According to the US News and World Report:

The National Women's Law Center has found that while five states already require separate riders for abortion coverage, the riders don't appear to exist in any insurance plans, public or private, that are offered in these states.

Emphasis mine. So the idea of the abortion "rider" is a trap. This bill is a piece of crap masquerading as "health care reform".

My sincere condolences on the loss of your mother. She seems like a lovely woman.

But on the subject of this air disaster. I don't disagree that it may be a bit over-covered in the media. However, it's hard to believe your point that "planes can't fly themselves without lots of input from the flight crew", when you give us several examples of how it HAS. This flight went 150 miles past its destination. The Air India flight went a whopping 300 miles past its destination. And sure, there may be long stretches of radio quiet over the midsection of the country, but I doubt the radio chatter after say 50 miles was "yeah, flight xyz, where are you?" I'm guessing it was probably more like "FLIGHT XYZ, WHERE THE F*** ARE YOU???".

Sure it wasn't mountainous terrain, but, what if it had been? What if there had been multiple so many planes in the general vicinity, and TWO of those flight crews had been having "heated policy discussions" at the same time, with or without a laptop? What if the plane went past the eastern seaboard, with little to no fuel left on board - not enough to turn the plane around and reach land?

There are probably things that can be done - loud Loud LOUD alarm, over the speaker, if the plane goes more than 50 miles past its destination without an "override" given (by an awake and paying-attention pilot)? Or one that can be activated by the ATC? Something, anything that says "WAKE THE F*** UP and start piloting again".

Am I the only one wondering what this post has to do with Broadsheet's mission? To quote from the Broadsheet intro article:

Our aim is to cast a spotlight on news that puts women in the center

:

tracking news about how our rights are holding up, how well we're representing ourselves politically, or how the advertising world has decided to address us, what kinds of health advances are ahead of us -- all the news of our (usually) two-steps-forward, one-step-back march to equality.

:

Our goal is to be opinionated about topics that affect women, but also a filter by which we can look at the news from a (mostly) female point of view.

:

and

discussion of "women's issues"

Nowhere in this article do the word(s) girl, boy, man, woman, gender, etc. appear.

By including this article in Broadsheet instead of, say, "Life" (which used to be called "Mothers Who Think" but now is more expansively named "Life" to include men and the childfree), you're specifically buying into the notion that the care and well-being of children is a "women's issue".

This is not the only time this has happened. Other issue-related discussions such as race, LGBTQ, etc. also appear here, but at least they are more inclusive of the politics, advertising, news-filtering notions. At least tangentially related to expanding equality. This article just screams out "hey other moms, what are we going to do about our kids??"

Here's what you should say in the future:

"You found my chastity belt. Wanna see if we can get it open?"

Something along those lines. Or,

"Those are meant to keep me from doing something naughty. I don't think it's going to work. Do you?"

I have a theory for why the effect might be more noticeable in women.

For women, more testosterone = more likely to perceive themselves as equal to men = more likely to go after careers that are "traditionally male", such as these financially risky ones = more likely to get hired for these jobs.

Whereas for men, more testosterone = NOT more likely to perceive themselves as equal to men because they already ARE men = no more likely to pursue these careers = no more likely to get hired for these jobs.

I understand what you're saying about whether a single question really has any power. But I've read about studies where minority students (I think it was specifically African American teens) were put into two groups. One read an essay/article/something like that that was full of negative stereotypes about African Americans, and the other read a neutral or maybe it was even a positive essay. Then all the students took a test. The students in the first group, reading the negative essay, scored significantly worse on the test. There have been similar studies with girls and math. Words and expectations, even subtle ones, can be powerful.