I believe some HRC supporters are not voting for Obama because of love for what is good (in their opinion) not because of anger. They believe they are doing so because it is right. Women don't always overwhelmingly vote Democratic. During the last election Kerry had a 2% lead over Bush in the women's vote. Think about that a long time. Based on his record Bush was much more pro-life than McCain and Kerry. Bush is a Republican. Kerry and his supporters did not attack women with sexism frequently. Yet despite all that Kerry was only able to get 2% more women votes than Bush. Will Obama even get that 2% considering he benefited enormously by sexism and is going up against a more moderate candidate than Bush? History teaches us that women do not always vote Democratic in large numbers and that they are willing to vote for a pro-life candidate in huge numbers. That is just the way women are. The media would do well to report about this and the complex reasons that women choose to vote for a candidate.

"The Kerry campaign's conviction that the women's vote would hold fast to the Democratic party surely contributed to his defeat." Lesson: Democrats should not take women's votes for granted.

http://www.now.org/issues/election/elections2004/041112womensvote.html

This video encourages violence against women and girls which is a terrible problem in our country and in the world. This is not funny. There are images of males attacking females in the video. Some posters here say this subject is not worth talking about but violence against women is a serious problem causing lifelong damage and death for some women and girls and the sexual aspect of this trend encourages rape.

Soma Grismaijer and Sydney Ross Singer found that the more often a woman wears a bra, the more likely she is to get breast cancer. Singer and Grismaijer studied 4,500 women in five U.S. cities and published their findings in a book Dressed to Kill. Results:

3 out of 4 women who wore their bras 24 hours per day developed breast cancer.

1 out of 7 women who wore bras more than 12 hour per day but not to bed developed breast cancer.

1 out of 152 women who wore their bras less than 12 hours per day got breast cancer.

1 out of 168 women who wore bras rarely or never acquired breast cancer.

I don't doubt that going braless damages Cooper's ligament, however I believe that cancer damage is worse than damaged ligaments. Perhaps the reason bras seem to increase breast cancer risk is because they constrict the lymph nodes in the breast which makes it more difficult for the the body to cleanse toxins from the breasts. As far as I know there has never been a study that contradicted the Grismaijer and Singer study showing that wearing a bra increases cancer risk. I assume most women think it's worse to get cancer than sagging breasts. Damage to the Cooper's ligament makes breasts less attractive (to most Western people) but I think cancer is too high a price to pay for fleeting beauty.

snarlingcoyote, you are right that there are many reasons other than vanity that women wear bras. I've heard from a lot of women who have very large breasts that they wear bras to get rid of breast pain. And also we live in a society where showing nipples and jiggling breasts is not welcome in some workplaces so many women wear a bra because it's officially or unoficially required dress. I think our culture needs to learn to accept the way women's breasts (of all ages) naturally look and move so that it is acceptable for women to be clothed without a bra in every environment. Every woman has specific reason(s) to wear a bra. However, I just wanted to inform women about the research about breast cancer because it might help some women to decide whether to wear a bra and if so when.

This article is skewed to make prostitution seem less harmful than it is. I found it interesting that to describe sadomasochism the author chose a dominatrix rather than a prostitute who gets paid to be beaten. The article does not talk about the prostitutes childhoods to help determine if they had been sexually abused as most U.S. prostitutes have been according to numerous studies.

Nicholas Kristof of the NY Times reported that almost half of prostitutes have attempted suicide. The Swedish government determined that prostitution is an obstacle to women's equality with men and I agree. I'm saddened that a feminist blog has decided to glamorize sexual abuse of women and girls.

The NY Times published a study that found that 2/3 of prostitutes suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Less than 5% of the general population suffers from PTSD. The study director Dr. Melissa Farley stated, “we need to view prostitution itself as a traumatic stressor.” It doesn't matter if a woman/girl is rented like a bicycle for $10 or like a car for $1,000. She's not an object and it is wrong for people to think she is and treat her like an object.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?sec=health&res=9E02E6DC163DF93BA2575BC0A96E958260

In response to bloggers who think prostitution should be legalized I recommend reading a report by Coalition Against Trafficking in Women International (CATW) that documented that legalizing prostitution increases child prostitution, the sex trade in general, trafficking/slavery and abuse of women and girls: http://www.allseasonsgallery.info/wagoote/prostitution.illegal.html

Excerpt:

"It's not a profession. It is humiliating and violence from the men's side."[quote from prostitute]

...

…child prostitution in the Netherlands has increased dramatically during the 1990s [during the process of legalization of prostitution]. The Amsterdam-based ChildRight organization estimates that the number has gone from 4,000 children in 1996 to 15,000 in 2001.