From NOW

I know you think I'm talking about "Opie and Anthony," recently suspended from their radio talk gig for "joking" with a guest, "Homeless Charlie," who said he wanted to rape Condoleezza Rice and Laura Bush. The hosts encouraged these horrifying remarks -- in fact they laughed and imagined "the horror" on Rice's face as she is held down and punched in the face.

No, I'm talking about another sick reality. Let me ask you first: Would you trust a guy who wrote that rape victims "gain pleasure from being beaten, bound, and otherwise made to suffer" as "the price they are willing to pay for gaining the gratification of receiving the sperm?" A guy who published his belief that "the child who has suffered bona fide abuse may very well have enjoyed the experience..."? A guy who claimed that incest is not harmful, (citing Shakespeare) only "thinking makes it so"?

And I know I don't even have to ask this -- but would you trust this guy with your kids? I thought not. Which leads me to ponder how on earth the "theory" this guy thought up has found its way into court rooms across the country, and is currently influencing child custody decisions, especially those involving child abuse. That's right, this guy, a psychiatrist named Richard Gardner -- who, by the way, also asserted that adult-child sex is normal AND beneficial for both parties as well as for the survival of the human race -- is being given credence in cases involving the fate of children and families.

From The Washington Post

A female freelance writer who blogged about the pornography industry was threatened with rape. A single mother who blogged about "the daily ins and outs of being a mom" was threatened by a cyber- stalker who claimed that she beat her son and that he had her under surveillance. Kathy Sierra, who won a large following by blogging about designing software that makes people happy, became a target of anonymous online attacks that included photos of her with a noose around her neck and a muzzle over her mouth.

As women gain visibility in the blogosphere, they are targets of sexual harassment and threats. Men are harassed too, and lack of civility is an abiding problem on the Web. But women, who make up about half the online community, are singled out in more starkly sexually threatening terms -- a trend that was first evident in chat rooms in the early 1990s and is now moving to the blogosphere, experts and bloggers said.

From Slate

This week's entry in the ongoing Kathy Sierra Wars was a benign effort by the Washington Post's Ellen Nakashima, who observed, unsurprisingly, that "Sexual Threats Stifle Some Female Bloggers."

Sierra was a powerhouse blogger who in March shut down her blog, Creating Passionate Users, about the highly gender-charged subject of metacognition and computers. Sierra stopped bloging after anonymous critics posted graphic and sexually threatening material about her, both in the comments section of her Web site and on other blogs. The posters (read them here) somehow confused death threats with debate on the merits of Sierra's views and policies. Some suggested that Sierra deserved to have her throat slit and to be suffocated, sexually violated, and hanged. Among the things Sierra wrote as she folded up her blogging tent: "I have cancelled all speaking engagements. I am afraid to leave my yard. I will never feel the same. I will never be the same."

From Women's E News

Female immigrants are drawing increased attention as Congress heads into debate next week on immigration reform. Female domestic workers and abused women who fear deportation are two groups of women high on advocates' radar.

In preparation for the march for immigrant rights that drew tens of thousands to Chicago's streets on May 1, 2007, Anita Rico stenciled T-shirts with the face of the woman who most inspires her: Elvira Arellano.

Since last August Arellano, an undocumented immigrant, has been holed up in a small Chicago church with her U.S.-born 8-year-old son Saul to avoid an order of deportation back to Mexico.

From Senior Journal

May 23, 2007 - A new survey released this month on women and retirement may defy Oscar Wilde's adage that "all women become like their mothers." It's Not Your Mother's Retirement: The MetLife Study of Women and Generational Differences reports that young women have their own ideas about how they will spend their later years.

The study reports that retirement for women will be redefined by the younger generations who expect to have a more active retirement with varied pursuits, including travel, social interaction with family and friends and an extended work life. However, daughters are entering retirement with considerably higher levels of debt than their mothers and are expected to make a greater financial adjustment than their mothers.

From Reuters

Breast cancer tends to be more aggressive when it occurs in younger women, and doctors often advise radical surgery. Now, however, a study shows that breast-conserving treatment, commonly known as lumpectomy, is safe for women younger than 40.

From UN Dispatch

On January 22, UN Dispatch reported that 105 Indian police officers where being deployed to Liberia as the UN's first all-female peacekeeping force. Today we sat down with a unit commander, Seema Dhundia, to check in on their progress.

From Feministing

This week the FDA approved Lybrel, contraception designed so you don't get a monthly period. Some of the reactions to the pill have been really revealing as to just how little many women know about how hormonal contraception works. As Ema writes, "Imagine the women's surprise when they find out (hopefully) that, since the 1960s, every single Pill brand allows them to avoid their monthly menstrual period indefinitely."

She also links to this gem from ABC News: It's unclear whether women will embrace this new pill, which contains the same formulations of estrogen and progestin used for birth control pills for decades, but its arrival marks yet another step toward the blurring of the genders.

From Women's E- news

Long poorly served by newspapers wedded to traditional definitions of news, women are creating "placeblogs," or online information sites abuzz with hyper-local news and commentary.

Their creations have the potential to offset deficiencies in the way news organizations depict women and the amount --and type--of attention they give them. Not surprisingly, women have repaid this neglect by walking away. Thirty percent of women say they regularly watch network evening newscasts, compared with 37 percent of men, according to the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, which also says that 47 percent of men say they regularly read a newspaper. Only 37 percent of women do.