Lilith Magazine asked me to review Michelle Goldberg's The Means of Reproduction. The book waspublished earlier this year and at first I thought this review would be a bit dated. As it turns out given the health reform debate in which women's reproductive health is once again the battering ram for Republicans who want to kill reform and controversial fodder for the pundits, the subject matter couldn't be more timely. In particular, Goldberg's discussion of the damage done globally to women's health by the Helms amendment shouts the warning about what might well happen in the U.S. if the Stupak-Pitts amendment prevails.

Michelle Goldberg's captivating book, The Means of Reproduction: Sex, Power, and the Future of the World (Penguin Press, 2009) is perfectly timed to remind those who came of age post-Roe v Wade and might think they can relax under an Obama administration, just how much work is left to do. An investigative journalist and author previously of Kingdom Coming: the Rise of Christian Nationalism, Goldberg has imbued this long-running story with fresh power by telling it in her young feminist voice.

The Means of Reproduction' is a sweeping history of U.S. foreign policy on international family planning that spans four continents and the covers issues such as birth control, abortion, HIV/AIDS, their intersections with environmental concerns and economic development, and the gender politics of all, while staying in intimate touch

How does Wonder Woman do it? She is able to stop the bad guys—even convince them to reform—without ever killing! Her gender-bending strength and power is matched only by her compassion in seeking peace and justice. The question, CAN WONDER WOMAN CRA-AC-CK GENDER STEREOTYPES? is paramount as this icon and superhero confronts the sexism prevalent at the time of her creation in 1941 as well as today.

So how does Wonder Woman do it? What lessons can we learn from her today?

If you are a writer and a woman, you'e probably heard about the great new website SheWrites started by a very powered woman, Kamy Wicoff, and already boasting a membership of over 5000. I just posted this over there and couldn't resist sharing it with you. Seems that Publishers Weekly released its annual list of Top 10 Books, and guess what, there wasn't a single book by a woman on it. So Kamy swung into action, which I love. The rest of the story will be obvious. (BTW, if you're a woman writer, join up today by clicking below.)

Visit She Writes

So here's what posted at SheWrites:

I like Friday the 13th. Thirteen is a great number. Why? First of all, my birthday is on the 13th, April 13th. Every once in a while it lands on a Friday, and I feel just as lucky then as when it falls on a Tuesday. The gifts are just as much fun to open. Publisher's Weekly has handed us at SheWrites a gift by calling attention to the lack of books by women writers on their Top 10 list.

I also like Friday the 13th because 13 is the number of a coven. Covens are powerful. Every women needs her coven, no matter what her religion is or what she thinks about witches. We need our circle of women friends, our old or new girls network. Our sister courage. Our girl gangs. One of us alone can accomplish a lot, but 13 of us together make a movement. Remember, thirteen colonies started a revolution and formed a new nation in 1776. Kamy has challenged us to create our own revolution.

Third, according to some traditions, twelve is considered "complete" but 13 is deemed "irregular" because it disrupts the “even dozen.” That makes me like 13 even better because in my experience disruption, or chaos, is opportunity. In a time of chaos, people are open to new ideas they wouldn’t have considered when things were normal. Chaos breeds innovation. Or, as in the case of the disruption/chaos of the recession, it’s the opportunity for women to advance into positions they haven’t held before. Men made the messes we’re in, and everyone can see that women might just be able to clean them up. So more women are moving into leadership positions in business and politics. That can only be a good thing. Just as it was a good thing for Publisher's Weekly to jolt us to action. Bet they won't make the same mistake next year!

So I like 13 just fine. As it happens, I have 13 books by women on my running list of books I either need either as references for the book I’m writing—Woman Unlimited—or because I just want to read them. So at 1pm—1300—today, Friday the 13th, I’ll meander over to the bookstore and load up. Thanks, Kamy, for giving us this great idea!

PS. I like black cats too.

Thanks to my great friend and an activist who has always put her convictions into action, Rita Dickinson for this guest post. She wrote this moving personal essay after attending a WomenGirlsLadies intergenerational panel.

After attending the Feldt-Barbanell Women of the World Lecture at Arizona State University recently, I have questioned if I can honestly call myself a feminist.  I always thought of myself as one, but do I deserve to wear the badge?  The remarkable women on the panel had defining moments that justified them considering themselves feminists.  I don’t have one “aha” moment.  My sense of feminism is more organic.

My childhood was glorious.  I am a Boomer, but June Cleaver was only a fantasy character on television.  Conversely, I didn’t have militant women in my life either.  Women surrounding me were strong, independent, and smart.  Although our family is small, I had eight significant female relatives within reach:  my mother, my grandmothers, my great-grandmother, my aunt, two great aunts and a great-great aunt.

Most of the significant influences in my childhood were subtle, yet extremely fond memories.  I remember attending graduate classes with my mother, taking colored pencils and newsprint (we weren’t allowed to have coloring books – they would stifle creativity).  We spent a great deal of time outdoors; we went to the beach, and we camped every summer.  None of this is remarkable, except that my mother had survived polio when pregnant with my older brother, resulting in paralysis from the waist-down. 

One of my earliest memories is of serving cookies at Red Cross blood drives while my mother volunteered.  And I remember when I was about nine years old, a man at church said something about my mother being a paraplegic.  I assured him that she was a Christian.  I guess I had never heard the word.

I never felt my family was different from others until a few years ago

Guest post by regular contributor Lee Reid Taylor.

Barack Obama and the world woke up Friday morning to the unexpected news that the president had received the Nobel Peace Prize.  Women’s responses to the announcement ran the gamut: from accolades, to shock and even disbelief.  Some question whether the award is premature, while others believe it is a call for Obama to act on his political oratory of peace.   

Obama is the third sitting president, following Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson, to receive the honor. The first recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize was a woman, Bertha von Suttner, in 1901. Female recipients of the Peace Prize include: Jane Addams, Ayn San Suu Kii, Betty Williams, and Wangari Maathai (just to name a few).  Of the ninety-six Nobel Peace Prizes awarded, only nineteen were given to women.  The fact that Obama is now a recipient leads some to ask, “Why him, and why now?”

Women have different interpretations of why this award was given and what impact it will have on the president’s policies.

Last week there was a huge discussion about women and happiness that I thought missed the mark in two ways. First it misinterpred the data in so as to reinforce the preferred myth that equality makes women unhappy, and second it assumes happiness is  about seeking it for it own sake. So here's my take on the matter. What makes you happy? Inquiring minds (mine at least) want to know.

Please tell me below or/and on Truthout.

When my son David was a gangly 14-year-old with a class assignment to research his ancestral roots, we drove 360 flat miles from Odessa, Texas, to Dallas to visit my grandmother. After she’d hugged and pinched us to determine if we’d been eating properly, David pulled out his scribbled questions. “Bubba,” he asked, “What did you do for fun when you were a teenager?”

“Fun?” She looked perplexed.

I’m sure Grandmother found ways to have fun in her youth, as most kids do. But fun is culturally defined. And growing up in Russia during World War I, with far fewer choices than today’s teens

I went to a physical therapist about the neck pain I’d been experiencing. So a few days ago, I was distracting myself by watching Dylan Ratigan’s “Morning Meeting” on MSNBC while I practiced the boring exercise regimen Melissa, my therapist, prescribed. Ten reps three times for each exercise holding light hand weights as I hang over the bed.

The segment led with a rhetorical question about whether this could be the breakthrough time for women. La la. Heard that one before.

Dylan reported the Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit was going on out in California. That’s a yawn—I went to the Fortune Summit five years ago. And that was supposed to be the time for women. Though I didn’t remember it making a media splash like this before.

Oh, I see. Mika Brzezinski was there—well of course MSNBC would want to highlight that. And Joe

This post is generously shared by its author,former New York Times reporter (she was their first female sports reporter) Robin Herman, originally published Sept. 12 on her blog girlinthelockerroom. Robin was also in the first class of women at Princeton University.

Forty years ago this September, on the first weekend after Labor Day, a group of just over 170 young women set foot on the Princeton campus as bona fide members of the University’s 3,400-strong student body. Their steps onto the ivied campus and into the old stone classrooms constituted an historic milestone for the more than 200-year-old Princeton, but it was also recognized as a symbolic act for a nation that was grappling with issues of equity in civil rights and women’s rights. For until that fall of 1969, young women, no matter their intelligence and potential, were still excluded from some of the greatest centers of learning in the United States -- Princeton, Yale and Dartmouth -- while several others of the Ivy League colleges maintained a technical distance from women by admitting them only through "sister schools".

Although Yale University also went coed that same fall, it was Princeton that attracted television cameras, hi

I am delighted to welcome a very powered young woman, Lee Taylor, as a regular guest poster.  Lee is a writer and feminist activist who is a senior at SUNY Purchase College majoring in History and minoring in Women's Studies. She is currently working on her senior thesis about Helen Rogers Reid, her great-grandmother, and former President of the New York Herald Tribune. After she graduates she plans on teaching high school. I'm especially thrilled that her first post here is a profile of my friend, the remarkable Helen Zia.

    Helen Zia was born into a Chinese American family in New Jersey in 1952.  Although the fifties was a time Lee Taylor and Helen Ziaof great conformity, the seeds of revolution were sown the day that Zia was born.   Zia was brought into an immigrant family which observed traditional Confucian beliefs, including the Three Obediences: a daughter must obey her father, a wife must obey her husband, and a widow must obey her son; the trajectory of Zia's life proves that she was truly a radical visionary and community organizer who broke seemingly insurmountable social and cultural barriers.

    Helen Zia graduated from Princeton University in the first class that accepted women.  She was also breaking racial boundaries as one of the few female, Asian American members of the prestigious university.  Zia attended Princeton on a full