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A post from DoubleX writer Jessica Olien:
This week, the media has been debating whether the thirtysomething woman with no man is single because she's too picky. Meanwhile, on television, the other half of that debate has been unfolding on The Bachelor,
which has provided us with very convincing rebuttal to Lori Gottleib's
thesis, showing that the thirtysomething dysfunctional male is not at
all worth settling for and can have just as much trouble making up his
mind ... (Read the rest of this article here.)
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KJ, I think the real reason people find another story in the New York Times about nannies
so annoying is that, according to a recent study by the Center for
American Progress, fewer than 3.5 percent of all families in the United
States, at all income levels, employ a nanny for child care. That's
right: fewer than 3.5 percent. And among middle-income families (i.e.,
most Americans), it's fewer than .5 percent ... (Read the rest of this article here.)
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Everyone knows that an appearance on Oprah is a golden ticket to a best-selling book, a successful clothing line, or a huge elevation of your personal brand. In her last full year as a talk-show hostess (Oprah's retiring in 2011) her influential guests' missteps are becoming ever more dangerous—their advice has cost people their lives. This week has been a particularly bad one for Oprah, as two high-profile guests have been discredited: Jenny McCarthy and motivational speaker James Arthur Ray ... (Read the rest of this article here.)
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—After being rejected asylum in 2004, President Barack Obama's Kenyan aunt begins her second hearing in Boston today. Zeituni Onyango, who has lived in the United States since 2000, is requesting asylum due to medical and "other" reasons. [Salon]
—France, which is considering a full ban on veils, denied citizenship to a man who forced his wife to wear a one. French President Nicolas Sarkozy said the face covering was degrading to women, but many Muslims feel the ban would be an insult to their religion. [The Guardian, Salon]
—Recent cuts at CBS are beginning to rile tensions over the salary of Katie Couric, who reportedly earns $15 million a year. Though her contract is up next year, CBS has been quick to reject claims that she will face a deduction in pay. [New York]
—Rush Limbaugh claims he loves the women's movement, but he might have meant a different type of motion. His absurdity was clear when he went on to qualify his statement: "I love the women's movement, especially when I'm walking behind it." [Feministing]
—The popular children's author Bill Martin, Jr. was removed from the Texas State Board of Education reading list when a board member learned how to use Google. It seems, along with his beloved children's titles, Martin also wrote "very strong critiques of capitalism and the American system." Unfortunately, the board member didn't realize there were two Martins (a children's author and a philosophy professor at DePaul University. [The Boston Globe]
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The other day our colleague Will Saletan, whose writings on abortion I
greatly admire and share with my pro-life friends, wrote a piece on the
Tebow ad called “The Invisible Dead”
about Tebow’s mother and the dangers of carrying a pregnancy after
being diagnosed with placental abruption. While it was a typically
excellent Saletan piece, it was the headline that grabbed me, and not
for any reason that Will likely intended ... (Read the rest of this article here.)
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Despite their portrayal in pop culture as overentitled, micromanaging shrews, mothers who employ nannies often struggle to communicate with them and vent to friends instead. Recognizing this communication gap, some schools have begun training nannies to draw out their employers' needs. [New York Times] ... (Read the rest of this article here).
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Last Sunday, Frances Kissling and Kate Michelman broke ranks with the
feminists who have been denouncing CBS for running Tim Tebow's TV ad
during the Super Bowl. Read their op-ed in the Washington Post.
It's a fascinating history of canny, well-crafted advertising by
pro-life groups, and Kissling and Michelman argue that the pro-choice
movement has often lagged in response. Tebow's ad, of course,
celebrates his mother's decision to give birth to him despite a
placental abruption, a premature separation of the placenta from the uterine wall that can be life-threatening for the mother and is often associated with stillbirth ... (Read the rest of this post here.)
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An interesting article about the use of nanotechnology—ultra-teensy particles—in cosmetics appears in this week’s New Have Independent.
Journalist Alex Halperin explains that the FDA is not testing the
safety or efficacy of nanotech particles despite the fact that there is
widespread concern. The lack of credible safety information is
especially frustrating when it comes to cosmetics because cosmetics do
not undergo safety testing. Nor do cosmetics have to perform as
advertised. So what is it women are buying when they buy, to use
Halperin’s example, Chantecaille’s 1.7 ounce pots of “Nano Gold
Energizing Cream Aromacologie”? What we don’t know can, in fact, hurt us ... (Read the rest of this post here.)
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A guest post from Peter Kramer:
Newsweek has just weighed in with a cover story ("Antidepressants Don't Work") based on the recent JAMA antidepressant study and previous summary analyses of FDA and drug-company data. Here and elsewhere, I have had my say on this research. Newsweek
thinks it shows that for most sorts of depression, antidepressants are
no better than placebo; I think that the studies are weak ... (Read the rest of this article here.)
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My gossipy fascination with the Mark and Jenny Sanford debacle has been stimulated with this revelation from Jenny Sanford that Mark refused to pledge fidelity
in his wedding vows. So much for the heroic image of Jenny Sanford as
the woman who puts her foot down. Personally, I never bought that
story, since the act of creating a traditional patriarchal marriage
strikes hard against the strong, independent woman image. Now we're
getting a reminder of exactly what that means, but it's not quite
enough. It's interesting that Mark felt above the vow of fidelity, but
I want to know if Jenny was still required to vow obedience ... (Read the rest of this article here.)
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Kathryn Bigelow's The Hurt Locker has earned as many Oscar nominations as her ex-husband James Cameron's Avatar, meaning that the media narrative of this Oscar season (as Jess pointed out)
will surely constellate around the "Battle of the Sexes"—or "Battle of
the Exes." A tiresome narrative, perhaps, but there is a way that their films do represent polar extremes. Cameron has a lavish feel for the
tenderness (and violence) that springs up between men and aliens,
whether the "aliens" be robotic machines or acid-blooded creatures who
want to lay eggs in your throat ... (Read the rest of this article here.)
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—South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford is battling John Edwards for title of "worst husband ever." According to Jenny Sanford's book out Friday, Staying True, her estranged husband would not agree to be faithful in their wedding vows ... (Read the rest of this article here.)
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Hanna, that all sounds like such a sensible approach to sex ed. Get 13-year-olds to role play about how to wait. Tell 15- and 16-year-olds about waiting and also about
condoms. Pretty much what I'd want for my kids. Stripped of its
anti-birth-control and wait-for-marriage preaching, abstinence
education is absolutely nothing to quarrel with. In fact, I can't
imagine a decent sex ed curriculum for young teens or for older ones
that doesn't talk about the power of sex and the potential value of
delaying it. But the claims being made for this new study are, of course, broader ... (Read the rest of this post in DoubleX.)
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Last March, a few weeks after the Grindr app launched, I
downloaded it to my iPhone and joined the Grindrs, sans photo. This was
an odd thing for a heterosexual thirtysomething woman to do. As Lauren explained,
Grindr is for gay, bi, and curious men only. I was at a dinner party
hosted by a gay couple who happened to be friends with the app’s
inventor, Joel Simkhai, and we were talking about the genius of Grindr,
the sheer efficiency of it all. I was curious about how Grindr would
feel to a woman. Was Grindr the next frontier of heterosexual dating or
friendships? (Friendships, too, are cultivated by proximity) ... (Read the rest of this post on DoubleX.)
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It’s been a rough couple of weeks for Andrew Wakefield. The scientist (I use the word here with a little scoff) partially set off the vaccine/autism panic with a 1998 study, published in the British medical journal the Lancet, that argued that the MMR vaccine was connected to autism and the bowel disorders that some parent believe accompany it. Last week, following two-and-a-half years of hearings, Britain’s General Medical Council ruled that Wakefield “acted ‘dishonestly and irresponsibly’ ” in conducting his research—such as collecting blood samples at his child’s birthday party, with money given to every kid who donated ... (Read the rest of this post in DoubleX.)
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Clark Harding's essay in the Daily Beast
today calls attention to a most wondrous and entirely inevitable
development in the world of virtual dating: a GPS based hook-up
service. Grindr, as the smartphone app is called, is for gay men only
(as of now, at least). Gone are the often-messy complications of
Craigslist posts or dating sites: You download the app, create a
profile, and upon login up pop the profiles of men seeking men, their
distance away listed in feet. My friend has the app, and just by
logging in at work once or twice he's discovered there are at least two
other gay men in his office. Just from using the app with him, I've
seen more abdominal "situations" in a 15-minute span then I have over
the last five years ... (Read the rest of this post on DoubleX.)
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Starting from the assumption that it is impossible to have a
rational discussion about abstinence education, let us do our best. The
study reported yesterday
that shows a certain abstinence curriculum to be effective was, in
fact, an excellent study. The kids in the abstinence-focused curriculum were measurably
less likely to have sex after two years. Now for the caveats, and the contrary conclusion ... (Read the rest of this post in DoubleX.)
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On Slate today, Joe Keohane has an amusing video slideshow about "how Hollywood makes beautiful actresses look working class"
in order to secure Oscar nods. Keohane illustrates some of the
sneakiest tropes of the "slumming actress subgenre"—fugly sweaters,
messy hair, bad posture, a slack-jawed stare—with clips from films like
The Good Girl and Monster's Ball ... (Read the rest of this post in DoubleX.)
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A post from guest blogger Linda Perlstein:
Yesterday’s New York Times piece
suggested that the adminstration might revisit the way what’s called
Title 1 money is allocated under No Child Left Behind. If you’ve seen
how those funds are currently distributed, and sometimes squandered,
you know this is a good idea in principle. But I am uneasy about what
the Obama administration might substitute for the status quo ... (Read the rest of this post in DoubleX.)
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Kathryn Bigelow was nominated for an Oscar for directing the Iraq War film The Hurt Locker this morning. She is only the fourth woman ever to be nominated in the directing category, joining Lina Wertmüller, Sofia Coppola, and Jane Campion. Bigelow talked at length to DoubleX contributor Willa Paskin last year. Here's what she had to say about being a woman directing action movies ... (Read the rest of this post in DoubleX.)