The XX Factor

In a book published posthumously last month, psychotherapist and author Elisabeth Young-Bruehl posits that American society has failed children to the point that prejudice against them deserves its own “ism.” That’s right, along with racism and sexism and homophobia (not a literal –ism, but a figurative one), we need to add childism.

I was skeptical, given that parents today are so likely to be scolded for overparenting—that we’re helicopter parents, that we’re too indulgent, that we keep our kids overscheduled. At the same time, I suspected that the book had to have a bit more heft than was implied by a snarky Jezebel post headlined “Not Letting Kids Have Their Way is Destroying America,” which implied that Young-Bruehl believed bedtimes are bad,  children should be given pet dinosaurs, and “everyone should ride gleaming white horses with pink manes to work instead of cars.”

But rather than advocating parents raise their kids to be Veruca Salts, Childism: Confronting Prejudice Against Children is primarily concerned about child abuse—violence against children, sexual abuse, and neglect.

Young-Bruehl points to the social breakdowns of the 1960s and early 1970s as the advent of this –ism. I wondered, though, why Young-Bruehl targeted such a recent start date. If childism, as she puts it, happens when people “mistreat children in order to fulfill certain needs through them … or assert themselves when they feel their authority has been questioned,” if childism is when adults treat children like property, why not point to the 19^th century, when slave children really were property and child laborers worked in factories during the Industrial Revolution?

Best I can tell, the answer to that question is that Richard Nixon wasn’t president back then. Young-Bruehl begins her book with a didactic, chapter-long definition of prejudice, and then tells the heart-breaking story of one of her patients, a child of divorced parents who was bounced between homes as a child and was sexually abused by an older stepbrother. Only a little bit later do we see what Young-Bruehl is getting at. If only Nixon hadn’t vetoed the Comprehensive Child Development Act in 1971, the United States would have had universal daycare in the 1970s, which could have kept children safe from abuse by baby-sitters. Similarly, Ronald Reagan, through his tax cuts and efforts at privatization, was almost singlehandedly responsible for the 1980s’ urban decay, the de facto resegregation of inner-city schools, and an “era of frantic prison-building and incarceration—including the incarceration of youths and even children, especially African Americans.” (Wow, I don’t remember the federal government ever being efficient enough to wreak so much havoc so quickly.)

Young-Bruehl’s book is not merely a diatribe against conservative politics. She expresses disdain for the drugged-out, free-love permissiveness of the late 1960s that left some children being raised by selfish, neglectful baby boomers. And she’s no particular fan of the way that Social Security has lifted the elderly out of poverty only at the expense of future generations. But her solutions are predictable and overly simplistic: more social programs, more government involvement in the family life. Child abuse is a serious problem, and Young-Bruehl deserves credit for taking a serious look at it. But her solutions are mere wishful thinking.

After several days of blowback for the decision to pull grant money from Planned Parenthood, the founder and board of directors from the Susan G. Komen for the cure breast cancer charity has apologized and vowed to amend their rules. For those of you not following the controversy, news surfaced earlier this week that Komen pulled grants from Planned Parenthood because they were under an investigation by Congress. However, that investigation is clearly politically motivated: it is led by Florida Rep. Cliff Stearns, who is deeply pro-life and a backer of anti-abortion pregnancy resource centers. Here's the language from the Komen press release about their new policy:

We have been distressed at the presumption that the changes made to our funding criteria were done for political reasons or to specifically penalize Planned Parenthood. They were not. Our original desire was to fulfill our fiduciary duty to our donors by not funding grant applications made by organizations under investigation. We will amend the criteria to make clear that disqualifying investigations must be criminal and conclusive in nature and not political. That is what is right and fair.

The result is that Planned Parenthood will be eligible for future grants and the Komen foundation will fulfill existing grants. Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards responded to the Komen change with her own press release in which she says:

We are enormously grateful that the Komen Foundation has clarified its grantmaking criteria, and we look forward to continuing our partnership with Komen partners, leaders and volunteers. What these past few days have demonstrated is the deep resolve all Americans share in the fight against cancer, and we honor those who are at the helm of this battle.

The question remains, though, whether or not Komen's actions have irrevocably hurt their organization. I would argue that they have. Though most people will forget the kerfuffle by Monday (We've got the Super Bowl and the GOP primary to preoccupy us), Komen has already been politicized where they were once neutral. Even post-apology, pro-choice donors may be wary of the foundation, and if they're committed to eradicating cancer, will find another organization to give to. Pro-life donors may be infuriated by the walk-back, and, the most thorough of them will find organizations that don't give a penny to Planned Parenthood if they want to make a charitable contribution. TBOGG at Firedoglake has a good explanation about how nonprofits get their donations, and they make the smart point that Komen's biggest mistake is that they've tarnished their previously untouchable image. Before, coming out against Komen could be framed as not caring about women's health (despite the many problems with the organization that have nothing to do with Planned Parenthood). With this controversy, those pink ribbons have a muddier hue.

GOP Presidential hopeful Mitt Romney is often criticized for being a bit bland, so when he mounted a Minnesota campaign stage on Wednesday sporting a jaunty dash of glitter in his usually plain hair, viewers might understandably have taken the glimmers as an attempt at a livelier image and not—as was intended—an act of protest. Indeed, Romney was the most recent target of the emergent protest form known as “glitter bombing,” in which activists disrupt proceedings by showering glitter on the object of their ire. I’ve written about the tactic here before with regard to the case of sex advice columnist Dan Savage, who has been repeatedly attacked for statements that critics consider to be transphobic or otherwise un-PC. But now I’d like to take on the glitter bomb phenomenon directly: it’s time that this childish and ineffective protest stunt be permanently defused.

Most glitter historians locate the start of the “bomb” repurposing in the ambush of Newt Gingrich back in May of 2010, when an a gay rights activist hollered “Feel the rainbow, Newt!” as he doused the man in sparkles. Since then, other outspoken conservatives (as well as the very not-conservative Savage) have received similar treatment, catching the attention of the news cycle for a day or two and then dispersing into the air. Observers have quibbled over whether the bombings amount to physical assault, but thus far no victim has pursued legal action. Meanwhile, supporters of causes the activists purport to represent (gay and trans rights; with Romney, reportedly immigration reform) acknowledge the attacks with little more than a chuckle. Everyone dusts off and goes home.

Back in the beginning, I was generally supportive of the anti-homophobic glitter bombings; they appeared to be a lighthearted, drag-inflected attempt at undermining the moral seriousness of their targets. But as the trend has continued and the operatives grown more self-important, I’ve come to view glitter bombing with increasing chagrin due to its tantrum-like tenor and inability to accomplish more than minor annoyance. In a culture reawakened to the power of civil disobedience by way of Occupy Wall Street, new forms of protest are bound to proliferate; but that doesn’t mean that all deserve to survive.

In the taxonomy of protest types, glitter bombing is an odd bird. Its closest cousin is a category of actions sometimes called “tactical frivolity,” which involves using humor, wit and surrealism to protest or disrupt a politically serious mark; but given the aggressive tenor and pat humourlessness of glitter bombing, that label doesn’t quite fit. And because activists can’t usually manage to get more than a few words out during the hurried delivery of the payload, the act doesn’t reach the level of civil discourse or direct action. In other words, glitter bombing does not speak the same language as a march, occupation or even a petition—it’s just an angry tweet in comparsion to those actions’ grand manifesto.  

To be fair, not all protest gestures need aspire to the same level of impact (death by a thousand cuts is sometimes a great strategy). But this is where the actual form of glitter bombing becomes troublesome—what does glitter mean, exactly? When animal rights operatives throw fake blood on fur coats, the symbolism is clear: this life-giving fluid was spilled out of the desire for extravagant clothing. But when gay or trans people are injured by society, do they shed meaningless confetti? Glitter: a party accessory, Ke$ha’s drug of choice, the stuff children dump all over garbage-destined handicrafts; is this superfluous material really appropriate for the protest of such crucial issues?

Sure, glitter may be a chore to clean up, but the association of LGBT and other struggles with annoying specks doesn’t sound like a win to me. Glitter bombing may have been fierce for a minute, but like all protest movements (see: OWS), it must evolve and innovate or else risk irrelevance. When even fellow travelers are tiring of the antics, you know it’s time to put the shiny stuff away.

Newt Gingrich certainly has a woman problem, but it’s not clear any pundit has yet identified why. His lopsided results in Florida – Gingrich secured far more votes from men than from women, while the opposite was true for Mitt Romney – has prompted a rash of stories attempting to offer an explanation. CNN’s Jack Cafferty has speculated that growing revelations about the former speaker’s extramarital conduct disgusted women in Florida. But the accusations from the second of his three wives, Marianne, that Gingrich once requested an open marriage, broke shortly before the South Carolina primary, so if anything you’d expect it would have had an outsize effect in the Palmetto State. Instead, the gap between Gringrich’s male and female support grew from four points in South Carolina to eight points in Florida. Exit polls show that that his gender gap has been growing over the course of the primary season.

I’m not persuaded that female voters’ primary concern about Gingrich is his past behavior as a husband, though it can’t help. A poll taken in early January shows that Gingrich’s women troubles preceded Marianne Gingrich’s accusations. In that poll, in theoretical match-ups among general election voters, Barack Obama held an eight-point advantage among women against Romney and a whopping 18-point advantage among women against Gingrich. Gingrich’s weakness with women was even greater that of Ron Paul, whose candidacy revolves around the support of young men.

In the Daily Beast, Gingrich’s pollster, Kellyanne Conway, suggests that Gingrich did poorly among women in Florida because they’re late deciders who were proportionately affected by the barrage of anti-Gingrich advertising unleashed in the Sunshine State. It’s true that women are indeed late deciders, but Conway’s explanation may not tell the whole story.

The fuller context is that Gingrich had a problem with women before Florida, and it appears to be getting worse. Romney, meanwhile, consistently maintains an edge with women. Why? Some might suggest it’s because women voters generally lean more Democratic and Romney is seen as a more moderate candidate than Gingrich. But that doesn’t really hold water -- folks voting in these primaries are generally right-leaning to start with. And if Gingrich’s perceived conservatism alone put off women voters, you’d expect the same to be a true for a conservative candidate like Rick Santorum. Instead, Santorum does better with women than he does with men.

There’s something about Gingrich that acts as a repellant to women, like the electoral opposite of Axe body spray. As the Associated Press put it in analyzing the results of the Florida primary, “Some of the data from Tuesday's exit poll suggested women's votes were influenced more by a personal distaste for Gingrich than by liking Romney.” Anybody have a theory about why women don’t like Gingrich?

Rachael, I have to admit that I'm just not a fan of disingenuous manuevering, which is why arguments from anti-choicers about Planned Parenthood needing to be "investigated" for supposed ethics violations mean nothing to me. You and I both know that the movement doesn't give a hoot about making sure that Planned Parenthood is providing top-notch care for women, and that the constant and almost always unfounded complaints stem from anti-choice objections to the very existence of low-cost, pro-choice reproductive health care. At the end of the day, I prefer a clean fight. Anti-choice activists should make their arguments about the sinfulness of abortion and contraception directly. Anti-choicers turn to dirty tricks like bullying, clinic harassment, opening nuisance investigations, and shunning campaigns because they know that making their arguments directly doesn't work. I'm all for a rowdy public discourse. I just hate dirty tricks and deceit. Resorting to dirty tricks like nuisance investigations reads like an admission from anti-choice activists that they know they can't bring an end to comprehensive women's health care by persuading the public to abandon it.

This entire debacle with Komen is a perfect example of substituting dirty tricks for open and vigorous discourse. As Jeffrey Goldberg at the Atlantic discovered, Komen has no more legitimate concerns about Planned Parenthood's ethics than the anti-choice activists that bullied Komen or Rep. Cliff Stearns, who has opened the investigation. The rule about not working with organizations under federal investigation was only created after Stearns opened up the nuisance investigation, and it's clear that it was created to give cover for Komen to abandon Planned Parenthood. It was such a transparent attempt to help destroy Planned Parenthood—and undermine women's comprehensive health care—that one top Komen official resigned over the whole thing.

The anti-choice movement's readiness to do an end run around the hard work of persuading the country to abandon not just safe, legal abortion but accessible contraception and STD prevention/treatment is one reason I take this issue so seriously. This isn't just about women's rights and women's health, though those are both important causes. I just really cannot stand disingenuous or dirty politics. The vast majority of anti-choice politicking is through misinformation campaigns and dirty tricks. Legislators who simply want to prevent women from getting abortions pass abortion restrictions while disingenuously claiming that it's being done for women's health. Contraception and STD funding are being attacked by anti-choicers claiming that it's about "abortion," even though federal funding for abortion is already prohibited. Nuisance investigations are opened on clinics, even though they almost never turn up anything. Anti-choice activists show up at clinics to harass the patients and staff while disingenuously claiming that they're providing "counseling," as if they know the first thing about that. Lies claiming that abortion causes breast cancer and mental illness and that contraception doesn't work proliferate, and often written into law or presented in the classroom. It's maddening.

The reason that people are so up in arms over this Komen situation is just this: Anti-choicers lost the argument against safe, legal abortion and accessible contraception. Instead of graciously accepting that the country doesn't agree with them about women's health care and responding with straightforward arguments for why they don't think affordable and safe reproductive health care is good, they instead use junior high school tactics of trying to isolate the victim (Planned Parenthood) in hopes they'll give up. That kind of tactic is off-putting, no matter who you are. Komen seems to realize now that they look like they're involved in dirty tricks, which is why they're running a five-alarm P.R. clean-up campaign on this. That Komen continues to dissemble and try to defend themselves with statements no one believes is only making it worse.

Michelle Obama has been making the rounds on talk show couches this week. Here she is encouraging Jay Leno to eat his veggies. Here she is deflecting questions about daughter Malia's dating life from Rachael Ray. And here she is challenging Ellen DeGeneres to a push-up competition. This is all part of a California swing the first lady is making to raise funds for her husband's reelection campaign, and what's remarkable about Michelle's consecutive appearances is how comfortable she seems with her public self.

This wasn't always the case. When Barack was first elected, it seemed like Michelle was tamping down her personality to fit into some cookie cutter role. She was desperately trying to be as inoffensive as possible, and it washed her out. While her main preoccupations remain wholesome (healthier eating; more benefits for military families), her presentation has become edgier, more authentic.

The latest wave of genuine-seeming public appearances started in early January when Michelle went on CBS's morning show to combat the portrayal of herself in Jodi Kantor's book about the Obama marriage. In that appearance, Michelle calmly fights back against the notion of herself as an "angry black woman." Though many readers found the portrayal of Michelle in Kantor's book eminently relatable, it was still a savvy, strong move for Obama to make.

In the latest round of press, Michelle Obama seems relaxed in her own skin in a way she hasn't previously. On Leno, she was easily joking with Jay about how he should be eating more vegetables. The bit, which could have been extremely awkward, ended up working because of Michelle's charm. On Rachael Ray, she wisely avoids answering the question about Malia's dating life while still making it seem like she's revealing something about her family--that her kids want their parents to be quiet. That's the oldest celebrity trick in the book.

But the Ellen appearance is the most impressive, in a way. You could frame Michelle's pet platforms as ways to bolster the image of her as homemaking mom-in-chief. But she negates that kind of framing by showing off her remarkable physical prowess. Back when pearl-wearing, perfect Barbara Bush was First Lady, could you have imagined that the First Lady would be engaging in a televised push-up competition with an out-and-proud lesbian on national TV? It's an impressive show of strength and originality. Clip of Michelle vs. Ellen below.

As someone who is mildly skeptical of Susan G. Komen for the Cure (for its history of overly  generous compensation for leaders, for its weird legal actions against other cancer groups, for the annoying ubiquity of pink ribbons on everything you buy during October) and outright distrustful of Planned Parenthood, I’ve had the chance to watch their skirmish from afar without feeling too riled one way or the other.

In the end, though, it’s clear that Planned Parenthood’s P.R. machine, well familiar by now with boycotts, is clearly stomping all over Komen, who was not ready for the backlash its received (a backlash aided, no doubt, by the overwhelming liberalness of those in the media who have the opportunity to make their outrage visible). Planned Parenthood will no doubt recoup the money it had received from Komen and it has scored some sympathy and free publicity in the process.

I wish that Komen had done a few things differently. I wish that it had come out right away and said that while it had to cut ties with Planned Parenthood, it had found a corresponding number of free clinics and gynecologists serving women in low-income areas to be the beneficiaries of its largesse. It would have illustrated that Komen was still committed to women’s health care.

And I wish that, if it were going to take the stance of not giving money to Planned Parenthood because of the congressional investigation, that they would have been a little more vocal about the concerns stemming from that investigation. Amanda, I know you referred  called it a “nuisance,” but in reading  the report put together by Americans United for Life, which helped launch the investigation, there are some legitimate concerns. Planned Parenthood offices in California, New Jersey, New York, and Washington state have at various times been audited by state and federal authorizes and discovered to have been overbilling state agencies and committing other improper billing practices. Further, Planned Parenthood has a record of not reporting instances of sexual abuse—and I’m not talking about 16-year-old girls who come in with their 19-year-old boyfriends. The AUL report documents a case in which a 13-year-old girl was raped by an older foster brother and was impregnated—twice. Planned Parenthood is required, if it wants to receive federal funds, to comply with mandatory reporting laws.

Those who are loudly denouncing Komen are getting plenty of attention today. But the Komen foundation would not have acted as it did if it had not been hearing similar complaints from pro-lifers for years. It could not have been a decision that it made lightly. I’m grateful that it listened to the concerns of men and women who told them they would not donate to Komen as long as it had a relationship with the nation’s largest abortion provider.

Because Planned Parenthood can gin up outrage from its supporters at the drop of a hat, and that it will likely come out ahead with this whole affair. It would be nice, however, if once in a while the organization could step back and ask itself why an organization like Komen would sever its ties. There are consequences, or should be, for an organization that continues  to perform more and more abortions—while treating fewer prenatal patients and making fewer adoption referrals—while the nationwide trend has been largely downward since 1990. There should be consequences for an organization whose employees are caught on tape giving inaccurate medical advice or who fail to report anything to authorities when 13- and 14-year-olds show up seeking abortions after being impregnated by men in their 30s and 40s.  About as many Americans are pro-life as are pro-choice, and we will continue to target groups that give their money to Planned Parenthood.

Nicki Minaj—the female pop-rapper known for her stuttering lyrics and wonkified fashion taste—is something of a controversial figure in the contemporary musical landscape. Some listeners revel in her playful, off-kilter style, while others find it as grating as when a video gets out of sync with its audio track. Certain, however, is the fact that Minaj’s star continues to rise: she’s been tapped to accompany Madonna in this weekend’s Superbowl halftime show, and her second proper album, Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded, will be released later this year.  

Minaj is clearly a hot property, so it may come as a surprise that the BET network has reportedly banned the video for her song “Stupid Hoe” for being too explicit for television. But what counts as crossing the line on a network that regularly shows videos featuring nearly nude women gyrating to often objectifying and at times even degrading lyrics? Watching the video, I can’t help but wonder which element is being deemed beyond the pale (and BET isn’t telling yet). Sure, we see essentially bare butts a fair amount, and Minaj performs (rather ironically, in my opinion) the sexualized choreography required of female entertainers, but my more delicate moral sensibilities are definitely not offended. In fact, it’s the seizure-inducing quality of the editing that's really troubling.

But what of the lyrics? While no one is suggesting that “hoe” is a nice word to use in reference to women, it’s certainly common currency in genres like rap and hip-hop. And here, Minaj deploys the put-down in classic “diss” song fashion, using it to call out her female enemies—it’s a symbolic filler more than anything else. Still, BET could censor the word along with the song’s other no-nos (making it even more fantastically choppy!), but that seems overkill. And in any case, if the network has decided it’s in the business of policing sexism or explicit sexuality in its content, then censors have a ton of other cleaning up to do on male-authored tracks.

Of course, one could regret the same-sex misogyny of the thing; Slate’s Jonah Weiner did that during his participation in the magazine’s 2011 Music Club coverage:

…the single is a flashback to the tedious, dispiriting beef that began between Lil Kim and Nicki Minaj when the latter’s star was first on the rise. Women have it tough enough in hip-hop without mean-girling each other. I wish Kim had looked upon Minaj, who owes her an inarguable debt, not with spite but rather, as Missy Elliott did, with pride and excitement. And I wish Nicki Minaj (who may be trying to communicate some hardness herself after her love-song-stuffed debut album) didn’t find it necessary to perpetuate the violence.

But girl-on-girl aggression is not the issue here. If male rappers are celebrated (or at least tolerated) for presenting women as hyper-sexualized playthings, then female artists should certainly be allowed to paint the self-portrait of their choice. Perhaps Minaj’s ridiculous (even satirical?), blunt exaggeration of sexist themes (e.g. caged feline, baby doll, mannequin) makes BET executives uncomfortable. But then, double standards are always awkward.

Watch the (possibly NSFW) video below and then let us know what you think: Is BET's ban the result of sexism or prudence?

The backlash against actress Zooey Deschanel's particular brand of twee reached new heights when her hit sitcom, The New Girl, premiered last fall. The ads proclaimed the comely actress "adorkable," and Jada Yuan's New York Magazine profile of Deschanel expressed the divisive feelings towards her succinctly: "[Women] either covet her bangs or they resent her for seemingly playing into the male fantasy that women are only attractive when they act like girls. Plenty of blog posts have used Deschanel as a launchpad for this very debate."

Last night, The New Girl approached the polarizing nature of Deschanel's girlie-girlness head on in an episode called "Jess and Julia." Lizzy Caplan plays Julia, the hard-edged lawyer girlfriend of Jess's roommate, Nick. Jess sucks up to Julia because she wants Julia to help her get out of a ticket. Jess—who got the ticket because she was braking for an injured bird—plies Julia with cupcakes and cooing, and Julia does not respond kindly. They have the following exchange, with Julia acting as the greek chorus of the blogosphere:

Julia: A judge might buy into this whole thing.

Jess: What whole thing?

Julia: Your whole thing. With the cupcakes, and the braking for birds, and the whole, "Bluebirds help me dress in the morning!"

Jess: I didn’t realize I was doing a thing.

Julia: It’s a great thing! The big beautiful eyes, like a scared baby. I’m sure that gets you out of all kinds of stuff.

The pair continue to clash for most of the rest of the episode, and Julia continues to be the conduit for the criticisms that the blog world lobs at Deschanel. Julia accuses Jess of trying to mess up her relationship with Nick. "I know that I’m the mean lawyer girl who wears suits and works too much," she says. "And you, you’re the really fun teacher girl with all the colorful skirts, and you bake things. And eventually Nick is going to come running to you, and you’ll tuck him in under his blankie."

Later, Jess responds by making nearly the identical argument that the real Deschanel makes in that New York Magazine piece. To Yuan, Deschanel says, "I think the fact that people are associating being girlie with weakness, that needs to be examined. I don’t think that it undermines my power at all." The character Jess makes it funnier, but the message is the same:

"I brake for birds. I rock a lot of polka dots. I have touched glitter in the last 24 hours. I spend my entire day talking to children. And I find it fundamentally strange that you’re not a dessert person. It freaks me out.  I’m sorry that I don’t talk like Murphy Brown. And I hate your pants suit. I wish it had ribbons on it or something just to make it slightly cuter but that doesn’t mean I’m not smart and tough and strong."

That argument is completely reasonable. There shouldn't be just one acceptable way of behaving for women—and whether you're a ball busting lady lawyer with an anger management problem or a beribboned glitter pusher, you shouldn't be shamed for it.

However, that's not the message that was put forth by the end of the episode. In the last fifth of the show, Julia comes over to apologize to Jess, and it turns out that deep down, what Julia really wants is to talk about her feelings and crochet baby hats. That's what makes Julia a happier person—having girl talk about her embarrassing high school days.

Narratively, because Jess/Deschanel is the star of the show, they had to make her be more sympathetic than the Julia character. And intellectually, I understand that. But in the real world, I want those Murphy Brown-talking, pantsuit wearers to be just as acceptable and palatable as the cupcake clan.

In a shocking move Tuesday afternoon, Susan G. Komen for the Cure, the country's most famous breast cancer charity, pulled its grants for breast-cancer screenings from Planned Parenthood. Komen claims that their reason is that Planned Parenthood is under investigation from Congress, but as it's well-understood on both the left and the right that the investigation, headed by Rep. Cliff Stearns, is a nuisance investigation that will almost surely turn up nothing, this excuse sounds lame indeed. The likelier explanation is the one offered by Planned Parenthood, that Komen caved under relentless pressure from anti-choice activists who oppose Planned Parenthood for offering abortions as well as low-cost contraception and STD prevention and treatment. In addition, Komen has a history of not playing nice with other women's health organizations. Planned Parenthood has created an emergency fund to replace the Komen grants, to keep the breast-cancer screening service from being interrupted.

The existence of breast-cancer screenings at Planned Parenthood has always been a thorn in the anti-choice side. Most of Planned Parenthood's services are related to the choice to be sexually active---contraception, STD screening and treatment, cervical cancer screening---making it easy to write off those services as unnecessary if you follow the strict abstinence-only prescription the Christian right has for women. Breast cancer, however, can strike the lifelong virgin, the married woman who only has sex for procreation, and the dirty fornicator (i.e. the vast majority of American women) alike. Because of this, anti-choicers have tried to create a rift between women's health advocates who focus on breast cancer and those who focus on reproductive health concerns below the waist. Today, they had a victory with Komen's act of cowardice.

No matter how much anti-choicers wish otherwise, it's not feasible to create an approach to women's health that separates good girl concerns from bad girl concerns. For instance, many women land in gynocologist's offices seeking contraceptive services and cervical-cancer screenings, and doctors use that opportunity to teach the art of breast self-exam. As noted in my previous post on the Santorums' pregnancy troubles, even the world of the hated abortion provider and the much-vaunted obstetrician can't be so easily separated, as the latter is often called upon to have knowledge of pregnancy termination in case of a medical emergency.

In the end, the grant money is less important than the symbolism of Komen buying into the conservative myth of good-girl health care vs. bad-girl health care. In reality, women's health care can only work if it's comprehensive health care. Komen has already been under serious scrutiny by those who argue that the organization cares more about shoring up their image than making real progress in the fight for women's health, and with this move today, they proved their critics right.