The XX Factor: What women really think.

Why Shouldn't a Woman Tweet a Miscarriage?

A post from DoubleX blogger Amanda Marcotte:

Apparently, I'm one of the few people who read Penelope Trunk's now infamous tweet ("I'm in a board meeting. Having a miscarriage. Thank goodness, because there's a fucked-up 3-week hoop-jump to have an abortion in Wisconsin.") who wasn't even remotely bothered by it. I found it to be an elegant instance of the power of Twitter and the way people have learned to pack so much information into 140 characters. We as a culture applaud men who come up with choice quotes to describe death, courage, and war, but if a woman employs brevity to express relief at a miscarriage, suddenly there's an outcry against the dangers of getting to the point ... (Read the rest of this post and related posts in DoubleX.)

Does Miscarriage Belong in a Comedy?

I agree with you, Dahlia, about the pole dance of grief in Away We Go: The amateur night performance of barren Melanie Lynskey (Munch Garnett), while riveting and poignant, indeed seemed like it belonged in a different movie. Like Dana, I thought the quirky, uneven road movie had some great moments along the hapless, mapless, trip of expecting parents seeking their adult selves. For example, Maya Rudoph was a pitch perfect Verona, asking her goofy but loveable boyfriend, Burt (John Krasinki), “Are we fuck-ups?” (My husband, who usually is a good sport about chick flicks, audibly conceded that indeed they could be.)