As soon as you get a free minute, check out "A Woman's World" on the New York Times website. It's a gallery of user-submitted photographs "that illustrate the importance of educating girls and empowering women." The photographs are beautiful, and feature women from all around the world. Thank you, Times, for putting this together.

What does everyone think about the USA network's new campaign, called "Characters Unite"? It urges people to "take the pledge" to combat prejudice and discrimination. I saw an ad for it while watching USA, and it features all different people, including people of color, people with disabilities, and even a same-sex couple speaking out against hatred. I think it's a pretty bold move on USA's part, especially the bit that promotes same-sex marriage. It's also a very well-done commercial.

Visit charactersunite.com to watch the "take the pledge" video and also, if you want, take the pledge yourself.

LaNisa Allen was terminated from her job after she took "unauthorized" breaks to pump breast milk. As a result, she sued her former employers, claiming that the company violated the Pregnancy Discrimination Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Unfortunately, the Ohio Supreme Court ruled 7 to 2 that she was rightly terminated for taking extra breaks. But in his dissenting opinion, Justice Paul E. Pfeifer wrote:

The appellate court does not explain why Allen's trips to the restroom outside scheduled break times were different from the restroom trips other employees made outside scheduled break times. There is no evidence in the record about any limit on the length of unscheduled restroom breaks and no evidence that employees had to seek permission from a supervisor to take an unscheduled restroom break. There is evidence only that unscheduled bathroom breaks were allowed and that LaNisa Allen was fired for taking them. What made her breaks different?

New mothers simply have to pump breast milk if they choose to breastfeed their newborn(s). If a workplace can allow bathroom and cigarette breaks, they certainly can allow this. Ohio needs to launch the same initiative that Vermont has, which requires workplaces to provide private and comfortable accommodations for new mothers to pump breast milk. It's upsetting that women have to go through an extensive legal process to gain a right they should have in the first place.

HOLY CRAP, TRYING TO TALK ABOUT SEX WILL TURN YOUR DAD INTO A MIME!

Thank goodness we don't have to talk about "the parts." I was worried for a minute that I might have to explain to my children what's going on with their bodies, or explain how sex works before I tell them to "wait."

4parents.gov is an appalling website that can basically be summed up in five words: "GET MARRIED OR NO SEX." They have an entire section about loving and accepting your child should s/he turn out to be gay, and then they blatantly exclude same-sex couples by preaching marriage as the best thing since sliced bread. Look at this:

What do you want your son or daughter to know about the benefits of marriage? Talking about the value of marriage now can help your son or daughter make good choices that will impact their future. Make sure you let them know what you want for their future. Marriage can be a positive part of your child's life. Research supports this!

Talk about some of the benefits listed below. Through discussion, you can help them think about their own future.
What are the benefits married people enjoy?

* Live longer.

* Have better physical and emotional health.

* Are happier.

* Earn more.

* Enjoy better sex lives.

* Save more so they have fewer money worries.

Uh. What about the people who are pushed into marriage by their parents, society, and stupid websites like 4parents.gov, and end up unhappy because they simply married for the sake of marrying? Why does it have to be "wait until marriage" to have sex? It is so much more realistic and inclusive to simply promote waiting until someone is ready and has found the right partner.

Then again, I don't want to die young, poor, depressed, and sex-less. Hot damn! I'm gonna go get hitched right now.

I heard about this via The Curvature and it made me sick. It's becoming apparent that these town hall meetings held on health care reform are getting out of hand. Left-wingers are calling for the reform of our deeply flawed system, while right-wingers are resisting changes and fearing steps made towards universal health care.

And now with Senator Kennedy, a huge advocate of health care reform, having passed on, it's no doubt that reform advocates will want to carry on his legacy.

I understand that health care is an issue that many of us take very seriously, but certain actions are inexcusable. For example, at a town hall led by Senator Claire McCaskill, several black women brought a sign in with them, keeping it rolled up until a photographer asked to see it. When one woman unrolled it, a white man jumped up, stormed over to them, and grabbed the poster to rip it up.

The poster was merely a picture of Rosa Parks. The man attempted to rip up a photo of a civil rights pioneer, one glorified by history books for her courageous activism. After this happened, the women were escorted out. Thankfully, the man was eventually arrested on assault charges. You can watch the incident:



Cara at The Curvature commented on this appropriately:

It's worth noting that the man who stole and vandalized the sign was arrested, and the woman who was the victim of this crime was let go. But we've still got police jumping to conclusions about who is to blame, and not instinctively choosing the white guy. And we've also got a mob mentality going on. Most of the audience members who cheered might not have even known what was on the sign. But if they did know what was on it, they cheered destruction of an image of a civil rights hero. And if they didn't, they cheered the destruction of the sign simply based on who the woman holding it was. On what she looked like. Either way, I'm pretty damn sure that's racism, and white entitlement.

These town halls are putting liberals and conservatives together in a confined space where tensions are high, and so people are using these spaces as soapboxes, where they can publicly display racist views or anti-choice sentiments:



Some pretty horrible stuff is going on at these town halls, and it's making me very nervous.

At 77 years-old, the "liberal lion of the Senate" has lost his battle with brain cancer. Ted Kennedy represented the state of Massachusetts, and was the second most senior member of the Senate. His death is an incredible shame, but Sen. Kennedy lived a long life of activism and making the world a better place through politics.

During his lifetime, Kennedy was an advocate for the rights of women, GLBT people, immigrants, minorities, and people with disabilities. As a believer of reproductive justice, he received a 100% pro-choice record from NARAL, and he was key to the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act, and many others. In August, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom (the nation's highest civilian honor) by President Obama.

At the 2008 Democratic National Convention, Senator Kennedy made a surprise appearance (not too long after undergoing surgery for a brain tumor) and delivered a speech to a teary-eyed and welcoming audience.


His seat in the Senate will certainly be an enormous one to fill, and I hope we can properly honor his many achievements.

Like to play "girly" games on your iPhone? Well man up, wussy boy! You best be deleting those pussy games ASAP and play some real games (meaning ones with blood and violence) or else you run the risk of being called Susie and other girl names, which is pretty much the worst thing a guy can possibly be called. Wouldn't want anyone thinking you're a woman, would you?!?

In Mali, thousands are protesting against a proposed law that would give women more marriage rights, including granting inheritance rights to children born without married parents, changing the legal age for marriage to 18, and replacing "paternal power" with "parental authority" in family law.

According to protesters, this new law is against Islam and is based on the values of Western civilization. Hadja Sapiato Dembele of the National Union of Muslim Women's Associations told BBC:

We have to stick to the Koran... A man must protect his wife, a wife must obey her husband.

Of course I'm in favor of women having rights that they deserve, but it's an extremely tough situation when religion is involved. About 90% of the Mali population is Muslim, so the chance of this law passing doesn't look too good.

In the latest issue of Glamour magazine, those who turned to page 194 saw this photo:


According to the editor-in-chief of Glamour:

It's a photo that measures all of three by three inches in our September issue, but the letters about it started to flood my inbox literally the day Glamour hit newsstands. (As editor-in-chief, I pay attention to this stuff!) "I am gasping with delight...I love the woman on p 194!" said one...then another, and another, andanotherandanotherandanother. So...who is she? And what on earth is so special about her?

Here's the deal: The picture wasn't of a celebrity. It wasn't of a supermodel. It was of a woman sitting in her underwear with a smile on her face and a belly that looks...wait for it...normal.

Women loved seeing size 12 Lizzi Miller in Glamour because they were finally seeing someone they could relate to - someone who didn't make them feel terrible about themselves because they were reminded that they are just as beautiful.

I'm impressed that Glamour is doing something that is (sadly) so rare in the world of fashion magazines, and it doesn't even stop there. An article entitled "How to Never Have Another Fat Day" seems like it will be filled with shallow tips on how to "dress thin" but is actually a series of photos of a curvy woman over 30 days accompanied with her thoughts about her body over the same time period, showing that her body never changes, but she still experiences her good days and her "fat days." It's meant to show that you don't always have to lose weight to love your body, that perhaps it's more important to think positively.

But despite Glamour's good points, I still see conflicting messages. It took me all of ten seconds to log onto their website and find articles entitled "3 Surprising Fat-Burning Foods" and "9 Things That Might Be Making You Fat" accompanied by photos like these:


...As if they're trying to tell us, "Don't look like this!" Once in awhile, fashion magazines will feature slightly larger models to appease their plus-sized readers and "fight" beauty standards, but what always remains consistent is their hypocrisy. You cannot tell us that big is beautiful while shoving diet tips in our faces. The Bust magazine blog summed it up in an April post: "With a few awesome exceptions, advertising, TV, and the rest of the media is still dominated by impossible-to-attain stick figures." And with fashion magazines making only half-assed attempts to be inclusive of real women, that's how it's going to stay.

I'm sorry, I really just need to take a minute to say one thing about people having a conniption over Michelle Obama wearing (HOLY CRAP ARE YOU READY FOR THIS) SHORTS:

WHO THE HELL CARES?!

Give it up, already! The way the media is acting you would think the First Lady stepped off the plane naked for crying out loud. It's hot as hell in Arizona; you would be crazy not to wear shorts. I know people feel the need to put her on a pedestal and expect her to be classy and beautiful and perfect at all times, but not even the striking Michelle Obama can do that. Time to get over it.