On NPR’s Morning Edition today, reporter Nina Totenberg confronted the bias underneath complaints that Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor is a bully with a temperament problem. 
Judge Guido Calabresi, former Yale Law School dean and Sotomayor’s mentor, now says that when Sotomayor first joined the Court of Appeals, he began hearing rumors that she was overly aggressive, and he started keeping track, comparing the substance and tone of her questions with those of his male colleagues and his own questions.
“And I must say I found no difference at all. So I concluded that …

The Chicago Tribune says that domestic violence calls to the Indianapolis police department are up 13% this year over last. The Honolulu Advertiser says that Hawaii’s Domestic Violence Action Center is fielding a third more calls this year than last. Rates are up in Arizona and Texas, too. The economy is down; stress and violence are up. Here are some thoughts on places women turn for help:  law enforcement, spiritual advisors, and crisis hotlines.
A new Department of Justice study on Domestic Violence & Law Enforcement contains sobering statistics about reports …

(Cross-posted today at The Huffington Post)
It’s not your mother’s feminism. In fact, it’s so revolutionary that the word “feminism” is being updated. The next wave is here. The players are different. The words are different. The asks are different. The weapons and tactics are different. Even the feel is different.
We knew it was coming. We just didn’t know when or what it would look like. Quietly, cloaked in the unfortunate choice of David Letterman’s words, the next wave has washed ashore, sight unseen by our national media. This explains why …

Since David Letterman first uttered his disgusting jokes about Governor Palin’s daughter, a couple of things have been nagging at me. First, we’ve been aiming all of our heat at Letterman and his sponsors, but what about his writers? And second, the pundits’ line that the Palin daughters are “fair game” because the governor has “paraded” them around doesn’t hold water. In doing some investigating, I’ve found out that those two loose ends tie together.
Steve Young
The Late Show website doesn’t list writers, but in a January 2009  Sound of Young America interview, former Letterman …

This essay originally was published on The Vyne, a blog created by the author and her partner, Keesha Boyd, to celebrate upwardly mobile Black women. The opinions they express are their own, not necessarily those of The New Agenda.
photo credit: Gary Landers, Cincinnati Enquirer
“I am foremost a rabbi who happens to be African-American, not The African-American Rabbi” – Rabbi Alysa Stanton.
On June 6 in Cincinnati, Alysa Stanton became the first black woman in the United States ever ordained to the Jewish religion’s sacred post. This compassionate and tenacious spiritual leader …

Yesterday Meghan McCain wrote a piece describing how the Letterman jokes reveal a double standard in the treatment of Republicans. Well there is a double standard for sure. But the double standard is how women are treated by our media. Look what they did to your mother, Meghan (in video below)!
Viewers – please take the time to watch this important video produced by a co-founder of The New Agenda at the end of the 2008 elections.

So did Letterman cross the line? You bet he did. …

The New Agenda welcomes Monica, a graduate student who has volunteered to share what it means to her to have a minority female nominated as a Supreme Court Justice.  The opinions she expresses are her own, not necessarily those of The New Agenda.
Monica Jean Alaniz
When I first heard that Sonia Sotomayor had been nominated to the Supreme Court I have to admit that I got excited before knowing much about her. After all, here was a Latina being nominated to one of the highest judicial positions in the U.S. By …

Blogger FitSugar says:
If you thought NFL cheerleaders were putting the “skin” in pigskin, you haven’t seen anything yet.
Sam Donnellon of the Philladelphia Daily News says:
Talent is a Bust at tryouts for the new Lingerie Football League.
Ugh. Yes, the guy who brought us the Lingerie Bowl alternate programming during the half time of the Superbowl now is launching a ten-team professional league of women who play football in their underwear. At a time when women have more career options than ever before, why do women do this? Donnellon takes a stab …

CBS CEO Leslie Moonves
Hey CBS – We’re still here, and we’re not going away!!!
You think you can get away with this and your actions have no consequences. Well you are wrong. The mothers, fathers, grandmothers, grandfathers, sons and daughters of this country have HAD IT!!! We are putting our collective foot down and saying: SEXISM SELLS, BUT WE’RE NOT BUYING IT!!!
We want a Letterman Show devoted to educating our country on violence against teenage girls – and we want the show to explain why David Letter’s …

CBS:  we are waiting. No, we are demanding that you make this fiasco into a teachable moment. We want an episode devoted to the national crisis of the sexualization of our teenage daughters, and the resulting violence against them.
Here’s some further suggestions for Letterman’s Top Ten List, tonight courtesy of Liz Claiborne, Inc. which runs a program called Love is Not Abuse. Here is our daily Top Ten:
TOP TEN FACTS ABOUT TEENAGE VIOLENCE

62% of tweens (age 11-14) who have been in a relationship say they know friends …