The XX Factor: What women really think.

One Smart List, Fifty Nude Women

Hey Melinda, when you get off your fainting couch, John Kerry did NOT give that speech—not in the memorable, reimagining-family-values way that Judith is imagining. And yes you're right, Rachael, these issues are divisive, and I guess I have to reluctantly agree that it wouldn't be in the Democrats' interest if Hillary or Obama decided to have a Big Gender Moment. Which is why, as Dahlia and Melinda started out by acknowledging, we're not having it. But I applaud Judith's list, especially in its attention to economics and employment, which never quite seem to get their due and catch on fire, and so leave two-working parent families scrambling to keep it all together. I'd like to think that someday the country will be ready for and will find the candidate who will make universal preschool seem as important as saving Bear Stearns.

On a lighter note, earlier this week I watched Fifty Nude Women by Margot Roth of New Yorker Talk of the Town fame and marveled at its winsome playfulness. The women in this 12-minute film seem entirely at ease in their bodies, of all varieties. I'm with Jezebel in that the video made me think about weight but in a much less tedious way that usual. The curves and rolls and wrinkles and scars and stretch marks signaled vulnerability and also a record of lives fully lived.