass along this report: Toddlers begin to understand and react to gender stereotypes from as young as 2 years of age. [TheFWord]
  
• Just a few days after the report about new guidelines for identifying symptoms of ovarian cancer comes word that doctors have proven that a "common breast cancer drug can significantly cut relapse rates." [Guardian]
  
• Two women in the NYTimes obit section today: R&B singer Nellie Lutcher, 94, and Ruth Bell Graham, 87, wife of Billy. [NYTimes]