Well, the raunch article is getting all kinds of attention, both on our comments list and in the blogosphere. We were going to write more of our own responses, and then we decided that everyone else’s comments deserved a post all their own. Here’s a fascinating sample. Jessica at Feministing is the first reference we [...]

Stef pointed us at this article from last week’s Washington Post. Ariel Levy’s feature is based on her new book, Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture. The going wisdom is that we now are liberated enough to get implants, we’re empowered enough to start lap dancing. Gloria Steinem and her compatriots [...]

Laurie says: The comments from Patia, Dan’l, and stef to my neighborhood experience got me thinking about the choices I make, as well as about categorization and about why I react so strongly to among other things, “dear.” Some of it is context: if a grandmotherly lady calls me dear, I’m apt to beam. I [...]

We got three great comments on our opening post about body language. It’s an ongoing conversation; we hope more of you will chime in. We’ll be responding to the post Laurie made about her neighborhood, especially about how the choices we make are about how we want people to perceive us. Irfon Kim-Ahmad talks about [...]

(This just happened to me, so it postponed a long response to the great comments we got on our body language post.) Laurie says: I just came back from my favorite Italian deli. It’s been in my neighborhood forever. As I was finishing up, the guy behind the counter said, “Is that all, dear?” And [...]

Within a very short time after appointing Norris Alderson, D.V.M., as acting director of the FDA Office of Women’s Health, someone in the government apparently had a shot of brain power. The new acting director is Theresa Toigo, who does seem to have some qualifications for the job. I guess they can be that dense [...]

From the vivacious and committed Marilyn Wann, author of Fat!So? and NAAFA activism chair, sends us the following: The American Society of Bariatric Surgeons (aka, Stomach Thieves) is holding its 4th annual ‘Walk from “Obesity”‘ in 60 cities, including San Francisco. Will you help respond to this atrocious event with joy, fun, fitness, and fat/size-diverse [...]

Q: What’s George Bush’s opinion on Roe v. Wade? A: Bush doesn’t care how you get out of New Orleans. A delightful pun with a truth behind it. Bush and his administration don’t care about a lot of things. And one of them is women’s health, not to mention women’s reproductive rights. The brilliant sex [...]

“The best unsyndicated columnist in America,” Jon Carroll of the San Francisco Chronicle, is writing today about body language, a subject at the heart of body image. Carroll relates the experience of one of his readers, playing theater games with middle-school kids, and finding that they had a hard time changing their body language for [...]

Hurricane Katrina made landfall outside New Orleans just about two weeks ago, and the news hasn’t wavered from covering the resulting damage on a nearly 24-7 basis. The blogosphere is completely overwhelmed by news of: what’s happening to the people who were affected what’s being done (and not done) in the way of relief efforts [...]