In the past week, women have taken a verbal beating on national TV. In Washington DC, former President Bush the elder made a cruel public joke about being repulsed by an "ugly woman" who happened to be a pro-choice protester. To make it worse President Clinton said nary...

Britney Spears' pop-tart image was created as a fantasy for the average man, but since her brush with the ugly side of fame, she's been subjected to the average female nightmare. The public, and press, have leveled at Spears a litany of critiques that are familiar to everyday women: she's...

Teen vampire flick and pop-culture juggernaut Twilight, like Mama Mia! and Sex and the City before it, shattered records this weekend and made female moviegoers hard to ignore. 

Twilight is far from a feminist triumph, though: it's been interpreted by more writers than this...

Have you heard the news? After years of mocking us, the right wing has discovered "feminism!" Well, sort of. In their Rovian factories of deceit, they've minted a new kind of feminism that shoves those of us who have actually been working for women's rights out of the picture (we're...

When I saw that John McCain had picked Sarah Palin as his running mate this morning, I was on the elliptical trainer, and my rage propelled me to the most furious workout I've had in a while.

It's always exciting to see women enter the political fray at higher levels....

If you've been spending time in proximity to teenage girls this week, there's a strong chance you've heard about Edward Cullen. Cullen is the undead hero of bestselling young adult fantasy/romance series The Twilight saga. He's reached heartthrob status in a major way, and he's done it while refusing to...

Ah, teenagers. Every single person who makes public policy was one once, but the deep irony of our nation's attitude towards the entire adolescent age group is that we treat them like a strange species, and we have ever since rock 'n' roll and the baby boom created the teen...

Last month, two very different groups of high school students loaded their backpacks with supplies, preparing for the upcoming year.

One group, on the path to pedigrees from top high schools, faced an avalanche of over-scheduling. They are in the midst of their first team practices, their first...

It's been a dismal summer for women in film. The movies designed to attract women viewers portrayed us less than flatteringly. Ostensibly femme-friendly, both romantic comedy Knocked Up and period biopic Becoming Jane featured one-dimensional female protagonists who, despite intelligence and independence, inexplicably fall for cads. Needless to say, both...