When Rabbi Margaret Moers Wenig was ordained, 1984, there were few female rabbis - let alone gay ones. As she tells the New York Times,

I played a significant role in the change toward gay rabbis. I saw how long that process took. In '85, I submitted a resolution to the Central Conference of American Rabbis to open doors to gay men and lesbians. It was not changed till 1990.

While Wenig may represent the reform fringe, she can take credit fpor paving the way for significant changes in even the more conservative community: for two years the Conservative Jewish Theological Seminary has admitted openly gay students. And only a few weeks ago, Poland saw its first openly gay rabbi, a move controversial enough to make international headlines.

Wenig might well feel , cautiously, optimistic - despite the opposition to gay marriage in more conservative Jewish communities - but it's questionable if her 1990 declaration of God's sex will be met with the same level of acceptance. She explains now, "Jewish texts are replete with anthropomorphic images of God. I don't say God would ever die. I fudged that. Whatever else, I would say God is eternal."

A rabbi's struggle: To allow gay clergy or not? [USA Today]
Conservative Jews Allow Gay Rabbis and Unions [New York Times]

RABBI SCHOOL GAY-OK [NY Post]
Amid Jewish revival, Poland Gets Openly Gay Rabbi [Newsvine]

What differentiates Phillips's experiment from the legion of others of its ilk is that Phillips and her husband decided to "eat conscientiously for a month, not just on our regular grocery allotment but on the government-defined, food-stamp minimum: $248 for two people in our hometown of New Haven, Conn." They started with zero food and bought "the SOLE-est products available — that is, the sustainable, organic, local or ethical alternative." They made dal, chili, and biryani, and finished the month with $1.20 left over.

But what exactly does "they" mean here? It's possible she's just using the first person singular for simplicity's sake, but it sounds like it fell to Phillips, not her husband, to implement most of the changes. "I relied on the sort of reasonably flexible schedule that is a luxury in far too many households," she writes, "and I started with some basic cooking knowledge" [emphasis ours]. She also refers to "my Chinese fried rice and Italian risotto." She mentions only one contribution from her husband: microwaving his own oatmeal, after she shows him how. One Salon commenter sums up the apparent inequality this way:

Now women are being called upon not only to manage the eco-cleanliness of their families domiciles, but also to manage the ethical qualities of their families food choices: a leftist version of "Better Homes and Gardens".

Not every household where the woman does the cooking is an inequitable one, but from personal experience it seems to me that the current pressure to eat locally, organically, sustainably and well weighs much more heavily on women. My ex was into bike-riding and recycling, but he thought farmers' markets were lame — if I wanted us to eat local tomatoes, I had to go and get them by myself. And my dad, an environmentalist and general bleeding-heart who has always done half the childcare, cleaning, and cooking, used to refuse to cook for me after I went veggie.

This imbalance happens because women still cook and shop for groceries more than men, but also because some men — even men who are otherwise progressive — look down on sustainable eating, or the work that goes along with it. Plenty of guys still agree with Jessica that vegetarians are sissies, and riding a bike or even retrofitting a car to run on vegetable oil may seem cooler than picking out locally grown fruit. So while eating sustainably benefits everyone by slowing climate change, right now it may also make things harder on women.

There's hope, though. Vegan Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson and his foe, omnivore/sustainable food advocate Michael Pollan, are both dudes. And my dad, once a die-hard meat-eater, recently purchased a vegan cookbook as part of his new project to "eat lower on the food chain." Perhaps caring about food miles and pesticide runoff will one day be considered manly. For those of you who think about such things, do you notice a gender gap in ethical eating? And what do you think we can do to close it?

Can We Afford To Eat Ethnically? [Salon]

Earlier: Can Female Vegetarians And Male Carnivores Ever Find True Foodie Love?

Oh yes, they did. They have considered, they have weighed, and they have spoken. l'Osservatore Romano's article, "The Washing Machine and the Liberation of Women - Put in the Detergent, Close the Lid and Relax" runs through the history of washing - from washboard to laundromat - to show how far we've coming in breaking the laundry glass ceiling. We're not quite sure why the Vatican felt compelled to weigh in on the issue, and we're not exactly shocked that they don't feel like applauding birth control, but really? Not even the tampon?

Now, don't get us wrong: the washing machine was indeed a huge breakthrough for humankind. In the old days, laundry and housework did indeed make a woman a slave to the house, and mod cons like the washing machine revolutionized a housewife's work day. Take this vintage Whirlpool ad which Hortense mentioned this weekend: we may laugh, but to prior generations, liberation from the wash kettle was a real blessing. Of course, plenty of the women who could afford these early appliances were probably the same ones who a generation earlier would have had hired help, so the gains are not so straightforward as Whirlpool and the Vatican may imply; but yeah, it was A Good Thing. The Best Thing? Well...

We're sure l'Osservatore Romano considered the question of women's lib seriously, but we can't bow to a single authority: we never make any determination about feminism without consulting that authority on enlightened womanhood, the Daily Mail. That paper's contributors dispute that the washing machine was the most freeing thing to women in the history of the world. Rather, it's disposable diapers, wet wipes, freezers, and Chardonnay. (Hey! They forgot Manolos!_

We hate to flout a higher power, but we must: the washing machine, the most liberating invention in the history of the world? Please. The Vatican has made a serious error, and we can't let that stand. Whatever the washing machine's benefits to womankind, we think other factors have been more crucial in advancing us as a sex, bringing us liberation and equality, sexual freedom and physical health. In the last century, we've advanced in innumerable ways and fought against incredible obstacles. What has allowed that to happen? There is an answer. And the answer is obviously... the dishwasher.

Vatican Paper: Washing Machine Liberated Women Most [Reuters]
The Washing Machine 'Liberated Women' [Independent]
Revealed: The Six Inventions That Freed Women, From Disposable Nappies To Wet Wipes And Wine [Daily Mail]

Earlier: Vintage Whirlpool Ad: Nothing Says "Liberation" Like A Woman's Right To Do The Laundry

In her discussion of the work of Annette Messanger and Gitl Braun, two contemporary female sculptors, Jackie Wullschlager returns repeatedly to this issue of "feminine" art. She begins with the words of several artists who rejected the confining shackles of "women's art":

At the 1845 Salon, Baudelaire praised Eugénie Gautier because "her painting has nothing to do with woman's painting". A century later, critics applauded Georgia O'Keeffe because "she paints like a man". Then came the feminist revolution. Annette Messager, born in 1943, came of age in the 1970s in France when "it was so difficult for a woman to be an artist. I wanted to say all the time, ‘I am an artist and I am a woman. I will not do male work.'"

Messanger responded to the masculine-dominated and testosterone-infused art world by creating art that self consciously draws attention to its "feminine" nature. Frustrated with compliments that her early art "looked like a man did it," Messanger decided to play the role of the hyper-feminine artist and work with typically gendered mediums and forms. She parodies the roles created for women in her sculpture, using "domestic materials" like textiles and girl's toys to, as Wullschlager puts it, "free herself from male-dominated forms and create an art of female autobiographical experience."

The debate over women's work is not limited to art, as a review of Elaine Showalter's new book A Jury of Her Peers: American Women Writers From Anne Bradstreet to Annie Proulx from Sunday's New York Times shows. In this encyclopedic collection of female writers, Showalter categorizes those who resisted being labeled as women writers as "dissenters." The dissenters preferred to think of themselves as creating work that is neither feminine nor masculine, but rather coming from a more universal experience. In contrast to Messanger, who was interested in creating "female" work in order to subvert and challenge, the dissenters (a group that includes Edith Wharton, Willa Cather, Mary McCarthy, Elizabeth Bishop, and Joan Didion) did not want to be limited to "female" topics or confined in a book of women writers because, as Elizabeth Bishop once said, "art is art and to separate writings, paintings, musical compositions, etc. into two sexes is to emphasize values that are not art." This is clearly a fraught debate, but what say you: what makes art "women's art" and does classifying it as such somehow diminish it?

Women Artists Evolve Unique Visual Language [Financial Times]
Writing Women [New York Times]

Belkin acknowledges that the idea of work/life balance is a privileged one — many women in this country don't have the option of not working, and they certainly can't easily find another job that treats them better than the one they already have. But even for women who have those high powered jobs are going to feel the burn of this economic shift. "The sorts of initiatives that make work more family friendly are also the newest, and it is likely that when cuts have to be made in companies, these kinds of programs will be the first to go," Belkin posits.

She also caught up with those women profiled in the original "Opt-Out Revolution" article, which was published almost exactly five years ago. The fates of these women who left high powered jobs to be housewives have been a mixed bag. One is going through a messy divorce, and "It was tough for her getting back to work, she said, because she had allowed a gap to open in her résumé — as tough as her critics had warned it would be." Another woman who opted out in 2003, Katherine Brokaw, "is now the dean of students at the Emory Law School, proving that you can take time out and land very well."

So what can we learn from the 9 years of Belkin's columns, besides the fact that there are no easy answers? I think we can learn that our decisions about work don't have to be so fraught or fatalistic. Portrayals of women navigating the shoals of work and life tend to be charicaturish. Women who opt out are painted by their opponents as nouveau stepford wives; women who seek the executive suite are dismissed as uncaring mothers. When I first started reading about the idea of a work/life balance it struck me that I had never really thought about the issue because my mother seemed to do it so effortlessly. She worked full time as the head of the psychiatric unit at a local hospital until I was eight or nine, all the while maintaining a private psychiatry practice. When I was older, she jettisoned the hospital job and kept her private practice, seeing patients four days a week. Did this choice keep her out of the upper echelons of her career? Undoubtedly. Does she regret it? Not at all. Did I suffer because my mom wasn't around 24/7 when I was little? Not remotely.

Looking Back, Moving On [NYT]
The Opt-Out Revolution [NYT]

I think women cook different food, and I think women cook better food. It's more from the heart and more from the soul. I look at this whole molecular-gastronomy thing, and I'm like, "Boys with toys." They're just fascinated with technology and chemistry sets. I think we make better-tasting food. I'm sorry, I know that's politically incorrect.

• Patricia Yeo: "I think men aren't as nervous about asking [for funding]. They seem to be able to say, 'Listen, this is what I want, give it to me.' Women, I think, have a harder time with it. You get notoriety because you're a woman, but do you really want the notoriety because you're a woman? You want to be known just because you are a great chef."
• Rebecca Charles "RC: It's the boys' club. It's incredible, and I never used to buy into stuff like that."
• Alex Guarnaschelli: You have to put on a pair of fishnet stockings, and you have to get yourself on television. I find myself hoping I can get on a TV show and then people from Oklahoma will come to my restaurant. Then I'll be able to make enough money to open my own place.

So yeah, essentially women have problems getting famous for cooking because cooking is housework and anyone who is too good at housework should be seen and not heard, preferably in heels and fishnets, but occasionally a dude can come along and break the mold because he knows how to talk flashy and over-analytical to other dudes while his long suffering pastry chefs roll their eyes and stare stubbornly at the sink. Kinda makes you want to forget the food altogether and smoke a cigarette, eh? Hey, it works for models! Which is still about the only career in which women make better money than men.

Top Female Chefs [New York Magazine]
Peg Bracken, 'I Hate To Cook' Author, Dies At 89 [NY Times]

The founder of the studio is a onetime actress who played a stripper in a movie and found that she not only lost the weight following the birth of her baby but a road map to self-actualization. Her "journey" began there, going from the installation of a pole in her home to setting up studios across the U.S. to instruct women to embrace their inner strippers and celebrate/exploit their sexuality for their own betterment. Pole-dancing as a means to self-discovery? I had my doubts. After the jump, my day as a pole-dancer.

The studio itself is nondescript, except for the boas hanging from the ceiling, and the corsets, stripper shoes, and thigh-highs on display and for sale. The other women look normal and seem nervous: browsing the racks, comparing garter belts, giggling excitedly. Our instructor, a petite African-American woman who looks to be in her 20's, guides us to a dimly-lit room with candles and a bordello-esque red lamp. Yoga mats are arranged in concentric circles. After choosing a place on which to sit, our instructor begins to tell us her story. NYU graduate and former head of a marketing consulting company whose crippling insecurity was solved by stripping, through which she learned to shed both her inhibitions and her clothes.

We learn a little about one another as well: In my class there is a young woman in her 30's going through a divorce who is hoping the class will help her rebuild her confidence; her friend who said she realized she had hit her 30's and wasn't in touch yet with her sexuality; several graduates of Mama Gina's School of Womanly Arts; a woman who says she simply always wanted to try stripping; and of course, me. I tell the class that I work from home and am looking for something to help get me going. "Oh, we'll get you going!" hollers the instructor. The other women join her in applause. This must be what AA feels like.

At last, class begins. We begin the warm-up, which is comprised of standard yoga/dance/Pilates moves... except for the one devoted to slapping our own asses and screaming. The moves are given sexy stripper names and we do a lot of them. One, meant to exercise the abdominals, includes the exhortation to "explore your curves". "Feel your breasts! Feel your neck! Feel your thighs! They are your curves! Love them! You look beautiful!" the instructor encourages. Clearly, the instructor has no idea that I am convinced I am moments from death as I furiously pedal my feet in the air while balanced on my ass only, groping myself all the while, praying I don't tear a hamstring, and wondering how badly I will be mocked on this site if I were to die right here and now. After we're done feeling ourselves up / working our abs, we are instructed to lounge seductively on our sides, our heads propped in our hands. "Every woman looks beautiful in this position," our instructor intones. "Let's take a moment to explore our bodies while in this position. Just close your eyes and focus on your body. She is beautiful. Listen to what she is telling you." I feel like I have stumbled, unwittingly, into The Vagina Monologues.

The instructor then talks us through the ever-important "stripper walk": Right foot over left, drag one foot to meet the other, weight shifting from one hip to the other. "You should look like you've had a few too many to drinkl!" we are told. Then comes the moment we've all been waiting for: The pole. Our instructor approaches it and effortlessly swings herself around it, then does it again, this time breaking down the motions. I break out in a cold sweat. I'm up first. I trip doing my stripper walk, take a preliminary strut around the pole, and then begin my swing. I have lift off! But then I freeze, plop my feet down on the ground, and land standing up dead-straight. "Stick your butt out!" the instructor encourages, "When you stick your butt out, you own it! When you stick your butt out, you always look good!" (A few minutes prior we'd been informed that our breasts should always arrive at the party a few minutes early and our butts a few minutes late.) Now it's time for me to give the pole a second shot. This time I succeed. The instructor gives me a big high five and tells me I will be even better if I only stick my butt out more.

The other women take their turns. The divorcee and her friend who wants to get in touch with her sexuality are naturals. I hate them immediately. This is no different from ballet class, it dawns on me, where your only option is to hate yourself because there are other women in the room and your performance can only be measured in comparison to the others. It all just makes me sad. When the girl who "always wanted to try stripping" takes her turn, for instance, she is less than graceful on the pole itself, but then finishes her trick with an over-exaggerated, RuPaul-esque finish, working her hands up all over her body, wiggling her butt out in a hyper-feminized moment of performance. And though she finishes with the biggest grin on her face and says how amazing it felt, I am not proud for her that she feels good even though she doesn't (none of us do) hold a candle to the divorcee's friend who is tall and blonde and looks like she was born to do this. No, I feel a strange empathetic hurting that she needed to grope herself up in front of strangers to feel beautiful, yet alone accomplished.

The final portion of the class — a cool-down, perhaps? — involves a "dancing" routine: We stripper-walk to a wall, press up against it, stick our butts out, roll our hips, turn around, and then slowly grind our way down the wall until we hit the floor, at which point we get on all fours and do our best "sexy crawl." We do this several times, to music of various tempos. In between sets, the other women start cooing about how liberated they feel. I can't help but feel kinda silly. Who would ever want to see me do this? Despite all the talk of loving my body and being proud for women everywhere, I think that anyone who has ever or would ever want to see me sexually sees me that way because I'm me: Clumsy, geeky and usually outfitted in giant sweaters and leggings. To pretend otherwise isn't empowering, it's just disingenuous. Nor would my female friends would think me a stronger woman. We already support one another, like when someone gets the raise she worked really hard for, or is willing to take a risk and put her heart out on the line, or drops everything to be there for her friends and family. These things make us feel good. And they take courage. Pole dancing? Well, that just takes a skimpier wardrobe.