women

B.D. McClay reviews 'Sharp'—a book about controversy-courting creators, critics, and cultural commentators.

The Scrapbook has plenty of prejudices but no official position, pro or con, on tattoos. We sometimes wonder if their explosive popularity over the last two decades evinces the angst of a declining middle class, but the appearance of tattoos on one’s skin doesn’t signify the quality of one’s…

The question of who deserves an obituary has long vexed editors at newspapers and magazines. Should they limit themselves to the most well-known public figures or dig deep into the less well-known but often fascinating lives of the hoi polloi? Do you cover the lives of the notoriously awful as well…

Is there anything left to be learned about the mating habits of college students? For years, we have been subjected to a barrage of books about the rituals of drunken sex. In addition to Hooking Up and American Hook-up, there’s the recent Blurred Lines: Rethinking Sex, Power, and Consent on Campus…

For anyone counting #MeToo casualties with a wary eye, one of 2018’s first will have stood out. On January 13, in a lengthy exposé published on a website for college-age women, a 23-year-old photographer charged comic Aziz Ansari with the crime of being a bad date. The pseudonymous “Grace”…

Detroit

Detroit

In a crisis pregnancy center in the heart of the Twin Cities in Minnesota, a counselor receives an online message. The sender says that she’s pregnant and scared and that she has no one to talk to. She has an appointment scheduled at an abortion clinic that very day. After a brief exchange with the…

Every few years, somebody gets pushed out of a job for suggesting that one group of people, on average and in part due to biology, scores differently from another group on some measure of attitude or aptitude. Ten years ago, it was DNA pioneer James Watson, who said blacks registered below whites…

Every few years, somebody gets pushed out of a job for suggesting that one group of people, on average and in part due to biology, scores differently from another group on some measure of attitude or aptitude. Ten years ago, it was DNA pioneer James Watson, who said blacks registered below whites…

The Women's March on Washington has decided to become a permanent fixture on the political scene, not just a pink hat-wearing one-off. But that means it's gotta do something, so it's come up with something to do: a "general strike" with the catchy title "A Day Without a Woman."

Democratic senator Richard Blumenthal said he would vote against Rep. Tom Price to be secretary of Health and Human Services because the Georgia lawmaker and physician is "trying to destroy a woman's right to health care."

Retired Marine Corps general Jim Mattis's confirmation hearing was such a breeze that even the Code Pink protesters in the room didn't say a peep. The anti-war activists who had disrupted Attorney General nominee Jeff Sessions' hearing on Tuesday by ranting about racism and the KKK only protested…

In City Journal, Kay Hymnowitz has a must read essay on the how the media, which are increasingly comprised of educated women, missed the boat on Trump's support among women so badly:

Feel free to forward the tweet storm reproduced below, by Twitter user @MBGlenn, to any Republican men you know who continue to support Donald Trump.

Trump surrogate and former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani said Sunday that no one would be defending Donald Trump's remarks about women, after a tape from 2005 released Friday caught the businessman lewdly bragging about sexual acts.

The Hillary Clinton campaign released revised versions of four campaign pins that had been quickly withdrawn from sale late last week apparently due to inadvertent offensive messages. As THE WEEKLY STANDARD reported Friday, Clinton's online store introduced a collection of pins created by…

The same day the Hillary Clinton campaign store introduced a new collection of pins designed by various artists and graphic designers, The Forty-Five Pin Project, the collection is already one short. Within hours of listing the collection Thursday, the pins designated by Polish artist Agniezka…

As Hillary Clinton prepared this week to become the first woman in U.S. history to be nominated for president by a major political party, her campaign reposted a video ad on Twitter originally produced by the Hillary for President campaign late in 2015. The ad, titled "44 boys is too many",…

Cleveland

The Senate passed the National Defense Authorization Act Tuesday by a wide margin, 85 to 13. One controversial provision included in the bill, however, will have to be reconciled with the House of Representatives: requiring that women register for the draft.

Should women be required to register for the Selective Service in case there’s ever a draft again? It's an obvious question now that the Obama administration has ruled—over the objections of the Marine Corps—that all combat roles must be open to women.

Marines are made at a recruit depot located amid the swamps of Parris Island, tethered to the rest of the Carolina coast by a single causeway, and at another such depot in California, jammed onto a scrubby patch of ground between the San Diego International Airport and Interstate 5.

Michelle Obama went to Qatar to give a speech on girls education. There, the first lady of the United States complained about growing up as a girl in America.

Top Chris Christie donor Ken Langone made the case this morning on CNBC that Carly Fiorina is only doing well in the presidential race because she's a woman. "She's done nothing of any consequence in business," said Langone, a founder of Home Depot.

The Washington Post has a poll out this today that finds Hillary Clinton's numbers are down in the wake of her email scandal. The poll undercuts one of the main arguments for her candidacy -- electing the first woman president would excite female voters. While Hillary Clinton has a negative…

Donald Trump claimed that he cherishes women in an interview this morning on CNN:

First Lady Michelle Obama is thankful for her life. At the More magazine Impact Awards at the Newseum in Washington, D.C., the first lady credits her good life--and independence--to education.

Tina Brown now says that criticizing Hillary Clinton is "fair game." She made the remarks in an interview with Yahoo!:

Democratic Rep. Luis V. Gutiérrez of Illinois has introduced a law to put a woman on the $20 bill. The law is being called, "Put a Woman on the Twenty Act."

Christina Sommers says it’s time to pull the trigger on trigger warnings and treat even the once-traumatized as adults.

In recognition of Equal Pay Day Tuesday, Betsey Stevenson, a member of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, wrote an entry on the White House blog entitled Five Facts About the Gender Pay Gap. While touching on a number of factors influencing the "gender pay gap," Stevenson cites…

Republican Carly Fiorina, a possible presidential candidate, reacts to Hillary Clinton's entry into the 2016 race.

Possible Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina lashed into probable Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton last night on Fox News:

Last week, THE WEEKLY STANDARD reported that, based on 2013 tax filings, men made up the top eight most highly compensated employees at the Clinton Foundation, and that key women earned 63 cents for every dollar key men made. Friday, the Clinton Foundation responded to a Washington…

Ian Talley of the Wall Street Journal writes that according to Christine Lagarde, managing director of the International Monetary Fund:

Joe Biden got a little too close for comfort with another woman who doesn't know him today. At the swearing-in ceremony of defense secretary Ash Carter, Biden put his hands on the shoulders of Carter's wife and apparently leaned in to whisper something in her ear:

President Obama offered this taped public service announcement at the Grammy Awards:

In spite of his own mostly impressive educational pedigree, President Obama has always harbored an anti-intellectual (or, to be generous, anti-academic) streak. Whether insulting art history in a failed appeal to "Real 'Muricans," or developing a philistine "College Scorecard," which reduces the…

Given that nine in ten African-American women voted for Democrats in 2014, it may be no surprise that a focus group of urban, female, African-Americans had mostly contempt for all things “Republican” or “conservative.” But what was shocking is that this group also, unprompted, uniformly opposed…

Possible presidential candidate Carly Fiorina confronted President Obama's top adviser, Valerie Jarrett, over the White House paying female employees less than their male counterparts:

Zeina Karam of AP writes that:

Jonathan Easley of the Hill reports that the Republican party appears to have:

Watch Christina Hoff Sommers puncture the balloon of some seeking to enlist the police to root out “street harassment.”

With less than two weeks to Election Day, the Democrats are bringing out Gloria Steinem to help rally their troops.

Speaking earlier today in Illinois, Vice President Joe Biden praised Governor Quinn -- and, more importantly, his mother. "I like guys because of their moms," said Biden.

Vice President Joe Biden, speaking earlier today at the Chamber of Commerce, talked of inner city Detroit women from the "hood," which is apparently slang for neighborhood:

The Factual Feminist warns that a “little army of junior assistant deans and harassment apparatchiks are quietly repealing the free speech protections of the First Amendment.”

Democratic senator Kirsten Gillibrand reportedly reveals in her memoir that one U.S. senator told her, "Don’t lose too much weight now. I like my girls chubby!"

At a women's conference in Washington, Vice President Joe Biden touted Bob Packwood, a politician brought down by a sexual harassment scandal: 

Amy Alkon, Los Angeles-based syndicated advice columnist (“Advice Goddess”) and author of Good Manners for Nice People Who Sometimes Say F*ck (St. Martin’s Griffin), is a friend of mine, so this is a plug, not a review. But even if this were a review because I didn’t know Amy, it would read like a…

This week, Christina Sommers answers questions from her mailbag about workplace discrimination and discrimination in the sciences and responds to a critic of her employer, the American Enterprise Institute. See for yourselves:

At the same time the Obama administration once again renewed its Equal Pay push, the White House released salary figures for White House staff. Upon analysis, the Washington Post, among others, concluded that the gender pay gap (as defined by the White House) that has existed since President Obama…

The vice president of the United States is counseling teenage girls -- at least, one teenager he saw yesterday -- that they can't date until they're 30. "Chestnut St. Nearing 9th, VPOTUS hugs a girl who is wearing a rain poncho and appears to be in her early teens. Tells her, 'No dates ‘til you’re…

In 2007, during his first term as Japan’s prime minister, Shinzo Abe penned a work titled Toward a Beautiful Country, My Vision for Japan. The recent re-examination of the 1993 Kono Statement on the Imperial Japanese military’s use of “comfort women” during World War II (a euphemism for sex…

Chelsea Clinton, the daughter of former President Bill Clinton and former secretary of state Hillary Clinton, is celebrating fathers who empower daughters.

This week the Factual Feminist takes on the “rape culture” panic that is riling college campuses with help from the media, radical feminists, and too many politicians. Just as in the shameful panic over alleged child abuse at day care centers that sent innocent people to prison in the 1980s, false…

The voters in play – and crucially so –  this election cycle are what Linda Killian, writing in the Wall Street Journal’s Washington Wire, calls "Starbucks Moms."  White, suburban women, in other words, for whom the most pressing political issues would be:

This week the Factual Feminist takes on the new program in feminist biology at the University of Wisconsin, striking another blow for sanity and against agenda-driven, politicized science!

A few months ago when Obamacare was in free fall, many were left scratching their heads when the Democrats were touting stay-at-home motherhood as one of the perks of Obamacare.

Republican gubernatorial candidate Greg Abbott of Texas is more popular among female voters than his Democratic opponent, state senator Wendy Davis, according to a new poll from PPP. The Democratic polling firm found 51 percent of Texas voters support Abbott while 37 percent support Davis. That's…

CBS says the White House is getting "roughed up by its own pay equity rhetoric." 

It’s being called the “GOP Lawmaker Principle.” Here’s how it works:

On Saturday, March 8, members of the Gonabadi-Nimatullahi Sufi order, the most powerful Muslim contemplative body in Iran, assembled with supporters of other political prisoners in Tehran, for a peaceful protest against repression by the country’s clerical regime. Participants in the demonstration,…

Vice President Joe Biden asked a group of women in Japan whether their husbands like them working full-time. "Do your husbands like you working fulltime?" Biden asked, according to the pool report.

The White House is ramping up a new push for the president's version of comprehensive immigration reform. In an opening salvo, White House advisor on Violence Against Women Lynn Rosenthal wrote a blog entry titled, "Comprehensive Immigration Reform: Survivors Can’t Afford to Wait," saying that…

There might be "glitches" in the system, but the White House is still celebrating Obamacare. In a series of tweets today, the White House says the new health care law provides good and affordable health care for women: 

Against the expectation of many observers, social change continues in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Recent reforms have particularly affected the status of women. At the end of August, the Saudis took a remarkable and surprising step by criminalizing domestic violence. As reported in the London…

President Barack Obama is visiting Women's Rights National Historical Park in Seneca Falls, New York, according to the most recent pool report.

The State Department recently announced, "Women Leaders from Pacific Participate in U.S. Program on Climate Change."

Women Speak for Themselves, a grassroots organization of more than 40,000 women for religious freedom, gathered today at Lafayette Square in Washington, D.C. to protest enforcement of the Health and Human Services mandate, which requires employers (including some religious institutions) to cover…

Last night in Washington, Joe Biden stated that abused women fear getting "raped again by the system." He also made the push that Washington, D.C. should be its own state, with two U.S. senators.

Vice President Joe Biden made the case last night at a Washington, D.C. hotel that abused women fear getting "raped again by the system." Biden made the comments in remarks to a fundraiser for the Volunteer Lawyers Project, which is co-chaired by his daughter.

President Obama ended his address to the largest abortion provider in the U.S., Planned Parenthood, by saying, "God bless you."

Adam Kredo of the Washington Free Beacon reports:

On January 23, news broke that outgoing Defense Secretary Leon Panetta had issued a directive that the military's ban on women in combat would be lifted. The New York Times reported that his decision was in response to unanimous agreement among the Joint Chiefs of Staff as expressed in a letter to…

In his ongoing zeal to remake American society according to the playbook of those who reside in the faculty lounges of the nation's most liberal colleges, President Obama now wants to engage women in combat with no apparent thought of the wider societal effects of such a decision.  It therefore…

Walter Williams writes:

Kathleen Parker writes: 

For over two decades, I have been arguing against the idea of placing American women in combat or in support positions associated with direct ground combat. I base my position on three factors. First, there are substantial physical differences between men and women that place the latter at a…

President Barack Obama said today in a pre-Super Bowl interview that he has no hesitation about sending women to the frontlines of combat:

The editors of National Review write:

Ever since outgoing Defense Secretary Leon Panetta announced a week ago that the U.S. military would lift its ban on women in combat roles, the debate, which has been simmering for decades, boiled up again. Much of the argument has centered on cultural, social, and morale-related effects that such…

Kathleen Parker, writing in the Washington Post:

An email from a young veteran who's a friend of TWS:

The case for women in combat units has been, on the whole, a case made from ideology ("Equality requires it!") and from authority ("The Joint Chiefs signed off on it!"). Ideologues and authoritarians tend not to welcome debate on whatever issue it is they're applying their ideology to or invoking…

President Obama has released a statement supporting Secretary of Defense Panetta's decision on women in combat units! "Today, by moving to open more military positions—including ground combat units—to women, our armed forces have taken another historic step toward harnessing the talents and skills…

On Thursday, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta announced that the U.S. military would lift its long-standing ban on women in combat. The national media, as can be expected, is popping the champagne corks in celebration.

Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Ryan Smith, a retired Marine infantryman who fought in the 2003 invasion of Iraq, urges caution about the Pentagon's new directive to allow woment to fight as combat infantry. Smith describes his experience in 2003:

In November, Brookings Institution fellow Michael O'Hanlon suggested the Pentagon move with caution before putting women in combat:

Just a couple minutes ago, presidential advisor Valerie Jarrett, who is personally close to President Barack Obama, tweeted, that "If there's one thing we should all agree on, it's protecting women from violence."

Today marks the fortieth anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court decision establishing a constitutional right to abortion. Advocates of Roe and abortion rights frequently portray abortion as a matter of “women’s rights” or as a “women’s issue.” Abortion, it is said, is crucial to women’s…

The Scrapbook, like millions of Americans, watched last week’s anticlimactic BCS championship. Undefeated Notre Dame was pitted against Alabama, but it wasn’t much of a football game. After Alabama got out to a 28-to-nothing lead, we -wondered if Notre Dame was going to change its nickname at…

A group of Americans is not entirely happy with First Lady Michelle Obama. They "have been vocally disappointed with her choices and feel let down by her example," according to the Washington Post.

President Barack Obama has taken some heat after appointing mainly men to key positions in his administration. Jack Lew, a man, was last week nominated to be treasury secretary--and Chuck Hagel was nominated as defense secretary and John Brennan as CIA director.

The White House has released yet another photo to combat charges that Barack Obama is running a boys' club from the most powerful and prominent office in the world. This new photo features three women advisors and three male advisors, a noticeable change from previous photos of work at the White…

In the White House's most recently released photograph, women advisors are trotted out, and can be found among the men:

Nancy Pelosi's office photoshopped four faces into this photo, which now, after the alteration, includes all the Democratic women now in the House of Representatives:

A women's group earlier today released a statement with the following headline, "More Women in Senate Likely Result Higher Taxes, Bigger Govt, Less Freedom." The group making the claim is the Independent Women's Forum.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the biggest change in employment over the last month affected black workers. In September, the unemployment rate for blacks was 13.4 percent. In October, that number jumped to 14.3 percent, an almost a full percentage point change, according to the…

Attorney Gloria Allred has reportedly been planning a pre-Election Day surprise targeting Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney. The key for the attention-seeking lawyer, it seems, is to uncover "Mitt Romney’s 1991 testimony in the divorce of Staples founder Tom Stemberg," the Boston…

Last night, President Obama presented himself as a crusader for women's issues. He later tweeted: 

The latest polling from USA Today/Gallup shows Mitt Romney leading President Obama by 4 percentage points — 50 to 46 percent — among likely voters in swing states.  USA Today writes, “As the presidential campaign heads into its final weeks, the survey of voters in 12 crucial swing states finds…

Danville, Ky.

The U.S. Senate race in Arizona to replace retiring Republican Jon Kyl was supposed to be an easy hold for the GOP. But the last several polls have shown the race is tightening between the Republican candidate, Congressman Jeff Flake, and his Democratic opponent, Richard Carmona, a former U.S.…

In a recent interview with Glamour magazine, President Barack Obama gives the United States an "incomplete" grade. Obama's grade is based on how women are treated in America. 

The Obama campaign has created a series of electronic greeting card aimed at women voters. "President Obama summed up the Republican Party’s approach to women’s health when he said 'they want to take us back to the policies more suited to the 1950s than the 21st century,'" the Obama campaign…

Charlotte

MSNBC host Chuck Todd asked the co-chair of the Democratic party's convention, L.A. mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, why there are more Republican women and Hispanic governors:

On MSNBC this morning, Democratic senator Kirsten Gillibrand of New York promoted her website, OffTheSidelines.org, as a "campaign" to try to get "more women, Democrats, Republicans, all women, to again, hold their elected leaders accountable, vote, and hopefully run for office." Despite that…

The death of Helen Gurley Brown two days ago has given every obituary writer a shot at disproving the adage de mortuis nil nisi bonum. The New York Times cracked, "She was 90, but parts of her were considerably younger"—alluding to Brown's pathological addiction to plastic surgery during her…

The Independent Women's Forum "applauds Mitt Romney's vice president pick," according to a statement from the group.

For the first time in the history of the Olympic Games, Saudi women are being allowed by their ultra-conservative government to compete. As the Saudi athletes marched in the opening ceremonies in London, the women’s faces and open arms showed a joyful sense of emancipation from the yoke of…

Breaking news from the New York Times (emphasis mine):

Senate majority leader Harry Reid used Twitter today to demagogue Republicans for not supporting the Democrats' latest initiative, the Paycheck Fairness Act: 

President Obama earlier today held a conference call to promote the latest Democratic initiative--the so-called Paycheck Fairness Act. "If Congress passes the Paycheck Fairness Act, women are going to have access to more tools to claim equal pay for equal work," Obama promised. "If they don't, if…

In this video, obtained by the Middle East Media Research Institute, a Saudi women blasts religious police for harassing her in a public mall for wearing nail polish:

After the Lilly Ledbetter Act passed in Congress and was signed into law, President Obama and Senate Democrats were self-congratulatory.

An essay in the latest issue of Foreign Policy by Egyptian-born activist and journalist Mona Eltahawy, “Why Do They Hate Us? The real war on women is in the Middle East,” couldn’t have come at a more appropriate time. Today Egypt’s new Islamist-dominated parliament drafted a law permitting men to…

Senator John McCain will take to the Senate floor this morning to blast the Democrats’ “War on Women.” He will call it divisive, saying that “[declaring] phony wars is intended to avoid those hard choices and to escape paying a political price for doing so.” And the former Republican presidential…

While he couldn’t resist exaggerating a little for effect, the longshoreman-philosopher Eric Hoffer had a point when he observed that, all too often, great movements “start as a cause, evolve into a business, and end up a racket.” Consider three of the major social crusades that reshaped modern…

Evidently, neither of the all or nothing alternatives so furiously argued yesterday in a major battle between the stay-at-homes vs. the working moms. According to the most recent polling data I could find, most women would, unsurprisingly, prefer something of a compromise:

Matt Continetti, writing at the Washington Free Beacon:  

President Obama told the Women's Economic Forum that he had waited for the women in the room, who he had been told were "creating havoc," to settle down before addressing the group: 

The latest web ad from the Republican National Committee effectively attacks "Obama's War on Women."

The United Nations Commission on the Status of Women “is expected to pass a resolution condemning Israel's part in the degrading of living conditions for Palestinian women, while failing to mention the mistreatment of women in the ongoing crisis in Syria,” Haaretz reports.

At the Washington Examiner, Tim Carney says the conventional view of Rick Santorum--that he has a problem with women voters--contradicts the facts. Carney says the claim is "rooted in bad math," citing a New York Times blogger who notes that Santorum trailed Romney among women in Arizona by 17…

An appropriate accompaniment to this season’s return of Mad Men is Jane Maas’s entertaining and rueful memoir of what it was like to be an advertising woman in the 1960s and ’70s. Maas, a star copywriter who became a creative director and president of an agency, is best known for being the “mother”…

In 1942 George Stevens made a romantic comedy for MGM called Woman of the Year. Based on the journalist Dorothy Thompson, one of the subjects here, it concerned the obstacles to marital bliss faced by an emancipated woman and her former colleague turned husband. With Katharine Hepburn and Spencer…

Ben Smith has video of White House chief of staff William Daley dumping on his predecessor, Rahm Emanuel:

On September 25, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia made world headlines by proclaiming the right of his female subjects to nominate and compete as candidates in municipal elections. The king also pledged to appoint women to the country’s 150-member, unelected “shura council,” or executive consultative…

Washington Post: "Solyndra employees: Company suffered from mismanagement, heavy spending"

Cambridge, Mass.

Jonathan V. Last reviews Unnatural Selection: Choosing Boys Over Girls and the Consequences of a World Full of Men in the Wall Street Journal:

What with Arnold and DSK, male transgression is once again in the news. Let’s not equate the two cases—one is forgivable, the other, if the accusations are true, is not. Together with these male transgressions is the reaction to them, still more interesting. The reaction shows the power of morality…