Feminism & Women

2009

• Women Ski Jumpers Grounded

  Dave Zirin : Sports

  A Canadian judge allows the International Olympic Committee to trump Canadian equal rights law and keep women ski jumpers out of the Vancouver Olympics.

• The World's Women Stuck in the UN's Blind Spot

  Barbara Crossette : United Nations

  "Mainstreaming" a focus on women into all of the United Nations' work never happened. So will an agency for women ever get off the ground?

• Keeping Focus on Fighting Genital Mutilation

  Barbara Crossette

  Is the campaign to fight female genital mutilation meeting new resistance not only in traditional societies but among Western anthropologists?

• Where's the Birth Control?

  Sharon Lerner : Health Care Policy

  Another complication in healthcare reform legislation has emerged: so far, it fails to require insurers to cover basic preventive services for women, including contraception.

• Working Women: Strength in Numbers

  Katha Pollitt : Labor

  First feminism was dead because it was a "failure"; now it's dead because it was such a success.

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  Remember the Women?

  Ann Jones : Afghanistan War

  Women belong at the center of the debate over the Afghan war, not on the margins.

• A Female Economics Laureate: Why Only Now?

  Sarah Stodola : Economics

  The first female winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics serves as both a landmark and an alarming reflection of the limited role of women in the physical sciences.

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  Beyond Rescue

  Noy Thrupkaew : Human Rights

  The campaign against forced prostitution works when it addresses victims' needs.

• Are You Happy?

  Katha Pollitt : Media Analysis

  What a stupid question.

• Kristof's Challenge

  Katha Pollitt : Human Rights

  If women's equality is the cause of our time, we'll get further by acknowledging it's a challenge no country has fully met than by framing it as a Western crusade.

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  The Crusade Against Sex Trafficking

  Noy Thrupkaew : Human Rights

  Do brothel raids help trafficking victims escape abuse, or skirt the reality that makes recovery so difficult for the "rescued?"

• The Female Gourmet

  Katha Pollitt : Food & Nutrition

  A movie about women's struggle to express their gifts through work? Delicious.

• Why Women Need Healthcare Reform

  Sharon Lerner : Health Care Policy

  Under the current healthcare system, many women have become a medical underclass. So why do so many oppose a healthcare overhaul?

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  Tyler Perry's Gender Problem

  Courtney Young : Film

  Filmmaker Tyler Perry may see himself as creating modern-day fairy tales for black women, but he's actually reinforcing some seriously conservative gender politics.

• Katha Pollitt on the Mind-Body Problem

  GRIT TV

  Pollitt's new book explores many themes including poetry and politics, poetry and motherhood, and why poetry matters, even if people think it doesn't.

• Can This Marriage Be Saved?

  Katha Pollitt : Marriage & Divorce

  We could bash divorce forever, but what's the point? Even Jesus can't keep unhappy spouses together.

• Women of Afghanistan Tell Their Stories

  Brave New Films : Afghanistan War

  American military escalation will not liberate the women of Afghanistan. Instead, the hardships of war take a disproportionate toll on women and their families.