This is on Huffington Post, too. Some days it seems like journalists don’t have enough to do with their time so they create conflicts out of whole cloth as a form of entertainment. Fortunately for me, I make no claim to be objective. Let me know what you think. Better yet, go to HuffPo and put your comment there.

You know Hillary is no longer seen as the inevitable front runner in Iowa when Maureen Dowd (almost, at least till she gets to her punch line) writes something positive about her.

In response to the latest Drudge-Limbaugh-sexist bloggers’ echo chamber campaign to denigrate Hillary for—gasp!–looking like a 60-year-old woman, when men of that certain age or even—gasp again–older are seen as distinguished and wise, Dowd observed: “Women are still scrutinized more critically on their looks, which seem to fluctuate more on camera, depending on lighting, bloating and wardrobe.”

Her exquisitely lacquered red nails clasp the lever confidently, six fashion-statement gold bangles punctuating her slender wrist. Though you can’t see the rest of her, if you read women’s fashion magazines, you might guess this is
the smart, sophisticated Marie Claire http://www.marieclaire.com woman.

There’s a good reason why the word “voting” is clearly painted under the lever, with an arrow pointing to it. This woman might well be one of the 35 million eligible women who didn’t vote in the 2004 presidential election. And single women http://www.wvwv.org , we are told by the article, are less likely to vote than their married counterparts.

When it comes to Chris Matthews’s interpretation of Hillary Clinton’s words—any of her words—she’s damned if she yeas and damned if she nays.

After gloating that a new poll found Hillary losing in a matchup with any one of five Republican presidential candidates, Matthews later in the same program spun her November 26 interview with Katie Couric, in which–like any candidate with half a brain and a quarter of a spine–Clinton showed confidence in her ability to win the Democratic nomination.

In the you-never-know-what’s-going-to-catch-them category, I was surprised to discover this morning that the Wall Street Journal, of all places, took umbrage at my clever rendition of Rudy Giuliani’s well reported cross-dressing appearance, and cited a blog lambasting me and others …

With some politicians, there’s not a question what they are; it’s just a matter of negotiating the price. In accepting Pat Robertson’s endorsement this week, Rudy Giuliani would have been advised by one the wisest and wittiest of my college professors, the late Bob Rothstein, to apply what he called “the hooker principle”: first, get paid.

Even John McCain, who was at the exact same moment assuming the position in order to snag the endorsement of the more dangerous but less flamboyant Sen. Sam Brownback and establish his own creds with the hard rightwing, extreme anti-choice, anti-gay Republican base, was rendered speechless at the news about the unholy alliance between Robertson and Giuliani. For bald face political two-step, Giuliani has out danced them all.

My goodness, I go away for a week and miss all sorts of happenings in the world where sex and politics collide.

I returned from my high school reunion, then a week with family in Arizona without my computer or New York Times subscription, and found messages asking for comment on the Portland, ME, middle school that has added prescription contraceptives to its health clinic services. You can imagine the twitter from the self-righteous right who believe no one would ever think about sex if we pro-sex education and pro-contraception people didn’t call it to their attention. They have apparently forgotten their own adolescence (I suggest they attend their high school reunions to revive those repressed memories).

Fortunately, many parents spoke up with exactly what needed to be said: while they rightly prefer that their kids abstain from sexual activity at such a tender age, they want even more for the school to help them keep their kids safe from disease and pregnancy if and when they do become sexually active. The school board voted to keep its policy of providing the full range of contraceptives in its health care formulary.

Friends – Here’s a very timely program starring some of my great friends and colleagues who’ll set the record straight about women, work, and family–who’s opting out or not, who’s staying in and why, and what the media has got right and wrong.

WORKING MOTHERS: WHO’S OPTING OUT?
Tuesday, October 16, 7 p.m., $8 admission
The New School, New York City
Wollman Hall, 65 West 11th Street, 5th floor (enter at 66 West 12th Street)

You’ve read the articles–and gotten angry at the debate. Are vast numbers of working mothers bolting the career track–or dreaming of doing so? Are elite women betraying feminism by staying home with their children? Or do the Opt-Out stories rely too heavily on anecdotal evidence–while shoving aside actual labor statistics and working families’ needs?

In my family where there are three Glorias. I am known as Gloria #1. But in the world of feminism and activism for women, we all know who Gloria # 1 is. Alex and I are pleased as punch to invite you to our annual Women of the World lecture at Arizona State University. Gloria Steinem will honor us as our very special guest lecturer on October 17 at 7pm in the Memorial Union. It’ll be a happening, honey!

Rosaura “Rosie” Jiménez died bleeding and doubled over in excruciating pain from infection caused by the botched illegal abortion she sought in desperation. She was 27, a scholarship student in McAllen, Texas, on the U.S.-Mexico border, six months shy of getting her teaching credential and struggling to make a better life for herself and her 5-year-old daughter when she was caught in a vise called the Hyde Amendment. This law denied her, as it has denied millions of low income women who depend on Medicaid for their health care, financial access to a safe abortion.

Rosie’s life was sacrificed on the altar of politically expedient appeasement.

Mention the U.S.-Mexico border and you set off political hot buttons. Everyone knows the two countries share complex historical, economic, and cultural relationships. But one relationship is seldom acknowledged: the movement of women across the border in both directions to obtain abortions over the years.

Sarah was a 22-year-old law school student at the University of Texas when she became pregnant in 1964. Her future husband was planning to attend law school after she graduated and got a job. They agreed they didn’t want to have a child before marriage and felt they both deserved the chance to finish school. Together, they went to Piedras Negras across the border from Eagle Pass, Texas, where she had an illegal, but thankfully safe, abortion.