“sufferin’ sappho!”

Whilst clearing out her apartment in preparation for her upcoming German exodus, Carita stumbled upon some pretty freaking fantabulous Wonder Woman stationery that she graciously willed to me. Booya!

(coming soon to a mailbox near you)

This is insanely important

Ok. So.

Back on August 21, Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt went ahead with a rule change that requires that any health organization receiving federal money certify in writing that their employees have the right to refuse to assist in any way with medical services they deem objectionable.

While the issues this raises for abortion rights activists are pretty obvious, the ramifications go deeper than that. The rule gives health providers clearance to refuse any medical treatment or procedure that they may find morally or religiously objectionable. It opens the door for pharmacists to refuse to fill contraceptive prescriptions, and for doctors to refuse rape victims the morning-after pill as a matter of “conscience.”

(Perhaps the only thing more horrifying than this rule is that the revised version that was put in place is less horrifying than the original, which explicitly redefined pregnancy as beginning after conception and before implantation. Thank Senators Hillary Clinton and Patty Murray for that text change.)

Hopefully this makes you as angry as this makes me, and hopefully this anger leads you to write an official statement objecting to the rule–something that is allowed for 30 days after the rule’s inception. (Toward the bottom of the entry linked above, there are two links you can follow to make such a statement.)

30 days happens on September 25, this Thursday.

babies and bathwater

So, by now, y’all have heard that VP nominee Sarah Palin’s 17-year-old daughter is pregnant.

While I respect the classiness and tact of Senator Obama’s strident assertions that this bit of news has no place in the campaign, I also have to say that I disagree for this reason: Palin’s press statement frames her daughter’s decision to keep her child and marry the father as just that–her decision.

Meanwhile, Palin herself is anti-choice in all situations (including rape and incest, the two areas that generally give all but the most rabid anti-abortionists some pause) while actively promoting abstinence-only education.

You aren’t allowed to extol the virtues of a “choice” that would no longer exist were you to run the show.

Defending Rachel Dawes

In his review of The Dark Knight, Washington Post writer (and Pulitzer Prize winner) Stephen Hunter has this to say about Maggie Gyllenhaal’s performance:

Gyllenhaal is perhaps too ironic for the Batman world. With those perpetually knowing eyes, she doesn’t really fit. She has too many dimensions, is too real-worldy — her Rachel Dawes seems like the kind of girl who got straight A’s but also had the lead in the musical, went to Radcliffe and ended up in New York, doing something “interesting.” Holmes, much more limited and perhaps a bit more beautiful, was better cast.

Now, call me a feminist crazy, but I want to know where the rule is that says the female love interest to the superhero has to be one-dimensional and “limited.” Particularly when the superhero in question is the Nolan/Bale Batman, a dude who is nothing if not complex. If he doesn’t have “too many dimensions” to exist in Gotham City, why is it that Gyllenhaal’s Rachel does?

(And the quotes around “interesting” belie just a wee bit of passive aggression.)

The swooning sex, pt. 2

Thankfully, Caitlin Gibson and Rachel Manteuffel managed to say everything I wanted to in response to Charlotte Allen’s offensive, asinine, and decidedly unfunny op-ed whilst saving me the hassle of trying to articulate it. Thank you, ladies!

(Though, after reading Allen’s flippant, oft-contradictory remarks on the Washington Post’s open forum yesterday, I almost felt bad for her. The woman is all sorts of conflicted.)

The swooning sex

File this op-ed in the “I don’t even know where to begin” folder.

There are so many layers of fucked-upp-itude going on here that I can’t even bring myself to write articulately about it. Perhaps this is an unfortunate result of my reduced female brain capacity.

tramping it up.

Apparently, sexual double-standards start sometime around first grade:

Scarlett letter H for hhhharlot!