How about covering them instead?

If you wanted to create a new "women's" section to cover the feminization of poverty, global women's health care access, accessible education for girls, reproductive care and rights, access to capital like micro-investment programs targeting women, women's leadership initiatives, wage equality, etc., I would applaud that. The Rockettes piece was interesting from an organized labor and maternity rights perspective - but the rest of it? I won't be coming back for Streisand quips, news of the bizarre from the fundamentalist right wing, or the "girly" gossip of the day. Women still have real battles to fight.

Stay-at-home moms, Chief Home Officers, homemakers, housewives, whatever the self-congratulatory appellation of the day is: I've just about run out of tolerance for their media strategy. I have a full-time job, a family, volunteer obligations, and even a bit of a life of my own. What I don't have is time to start magazines detailing the excruciatingly boring details of my daily psychodramas, and the world breathes a collective sigh of relief, I'm sure. However brutally hard this job is that women are doing in comfortable first world homes with their healthy children, it seems to leave a lot of time for browbeating the rest of us for causing all their problems.

The rich are different, they're not like you and me.

Even people who are just well into the next tax bracket - or whose parents are and support their children generously - can have tremendously difficulty understanding what it's like not to have a financial safety net. I was in a similar situation several years ago when my best friend from college got married. She went for the full-scale, full-price East Coast wedding and wanted her bridesmaids to buy expensive dresses and accessories for the occasion. I was at the end of a graduate program, about to move, and had recently had a baby, so our family finances were beyond terrifying. I kept putting off buying the bridesmaid ensemble, and when my friend finally demanded to know why, I admitted that I just couldn't afford it, especially on top of flying cross country for the event.

My friend offered to have her parents loan me the money. I was not comfortable with that for many reasons, not least that I had just taken on major debt for grad school. We agreed that I would not be a bridesmaid but would play another role in the service. I thought things were okay, but my friend and her family made it clear to me at the wedding that they thought I had behaved very badly. My friend hasn't spoken to me since.

When you make the decision not to go, understand that they very well may not understand, and that you may lose their friendship. Whether it's worth having will then become the question. Good luck.

There have been a number of times recently when I've wondered if my Salon subscription was worth it, because your headlines of the day have been so lacking in the kind of globally-oriented, fact-intensive reporting that I long to see and rarely do in the American media. You just earned at least another year of support from this subscriber. Keep it up, follow it up.

With all due respect to the authors, who seem to have been reasonably scientific in their methods, the only way to verify the reported "happiness" levels of the subjects would be clinical observation, which they did not do. So "traditional" women count themselves happier? So "companionate" marriages result in less "emotional work" from husbands? Says who? People with inherent biases to defend. The authors asked subjective questions of biased subjects rather than observing interactions and noting empirical differences. I call bullshit.

I hope I'm not the first one to tell you this, but anti-choice extremists - including Pharmacists for Life - consider the morning-after pill an abortion pill because it can prevent the implantation of a fertilized egg in the uterus. Because they consider a fertilized egg a "life" even before it implants, they believe this qualifies as abortion. I'd venture a guess that the Zogby language was no mistake.

If the other side is going to define abortion down to forms of birth control, I suggest that women must begin to own those abortions. I've taken the morning-after pill, and from now on I'm going to claim that as an abortion. Every woman who has ever used any medication or procedure that the zealots would prohibit needs to speak up every chance she gets and say "I've had an abortion, and I want other women to have the same choice I had." In this most private decision, privileged women can no longer afford the privilege of privacy.

girl (gûrl) pronunciation

n.

1. A female child.

2. An immature or inexperienced woman, especially a young woman.

3. A daughter: our youngest girl.

4. Informal. A grown woman: a night out with the girls.

5. A female who comes from or belongs to a particular place: a city girl.

6. Offensive. A female servant, such as a maid.

7. A female sweetheart: cadets escorting their girls to the ball.

[Middle English girle, child, girl.]

wom·an (wʊm'ən) pronunciation

n., pl. wom·en (wĭm'ĭn).

1. An adult female human.

2. Women considered as a group; womankind: “Woman feels the invidious distinctions of sex exactly as the black man does those of color” (Elizabeth Cady Stanton).

3. An adult female human belonging to a specified occupation, group, nationality, or other category. Often used in combination: an Englishwoman; congresswoman; a saleswoman.

4. Feminine quality or aspect; womanliness.

5. A female servant or subordinate.

6. Informal.

1. A wife.

2. A female lover or sweetheart. See Usage Note at lady, man, person.

Wisconsin is not a neighbor of South Dakota. Iowa is between them. But what's 700 miles out in red state flyover land, right?