Slate Blogs

Can an App Really Close the Pay Gap Between Men and Women?

Caroline Esser — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 21:28:46 GMT

Earlier this week, the White House announced a project called the Equal Pay Phone App Challenge. The competition’s goal: create an app that uses labor data and negotiation resources to raise awareness about the wage gap and aid women in pay negotiations. According to senior adviser Valerie Jarrett, the challenge is an invitation to “software developers to help women ensure that they’re being paid fairly—which in turn will help restore an economy where everyone gets a fair shot, everyone does their fair share, and everyone plays by the same rules.”

Why Is Rick Santorum Afraid of “Emotions” From Women in Combat?

J. Bryan Lowder — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 20:47:33 GMT

On CNN last night, John King asked GOP-nominee contender Rick Santorum to opine about the Pentagon’s recent announcement that it would open more combat-oriented service roles to women—and predictably, he toed an archaically conservative line:

Book of the Week: The Invisible Ones

Torie Bosch — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 18:48:48 GMT

Controversial statement: The most compelling television series of 2011 was not The Walking Dead or some other high-concept drama, but the British reality series My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding. Not just another frothy wedding show, My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding explored—albeit imperfectly—many issues of import, particularly gender relations and societal expectations of women in traveling communities. I can’t wait for the U.S. edition, which TLC promises is coming soon.

Obama Punks the GOP on Contraception

Amanda Marcotte — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 18:04:03 GMT

After two solid weeks of Republicans rapidly escalating attacks on contraception access under the banner of "religous freedom," Obama finally announced what the White House is proposing an accomodation of religiously affiliated employers who don't want to offer birth control coverage as part of their insurance plans. In those situations, the insurance companies will have to reach out directly to employees and offer contraception coverage for free, without going through the employer. Insurance companies are down with the plan, because as Matt Yglesias explained at Moneybox, contraception actually saves insurance companies money, since it's cheaper than abortion and far cheaper than childbirth. Because the insurance companies have to reach out to employees directly, there's very little danger of women not getting coverage because they are unaware they're eligible.

Mystery Solved: What Happened to Pamela Druckerman’s Threesome Essay

Rachael Larimore — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 19:38:10 GMT

I posted last night on my quite accidental discovery that Pamela Druckerman, author of the newly published Bringing Up Bébé: One American Mother Discovers the Wisdom of French Parenting had written an article for Marie Claire in 2010 about taking part in a threesome with her husband and another woman to mark his 40^th birthday. The article was available as a PDF uploaded by someone else, but it was unavailable from the Marie Claire site itself.

Do Divorced Men Really Need Special Decorators?

J. Bryan Lowder — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 18:04:01 GMT

Given the potential pitfalls of her subject matter, reporter Emily Weinstein did an admirable job with her piece in yesterday’s New York Times, titled “In Dire Need of Design: For Recently Divorced Men, A New Breed of Decorators.” Weinstein’s article does its due diligence (more than two examples, larger economic contextualization, divorce stats, etc.) in plausibly making the case that a certain group of recently-single men, despite being “alpha-male” types, can’t seem to figure out how to hang a picture on their new pad’s barren walls. These men are so helpless, in fact, that interior decorators have found it lucrative to shift their respective firms’ entire focus toward coddling them; and we’re not just talking about the taxing task of choosing upholstery—these intrepid designers will even feng shui your pantry with handpicked canned goods:

Is Madonna-Hate Always Sexist?

J. Bryan Lowder — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 14:00:00 GMT

On the heels of Madonna’s glitter-nuke of a Super Bowl performance, Naomi Wolf wrote in The Guardian on Monday that Madonna-hate—which Wolf defines as “the reliable media theme [that emerges] whenever she steps out of her pretty-girl-pop-music bandwidth”—is based on a sexist rejection of an ambitious woman daring to consider herself a “serious artist.” Wolf identifies this disdain within the decidedly negative critical reaction to Madonna’s new film W.E. (which she directed and co-wrote), leading Wolf to question why such ad hominem hateration seems to be reserved especially for Madge. The answer?

Pamela Druckerman Wrote About Her Ménage à Trois Before She Wrote a Parenting Book. Should We Care?

Rachael Larimore — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 03:26:00 GMT

Pamela Druckerman is getting plenty of attention for her book, Bringing Up Bébé: One American Mother Discovers the Wisdom of French Parenting. Telling anxious American parents not only that their parenting techniques are all wrong but that the French—the haughty French—should be our role models is a sure way to get yourself booked on the Today Show.

Are Stay-At-Home Dads Just Babysitting?

Libby Copeland — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 20:00:10 GMT

KJ Dell’Antonia, formerly of this blog, has an interesting post up at the New York Times Motherlode, which she now helms. She’s discovered that the U.S. Census Bureau considers moms who care for their children to be the standard, whereas men who care for their children are, in essence, baby-sitting. The bureau's view of what constitutes normal family life is revealed in a report called “Who’s Minding the Kids?” When moms take care of the kids the government considers it standard, the language of the report reveals; when dads do it, that’s called a “child care arrangement.” Which is weird because, as Dell’Antonia points out, the number of children cared for by their fathers is growing.

The Realities Vs. The Myths of Catholic-Affiliated Institutions

Amanda Marcotte — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 17:02:21 GMT

With all the fussing going on over the Obama administration's sensible refusal to carve out huge exceptions in their new contraception rules for religious-affiliated institutions that serve the public, I fear that there are a lot of misperceptions floating about regarding what it is that Catholic-affiliated hospitals and universities are really like, or how actual Catholics feel about this situation. Some numbers are helpful. Twenty-eight states already require religious-affiliated institutions that serve the public to offer equal insurance coverage as non-religious institutions offering the same services.The tragic results predicted by anti-choice hysterics have not come to pass because of this. The notion that Catholics as a group are offended by these regulations is also false; a poll run by Public Policy Polling found that 53 percent of Catholics support the administration on this, which isn't substantively different than the population at large.The group who actually opposes the ruling are evangelical Christians, as a poll from the Public Research Institute found. Only 38 percent of evangelical Christians want the coverage.

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Wed, 08 Feb 2012 17:02:21 GMT

Komen Sheds Handel, But Will It End the Firestorm?

Amanda Marcotte — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 18:49:50 GMT

In the most unsurprising development so far of the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure P.R. meltdown, Karen Handel, who was appointed Komen's vice president of public policy after losing a bid as governor of Georgia, has stepped down in order to get some of the heat off the breast cancer charity. Handel was widely believed to be the force behind Komen's attempts to cater to anti-choice activists by defunding breast exams at Planned Parenthood, and while there were attempts to deny this during Komen's disastrous P.R. clean-up campaign, anonymous insiders told Laura Bassett of the Huffington Post that Handel was, in fact, the source of the pressure.

In Defense of Sheryl Sandberg

Katy Waldman — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 14:00:00 GMT

The lady blogosphere seems to have turned against Sheryl Sandberg. But the more I watch her controversial speeches—at the World Economic Forum on Jan. 27, at Barnard’s commencement on May 17—the harder of a time I have criticizing her. Sunday Jezebel called out Facebook’s COO, soon to be worth $1.6 billion, for understating the external factors that may have helped her parlay her brilliance into success. Sandberg had argued at a WEC event that women suffer from an “ambition gap,” reinforced throughout their lives by the reality that achievement and likability are negatively correlated for girls. (“No one calls little boys bossy,” she quipped.) Zuckerberg’s second-in-command urged women to pour themselves into their careers for as long as they chose to work, instead of holding back out of deference to social norms, or in anticipation of “starting a family one day.”

What Does the Susan G. Komen Foundation Actually Do?

J. Bryan Lowder — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 22:00:27 GMT

In the wake of last week’s dust-up over the Komen Foundation’s short-lived decision to cut its funding ties with Planned Parenthood, many of us at Double X started to wonder just what the pink-ribbon organization actually does with all the money it collects. After all, though Planned Parenthood was at risk of losing about $700,000 in grants, that’s a pittance compared to Komen’s impressive income of about $400 million dollars in 2010. Where does all the rest of that cash go, and, more importantly, is it really being put to the best possible use?

Abortion-Positive Campaign Falls Flat From Incoherence

Amanda Marcotte — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 20:26:01 GMT

The past year has seen a dramatic shift in mainstream feminist rhetoric around the ever-present question of female sexuality, as demonstrated by the loud-and-proud defense of Planned Parenthood in the wake of the attempted Komen defunding. Instead of shyly highlighting the desexualized health care Planned Parenthood offers, defenders at places such as Planned Parenthood Saved Me spoke bluntly of needing abortions, STD care, and even wanting contraception not for socially acceptable reasons such as regulating menstrual cramps, but so they could have sex without getting pregnant. Slut Walk gave women an opportunity to say they deserve to be sexual without being raped for it. Even Hollywood got in on the fun with the release of Bridesmaids, a movie based on the radical notion that women can make crass blow-job jokes, too.

Website Says Stay-at-Home Moms Are Worth $100,000—But Misses the Big Picture

Caroline Esser — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 18:48:35 GMT

Last week, the financial-management website Mint published an estimate of how much a homemaker would earn if she were paid market prices for her work. The result—that a homemaker would earn nearly $100,000 per year—seems to vindicate lots of stay-at-home moms who think their work is undervalued.

Book of the Week: Childism: Confronting Prejudice Against Children

Rachael Larimore — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 20:14:43 GMT

In a book published posthumously last month, psychotherapist and author Elisabeth Young-Bruehl posits that American society has failed children to the point that prejudice against them deserves its own “ism.” That’s right, along with racism and sexism and homophobia (not a literal –ism, but a figurative one), we need to add childism.

Komen Apologizes for Pulling Funding From Planned Parenthood—Will It Help the Foundation in the Long Run?

Jessica Grose — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 17:01:00 GMT

After several days of blowback for the decision to pull grant money from Planned Parenthood, the founder and board of directors from the Susan G. Komen for the cure breast cancer charity has apologized and vowed to amend their rules. For those of you not following the controversy, news surfaced earlier this week that Komen pulled grants from Planned Parenthood because they were under an investigation by Congress. However, that investigation is clearly politically motivated: it is led by Florida Rep. Cliff Stearns, who is deeply pro-life and a backer of anti-abortion pregnancy resource centers. Here's the language from the Komen press release about their new policy:

After Mitt Romney, Glitter Bombing Needs To Stop

J. Bryan Lowder — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 15:23:12 GMT

GOP Presidential hopeful Mitt Romney is often criticized for being a bit bland, so when he mounted a Minnesota campaign stage on Wednesday sporting a jaunty dash of glitter in his usually plain hair, viewers might understandably have taken the glimmers as an attempt at a livelier image and not—as was intended—an act of protest. Indeed, Romney was the most recent target of the emergent protest form known as “glitter bombing,” in which activists disrupt proceedings by showering glitter on the object of their ire. I’ve written about the tactic here before with regard to the case of sex advice columnist Dan Savage, who has been repeatedly attacked for statements that critics consider to be transphobic or otherwise un-PC. But now I’d like to take on the glitter bomb phenomenon directly: it’s time that this childish and ineffective protest stunt be permanently defused.

You Tell Us: Why Don't Women Like Newt?

Libby Copeland — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 20:04:05 GMT

Newt Gingrich certainly has a woman problem, but it’s not clear any pundit has yet identified why. His lopsided results in Florida – Gingrich secured far more votes from men than from women, while the opposite was true for Mitt Romney – has prompted a rash of stories attempting to offer an explanation. CNN’s Jack Cafferty has speculated that growing revelations about the former speaker’s extramarital conduct disgusted women in Florida. But the accusations from the second of his three wives, Marianne, that Gingrich once requested an open marriage, broke shortly before the South Carolina primary, so if anything you’d expect it would have had an outsize effect in the Palmetto State. Instead, the gap between Gringrich’s male and female support grew from four points in South Carolina to eight points in Florida. Exit polls show that that his gender gap has been growing over the course of the primary season.

Why the Komen/Planned Parenthood Debacle Blew Up

Amanda Marcotte — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 18:45:51 GMT

Rachael, I have to admit that I'm just not a fan of disingenuous manuevering, which is why arguments from anti-choicers about Planned Parenthood needing to be "investigated" for supposed ethics violations mean nothing to me. You and I both know that the movement doesn't give a hoot about making sure that Planned Parenthood is providing top-notch care for women, and that the constant and almost always unfounded complaints stem from anti-choice objections to the very existence of low-cost, pro-choice reproductive health care. At the end of the day, I prefer a clean fight. Anti-choice activists should make their arguments about the sinfulness of abortion and contraception directly. Anti-choicers turn to dirty tricks like bullying, clinic harassment, opening nuisance investigations, and shunning campaigns because they know that making their arguments directly doesn't work. I'm all for a rowdy public discourse. I just hate dirty tricks and deceit. Resorting to dirty tricks like nuisance investigations reads like an admission from anti-choice activists that they know they can't bring an end to comprehensive women's health care by persuading the public to abandon it.

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Thu, 02 Feb 2012 18:45:51 GMT