I think that the most vital step which people do not take is removing the initial imprinting devices that hit boys while their most basic personalities are forming: sexual violence and television.

We start foisting gender stereotypes onto children as soon as they are born. I know it's helpful to strangers to identify the gender of your baby by using color-coding, but it seems to set the stage for the rest of their life as children move from being dressed in very gendered colors and clothing styles from infancy to being babysat by a television where every commercial teaches them that boys like to play rough and with engineering/warfare/transportation/construction-themed games whereas girls have no interest in those things. OTOH, girls get to play with and wear very elaborate, colorful, eye-catching, sparkly, adorable cakes/cards/clothing whereas boys are taught that they shouldn't enjoy such things. Also on television commercials, moms do all the work associated with home and family upkeep (cooking, cleaning, errands, budgeting), and dads sit at the dining table or on the couch and are like just additional, large children for mom to wait on or fuss at.

How about this: Don't lop of the tip of your son's penis when he's born, and don't let him watch television shows or ads that promote gender stereotypes. For the first six years, at least, this shouldn't be that hard to do, as kids don't start leaving the family bubble too much until then. It can't hurt anything, right? I mean, certainly, you want to be able to reason with your kids about gender roles when they get older, but how much good is that really going to do when they have been imprinted on from birth with ideas anathema to the values you are trying to teach them?

I am one of the women who has donated to a political campaign for the first time this year. I have so far give (and I'm not done yet) over $200, to both Clinton (earlier in the year) and to Obama (more recently, and via a link on his site that said "Welcome Clinton Supporters" just to send the additional data that I formerly supported her, because I get tired of hearing from various media that I'm angry and bitter). The reason I decided to donate this year is not only, as the article states, because I was so excited about Clinton's bid and how well she was doing, but MAINLY because of information that I learned about here in Broadsheet, when someone wrote about an study that found women and their views may be underrepresented in politics because women don't donate to political campaigns nearly as much as men do. I admit I had never before thought of donating to a political campaign in that way before, but now I think of it as a very smart investment in my future and the future of the nation, and especially the futures and well-being of those who don't have enough money to invest for themselves.

They can kiss my American ass.

Why is it okay for every other nation in the world to care about their own selfish interests, but when US taxpayers do that, we need to grow up?

If it's hitting the manufacturer then I assume we're talking about loans for new cars. So the complaint is that it's now harder to get credit for a depreciating asset, a completely unnecessary luxury when a very reliable used car can be got for a few months' savings. How is this bad? I don't see what needs to be fixed. It looks like things *are* being fixed and the bailout will make them broken again, for a very short time. Just my two cents.

Does anybody have a link to the rollcall by state? I want to see how my senators voted.

If she's an expert on foreign policy because she lives near Russia, it makes sense for her to think he's friends with a terrorist because he lives in the same neighborhood as Bill Ayers.

I know that eye-patches are used short-term to strengthen weak vision in the uncovered eye. I imagine that keeping one eye covered for the long-term would have a detrimental effect, weakening the sight in that eye or causing strain in the eye which is used. Not to mention the loss of depth perception and peripheral vision on that side.

what a shitty mom

First of all, he's asleep in most of those clips, second of all, babies like to be held while they sleep ... some wake up as soon as you put them in their bed. Thirdly, her schedule for her baby's naps is none of our business. Fourth, babies don't necessarily sleep through the night.

Finally, if there's one thing I commend Palin for, it's being a working mom and taking her baby with her on the road to do her job instead of hiring a nanny or hiding in her home until the baby's "old enough." I think she presents a good model for women that you don't have to be down for the count because you had a baby, you can get out there and do your job with the baby in tow.

The dialog is cute, and it's intended to appeal to people who pay attention to political news, and it does. But as funny as the dialog might be making fun of Palin (and even making fun of Russian stereotypes: "No thanks, we're already drunk"), let's not forget what this ultimately is. It's a public sexual humiliation of a powerful woman in politics, and just in case you didn't understand that or thought it was okay to humiliate Sarah because she was a beauty queen or because she's anti-women, they included Hillary and Condi, too.