So I take my eye off Planet Palin for a half a minute—and by the time I get back, Dahlia has sworn off the stuff altogether, and the rest of you are acting like what Barack Obama said about lipstick is no big oink; are you kidding? I am so outraged, I am ONLY going to communicate in down-home phrases re: pigs from now on, in a kind of sarcastic ...

Emily, I think you are right that it’s always going to be a huge mistake to attack Sarah Palin for personal or family decisions—even if she is relentlessly cashing in on them. Images like this one don’t help, either. As Melinda observes, any references at all to Palin’s gender will net out to her benefit, even when the underlying criticism is ...

I haven’t posted yet on the Sarah Palin Show, mainly because it’s all just been too darn entertaining to stop snorting and say anything intelligent. Last week I persuaded a twentysomething family friend to tune into the Obama speech by telling her that political conventions were no different from reality TV. My young friend has been texting me ...

Dahlia, I'm also psyched at Rachel Maddow's ascension to the sweet spot at MSNBC, right after Keith Olbermann's top-rated 8 p.m. show. I love that Maddow is not just a non-Barbie doll; she's a 35-year-old out lesbian, with short-cropped hair and a straightforwardly dykey self-presentation (well, dykey for television; MSNBC does load on the mascara ...

Props to Rachel Maddow for scoring her own primetime show. And props to MSNBC for recognizing and rewarding monster talent. Maddow is whip-smart, funny, original, and living proof that women needn't spit and hiss to succeed on TV. May the road rise up to meet her. 

Meghan,Dahlia has noted the painful fact that there is simply no good way for divorced families to accommodate two working parents (a product of a changed economy more than of feminism, I would argue, but that's for another day). So let me take issue with blaming feminism for Clark Rockefeller's kidnapping his daughter—or rather, for treating men ...

I once tried to rationalize spending more than $40 on a set of unmentionables to my mother and less-fashion-inclined little sister. ''Look, if I don't have quality underwear, what else do I have?'' I recall saying. My sister told me I was being ridiculous, and that I was wasting my money. My mother suggested in no uncertain tones that the ...

The latest development in Victoria Secret's inspiring e-mail solicitation campaign comes in the form of a subject line: ''The Bras You Can't Live Without. Period.'' My sister forwarded it to me with the accompanying note: ''After reflecting on this subject line, I understand now why some portend that feminism is dead.'' I'm struck ...

While we're in Jezebel land, who can resist a little rubbernecking? Tracie and Moe of the site recently made a spectacle of themselves onstage in Manhattan at the Thinking and Drinking series put together by Lizz Winstead of The Daily Show, all captured on video, alas for them. Winstead is furious (clips there and everywhere), and the whole ...

Juliet, you're right that what's most offensive about the Jezebels' discussion of Polanski's rape of a 13-year-old is its glibness; the very title of their post, suggesting that exploiting a child might not be as bad as making a movie about that exploitation, is just galling. Sorry, a 44-year-old having sex with a drugged 13-year-old is never ...