Here are the highlights:

The beginning of it all:
A Tax on Nips and Tucks Angers Patients, Surgeons

“Ms. O’Neill (president of the National Organization for Women) said women commonly pay higher health insurance premiums and suffer wage discrepancies from men. “And now they are going to put a tax on middle-aged women in a society that devalues them for being middle aged?” she said.”

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Freelance writer Judith Warner’s article from the New York Times.
Bo-Tax Backlash

“I wonder if we haven’t entered into a period of what should be called “adjustment” feminism. The women’s movement is having to adjust to the realities of life in our culture, where many of its basic goals — including the very basic liberation of women from their pop culture status as a “mindless-boob-girlie symbol,” to borrow a phrase again from Robin Morgan — have stalled or are even backsliding.”

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From Salon, Kate Harding’s response to Judith Warner’s Bo-Tax Backlash article.
Feminist leaders decry the “Bo-tax”

“Access to affordable cosmetic surgery is not a feminist issue. What drives women to risk not only their financial stability but their lives, because being seen as plain or old or ugly in this society can be just that devastating to their self-esteem and career prospects, is the feminist issue here.”

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Laurie Essig’s essay addresses issues surrounding cosmetic surgery and class.
Why cosmetic surgery shouldn’t be taxed

“Like much of the health care reform being discussed, a tax on cosmetic surgery is unfair to women and unfair to the working class because they’re exactly who is not represented in Congress.”

she has a great ass, and fantastic boobs, sooo hot!!!

why is 1 tit jiggling when she walks?

I’d give a kidney to fuck those titties.

I don’t have a sense the general public is getting the message. And what IS the message?

We don’t need to propagate a stereotype in order to get the attention of men, or put women into the male gaze in order to appeal to them.  In Dan Neil’s Los Angeles Times article he writes:

Feminist film theory has a name for the camera’s eye here: The “male gaze,” which is to say, the camera’s view is that of the male spectator and unseen protagonist regarding the female as an object (cf. Laura Mulvey’s “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema”). This is the camera’s-eye of pornography and it’s inherently misogynistic. The “Save the Boobs” spot spoofs the male gaze and turns it into something positive.

In addition to Dan Neil’s seriously stunted analysis of the male gaze and feminist theory, the PSA doesn’t spoof the male gaze because it doesn’t put power back in the control of women. There is nothing positive about watching men and women respond to a sexualized woman with the same old stereotypical sexist and misogynist clichés we’ve all seen before.

Does this get a younger generation interested in Breast Cancer awareness — really?

. . . . .

More girls and women are now missing from the planet, precisely because they are female, than men were killed on the battlefield in all the wars of the 20th century.  The number of victims of this routine “gendercide” far exceeds the number of people who were slaughtered in all the genocides of the 20th century.

. . . . .

In India, a “bride burning” takes place approximately once every two hours, to punish a woman for an inadequate dowry or to eliminate her so a man can remarry.

. . . . .

1 percent of the world’s landowners are women.

. . . . .

21 percent of young women surveyed in Ghana reported that their sexual initiation was by rape.

. . . . .

130 million women around the world have been subjected to genital cutting.

. . . . .

70 percent of people living in poverty around the world are women and children.

. . . . .

1 women dies in childbirth for every 100,000 live births in Ireland.
2,100 women die in childbirth for every 100,000 live births in Sierra Leone.

. . . . .

There are 5 thousand honor killings a year, the majority in the Muslim world.

. . . . .

12.3 million people engaged in forced labor of all kinds, including sexual servitude.

. . . . .

Above statistics from NY Times Sunday Magazine 08.23.09

1) Misogyny, up close and personal
“Decrying sexism from afar is one thing. More hurtful is the casual, everyday misogyny of the men we love and trust.” Okay, if you read nothing else, you MUST read this.

2) My Newborn Is Like a Narcotic
“Why won’t feminists admit the pleasure of infants?” Written by Katie Roiphe for Double X. If you haven’t already heard about the controversy, be sure to read the comments — the best part of the whole thing. If you’d like to go deeper, Shapely Prose has written a biting rebuttal. On The Atlantic’s Daily Dish, a former student of Katie Roiphe’s, Conor Friedersdorf, writes a supportive article This Round to Katie Roiphe. But it’s all nicely summed up by Freddie at the League of Ordinary Gentleman, a Roiphe critic.  ~ phew!

3) Has Dooce become the modern day June Cleaver?
This post was written back in April 2009 but it’s so good that if you haven’t read it, you MUST. Here’s a follow-up article that’s equally good: Does mainstream media have mommy issues? Thanks to PunditMom for tweeting about this! @PunditMom

4) Don’t be outraged for Muslim women
“Western feminists should not assume everyone’s struggle mirrors their own – their obsession with the burqa has a patronising whiff.” Another article from the Guardian.

5) Women’s Rights and Human Rights
Written on Women’s Equality Day by Judi Jennings for the Huffington Post

Any I missed?

Let me know.

Watch the preview below

1. Why feminism shouldn’t rest just yet
Written by a “20-something. Living in Adams Morgan.” A well-written, interesting read from the perspective of a young women.

2. The Women’s Crusade
A must read from this Sunday’s New York Times Magazine “Why Women’s Rights are the Cause of Our Time.”

3. Feminists Protest PETA For a Change
Something I didn’t know about PETA. Thanks to our friends at Bitch Magazine.

4. What Everyone But You Sees About Your Body
I’m no big fan of Glamour Magazine but I found this article admirable. Thanks to Feminist Campus for leading me to this one.

5. The 2009 summer of hate
“The recent vitriolic attacks on Harriet Harman and Hillary Clinton have a clear message: women cannot be trusted to run the show.” I always appreciate the British perspective.

Any I missed?

Let me know.