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?"
Read More...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."
Read More...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."
Read More...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."
Read More...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."
Read More...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."
Read More...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."
Read More...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."
Read More...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."
Read More...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."
Read More...Many NOW activists were interviewed by the Washington Post outside of the Sotomayor hearing, including NOW President-elect Terry O'Neill.
Read More...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."
Read More...On NPR's website, Jennifer Pozner writes: "Think carefully: can you remember any passionate TV news debates about whether journalists or voters might want to get naked with Dick Cheney? No? Good. Because such an insulting, irrelevant topic would—and should—never be considered newsworthy. Unfortunately, this sort of drivel frequently passes for journalism when the politician at the center of the story is female."
Read More...Emily Bazelon writes for the New York Times about her interview with Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. "As the only woman working alongside eight men -- Ginsburg has a unique perspective on what's at stake in Sotomayor's nomination. I sat down with the 76-year-old justice last week to talk about women on the bench and their effect on the dynamics and decisions of the court."
Read More...Dave Zirn writes for The Nation: "Women athletes find themselves in the same vise they have been in for a century: with sexism on one side and homophobia on the other. Accepting this sexist construct has become conventional wisdom for how to market and sell women's sports: sex, and specifically hetero sex, sells."
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