The XX Factor: What women really think.

Palin's "Going Rogue" and Bristol's Pregnancy

Emily, I too have been reading the dribbles emerging from the soon-to-be-published Palin memoir. You're right that we mine her for insight on sexual politics, and I was particularly intrigued with the information that the AP published about Palin's reaction to Bristol's pregnancy and the McCain campaign's treatment of that pregnancy. According to the AP article, Palin felt that the statement prepared by McCain's team about Bristol "glamorized and endorsed her daughter's situation." As opposed to what? Debasing and shaming her daughter's situation? Making her into a cautionary tale? The attempt at making Bristol an abstinence spokeswoman who appeared on multiple national morning shows was far more glamorizing than any statements the McCain campaign made on her behalf ... (Read the rest of this article in DoubleX.)

The Supreme Court Is Afraid of Gossip Girls and Boys

A post from DoubleX intern Jessica Dweck:

In an Onion-esque piece of news this week, the New York Times reported that Justice Anthony Kennedy ordered a student newspaper to “tidy up” its coverage of his recent appearance at a high school assembly. Kennedy, an ardent protector of First Amendment rights—and apparently, irony–allowed the young journalists to attend the event on the condition that his office would pre-approve any articles written about him.

Why would Justice Kennedy do such a thing? Two reasons. First, the Bill of Rights protects speech in part to encourage transparency and create a Millian slurry of ideas in which the creamy globs of truth eventually float to the top. An inaccurate or misleading quotation by reporters with exclusive access to Kennedy's speech would be nearly impossible to correct. Second, and perhaps more fundamentally, the Supreme Court has a deep-seated interest in practicing defensive PR ... (Read the rest of this article in DoubleX.)

Would You Take a Pill That Prevents Cancer? Unlikely.

Gina Kolata points out, once again, that diet and exercise have not been shown to affect breast cancer rates. Massive, well-run observational studies and randomized controlled trials turn up nothing. This finding appears to be unacceptable; popular culture rejects it utterly. Women’s magazines continue to preach the holy gospel of five fruits and vegetables a day. Doctors continue to tell patients at high risk of breast cancer that diet matters. The director of one of the (fruitless?) studies tells Kolata that doctors need to “rethink the studies.” Diet and exercise “are likely quite important, but we just aren’t getting the answers” ... (Read the rest of this article in DoubleX.)

Quitting Complaining Cold Turkey

A post from DoubleX Staff:

This morning, I told my kids about the no complaining project, pledged to try it—and then promptly launched into a description of an expense form I had to fill out that was driving me crazy. My husband reminded me of my promise. But my 9-year-old son Eli pointed out that I wasn't whining—I was explaining a problem, and this should be called an "explaint." I like it. I also found that, duly categorized, my rant turned more rational and moderate. I worked myself out of a lather rather than into one ... (Read the rest of this article in DoubleX.)

Women Don't "Forget" To Have Children

A post from DoubleX writer Amanda Marcotte:

While conceding that Huffington Post might write headlines for its celebrity bloggers, I still have to admit that I knew no good would come from an article titled "Don't Forget To Have Kids." This myth of the woman who "forgets" to have kids is so common that we don't stop to think about how sexist it really is, since the implication is that women are prone to such heights of stupidity that they could forget about the existence of marriage and babies, even in a world that has multiple cable channels (especially TLC) dedicated to marriage and babies. If you think about the myth of "forgetting" to have kids even for a moment, it falls apart, because the more common problem is forgetting to use contraception, and having kids because of it ... (Read the rest of this article in DoubleX.)

Still Palin Time

Intra-party warfare starring Sarah Palin—who can resist the leaks about the jagged bits of her new book, Going Rogue? She makes the bizarro accusation that the McCain campaign stuck her with a $50,000 legal bill for her own vetting. (Convenient confusion over the cost of defending herself against ethical accusations in Alaska?) She goes after Katie Couric while at the same time claiming the McCain people said “right on” about her first interview with Couric. (Blinded by those lights from Russia?) She was awed by the clothes and told they were “part of the convention.” That one actually sounds plausible to me ... (Read the rest of this article in DoubleX.)

You Can't Adopt a Child From Syria—But Angelina Jolie Can

A post from DoubleX writer KJ Dell'Antonia:

Who knows what to believe when it comes to celebrity "journalism," but it's apparently been confirmed that Angelina Jolie will adopt a child from Syria—something described on the website of the U.S. embassy in Damascus as "a difficult process and often an impossible one." In many countries, celebrity status probably has little affect on adoption matters, but in a country where adoption is "essentially illegal," the perverse effect is that anything pretty much goes—if you've got the required currency ... (Read the rest of this article in DoubleX.)

Bamboo Textiles: Eco-Fashion or Greenwashing?

A post from DoubleX writer Erika Kawalek:

I’ve always regarded “eco-fashion” with a suspicious eye, telling myself that if somebody truly cared about the environment they would be good stewards or tinkerers and make use what was already around—not support the manufacturing of more and more ultimately disposable crap labeled with vague tags conveying the object’s wishy-washy “cleanly produced” narrative. Surely taking care of one’s possessions would have a more positive impact, environmentally speaking, than shopping for more stuff ... (Read the rest of this article in DoubleX.)

The Stupak Amendment: A Recipe for Disaster

A post from DoubleX writer Linda Hirshman:

Relax and enjoy it, ladies. Here comes the Progressive Democratic Party with another plan for you to take care of its needs.

I don’t actually care all that much about the women who will have to pay for their own abortions after Representative Stupak and the others added their amendment. There are only a few hundred thousand insured women needing abortions, compared with the millions of really poor women trying to buy their constitutional rights after the (Democratic) Congress took abortion out of Medicaid in 1976 with the Hyde Amendment. Hey, women rich or lucky enough to have private insurance, welcome to the crowd of the people who can’t protect their interests (“women”). Your fate was sealed when the Democrats sold out poor women 30 years ago. And women let them do it ... (Read the rest of this article in DoubleX.)

Ft. Hood Shooting is Less Jihad Than Part of a Pattern of American School and Workplace Shootings

A post from DoubleX writer KJ Dell'Antonia:

Emily and Marjorie, don't you think we ask ourselves different questions about Major Nidal Hasan because he wasn't just a Muslim or jihadist, he was also a U.S. citizen and a member of the armed forces? It's easy to reduce the 9/11 terrorists to pure villains. Because Hasan was truly one of us—born here of an immigrant family, like 20 percent of the population—this feels different.

Both Dorothy Rabinowitz and David Brooks fault the media coverage of the Fort Hood shooting as a willful avoidance of the obvious. Emily agreed with Rabinowitz, saying that we as a nation find it "more comfortable to look away from his religious beliefs for an alternate theory." Brooks claimed that looking beyond Islamic extremism to the other factors affecting Hasan "sought to reduce a heinous act to social maladjustment" ... (Read the rest of this article in DoubleX.)

Stupak Amendment Reveals Fault Lines in Feminist Movement

In reading all the accounts from fellow pro-choice women—like Emily's from earlier this week—bemoaning the Stupak abortion restrictions, I noticed that many of the women who were outraged by the concessions of the health care bill used the terms feminist and pro-choice almost interchangably. Over at Salon, Kate Harding writes, "Feminists have been up in arms about the latest assault on access to abortion," but if you take one look at the website for the group Feminists for Life, one of the first things you see is the banner proclaiming "Women the Winners in U.S. House Amendment Vote" ... (Read the rest of this article in DoubleX.)

Maybe the Military Is Inept, Not Politically Correct

Emily,

When you say: “Surely the general doesn't mean that in our quest for diversity in the military, we embrace fanatics in our midst,” you're surely not suggesting, are you, that military generals would purposely sacrifice the lives of dozens of soldiers, simply for the sake of political correctness? I mean, there is a middle ground between withholding judgment and “embracing fanatics in our midst,” isn’t there?

I don’t believe for a minute that these generals would risk the lives of 1.3 million U.S. military personnel on active duty (another 1.1 million serve in the National Guard and Reserve forces.) if they thought Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, or any of the 10,000 to 20,000 Muslims who serve in the U.S. armed forces, posed a terrorist risk ... (Read the rest of this article in DoubleX.)

Anti-Gay Protesters Target Obama Girls at School

A post from DoubleX writer KJ Dell'Antonia:

I'm sure that President Obama and his wife have done their best to prepare their daughters for the idea that there are crazy people out there whose hatred for their father extends to them (although it's not a job I envy). But it's difficult to prepare for this, posted on the website (a site so offensive that I didn't link to it) of the Westboro "Baptist" Church, which has organized an anti-gay protest outside of Sidwell Friends, the school the Obama girls attend: "Quakers?! Are you frigging kidding me? You pretend to be all non-violent, and you allow the most bloody, deceitful, evil, murderous bastard and his shemale sidekick to place their satanic spawn within your four walls" ... (Read the rest of this article in DoubleX.)

Was Nidal Hasan a Terrorist?

Dorothy Rabinowitz in the Wall Street Journal today has a bracing piece about the almost surreal disconnection between what’s increasingly clear about the Ft. Hood killer, Maj. Nidal Hasan, and what officials and some commentators seem unable to acknowledge. As she writes: “It was an act of terrorism by a man with a record of expressing virulent, anti-American, pro-jihadist sentiments. All were conspicuous signs of danger his Army superiors chose to ignore.” She quotes Army Chief of Staff Gen. George Casey Jr. as saying, “"This terrible event would be an even greater tragedy if our diversity becomes a casualty." As Mona Charen points out, the idea of a witch hunt is false and dangerous. Surely the general doesn't mean that in our quest for diversity in the military, we embrace fanatics in our midst. Rooting them out has to be to the benefit of the brave, patriot Muslims who serve. Ralph Peters makes the larger point that, “By protecting the fanatics, we betray the peaceful majority of our Muslim citizens, leaving them afraid to speak out, since the feds shield the fanatics in charge of their mosques and communities” ... (Read the rest of this article in DoubleX.)

Is the Spanish Language Sexist?

Nobody cops to “political correctness” anymore; policing language is what the other guy does. The rest of us are just, you know, telling it like it is. But playing PC-policeman officer is a relatively peaceful and noninvasive way to nudge the culture in a particular direction, a form of persuasion in a democracy built on consensus. And according to the authors of a little study in the November issue of the Journal Sex Roles, switching from one form of speaking to another might shift your inner liberal just as quickly.

The study authors wanted to see whether languages that assign genderto nouns, like Spanish and French, might implicitly encourage “opposition or hostility to extending equal opportunity to women, especially in terms of work-related issues” ... (Read the rest of this article in DoubleX.)

Childbirth Becomes an Interactive Experience

Those Who Oppose Abortions Should Not Have to Pay For Them

Emily and Meredith, you’ll be completely unsurprised to hear that I greeted the passage of the Stupak amendment with more of a cheer than a groan. However unfair it might be that well-off women have more access to abortion than low-income women, the solution should not be to compel those who are morally opposed to abortion to pay for them with their tax dollars. Just because the government recognizes a right to something does not mean that the government must also provide for it. If you can indulge me for a moment in a mildly absurd thought experiment (with emphasis on absurd and thought experiment), how would you feel about a program that provided guns to those who cannot afford them?

When this topic came up in August, Meredith wrote an article for Slate proposing a private fund to cover the cost of abortion for poor women. Citing data from the Guttmacher Institute, she wrote that it would cost $311 million a year to pay for abortions for low-income women. Compared with the numbers that are getting tossed around in the House and the Senate in the health care debate, that’s not that much money ... (Read the rest of this article in DoubleX.)

Dispatch from the FLDS Polygamist's Trial: What Does It Mean To Be a Willing Child Bride?

A guest post from DoubleX writer Sonia Smith: 

For the past two weeks, I’ve been camped out in a west Texas courtroom watching the trial of fundamentalist Mormon polygamist Raymond Merril Jessop unfold. Sentencing begins today, and Jessop could face up to 20 years in prison for impregnating his underage “celestial” wife in 2004. The victim, 16 at the time of the sexual assault, never took the stand, and all the evidence in the case seemed to indicate that she was Jessop’s willing bride. But what does that even mean in an environment where girls are conditioned from birth to believe that marrying an older, powerful man is the highest honor?

In the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, girls are taught that being a plural wife and mother is the only way to reach the highest rung of heaven. In this atmosphere, getting married at 14 or 15 becomes the next logical step in a girl’s life. They are into placed in marriages—"sealed for time and all eternity"—whenever the sect’s prophet deems them worthy, regardless of their age, according to the testimony of former FLDS member Rebecca Musser. Once married, girls must show perfect obedience to their husbands, who are viewed as their only connection to God ... (Read the rest of this article in DoubleX.)

The GOP Must Choose Between Sexism and Women

A post from DoubleX writer Amanda Marcotte:

Meredith Shiner and Glenn Thrush at Politico ask the question: Why does the GOP have a "woman problem"—i.e., a problem recruiting female candidates? This should be one of those simple answers to stupid questions situations, because the easy answer is that the Republican party has become the clearinghouse for straight white men angry that they have to share a little power with everyone else. Running too many women, especially women who don't play sexpot or crazed right-wing shill (Sarah Palin and Michelle Bachmann, respectively), would send the skittish angry white men of the party fleeing, hands over their ever-vulnerable man parts ... (Read the rest of this article in DoubleX.)

Stupak's Abortion Amendment: Dividing Women Between Haves and Have-Nots

Since the 1976 Hyde Amendment, which barred federally funded Medicaid from paying for abortions, the whittling-away of reproductive rights has almost always affected poor women much more than better-off women. We have in this country a right to abortion that’s relatively easy to access if 1) you can pay for it, and 2) you live outside the large mostly rural swaths of fly-over country where abortion clinics are vanishingly rare. The geographic gaps (here's a map) come back to affordability, too. If you have the money to travel hundreds of miles and stay overnight, then you can exercise your right to have an abortion mo matter where you live. If not, then not.

And now in this same dreary tradition we have the Stupak amendment in the House health care bill ... (Read the rest of this article in DoubleX.)