WANTED: Safety for Abortion Doctors

Though Scott Roeder, the convicted murderer of abortion provider Dr. Tiller, will be behind bars for 50 years to life, the final chapter of the story may not yet have been written. The Kansas City Star and the Associated Press report that a federal grand jury in Kansas City is looking into whether “a broader […]

Estrogen May Boost Post-Trauma Recovery

A study from Johns Hopkins University in the September issue of The Journal of Trauma found that women are 14 percent more likely to survive severe physical trauma than men on account of higher estrogen levels. According to the study, estrogen may actually help the body repair itself more quickly and effectively following extreme injury. […]

Conservatives Pledge MORE Abortion Restrictions

Remember the Stupak-Pitts anti-choice amendment during last fall’s health-care reform debate? Now, it turns out that the “Nelson compromise” in the final Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act–which allows patients to pay separately for abortion coverage from private plans in state insurance exchanges, but allows states to opt out of providing plans with abortion coverage […]

Concluding Thoughts on Love Your Body Week

Today marks the last day of “Love Your Body Week,” and the blogosphere has been actively posting useful tips on how to love one’s own body even if it does not live up to the marketed ideal. Of course many women find it hard to love their bodies when they’re “overweight,” even though the fashion-model […]

Disney Ride Still Makes Light of Sex Slavery

“Human-trafficking is the fastest growing criminal activity in the world today.” According to the United Nations, as many as 4 million people are sold into slavery each year, with over 80% involving commercial sexual exploitation. So why is Disney still asking us to laugh at an overt depiction of sexual slavery in its popular Pirates of the Caribbean ride?

How I Picked 10 Best Feminist Teen Books of All Time

For my new Ms. magazine article on feminist young-adult fiction (YA), I set out to pick 10 Must-Reads–those books which every 13-year-old with a spark of gender consciousness should have on her (or his) bookshelf. Or, as I say in the piece, those books that offer young protofeminists “refuge or escape–or provide our first ‘click!’ […]

Young British Feminists: Rumours of Our Death Have Been Greatly Exaggerated

In Britain, much like the U.S. and Canada, the refrain “young people aren’t feminists” has been depressingly constant over the past decade–both from right-wingers who decry feminism and left-wingers who long for it. Young women today aren’t interested in feminism, the argument goes. And even if a small minority do identify as feminists, they’re too […]