Salon: Broadsheet

20/20: Ashley Dupre, the girl next door

Tracy Clark-Flory — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 08:00:00 PST

Ashley Dupre on 20/20

If a biopic were made based solely on 20/20's exclusive interview with Ashley Dupré, former Governor Eliot Spitzer's famed call girl, it might be called: "The Whore Next Door." Diane Sawyer asked plenty of questions of Dupré during the special, which aired Friday night, but there was one question at its heart: How does a normal all-American girl end up selling her body for cash?

At the beginning of the special, we're shown images of average young women -- who, pssst, are actually call girls -- walking around town and drinking wine in high-end restaurants, as Sawyer intones: "Most mystifying are the girls who came from nice homes, nice neighborhoods." Sawyer later says of Dupré: "She started out in a neighborhood probably like many of ours." In case you aren't quite getting her point, she later asks Dupré, "Do you think it could be anybody's daughter, anybody's friend?" Her response: "Yes."

Dupré's story is a familiar one, and one we have come to expect from female sex workers (and symbols): Her father was absent during her childhood, and her older brother ran away from home when she was just 12. She explains, in a little-girl voice reminiscent of Britney Spears: "I think by not having my father and my brother around, I really ... I felt like I missed something," she says, choking up. "To have a certain level of respect for yourself, how to carry yourself. Have that father that, you know, if I'm dating a guy and he can't stand him, you know, stick up for me and say, 'What are you doing?' The unconditional love feeling ... I just couldn't find it." She turned to work as an escort as a way to "emotionally disconnect myself, rather than be in a relationship and get hurt and be vulnerable." Sex with clients required being "emotionally disconnected -- like from your heart to your head," she says.

The most -- OK, the only -- riveting part of the short interview comes in a moment of courtroom style tension: Sawyer says, "You say 'the work' but you haven’t said the words …" With a grin, Dupré responds simply: "The work." Sawyer offers a rebuttal: "Prostitution." Dupré's face is steel; she does not flinch at the utterance of the word. She pauses for a moment and then widens her eyes as she says: "Escort." Sawyer: "What's the difference?" She darts her eyes to the left and says through a smile: "Escort." Again, Sawyer asks, "What's the difference?" At this point I am half expecting Dupré to break her calm and storm out of the room. Instead, she utters an "um" and then pauses. "I think it's um" -- she closes her eyes -- "the same." Her eyes pop open and she adds: "Perhaps." Sawyer asks Dupré whether there is a difference in her mind, and she responds, "Prostitution is only about sex whereas an escort is more … it's time spent ... and, you know, most of the time you go in and you're just someone to talk to." (Let's be real: Sex is hardly ever "only about sex." I've heard many accounts similar to Dupré's of intensely emotional conversations with clients from self-proclaimed prostitutes who do not travel in high-class circles.)

The special's intended take-away was clearly that any girl -- your daughter, sister, friend or neighbor -- could be, or become, a prostitute. There was every early indication that ABC would choose that narrative. In promoting the interview Friday on "Good Morning America," Sawyer teased viewers: "Tonight, she talks about her choices and why she thinks it could have been any girl next door." The subtext is not so far from the promise of a late-night "Girls Gone Wild" commercial: Watch a good girl go bad! The Web site also provided "Ashley Dupré's Photo Album," with family pictures of her as a baby, an innocent schoolgirl, an adolescent cheerleader and a "pretty popular" high school student. It's an illustrated guide to Dupré's journey from sweet little girl to call girl.

So, what was there to be learned from the 20/20 interview? Not much, considering that ABC leaked much of the goods in its weeklong promotion of the special -- but they could afford to. I suspect that, more than the particulars of Dupré's narrative, we wanted to hear, once again, the story of how good girls go bad.

Take that, HHS!

Tracy Clark-Flory — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 14:00:00 PST

Any minute now, the Department of Health and Human Services is expected to put into effect a rule that would defend "provider conscience" over women's right to politically neutral healthcare. But just when you thought the fire-breathing HHS was ready to consume the damsel's access to basic reproductive healthcare, dragon-slaying Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Patty Murray have appeared ~~sword~~ bill in hand. On Thursday, they introduced legislation that would block the regulation from being enacted. Clinton had the following to say:

In the final days of his administration, the President is again putting ideology first and attempting to roll back health care protections for women and families. The fact that the EEOC [Equal Employment Opportunity Commission] was never consulted in the drafting of this rule further illustrates that this is purely a political ploy. This HHS rule will threaten patients’ rights, stand in the way of health care professionals, and restrict access to critical health care services for those who need them most. Senator Murray and I are standing up once again to the administration against this rule and will continue to fight for women’s reproductive rights. President Bush is making a last-minute attempt to undermine women’s health care, but our legislation will stop this rule and ensure that women can continue to get needed health care.

Secretary of awesome

Sarah Hepola, Rebecca Traister — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 12:07:00 PST

There is a long and undoubtedly fraught road ahead, around the world and within the new administration. But, for just a second, we'd like to focus for a minute on exactly what a mind-blowing, conversation-changing, fuse-blowing, frustrating and gratifying year it's been for voters, for Democrats, for women and for Clinton and her supporters. While there may be lots and lots (and lots and lots) of critiques of Hillary Clinton's appointment as secretary of state, and of Clinton's acceptance of it, we here at Broadsheet would like to give a mighty tip of our collective hat and raise a glass to the notion of coming together. Here's to you, Barack Obama, and to Sen. Clinton: Cheers, lady!

[And a giant grin spreads over the faces of the Broadsheet staff.]

One of the painful things about this thrilling election was the way that long-excluded groups, suddenly granted a chance for a seat at the presidential table, had to battle each other for it, often bitterly. Very little could make us happier, or this country healthier, than Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton working hand-in-hand to move us forward, toward a future where people who want to work together, rather than against each other, might not have to compete for whatever crumbs are thrown at them.

Below, enjoy an overwrought but nifty piece of propaganda that became one of our favorite video tributes to the wacky ride that was the Hillary Clinton presidential candidacy, as well as a useful compendium of some of the more startling moments of the past few years. Behold the force of nature -- and the forces that have worked against -- the United States of America's future secretary of awesome.

Vhat vomen vant

Kate Harding — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 08:22:00 PST

I admit I'm probably the wrong person to ask about why vampires are so appealing to women, mostly because my first answer would be, "They are?" I haven't read the "Twilight" series and am in no rush to see the movie version that opens today. I've never read an Anne Rice novel. I did watch Buffy religiously, but I was never that interested in broody vamp Angel; true to my real-life preference for human nerds, I was hot for Giles and Xander. So there's a strong possibility that, as with so many other things, I just don't get it.

Still, I can't help noticing that all of the reasons this New York Daily News article gives for women's fascination with vampires (a foregone conclusion here) match up with a lot of old, tired theories about What Women Want. We're drawn to bad boys and rebels. We want to nurture vulnerable men, which vampires are because they live "on the fringe of society," according to film professor Joanne Detore-Nakamura. (Apparently, immortality and a thirst for blood don't disqualify one from the "vulnerable" category, so long as one is sufficiently outcast and emo about it.) Harry Medved, head of publicity for Fandango and noted expert on the female psyche, except only half of that is true, says of "Twilight's" star vamp Edward Cullen, "Here is a vampire who looks like a Greek god, he's insanely good looking, forever young and all he wants to do is read your thoughts and spend time with you. When is the last time most men told their wife he wishes he could read her thoughts?" Um, raise your hand if you're completely creeped out by the thought of your spouse reading your thoughts. And that's not the best part. Says Medved, "They have an intensity and a desperate need to be close to other humans that is appealing. It's exciting because you just never know when a vampire is going to lose control and have to bite you." Oh, man. Tell me this is not going where I think it's going.

But it is. Kristen Romney, an archaeologist and science advisor for a men's lifestyle site, spells it out: "Vampires have become a replacement for sex. A vampire is such a powerful figure who sneaks into bed with a woman at night and, though he doesn't ravage her, promises her eternal life." Ah, it's ye olde rape fantasie, but without the pesky rape! Just, you know, a guy who doesn't actually live in your house sneaking into bed with you in the middle of the night because he would really, really like to suck your blood. That's totally hot and not at all fucked up.

I'm still not convinced that women are drawn to fictional vampires in numbers that warrant making sweeping generalizations about female desire. Vampire lore has been popular among all human beings for centuries, and if there's something especially attractive to women about the most recent iterations, it could just be that many of them are written by women and/or put the focus on complex female characters. Sure, some women may be attracted to bad boys or basket cases or, um, strangers who climb into their beds at night, but I'm guessing there are a lot more of us who just want to see good stories about women with actual personalities who actually do stuff. I am not, however, holding my breath for Hollywood to catch on.

U.K.: All johns potential rapists

Tracy Clark-Flory — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 15:40:00 PST

The U.K. government proposed new laws Wednesday that would make it a crime, potentially rape, to pay for sex with a woman who is trafficked or under the control of a pimp or drug dealer. There's one crucial detail, though: Ignorance of coercive circumstances would not be considered a valid defense. The measures are meant to instill fear into all johns and creates an ever-present risk of being convicted as a rapist for buying sex, even when the exchange appears to be consensual. This move is no surprise considering Britain's earlier ad campaign with the same message: "Walk in a punter. Walk out a rapist."

Under current laws in England and Wales, the purchase of sex is not criminalized, but brothels and activities associated with prostitution, including public solicitation and persistent kerb-crawling, are outlawed. Many opponents argue that the new measures effectively outlaw the purchase of sex altogether. After all, no matter how free-willed a sex worker may seem, can a john know beyond any doubt that she isn't trafficked, coerced, under a pimp's control or selling her body to pay her drug dealer? The new laws could also criminalize men who visit women who voluntarily work for a brothel owner.

As always, I have to return to the fact that criminalizing johns often puts prostitutes at greater risk -- they have less time to vet customers and negotiate safe sex, and are forced underground. An editorial in the Independent argues that these measures would have the same effect: "They will be tempted to ply their trade in more secluded areas, to travel further from their homes and colleagues. The effect will be to help push the trade ... out of the sight of the authorities." Cari Mitchell, spokeswoman for the English Collective of Prostitutes, told CNN: "It's going to really make it more difficult for men to use the sex industry, and it's going to mean that women are going to have to take more risks in order to earn the same money."

Sex and power in the age of Obama

Judy Berman — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 11:47:00 PST

"Girls around here don't have abortions." That's what a health teacher in New Jersey -- a state that allows comprehensive sex education -- told Michelle Fine, distinguished professor of psychology at the City University of New York, when she tried to broach the subject with a class of high-school seniors.

Fine's unsettling anecdote opened an evening of discussion about sexual rights in America -- especially those of women and queers -- both as they are now and as they might be once Barack Obama takes office. Amid the flurry of post-election chatter about the economy, the Iraq war and our first black president, there has been a great deal of talk about the future of the LGBT rights movement in the wake of the passage of Proposition 8, as well as some initial speculation about what Obama's presidency and a Democratic majority in Congress will mean for women.

Monday evening's event, held at the CUNY Graduate Center in Manhattan, was billed "Power and Sex: America's War on Sexual Rights." Fine moderated the panel discussion, which included the Nation stalwart Katha Pollitt; Faye Wattleton, director of the Center for the Advancement of Women and former president of Planned Parenthood; Lynn Paltrow, executive director of National Advocates for Pregnant Women; Dagmar Herzog, professor of history at the Graduate Center and author of "Sex in Crisis: The New Sexual Revolution and the Future of American Politics"; and Rosalind Petchesky, distinguished professor of political science at CUNY and Hunter College and co-author of "Sexuality, Health and Human Rights." Though the event's title sounded like a real downer -- participants wringing their hands over the various wrongs committed by our government -- the impending Obama administration inspired some cautiously optimistic discussion.

"I feel pretty good looking towards the future," said Pollitt, recounting pro-choice victories in Colorado, South Dakota and California. She made the point that, while most Americans may believe abortion is immoral in most cases, when they enter the voting booth, they often realize "the difference between what they think is moral and what they think the law should be." Pollitt also predicted that Obama will force notoriously circumspect anti-choice organizations to either work with the government in promoting birth control or publicly admit that they don't support it. Wattleton added further context to the abortion discussion, reminding us that women have been "the focus of power politics for over three decades" and that we can't rely solely on our newly elected president to fix problems with such a long history.

Petchesky spoke on the perhaps more complicated state of LGBT rights. Though, as Petchesky mentioned, all four state-level measures prohibiting same-sex marriage and adoption passed, decisions like Lawrence v. Texas and the election of a liberal president may push the country toward progress. Petchesky cautioned us against what Judith Butler calls "uncritical exuberance" and dismissed the notion that the battle for LGBT rights can be reduced to "the religious right versus all us good guys." She added that she still has problems with the same-sex marriage movement's heteronormative goals and exclusion of trans people, asexuals and "non-conforming households."

But for my money (although, actually, it was a free event), Lynn Paltrow and Dagmar Herzog were the most exciting speakers of the night. While underscoring the importance of Pollitt and Wattleton's remarks, Paltrow emphasized that "reproductive rights" also means the rights of pregnant women. The panel's most impassioned and energetic member, she made a connection between women who have abortions and are demonized as "baby killers" and expectant mothers who are forced against their will to undergo C sections, arrested for succumbing to drug addictions and generally disempowered to make decisions about their own, pregnant bodies.

Herzog was the only speaker to take up Fine's challenge, at the beginning of the evening, to talk about the way "the language of desire" appears (or, in many cases, remains absent from) American conversations about sex and power. Our society, said Herzog, "is titillating and repressive at the same time." She pointed out how damaging it can be for us to lump together conversations about date rape with conversations about promiscuity, conflate voluntary sex work with sex trafficking, and confuse homosexuality with child abuse. "The religious right succeeded in secularizing," Herzog said, going on to explore the ways in which these groups have appropriated the language of physical and mental health, promising that remaining abstinent until marriage will result in "spectacular marital orgasms" (aka "soulgasms") and capitalizing on our fears about "the death of postmarital desire." Her recommendations for the new, Democratic regime were clear. Most Americans have sex outside of marriage, she reminded us. With that in mind, progressive politicians need to "get more comfortable saying that sex is OK."

There did seem to be something vital missing from the event, however: young women. All five speakers and the moderator represented the baby boomer generation. And while I understand the people who lead organizations and hold distinguished professorships tend to be older, I'm disappointed that CUNY didn't look for a young lawyer, journalist, activist or graduate student doing provocative, new research on LGBT or women's issues to fill out the panel.

To me, the evening seemed a perfect illustration of the intergenerational conflict that pitted second-wave moms against their third-wave daughters on the question of whether good feminists could support Obama over Clinton in the Democratic primary. By refusing to allow identity politics to dictate our candidate of choice, younger women brought feminist politics into the 21st century. Can we really talk about what the next eight years will bring for women's and queer sexual rights without including voices from the generation that first supported Obama?

When Fine opened the floor to questions, it made sense to me that the two 20-something women who stepped up to the microphone wanted to talk about issues of specific interest to our generation. One asked about the global gag rule and international women's rights, while the other wanted Herzog to elaborate on how we should respond to conservative groups' appropriation of the desire dialectic. As a generation of feminists, while we continue to worry about (but, yes, sometimes take for granted) abortion rights and advocate for same-sex marriage, we also want to expand the movement to include women around the world. And though we're just as passionate as ever about sexual freedom and equality, we want to talk about sexual pleasure, too.

I would never want to deny that young women owe a great deal to second-wave feminists. But the ladies who helped usher in the age of Obama deserve a seat at the table, too.

Dudes try "dating Darwinism"

Tracy Clark-Flory — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 07:45:00 PST

After Kay S. Hymowitz wrote an article about the alleged throngs of single young males "lingering in a hormonal limbo between adolescence and adulthood, shunning marriage and children, and whiling away their leisure hours with South Park reruns," she received a vitriolic response from some such young dudes. In response, she proposes a theory in City Journal for what is causing all that anger: "The dating and mating scene is in chaos" thanks to women's liberation.

Young men, she argues, are exposed to a series of "miscues, cross-purposes, and half-conscious, contradictory female expectations that are alternately proudly egalitarian and coyly traditional." They don't want you to open the door, but they do want you to pay for dinner; they want chivalry one moment and evolved egalitarianism the next. Young women just can't make up their minds about what they want from a man, Hymowitz writes: She "may be hoping for a hookup, but she may also be looking for a husband, a co-parent, a sperm donor, a relationship, a threesome, or a temporary place to live … In fact, young men face a bewildering multiplicity of female expectations and desire."

Then there's the fact that "men face a situation -- and I’m not exaggerating here -- new to human history," writes Hymowitz. "Never before have men wooed women who are, at least theoretically, their equals -- socially, professionally, and sexually." Retro dating manuals have been rendered obsolete, and feminism has failed to provide men with a guidebook for navigating courtship. So, "as middle-class men and women are putting off marriage well into their twenties and thirties as they pursue Ph.D.s, J.D.s, or their first $50,000 salaries," they are left with several years, perhaps even a decade or more, of this "heartbreak and humiliation."

As a result, she says, guys are resorting to "Darwinist dating" or, to put it another way, survival of the asshole-iest. It's appears to be a modern reimagining of that myth of the caveman clubbing a female over the head and dragging her back to the cave, and explains the "the litany of stories you hear from women about the troglodytes in their midst."

The pickup artist scene is one approach to "Darwinist dating" (or, more accurately, Darwinist screwing). While there is something to these theories of seduction, just as there is something to teaching someone basic social skills or training him or her to become a better public speaker, it's all about artifice. They are taught to suppress the nice guy by putting on the armor of the asshole -- but how fulfilling is that, ultimately? The essential message is: Toss out your feelings and don't be yourself -- act the part of your better self or, preferably, someone else entirely.

Nothing in the seduction community seems to prepare a guy to find himself, grow genuine and warranted confidence, or start a real, emotionally rewarding and lasting relationship. As Hymowitz ultimately points out, to my great relief, the problem with this approach is that it's "an uncompromising biological determinism that makes no room for human cultivation." Not to mention, "dating Darwinism" suggests that all young men want is to successfully spread their seed -- but something tells me that if they have to defensively put on the tough guy act in the first place, that isn't at all the case.

Every time I read articles about this alleged Menaissance (a rebirth of medieval-style masculinity, in case you aren't hip to the obnoxious buzzword) a few words come to mind: anxiety, insecurity, confusion and anger. But, get this, young women are feeling all those things, too. Those "miscues, cross-purposes, and half-conscious, contradictory female expectations"? They don't come from a place of total illumination and enlightenment on the dating front -- they are often a confused response to" miscues, cross-purposes, and half-conscious, contradictory" cultural expectations, whether they come directly from men in their life or the world at large. And men certainly aren't just reacting to women, but to similar contradictory cultural messages directed toward them.

Let's not make this a war between the sexes. As girls overturn traditional gender roles, boys are forced to do the same, leaving both sexes in scary, unscripted territory. This has, indeed, come as a result of feminist advancements -- but feminist advancements within a culture that is not yet egalitarian. I think many young women are still in search of an empowered and authentic sexual identity -- a way to be active participants in our sexual culture. Given that they are doing this within a culture than defines sexual power in male terms, is it any surprise that they -- as well as young men -- perform contradictions and make mistakes along the way?

Does my "Fountainhead" turn you on, baby?

Abby Margulies — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 14:44:00 PST

It's hard to be rational in this chaotic world we live in -- especially if you want to actually date people. Ayn Rand fans have found a solution: the Atlasphere, an online dating site for Objectivists, "where admirers of Ayn Rand's novels from around the world can meet easily and affordably -- 365 days a year -- to network, find shared interests, and perhaps, through our online dating service, even fall in love." Broadsheet's Lynn Harris has written about this site on Salon before, but a recent New York Magazine article redirected it to our attention, and in our harsh economic climate, maybe an Ayn Rand dating site is exactly what we need.

Obviously, I immediately created a profile so that I could see who these people are. I was forced to "characterize my spiritual life" and list my favorite works of art -- aside from those of Ayn Rand, of course. But after all that work, it turns out you don't get much more information about anyone than a name and an age, unless you pay $9.95 a month. And let's face it, I don't actually believe in "rational self-interest" or the "pursuit of happiness," per se. Plus I'm broke. Luckily I did collect a pretty choice sampling of profile quotes, though. Highlights from their article include:

From thustotyrants:

"You should contact me if you are a skinny woman. If your words are a meaningful progression of concepts rather than a series of vocalizations induced by your spinal cord for the purpose of complementing my tone of voice…"

From Zak:

"I am rational, integrated, and efficacious. So far, I’ve never met a person who lives up to the standard I hold for myself (except online)."

From dpvabc:

"My name is Daniel. I consider myself to be a born-again egoist and I have dedicated the rest of my life to self-improvement. People see me as a socially inept loner because I tend to avoid superficial conversation but actually I love talking to people who like to think (the problem being I don’t know very many)."

Admittedly, it's not the most attractive sampling of young objectivists looking for love, and surely there is some really great guy out there that loves long walks on the beach accompanied by lengthy discussions of laissez-faire capitalism and the central role of reason in perceiving reality. These quotes are just significantly more interesting. Undoubtedly, strictly dating objectivists could get tricky, as compromising your own happiness to make your partner happy would seem to be totally off-limits, and, as we all know, relationships are all about compromise, compromise, compromise. If reason is your driving force, what happens to the rules of dating? Are those silly guiding principles just thrown out the window? And, at the end of the first date, who pays? If your highest moral purpose is attaining rational self-interest, how do you justify splurging on dinner for a dining partner that was objectively boring.

Should Michelle Obama's booty be off-limits?

Sarah Hepola — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 13:17:00 PST

On Tuesday, Salon ran a story by columnist and Essence contributing writer Erin Aubry Kaplan called "First Lady Got Back." In the story, Kaplan expresses her liberation at seeing a black woman of power and beauty -- with what pop culture has come to refer to as a "boo-tay," one of the greatest signifiers of African-American womanhood there is -- in the White House. The piece generated, well, a bit of controversy.

"This is demeaning, vacuous tripe that doesn't even work as satire," wrote herrblue2, one of 400 and counting posters in the letters section. Meanwhile, on Open Salon, blogger TeenDoc wrote, in response to another offended Open Salon blogger, "I am shaking my head as I read the kerfuffle raised by outraged majority women over an article that clearly meant something different to this sista."

As the editor on Kaplan's piece (and the editor of Broadsheet, incidentally), I believe the story is a celebration and a love letter -- an eloquent one, at that -- a reminder that Barack Obama is not the only member of the soon-to-be first family who has transformed the way Americans feel about themselves, a reminder that Michelle Obama is nothing less than a stunning example of womanhood. Additionally, as I worked on the piece with Erin, she convinced me that it reflected an important conversation going on in a certain sector of the black community.

But where I see a story about sexual freedom and racial pride, many others -- many others I admire and respect, by the way -- see something hateful and sexist. Off-bounds. Just plain wrong. Broadsheet has received several (angry) e-mails asking why we had stayed silent on the issue. "Joan Walsh must have all you ladies bound and gagged in a broom closet," read one that came in this morning, going on to decry the egregious sexism of the piece.

I wanted to hear what other Broadsheet writers and frequent contributors thought. The responses of those who cared to (and had time to) e-mail me their take on the story are posted below.

Kate Harding: I hadn't even seen the story before I started reading critiques of it at blogs like Racialicious and Michelle Obama Watch, so I was predisposed to be bothered by it -- and I am. However, I'm not sure I would have been bothered by it all on my own, without having seen how much it hurt black feminist writers I really admire.

There are a few reasons for that: the blinders of white privilege, of course, plus my fondness for Salon and inclination to give pretty much everyone who writes for it and is not named Camille Paglia the benefit of the doubt. But the one I actually had to think hard to recognize was this: On some level, I feel an unearned intimacy with the Obamas, fueled by the way they've been presented and have presented themselves. I would like to have a beer with Michelle and Barack. I'd like to take Malia and Sasha to the movies and out for ice cream. I want to play with the dog they don't have yet. So a discussion of Michelle's ass didn't automatically strike me as wildly inappropriate (except insofar as I always hate the focus on prominent women's bodies), in part because I have this impression of her as someone I would totally hang out with. And the women I hang out with talk about our asses.

Problem is, I have no business feeling like that. I can understand why I feel this way -- I've been reading about, hearing about and watching the Obamas daily for two years. I'm a Chicagoan, and we all feel a connection to our hometown guy and his family. Whatever respect I had for the office of the president in and of itself has been shattered by Bush. But for me, this controversy is an excellent and necessary reminder that the Obamas are neither my peers nor garden-variety celebrities. Among other things, they're now tasked with proving to the world that Americans really do want to be represented by serious, thoughtful people -- so a little extra decorum is indeed called for here. Bottom line (ha!), no one should be publicly discussing the future first lady's ass, even to praise it. But some of us needed a kick in the ass to realize that.

Mary Elizabeth Williams: No matter how much we may put our hands over our eyes and ears and be all la la la, we only notice race and gender when it's convenient, the physical is political. And maybe it's my own Caucasian intellectual density at work here, but it seems a little simplistic for any of us to assume that race is just about color. Is it OK to celebrate that an African-American family is moving into the White House, but not OK to suggest the first lady-to-be has a particular African-American body type? Does it diminish her work and her stature to seek identification in her physique? Would the conversation be less controversial if it were about her hair? Is it automatically wrong to even talk about such things?

We are corporeal. And the world does form a lot of its opinions of us based on our skin and our size and our sex. We struggle with our self-image and the images projected upon us. We live in a world of blond gossip girls and supermodels and we -- and our kids -- are barraged every day with reasons to loathe ourselves. Ignoring Michelle Obama's ass won't make it go away and it won't cure racism or sexism in our time. We are our brains. We are also our bodies. Even the parts of them we sit upon.

Tracy Clark-Flory: I don't think the fact that Michelle Obama is an incredibly accomplished and fierce intellectual force should render discussions of her appearance off-limits. There's an important conversation to be had about the Obamas and mainstream representations of black beauty and power -- and Kaplan's response is real and valid. But, while I don't disagree with the piece existing, I find it pretty unfortunate that, in this case, it was reduced to big butts. There's a much deeper discussion to be had about Michelle's importance for black women -- even on a superficial level.

Vincent Rossmeier: So we can talk about Barack's abs, but we can't talk about Michelle's rump? I understand there's a historical racial dimension here that complicates the issue, but the amount of energy and anger this article has generated seems misdirected. Who did it actually hurt? Aren't there more important issues to get up-in-arms about? This wasn't a piece of vitriol. It was an opinion piece written in a lively, comic style. It started a discussion. So why the anger? If we're going to devote mammoth amounts of time and attention to the appearances of our political leaders (and I'm not advocating that, by any means, but we do), then we can't just say the first lady's butt is off-limits. I heard no such outrage about the numerous attacks leveled at Michelle's election victory dress, which to me seemed much more catty.

Amy Benfer: I have to admit, I'm somewhat mystified by the amount of controversy generated by this piece. As a former editor at Salon, I edited many pieces by Erin, and I was a huge admirer of her work before I even came to the magazine. Her piece on Jennifer Lopez's butt was an example of one of the reasons I wanted to work for Salon in the first place. It was funny, smart and culturally relevant. No one seems to disagree that there is plenty to say about the various cultural and racial meanings that have been attached to the booty throughout African-American history. I can't help wondering if some of the discomfort with this piece comes specifically from some of the attitudes Erin discusses in the piece, as if even mentioning a woman's butt moves her from "dignified black woman" to "ho." Whatever the source, I found this a loving, liberating, kindhearted take on a woman that Erin clearly admires.

Thomas Rogers: I liked the idea behind the article. I have my reservations about certain aspects of its execution, but I think that a discussion of Michelle Obama's curves can -- in terms of their cultural impact -- be justified. The easiest argument to be made against Kaplan's article is that it is sexist to devote that much attention to a portion of a woman's anatomy, especially a woman as accomplished as Michelle Obama. We aren't, after all, spending much time discussing the cultural impact of her husband's rear end.

But to make that point is to ignore the fact that his body, like any man's, isn't imbued with the cultural baggage that women's bodies are. The size and shape of women's bodies remain a constant topic of discussion in American culture for a variety of reasons -- because they are used to advertise everything from perfume to real estate, because of our history of institutionalized sexism, and because they are, to a much greater extent than men's bodies, vulnerable to value judgement.

If popular culture is a place where Americans work out issues of race, gender and sexuality -- and, at this point, it's silly to claim that the Obamas aren't part of our popular culture -- it's inevitable, as Kaplan found, that discussions around Michelle Obama's body will pop up in forums, blogs and so forth. I believe that there is space within Salon to engage with the subject in an intelligent and culturally savvy way.

Do I think that Kaplan pulled it off? Not entirely. I realize she's written extensively about race and body image for years [Ed. note: Kaplan's story "The Butt," published in 1997 in LA Weekly, can be read on her Web site], I would have liked to have been given more context (about her gendered responses to previous first ladies, for example). More important, I wish she had brought more self-consciousness and self-awareness to the topic. But perhaps the visceral response to Kaplan's piece has spurred a discussion that may, in the long run, be more telling than the article itself.

Author Erin Aubry Kaplan will be on "The Kevin Ross Show" tonight at 7 p.m. PST to discuss the article.

A real-life video game heroine

Tracy Clark-Flory — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 11:30:00 PST

It's no secret that the vast array of female video game heroines are designed for the straight male set. OK, so I've occasionally fantasized about being turned into the tomb-raiding, gun-toting Lara Croft. But were she designed for me, she would get a proper-fitting sports bra to prevent all that painful jiggling, or she wouldn't have that burdensome frontal load to begin with, and she'd lose the porny moans she makes every time she does anything requiring minor physical exertion. She would be less a sex kitten than a ferocious lioness -- a construction that's awfully hard to find in video games.

But I recently stumbled across something even better: a real-life video game heroine for girls. Mary Flanagan is the director of the TiltFactor Laboratory, a feminist-minded operation that creates games for social change, and Dartmouth College's new Digital Humanities Chair Professor. In her games, you travel back in time to meet famous female role models or make a character dance by learning computer programming. After being tipped off to her fascinating work, Broadsheet called Flanagan to chat about innovative game design.

How exactly do you create an activist video game?

Right now we're making a diversity game set underwater -- or in the sky, we're not quite sure -- [starring] creatures that become stronger and more interesting the more diverse they are, and with the more diverse company they keep. So you can create these themes that perhaps shift how players think of large-scale human issues without necessarily addressing a very clear social issue. The social issue can actually be embedded in the structure of the game instead.

That's one of the theories that we're testing out. What if we're really conscious of different types of social or human themes as we're making these limited sets of actions that form the basis of the game? Can that actually in and of itself produce some kind of larger consciousness or awareness?

Can you talk a bit about the games you've designed specifically for girls?

I made the first adventure game for girls called "The Adventures of Josie True." That was an online Flash adventure game done in the late '90s, with Josie True, an Asian American character, as its center focus. She ends up on these time-raveling missions with her teacher, Ms. Trombone, an African-American scientist who meets other women in history, like Marie Curie and Bessie Coleman.

A more recent game that I developed, called "Peeps," teaches girls programming. We did a study with 90 school kids over a short period of time and found that, while they didn't learn all that much programming, the girls' willingness to try went up, along with their self-confidence and [sense of] self-efficacy.

Why do you think that was?

Well, I think it has something to do with my design approach, frankly. Too often, game designs are made to be cryptic -- they follow conventions of popular games. My approach is to reward people for what they might know, and for trying new things. And to give girls content that they might actually like, and give boys content that they might find that they like -- I mean, boys' games are often fairly limited as well. Our overall social problem here is that boys think that girls' games aren't great and girls are more or less bullied into playing boys' games.

Why are so few women involved in the creation of games?

There's a kind of [male] techno culture that goes along with this stuff. For example, when I was working in the game industry in the '90s, a company down the road allowed guys to have porn hanging in their offices.

The interesting myth right now is that -- at a time when women are using the most technology ever, when most women use their iPod and social networks -- there's this perception that gender is all taken care of. But we have clear markers that it's not, that women are not the authors of these tools that they are using. So, my ultimate question is: What if they were? Would the priorities of these systems change? Would we make more interesting technologies?

What might we start to see if there were more women involved in the creation of games?

One of the things we don't really do well with games yet, are things like real social relationships. What are these people doing to each other, are they happy or not, what can we do to help them get along? "The Sims" is one of those, but there are plenty of ways to have games about social relationships, empathy, communication and different kinds of competition -- maybe it's a competition in creativity and not in high score.

You've applied Judith Butler's theory of gender as performance to gaming. Can you talk a bit about that?

I worked in a research lab in Taiwan where all of the guys played girls so that they could watch their boobs jiggle, and I thought: Wow, this performance of gender is a trying on of sorts, but it's a voyeuristic trying on.

In this hilarious game called "Parasite Eve," you play a female cop wearing an evening gown and 5-inch stiletto heels, because you had to go to the opera, when a monster flies out and tries to kill everyone. You're supposed to chase the monster and kill it with your little lame gun, and as you're walking around you hear the ping-ping-ping [of the heels.] I thought that was kind of interesting in a Judith Butler way -- it is culturally locating the majority of male players within these female limitations. But the other side is that, you know, "I like to watch these girls and control all the moves she can make."

Dude, Granny used all the hot water!

Amy Benfer — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 10:17:00 PST

Watching the market meltdown this fall, I began to envy my parents. Previously, things had looked pretty bad for them: My father’s company, where he had worked for two decades, spent the last five years of his career threatening to lay him off (and therefore reduce his pension). But last August, they made it: Dad hit 65, having paid off the house and the car, and settled into retirement. And by September, their two-person, fixed-income household looked way more secure than my own (two mid-career professionals, one college kid with a coffee shop job). Already, my boyfriend and I are joking about which set of parents we’ll move in with first when things really go to shit.

Apparently, for many people across the country, that joke isn’t funny anymore. This week, we dug up three different features on families who have responded to tough times by putting an extra generation -- or two -- under one roof. The L.A. Times found a 35-year-old married couple who moved back with the wife’s mother, ostensibly to help Mom make the mortgage, only to end up in debt to her a few months later when both of them lost their jobs. Another parent ended up housing two of her adult children and their children when both of them had to rent out their own houses in order to make their mortgage payments.

While the Times doesn’t yet have figures about adult children moving in with their parents, the trend of parents moving in with their adult children is real, according to the Christian Science Monitor, which cites Census figures indicating that the number of parents 65 and older living with their adult children has grown by 62 percent between 2000 and 2007, while the number of parents under 65 who did so has grown by 75. All things being equal -- enough space for all; more or less equitable incomes -- a few extra adults in the house can mean more people to bring in the money and share the cooking, cleaning and childcare. But when things fall apart, warns Allen Hager, president of Right at Home in Omaha, Neb., it’s often the women of the house that get the brunt of it: “Women are taking on [most] of the household, child-rearing, and senior care."

Case in point is Shelley Abreu’s first-person essay in Babble, which bristles with resentment at her burden of having to support herself, her children and her elderly mother, after her father died leaving some debt and few assets. Abreu and her husband bought her mom’s house, built an addition, and moved in. "With three children ages four, two and four weeks, a ninety-five pound golden retriever, my husband, myself, and my sixty-one-year-old mother, things certainly feel cramped," she writes. Instead of saving for her kids’ education or even paying for dancing lessons, she is, essentially, paying for her mother’s retirement. "It's sacrifices like these that make me feel occasionally resentful, not only of my mom, but of my father for leaving us in this mess," she writes. "But I do value what this experience has taught me: to be more responsible than my own parents were." That is, if she has any cash left to manage in a responsible manner.

In the 19th century such arrangements were common, historian Stephanie Coontz tells the L.A. Times, until psychologists argued that living with the in-laws could make people go a little crazy. But she does see some advantages. "Grandparents can be more grand-parental and develop closer family ties, and having more people in a house can sometimes be a buffer for overly intense marital relations or parent-child relations," Coontz says. "To the extent that we are stuck with this happening, it does give us a way to rediscover aspects of family life we've been ignoring for the last 80 to 100 years."

Antiabortion ... pro-reality?

Lynn Harris — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 08:22:00 PST

From the Washington Post: "Frustrated by the failure to overturn Roe v. Wade [and the second tanking of the abortion ban in South Dakota], a growing number of antiabortion pastors, conservative academics and activists are setting aside efforts to outlaw abortion and instead are focusing on building social programs and developing other assistance for pregnant women to reduce the number of abortions."

"Social programs" and "assistance" like "crisis pregnancy centers" and helping healthcare providers not do their jobs?

Not necessarily. "Some of the activists are actually working with abortion rights advocates to push for legislation in Congress [the Pregnant Women's Support Act; the Reducing the Need for Abortion and Supporting Parents Act] that would provide pregnant women with health care, child care and money for education -- services that could encourage them to continue their pregnancies," the Post reports. "Their efforts, they said, reflect the political reality that legal challenges to abortion rights will not be successful, especially after Barack Obama's victory ... Although the activists insist that they are not retreating from their belief that abortion is immoral and should be outlawed, they argue that a more practical alternative is to try to reduce abortions through other means."

"If one strategy has failed and failed over decades, and you have empirical information that tells how you can honor life and encourage women to make that choice by meeting real needs that are existing and tangible, why not do that?" said Douglas W. Kmiec, a law professor at Pepperdine University who served in the Reagan and Poppa Bush administrations -- and an antiabortion Catholic who endorsed Obama (and received hate mail, and was denied Communion).

Huh. Quoth Bitch Ph.D.: "It's so crazily reasonable, I almost thought this came from the Onion."

Right, except for the part where the response of the harder-core antiabortion factions stops at the "crazily" part. Honestly, they would make so much more sense if they stuck to their "abortion is murder, period" platform. But this shift, it seems, has forced them (specifically, Cardinal Francis George of Chicago, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops) to say things like, "It's still to be proven what the connection is between poverty and abortion." (You mean, other than "direct?" [PDF]) And Pro-Life Action League founder Joe Scheidler, always good for a groaner: "You don't have to have a lot of social programs to cut down on abortions." OK ... some social programs? Because we know for a fact that outlawing abortion backfires.

Anyway. What I like about this, besides the tasty schadenfreude, and, you know, the whole thing, is the fact that with this story, and this (still-early) shift, there's also a shift in focus -- away from discussions of the "middle ground" on abortion that so often seem to imply that it's only the feminists who need to go there (translation: be less hysterical, slash, need to quit handing out free abortions, with balloons, to every woman at any stage of pregnancy who entertains a fleeting doubt). In reality, of course, this "prevention" idea is not an inspiration some clever lover-not-fighter had last week; reproductive rights groups have long been working to both enable legal, accessible abortion and address circumstances that could lower its incidence.

And maybe I'm still wearing my goofy hope-colored glasses, but -- even though these guys are so not going the distance on all factors leading to abortion, such as, in some cases, their movement's own opposition to contraception [!] -- something's stopping my knee from jerking right into cynicism. Even as the fleeing Bush administration keeps tossing legislative junk in Obama's path like the desperate bad guy hurling bookcases and folding chairs behind him, maybe, just maybe, these gathering ripples of cooperation reflect a political and cultural reality much bigger -- and stronger -- than the narrow minds who would resist it, and the one man who has come to symbolize it. Or, to be far less grandiose, maybe these expanding efforts will, I don't know, help a few more women.

"I'm not a feminist, but there's gender bias on TV"

Lynn Harris — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 08:15:00 PST

Tina Brown's new pet Daily Beast has released the results (PDF) of a poll (conducted by the firm of Clinton strategist non grata Mark Penn) suggesting -- among other things -- that while one big white barrier fell on Election Night, at least one other (perhaps not surprisingly) remained firmly in place. Specifically, the one between people and a clue about "feminism."

A majority of respondents (both male and female) said that overall, women are not treated equally in American society, nor in the media, especially if they're named Hillary Clinton or Sarah Palin.

But! Only 20 percent said they were willing to use the word "feminist" to describe themselves. (Even fewer said they'd want their daughters to be feminists.)

Discuss.

A woman > her hymen

Tracy Clark-Flory — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 14:30:00 PST

A French appeals court went against the wealth of worldwide cultural evidence to the contrary and ruled on Monday that -- you might want to sit down -- virginity is not an "essential quality" of a woman. What? A woman amounts to more than her hymen? Her sexual past does not define her as good or evil, pure or defiled? I can only imagine what historically recognized truth the courts will strike down next!

My self-righteous sarcasm aside, the ruling could be significant for the legal rights of women, particularly Muslims, in France. It reverses a lower court decision to annul the French Muslim couple's marriage after the humiliated husband was unable to present a bloodied bed sheet to the collected guests on their wedding night. That is hardly proof of her "impurity" -- hymens tear during all sorts of wholesome, non-sexual activities, and sometimes remain intact even after sex -- but, if the popularity of hymenoplasties among European Muslims is any indication, it still matters. Regardless, the woman later admitted to having lied about her virginity, and her husband felt the deception warranted an annulment (rendering the marriage invalid) instead of a divorce.

In France, only a couple dozen annulments are granted a year, and only in cases where a spouse misrepresents an "essential quality" of their identity or character, according to the Globe and Mail. For example, an annulment might be granted if a husband lies about a criminal record, or a wife conceals a past marriage. Previously, lying about one's virginity had never been considered grounds for an annulment. The lower court judge, however, found that, as far as her husband's cultural beliefs are concerned, the bride had misrepresented an essential part of her character. Indeed, she admitted to knowing that he would not have married her, had he known about her sexual past.

But many women's rights activists argued that the lower court ruling would have set a dangerous precedent, potentially legitimizing virginity as a legal pre-condition to marriage. Of course, virginity cannot be proven, so for an annulment to take place on those grounds, a woman would have to admit to having had premarital sex -- or would she? Might the ruling essentially mandate hymenoplasties -- legally, rather than just culturally -- within certain French communities? And where might the state draw the line when it comes to personal definitions of the "essential qualities" of personhood? As one activist suggested, might a judge rule that, within certain cultures, genital mutilation is so central to a woman's character that lying about it renders a marriage invalid?

For those reasons, I celebrate the appeals court's ruling (and, dear lord, hope the couple initiates a divorce). You do have to wonder, though, how this high-profile case might influence the rising rate of hymenoplasties among European Muslims.

Single mother asks: Is my son toy-deprived?

Katharine Mieszkowski — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 12:16:00 PST

Back in May, I interviewed journalist Nan Mooney about her latest book "(Not) Keeping Up with Our Parents: The Decline of the Professional Middle Class," which explores how stagnant wages and the rising cost of health care, education and retirement have driven middle-class Americans into financial insecurity. Over on Babble, Mooney's been telling her personal story about what it's like to be a single mother in her late 30s living in her parents' basement apartment in Seattle with her son, Leo.

In her latest essay, Mooney's reflects on her son growing up toy-thrifty in an ExerSaucer world: "In part I'm proud to invest him with non-materialistic values," she writes. "But at times I feel guilty too. I'm not entirely convinced that never having a slate of developmental toys, a library full of books or a fancy birthday party won't actually hurt him in some way. What if in my efforts to pare down, I neglect to provide Leo with some crucial item that really would make him a happier, more successful, more well-rounded kid?"

Check it out here.

Guns, roses and gay rights

Judy Berman — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 12:10:00 PST

It's been quite a year for Guns 'N Roses fans and proponents of same-sex marriage alike. For both groups, there's been joy, pain and, most of all, anticipation. And now, they have something -- or, rather, someone -- else in common: Slash. The former GNR guitar player, who now shreds for Velvet Revolver, has just released a video (posted below) in which he and wife Perla Hudson announce their support for gay marriage in the wake of California's devastating decision on Proposition 8. As Slash plays the "Star-Spangled Banner," Hudson addresses the camera, telling us, "I married my sweetheart. You should be able to marry yours, too. Say no to hate and yes to equal rights. Keep up the fight."

Like everything anyone involved in GNR has ever done, it's steeped in '90s trash, from Slash's perennial enormous hat-and-even bigger-hair combo to Hudson's cooing, rocker-chick voice. But that's kind of why I love it. As much as I adored Tim Gunn's No on 8 ad, I assume that most people who are into Tim are also already hip to gay rights. Slash and Hudson's video, however, might just open a few minds.

Ovary freezing: A feminist cure-all?

Tracy Clark-Flory — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 12:00:00 PST

The first woman to get pregnant after receiving an ovary transplant from her twin sister gave birth last week (to a healthy girl) and scientists announced that a variation on that very procedure might preserve the fertility of women who require ovary-ravaging cancer treatments. But, in this clip for Current TV, I talk about the prediction that it will be most popular as a lifestyle choice.

A postscript (because one can only fit so many words into a minute-long video): Of course, generally, the more reproductive choices available to women, the better. I just find it grim to think that, instead of social solutions, we have to rely on uncertain medical fixes to address the often conflicted choice between a career and a family.

The Obamas on "60 Minutes"

Rebecca Traister — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 12:00:00 PST

I hope everyone caught the Obamas on "60 Minutes" last night. It was a pinch-yourself interview with both the president-elect and his wife, during which it seemed far too good to be true that two such smart, relatable, incisive and direct people are just a few months away from taking up residence on Pennsylvania Avenue.

Below were some of my very favorite moments of the interview as well as clips so that you can watch (or rewatch). I will say off the bat that there was one regrettable, 1956-style moment at the very tail end of the sit-down, during which interviewer Steve Kroft asked Obama about his feelings on a national championship for college football, and as our next president leaned forward to discuss the topic with his interviewer, he glanced over at his wife and said, "Excuse me for a second," and she waved it off with "Don't mind me." Because girls don't like football. Or something.

But that quibble aside, here were some of the extraordinary, progressive, remarkable things said in the rest of the nearly hour-long conversation:

1. When Kroft asked Obama to compare the current financial crisis to the dire situation faced by Franklin Delano Roosevelt when he was elected in 1932, Obama made a very nuanced, compelling point, noting that in 1932, things were worse. "You had a third of the country that was ill-housed, ill-clothed, unemployed," he said. "We're not going through something comparable to that, but I would say that this is as bad as we've seen since then, and if we don't take some significant steps, it could get worse." The man is calm. And reasonable. And unwilling to be overdramatic, but he still manages to articulate exactly what we should be afraid of and why. His directness is remarkable, and incredibly confidence inspiring. Like a doctor who tells you exactly what he or she is about to do and whether or not it's going to hurt.

2. "I have said repeatedly that I intend to close Guantánamo, and I will follow through on that. I have said repeatedly that America doesn't torture, and I'm going to make sure we don't torture."

3. When asked about when he'll name his Cabinet, Obama just grinned and said, "Soon." How soon? Grin. "Soon." Asked directly about the stories that he is about to or has already offered Hillary Clinton the secretary of state slot, the president-elect just said, "She is somebody who I needed advice and counsel from. She is one of the most thoughtful public officials that we have. Beyond that you're not getting more out of me, Steve."

Notably, however, a few minutes later, Obama said he'd been reading a lot of Abraham Lincoln's writing, and when Kroft pointed out that Lincoln put a lot of his political enemies in his Cabinet, Obama said, simply, "He did." Asked by Kroft if that was something he'd been considering, Obama said, "Well, I tell you what. I find him a very wise man."

4. Asked about the history he made by becoming the U.S.'s first African-American president, Obama immediately, and movingly, brought up the perspective of his mother-in-law, Marian Robinson, whose hand he held while watching the election results come in. "You think about Michelle's mom, who grew up on the west and south sides of Chicago," he said, "who worked so hard to help Michelle get to where she is, and her brother be successful. She was sitting next to me as we were watching returns. And she's like my grandmother was, sort of a no-fuss person. And suddenly she just kind of reached out and started holding my hand, kind of squeezing it. And you had this sense of: Well, what's she thinking? For a black woman who grew up in the '50s, in a segregated Chicago, to watch her daughter become first lady of the United States."

5. When Kroft probed Barack about the list of household chores he's had and how many of those chores will now be done by other people, the former senator opined, "Sometimes it's soothing to wash the dishes." His wife, however, objected, looking at him like he was crazy, and saying, "Since when was it ever soothing for you to wash dishes?" "When I had to do it," Barack replied, a little lamely, "I'd make it into a soothing thing."

6. Barack described his daughters, 7 and 10, so beautifully and respectfully, noting that through this process, "they have stayed their normal, cheerful, happy, courteous, curious selves." What a lovely way to describe human beings; we should all remain normal, cheerful, happy, courteous and curious!

7. Kroft questioned Michelle about her stated goal of being mom in chief in the White House, noting that she, like her husband, is a Harvard Law School grad and a Princeton grad and a high-powered executive, wondering to Barack, "How long do you give her knocking around that big house before she wants to start putting an imprint on the job of being first lady?" Thank you, Steve Kroft! Barack responded that his wife is going to "design her own role, set her own path," but that she is very serious about her priority on motherhood, which I believe. For her part, Michelle noted, "the thing we've learned as we've watched this campaign is that people, women, are capable of doing more than one thing well at the same time. I've had to juggle being a mom in chief and having a career for a long time. The primary focus for the first year will be making sure the kids make it through the transition. But there are many issues I care deeply about."

8. Everyone needs to chill about the dog. It's not arriving until the family is ensconsed in the White House, sometime in late winter or early spring.

9. And as for the White House, perhaps the best part of the whole interview was something Michelle said about her tour of it. "The White House is beautiful," she said. "It is awe-inspiring. What I felt walking through there is that it is a great gift and an honor to be able to live here, and I want to make sure that we are upholding what that house stands for."

So far, the Obamas are on track to uphold what the White House stands for better than many of their recent predecessors.

On Obama's personal transition:

On the dog:

Watch CBS Videos Online

Stereotype relief, not just pain relief

Kate Harding — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 11:47:00 PST

You know you're late to blogging about a new wave of consumer outrage when the corporation in question has already apologized by the time you post about it. Nevertheless, have you heard about the Motrin thing? Marketers for the pain reliever recently released a promotional video online in hopes that it would go viral, which it did -- for all the wrong reasons.

The ad, aimed at new mothers, starts off with the words, "Wearing your baby seems to be in fashion," and right there, I'm like, "Uh-oh." I get where they were going with that -- you see a hell of a lot more baby slings today than you did 10 years ago -- but holy cow, what were they thinking, casting a parenting decision as a fashion trend? Unless it was "Let's see how many angry e-mails we can get by Monday," that was an epic fail, as the kids say. The video goes downhill from there, saying that baby slings "put a ton of strain on your back, your neck, your shoulders" (that's why you need Motrin), but it's worth it because "it totally makes [you] look like an official mom." Oh, sweet Jesus, are you kidding me? I'm not even a mother, and I know that if you've wrapped the sling correctly, it shouldn't cause pain (theoretically, anyway). Furthermore, it's been my observation that baby-wearing mothers are far less concerned with "looking like an official mom" than getting the kid from point A to point B safely and conveniently; I've never heard one fret that she might be mistaken for the nanny if she uses a stroller.

So the Internet -- in particular a bunch of moms on Twitter -- flipped out over the weekend, and by this morning, Kathy Widmer, V.P. of Marketing for McNeil Consumer Healthcare, had apologized both on the Motrin Web site and in a statement sent to Forbes. Motrin is pulling the ad everywhere possible, though a print version is already on newsstands in some magazines. I'm really impressed by that move, both because the company legitimately screwed up and because taking a prompt, decisive action to stem the online furor shows that the Motrin folks understand how important it is to be responsive to consumer feedback in the Internet age. I didn't even get a chance to write my, "Wow, what a bunch of jerks!" post before Widmer had apologized in a distinctly non-jerky way. Well played, Ms. Widmer.

I'm still not thrilled, though, with Motrin's whole "we feel your lady pain" campaign, which includes bus shelter ads that lament the physical effects of wearing high heels, carrying purses and lifting strollers. I'm no bodybuilder, but I can actually wrangle a baby and a handbag at the same time without reaching for painkillers, and if a pair of shoes puts me in so much pain I need drugs, I give them to Goodwill. Women experience a whole lot of aches and pains that don't have anything to do with us being weaklings or too frivolous to quit doing stuff that hurts, and I'd become a Motrin customer for life if they came up with a clever ad that actually reflected that. Something like, "Worn-out gender stereotypes making your temples throb? We feel your pain!"

R.I.P. Playgirl

Tracy Clark-Flory — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 07:45:00 PST

I hadn't thought much about the recent demise of Playgirl magazine until a New York Times obituary -- in the Sunday Styles section -- gave me reason to grieve. Apparently, Playgirl launched in 1973 as a "feminist response to Playboy and Penthouse." Somehow that historic moment was overshadowed in my women's studies textbooks by that year's wee little court ruling on reproductive rights. But it is good to now know that, as many celebrated their right to choose, some also rejoiced at their right to sexy pictorials of men with feathered locks, handlebar mustaches and hair busting cleavage-like from plunging necklines.

In the years that followed, the magazine featured Burt Reynolds in a Santa hat and Christmas PJs, cover model Alan Thicke alongside a reference to his -- nudge, nudge -- "growing pains" and Jean-Claude Van Damme in a stretch purple unitard. Woo, feminism?

In fairness, I do have a single fond memory of Playgirl's 35-year history: the Brad Pitt issue. The (OK, seriously ethically questionable) photos of him frolicking in the nude while on vacation were published when I was in 8th grade, and I managed to hunt down one of the shots online. Flooded with confused excitement, I immediately announced my discovery to my mother, who replied: "Print me out a copy?" In her infinite motherly wisdom she recognized it as an opportunity to communicate her view of the naked human body as natural and shameless, and, if necessary, to discuss any unhealthy messages about sex and sexuality conveyed in the photo. (But, also: Brad Pitt, naked. Hello!)

This was Playgirl's history from the outside, though -- the obstructed view of the magazine as it peeked out from behind rows and rows of more acceptable magazines. Apparently the looks of its cheese-ball cover models deceived; there was a whole lot more going on behind the scenes. In recent years, a team of three female editors in their 20s took over and decided to try to "bring Playgirl back to its roots" and cover "issues like abortion and equal rights, interspersing sexy shots of men with work from writers like Raymond Carver and Joyce Carol Oates." That description alone is orgasm-worthy.

But the magazine's publisher, Blue Horizon Media, wanted fewer words and more extreme closeups of waxed private parts. The Times reports that the women adopted a "do-it-yourself ethic" -- call it riot grrrl porn -- and tried desperately to revive the magazine with parties and a blog, and very little help from higher-ups. But, alas, their efforts went unrewarded and the publisher decided this summer to shutter the magazine. The final, January/February 2009 issue now sits on newsstands.

Don't get me wrong: I won't miss Playgirl. The few times I flipped through it, I instantly felt that I was not even remotely the target, that the photos were aimed at gay men, or women with very different leanings. That isn't to suggest that only gay men like to look at photos of naked men, it's just that there was nothing for me in the pictorials of greasy, fully-waxed musclemen. Former Playgirl editor Colleen Kane recently wrote in Radar that it was a challenge for the editorial team to meet the tastes of all of their readers, "to recognize that some want smiling hunks only, some like manscaping, some hate it, some loved tattooed models while others hated them, and one woman's cougar-bait is another woman's jailbait."

I suppose that's the trouble you run into when you are the only magazine publishing photos of naked men for women. (And, even at that, according to some reports, men comprised roughly 50 percent of the audience.) Also, look at how endless celebrity centerfolds have firmly propped up the Playboy brand; meanwhile, Playgirl had ... Burt Reynolds, stripped to his rawhide skin. Male celebrities simply don't have the same motivation to bare all -- and I refuse to believe it's for actual lack of interest on women's part.

Kane also suggested that there might be "some parallels between Playgirl's struggle to find its identity and readership and the developing lack of cohesiveness among feminists, as the ranks divided into second and third waves, and the waves subdivided with different opinions about sex, porn." But certainly one doesn't have to be a feminist to have a hunger for porn, and I dare say that if the previously mentioned vision of legitimately sexy shots alongside smart writing didn't bridge feminists' supposed generational divide, it still would have gained a large enough audience to thrive. That vision was never realized, though; it seems the publisher never gave it a chance.

In the Radar piece, Kane writes: "What are women going to do for porn now? I don't know; honestly, I don't even particularly like porn." Maybe some women who do like porn will come along and create a little something for other women who do too.

What the hell, Helen?

Kate Harding — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 07:22:00 PST

Dear Helen Mirren, please stop talking about rape. Please.

Not three months after the GQ interview in which Mirren referred to date rape as "one of the many subtle parts of the men/women relationship that has to be negotiated and worked out between them," she's inspired another worldwide chorus of WTFs with remarks about female jurors on rape cases being "sexually jealous" of the victims. In yesterday's Sunday Times (UK), she's quoted as saying:

"In a rape case the courts in defence of a man would select as many women as they could for the jury, because women go against women. Whether in a deep-seated animalistic way, going back billions of years, or from a sense of tribal jealousy or just antagonism, I don't know. But other women on a rape case would say she was asking for it. The only reason I can think of is that they're sexually jealous."

And this comes on the heels of her talking about female journalists "who are mean-spirited and nasty because you are another woman and want to make you feel crap" -- which, ironically, comes on the heels of her saying, "In my heart of hearts I love women more than I love men." Wait, what? You think women are wonderful -- except for the part where they're nasty, competitive bitches who will look at a rape victim and say she was asking for it out of "sexual jealousy?" I just ... what?

In my heart of hearts, I want to love Helen Mirren. I want to love any woman who is almost universally regarded as a mad force to be reckoned with -- intellectually, professionally and red bikinially -- in her 60s. And to be fair, Chrissy Iley, the Times interviewer, seems seriously hung up on Mirren's sexuality and might well have pushed the "women are catty" line of discussion, given that she clearly agrees with it. ("[S]he's right. On the whole, women don't like other women, because women are competitive with each other," Iley writes, as if this is established scientific fact, and not one of the top 10 all-time negative female stereotypes.) But please, Dame Helen, I'm begging you. The next time you're tempted to say the word "rape" in an interview, think twice. Think, like, six or seven times if you need to.

Replacing Poehler

Judy Berman — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 03:11:00 PST

To say that it's been a stellar year for the women of "Saturday Night Live" would be an understatement. From "bitch is the new black" to Tina Fey as Sarah Palin to Amy Poehler's jaw-dropping 9-months-pregnant rap, the sketch show has been all about the ladies in 2008. The only problem? Now that the election is over, Fey is back to concentrating on "30 Rock" and her new book and Poehler is taking some well-deserved maternity leave before embarking on a new NBC sitcom, leaving the show with only two female cast members. While I don't really have specific problems with Kristen Wiig or Casey Wilson, their work on the show just hasn't been that exciting yet.

So I was excited to hear that "SNL" has hired two new ladies to fill Poehler's shoes. Abby Elliott and Michaela Watkins will make their debut on Saturday night's broadcast. Watkins, a member of the Groundlings improv troupe, played a recurring role on Season 4 of "The New Adventures of Old Christine." Twenty-one-year-old Elliott, the daughter of "SNL" alum and "Cabin Boy" star Chris Elliott, honed her improv chops with the Upright Citizens Brigade (the group that also launched Poehler's career).

Luckily, thanks to the wonders of YouTube, we don't have to wait until Saturday night to see what we can expect from the new cast members. Both of their audition videos are already available.

Watkins' reel has shown up in a number of pieces, and they're all worth watching, but, for me, it's all about her Arianna Huffington impression:

Now, I'm not going to argue that it stands up to Tracy Ullman's Huffington, but anyone who comes up with a skit about the blog heroine waking up in a frat house has my attention. And her wacky monologue is right on: "This Bush administration is completely asleep at the wheel. They're like children at a Froot Loop contest at the wheel of a big boat. And you know what I'm talking about"? Brilliant! "You're left, you're right, but you're not center. This is a clitoris, it's not some kind of gear shift on your locomotion train"? Amen, Michaela?

Elliott's reel also looks promising:

Though I find her entire cast of characters funny, it seems clear that Elliott excels at impressions. In fact, her talent for them is almost spooky. She manages to channel both Joan Cusack and Drew Barrymore purely via facial expression, before she even opens her mouth. It will be interesting to see whether "SNL's" writers use her youth effectively. As the clip shows, she's Urban Outfitters to Fey's "Mom Jeans."

Of course, I'll have to reserve my final judgment until Saturday night's episode airs. But for now, here's to the next generation of "SNL" women. May they grab the torch that Fey and Poehler are passing and run like hell with it.

Girls skip school after acid attack

Tracy Clark-Flory — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 14:30:00 PST

An update on Wednesday's brutal attack on 15 Afghan schoolgirls: After seeing their fellow students burned and blinded by men with acid-filled water guns, all of the school's 1,500 students were absent on Thursday.

The Associated Press reports that "a handful of teachers showed up" and "the only students who tried to attend were about 20 primary school students who arrived late in the afternoon and were sent home because the school had already decided not to hold classes." The attack is just the latest in several hundreds of anti-eduction attacks to be carried out since the fall of the Taliban, which outlawed girls' education. In short, the attackers, who are suspected to be Taliban militants, successfully attained their goal of scaring girls out of school.

Safia Ibrahimi, a friend of one of the two girls blinded in the attack, told the Globe and Mail: "After we saw her eyes, nobody will go to school any more." Principal Mehmood Qaderi told the AP that teachers and students have told him that "until security improves, they will not go to the school." Who could blame them?

Bloggers, journalists and Sarah Palin's ignorance

Kate Harding — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 12:05:00 PST

Last week, you heard the rumor, from an anonymous McCain campaign source: Sarah Palin is so dumb, she didn't know that Africa was a continent! And on Monday, you may have heard David Shuster announce on MSNBC that the source of that rumor and others had come forward: It was Martin Eisenstadt of the Harding Institute for Freedom and Democracy,

There's just one little problem with that part of the story: Martin Eisenstadt doesn't exist. Neither does the Harding Institute for Freedom and Democracy. Plenty of folks around the liberal blogosphere have been hip to those pesky little facts since June, when William K. Wolfrum did a series of posts revealing "Eisenstadt" as a hoax at Shakesville and his own blog. Nevertheless, as Wolfrum put it in August, "Despite the supreme handicap of not actually existing, [Eisenstadt] has managed to assemble a strong list of media types willing to link to him to further their points." Among the media outlets taken in by "Eisenstadt": Air America, the L.A. Times, and as of Monday, MSNBC and The New Republic.

So when I saw Richard Pérez-Peña's New York Times article revealing not only the hoax but the true identity of "Martin Eisenstadt" (it's two filmmakers), I thought, "Finally, Wolfrum's research is going to be acknowledged!" Yeah, not so much. The first time my head exploded was when Pérez-Peña introduced Wolfrum not by name but as "one blogger who spent months chasing the illusion around cyberspace, trying to debunk it." I know too many people who have been referred to only as "one blogger" -- or, say, a "prominent feminist blogger" -- in media reports responding to their work, so I didn't expect to see credit where it was due. (Psst, journalists: Blog posts usually have bylines, too, and they're not all "MyDog'sName1985.") But then I was heartened to see Wolfrum mentioned by name toward the end of the article -- only to have my head explode once more when, in the last line, Pérez-Peña actually insinuates that Wolfrum was in on the hoax. Because, hey, how else could he possibly have figured it out all by himself?

Here's how: Like many bloggers, William K. Wolfrum is a former journalist, and he figured it out by doing some old-fashioned investigative reporting. Meanwhile, the media outlets who quoted and linked to "Eisenstadt" as a reliable source apparently didn't even go so far as old-fashioned fact-checking. Unbelievably, Pérez-Peña rushes past that point, reassuring Times readers that "most of Eisenstadt's victims have been bloggers, a reflection of the sloppy speed at which any tidbit, no matter how specious, can bounce around the Internet." Except for the part where "Eisenstadt" has had an online presence for at least a year, and mainstream outlets have been uncritically using him as a source for months, all while the tidbit that there is no Eisenstadt has been "bouncing around the internet." Said Wolfrum in an e-mail, "For the last several months you could Google the name 'Martin Eisenstadt,' and the third entry that came up was my post from Shakesville calling him out as a hoax." Darn those unprofessional bloggers who will quote anyone without even a cursory search on his name!

Wolfrum says he's not too bothered by the whole thing, but he marvels at the "lack of curiosity and interest in journalism" evinced by so many actual journalists. (And, it should be said, bloggers -- Pérez-Peña is certainly correct that many non-pro writers were duped as well. But, hey, everyone expects bloggers to be "sloppy.") Bringing this back to typical Broadsheet territory -- i.e., Palin Palin Palin! -- one of the most disturbing side effects of this latest "Eisenstadt" hoax is that many people are now assuming the "Africa is a country" rumor was fabricated by the hoaxers, so it's been proven that Palin never said such a thing. In fact, all they did was falsely claim credit for the tip, so the anonymous source is still presumably a real person, and it's still possibly true that Sarah Palin was not a star geography student. Honestly, as much as I'm willing to believe the scope of Palin's ignorance is breathtaking, even I have trouble buying that one. Unfortunately, we can't really know if it's true, because no one who's repeated the rumor seems to have looked into who the original source was, whether he or she has any credibility in the matter, or what, exactly, Palin said. Sounds like a job for a journalist -- or perhaps One Blogger.