Forbes magazine, “The Capitalist Tool,” is looking a little desperate in their attempt to lure new women readers.  The New York Times reports that Forbes “is struggling in an age of financial misery” with ad pages down 15% in the first quarter and the price per issue dropping steadily, prompting layoffs and benefit cuts. 
Often thought of as a wealthy family that happens to own a magazine, the family is actually wealthy precisely because it owns a magazine, and the business decline of the magazine comes right out of the family’s …

Tchen (left) with Jarret at the announcement of the council's formation. Photo by L. Sweet
Since March, when President Obama held a press conference celebrating his creation of the White House Council on Women and Girls, I’ve been waiting for word of what this council would accomplish.  I’d love to be excited about it, if only I could understand what it’s doing.  The council has no budget, its staffers have other full time jobs, its members are predominantly male, and its mission seems fuzzy.  During speeches and interviews, the council’s head, Valerie Jarrett, has spoken only …

Nomani outside of her hometown mosque
Former Wall Street Journal and Salon reporter Asra Nomani experienced a transformation when she made the pilgrimage to Mecca called the Hajj.  Born in India, Nomani moved with her family to Morgantown, West Virginia as a four-year old and grew up attending the mosque her father helped to found.  In that mosque, women entered through a separate door and sat in a balcony, facing the wall.  However, Nomani found radically different practices in the mosque in Mecca.  As she told New America Now Radio,
It’s amazing. I mean, men …

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 …

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 …

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 …

Following his outrageous joke about Alex Rodiguez ”knocking up” Governor Palin’s 14-year-old daughter, Willow, David Letterman is at it again (hat tip to Puma for Life and conservatives4palin).
The toughest part of [Palin's] visit was keeping Eliot Spitzer away from her daughter. That was the hard part.
The way I hear it, the man called a 14-year-old child a prostitute.

Many of our readers would like to protest Letterman’s disgusting slurs by contacting his sponsors.  I don’t know what companies have been running advertisements during the last few shows, but I can tell you that the following companies currently have …

Are the dots on this graph evenly spread out? Nope. They kinda cluster along a line that starts in the lower left and goes to the upper right. That’s one of the reasons why researchers Janet Hyde and Janet Mertz of the University of Wisconsin concluded in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that:
… gender inequality… is the primary reason fewer females than males are identified as excelling in mathematics at the highest levels in most countries.

Susan Chambers, Wal-Mart Exec VP
Business Week reports that at its annual shareholders’ meeting, Wal-Mart launched a special council to develop women leaders:
[CEO Mike] Duke had informally established a similar council of female leaders about a year ago, when he was running Wal-Mart’s international operations, a role he held from 2005 until his succession to the CEO slot in February, replacing Lee Scott. Now, Duke is taking the group, formally called the President’s Global Council of Women Leaders, companywide.
A Wal-Mart spokesperson says the group’s goals are still being determined. Duke called the …

HatTip:  Bruce Nahin
photo credit: John Berry/The Post-Standard
Politico reports that:
Governor Sarah Palin paused Friday afternoon in front of a monument bearing the Declaration of Sentiments, an early feminist touchstone.  “We anticipate no small amount of ridicule,” she read, and remarked: “Some things never change.”