A certain kind of woman seeks guidelines on travel because they have been made very afraid, not because there is any particular danger for her in any particular place.

I do dispute the idea of one poster that a "street smart" woman can sense if a place is dangerous or not. In my experience as an ex-pat, people are very bad as assessing danger outside of their own communities, and there is a puzzling belief that if there is a lot of pick pocketing, then most of the crime must be non-violent. There is also a wierd sort of romantizing of the locals and doing things you might not do at home- i.e. dancing with a lot of strangers because they are just so expressive and warm hearted down there. I bet most Dominican women don't dance a lot with strange men, and an American woman visiting a new city in her own country wouldn't either.

Rule of thumb: if you wouldn't do it at home, don't do it abroad. And some of the very worst crimes that happenend to gringos I knew had alcohol or drugs involved. And those were all to men, by the way.

Something will be lost if the NGO's cave and remove female aid workers or make them wear veils or any other such compromise. I think they should leave. Women's rights and movement are too often sacrificed in compromises with Muslim countries- i.e. female soldiers in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere having to wear long sleeves and even grim-reaper wear. A reasonable attempt can be made to respect local customs, but what's really bothering these clerics isn't something they can put a finger on like a few drinks or a woman's uncovered head. It's the American women's confidence and openess, which any American woman who has been abroad knows stands out like a sore thumb and rubs some the wrong way, facinates others.

It's where the myth of the loud American comes from- American women are not demure, and it scares people.

What is so dissapointing about young women showing skin to look "hot"? Like we older women preferred wearing burkas when we were teens. Or now. I have apolicy of avoiding discussions on political/ social ramifications of women's clothes, since the simplest,. best way to look at women's fashion is to let each woman decide what is comfortable or flattering on herself, period.

I checked out the website and was a little put off by the fact that almost all the bodies I saw were of overweight women who either started out overweight or gained way too much during pregnancy. It wasn't a real blog about pregnancy and body changes at all. And then as usual, we get the false dichotomy of the shallow anorexics who only care about looks and the women who just say screw it, I'm a mom now.

To calm all of the normal weight women out there with a healthy attitude toward their looks, sexuality and motherhood: motherhood doesn't mean frumphood and loss of sexuality. To the women who willingly decide to sacrifice their looks and body to the altar of perfect motherhood: good luck when your kid gets to school age and you find yourself wondering why you have aged faster then the other moms. Take care of yourselves, and do your husbands and children a favor at the same time: exercise and eat less.

This was disrespectful and overly familiar behavior in the most formal of situations. It's very telling. Bush tries very hard to be folksy, but does he commonly try to administer back rubs and the like to male heads of state?

Undoubtedly, the chaos after the US invasion is contributing to lawlessness. But any culture where parents won't welcome their kidnapped daughters home with open arms because they may be sullied is a culture rotten with misogyny and that didn't start in 2003.

One day, people will stop worrying about whether women and girls are sexualized, and we can wear whatever the hell we want to enjoy the sun and the water, happy like toddlers at the beach. Our sexuality will be a given, and our sexualization won't be scary for ourselves and others, and will be only secondary to what we wear. You know, like it is for men and boys.

I'd like to point out that the male equivalent of "slut" isn't "man whore" but "fag". It's about hitting where it hurts, and homosexuality is where it hurts for men, sexuality itself is where it hurts for women.

I probably used the word slut as a teenager, but for years it has been my policy to never, ever berate a woman by calling her sexual, not even her clothes. And f course, I never call men fags.

I am dubious about PMS, mainly because I don't get what it is. I know some women get headaches or insomnia, but I have never bought it that hormones make women pissed off, at least not directly or to the extent that people say they do. I have always suspected that the mild stress caused by physical discomfort from menstruation is responsible. When I hear other women complaining about how hormones are making them angry, I roll my eyes. That goes double for the pregnancy thing- why blame hormones for overwrought emotions? It's much more logical to attribute them to the overwhelming physical stress of pregnancy and childbirth and the huge responsibililty of a new baby. If a person is cranky and weepy after a car accident, we don't blame hormones.

Years ago I read a study that tracked when PMS sufferers felt irritable. The results were that it had nothing to do with their cycle, but they blamed their irritability on PMS if it happened on certain days.

Why does noone ever question these beliefs about hormones affecting behavior?