Dare To Be A Feminist

by GREG KAUFMANN, The Nation

A new report on single mothers in the United States shatters some of The Gipper's favorite myths that still persist today. [MORE]

When Sabatina James refused an arranged marriage, she sparked a violent war within her family—and a threat on her life.

The trouble started when I was 15. At the time, my family was living in the Austrian city of Linz, a world away from our native Pakistan, where I had grown up in a rural village in the shadow of the Kashmir mountains. I loved the freedoms of my new life in Europe—the T-shirts and jeans, the lipstick and eyeliner. My conservative parents didn’t. We fought about swimming lessons and acting classes, which my father said were for prostitutes. Tampons were an issue, too—my mother thought they would ruin my virginity.

When a person's religious beliefs cause him to deny the evidence of science, or for whom public policy morphs into a battle with the devil, shouldn't that be a subject for discussion and debate?

by: Sarah Seltzer, AlterNet | Op-Ed

Don't be fooled by the Limbaugh backlash. It's true that progressives and women's groups are fighting back with unprecedented vigor, and the campaigns against Komen, against Rush Limbaugh's sexist smears, against the Blunt Amendment, show that women can organize quickly and powerfully over social media. And yes, it remains crucial that the nasty sexism and racism emitting from the shock jock is finally getting its deserved public airing.

But extremist politicians haven't gotten the message yet: the policies that mirror and feed from Limbaugh's smears still exist, and may in fact be worsening. The GOP War on Women is in full throttle over a year since it kicked off, taking its toll in particular on the state level where recent data shows that all the posturing has dramatically changed living conditions for women--and not for the better.

Here are five ways the GOP are continuing their onslaught on women's rights that are crying out for the kind of intense pushback that we now know women's and reproductive justice advocates are capable of. [MORE]

By Tracy Clark-Flory

From a sex strike to satirical anti-Viagra bills, the war on reproductive rights has some responding with laughs.

Women are being attacked for their accomplishments, which only shows we've got more work to do (Thanks to Limbaugh and Santorum, We now have a clear picture of what we women are up against | http://t.co/wTW7nQyt ...

by CHRISTINE DHANAGOM, LifeSiteNews.com

DALLAS, February 28, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A lesbian judge in Texas says she will not perform wedding ceremonies for heterosexuals until the state allows homosexuals to “marry” as well.

Dallas County Judge Tonya Parker told the Stonewall Democrats of Dallas at a meeting last Tuesday that it would be “oxymoronic” for her to perform wedding ceremonies that can’t be performed for her.

She said that when couples appear in her courtroom, she directs them to another judge, but not before using the opportunity to “give them a lesson about marriage equality.”

“I usually will offer them something along the lines of, ‘I’m sorry. I don’t perform marriage ceremonies because we are in a state that does not have marriage equality, and until it does, I am not going to partially apply the law to one group of people that doesn’t apply to another group of people,’” she said. [MORE]

The National Organization for Women (NOW): Taking action for women's equality since 1966.

I’m no celebrity stalker; I can rarely identify an eighth of the folks plastered on the publications which stare at me while I’m in the supermarket check-out line. But I...