From Women's eNews: Women's Equality Day today commemorates U.S. women's suffrage. It also marks the date the ERA was proposed in 1923. Laura Callow's account of suffrage and ERA's "invisible enemies" includes a look at today's insurance lobby.

The New York Times Sunday Magazine devoted its Aug. 23 issue to "changing the lives of women and girls in the developing world," -- including a centerpiece article by Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn.

Women's eNews correspondent Aunohita Mojumdar writes: "While Thursday's elections are sometimes hailed as another step in Afghanistan's slow march towards democracy, a large section of the country's women stand in danger of being disenfranchised through a combination of increasing violence and a resurgence of conservative attitudes inhibiting women's political involvement."

Playwright and activist Eve Ensler writes on The Huffington Post: "What governor - once an actor, then a Terminator, married to a major women's leader - has the chutzpah to wipe out 100 percent of the domestic violence budget of California, the biggest state in the country, with a single grope of his veto pen?"

Rachel Reid writes about women right's in Afghanistan for the op-ed page of The Washington Post: "There have been some bright spots: Women now hold seats in the Afghan parliament, and millions of girls have been able to attend primary school. But educational gains plummet when girls hit secondary school, with just 4 percent of female students reaching 10th grade. Violence against women is endemic; women in public life are regularly threatened, and several have been assassinated."

Mary Beth Sheridan at The Washington Post writes: "[Hillary] Clinton's just-concluded 11-day trip to Africa has sent the clearest signal yet that she intends to make women's rights one of her signature issues and a higher priority than ever before in American diplomacy."

Bob Herbert writes for an op-ed in the New York Times, "We've seen this tragic ritual so often that it has the feel of a formula. A guy is filled with a seething rage toward women and has easy access to guns. The result: mass slaughter."

Stephanie McCrummen writes for the Washington Post, "For the women of eastern Congo, a U.S.-backed Congolese military operation meant to save them from abusive rebels has turned into a nightmare of its own. An already staggering epidemic of rape has become markedly worse since the January deployment of tens of thousands of poorly trained, poorly paid Congolese soldiers, with people in front-line villages such as this one saying the soldiers are not so much hunting rebels as hunting women."

T. Rees Shapiro writes in the Washington Post, "Gerald H.F. Gardner, 83, a geophysicist and mathematician whose statistical research and expert testimony led to the U.S. Supreme Court decision that eliminated sex bias in newspaper want ads, died July 25 at a hospital in Pittsburgh. He had leukemia."

In the Huffington Post, Anna Deavere Smith uses the recent Gates/Crowley incident as a launching point to discuss many surrounding issues. "But this teachable moment has been framed by the media as more than a moment about policing. It is supposedly about 'race.' The teachable moment taught us perhaps to look more closely."

Jaclyn Friedman writes for the American Prospect, "Last week, a lawsuit was filed accusing football player Ben Roethlisberger of sexual assault. In the blink of an eye, sports apologists turned the focus on the case from the athlete to the alleged victim."

Viji Sundaram writes for the Tribuna Newspaper, "Calling it one of the best options the Obama administration has made available to battered women around the world, women's advocacy groups in the United States lauded the administration for making it possible for these women to begin a new life in this country."

C. Nicole Mason's commentary in Women's eNews begins, "I suppose it's a good thing Judge Sonya Sotomayor's confirmation hearings have been a little boring and uneventful. I keep waiting for the scandalous hidden love affair to emerge, but nothing. No affair, unpaid taxes or skeletons to derail her confirmation."

Many NOW activists were interviewed by the Washington Post outside of the Sotomayor hearing, including NOW President-elect Terry O'Neill.

Julie Rovner writes for NPR's Morning Edition, "More than nearly any other issue, abortion has the potential to throw a wrench into the already fragile gears of the major health care overhaul now starting to churn on Capitol Hill."