Phyllis Schlafly

Another week, another bunch of thought-provoking articles. Here's some of what we've been reading:

• ColorLines celebrates the U.S.' first integrated all-female band.
• Also at ColorLines, Kai Wright reflects movingly on the still-far-off mountaintop MLK described.
• Jessica Valenti talks about the glorification of basic fathering in The Daily.
• Ms. and NPR each report and discuss Joe Biden's address of sexual assault in schools; what did YOU think?
• Bitch contributor Sady Doyle manages to write smartly (while being, as she puts it, "not-just-totally-mean") about Phyllis Schlafly's influence at Global Comment.
• Bitch Flicks lends their feminist snark to an analysis of Total Film's so-called "40 Greatest Movie Posters" list.
• Futrelle unpacks comic artist Scott Adams' recent douchery—and his bizarre attempts to fix the situation—at Feministe and man boobz.
• Bitch contributor s.e. smith blogs at this ain't livin' about the ageist implications of a younger Miss Marple.
• Vulture goes over the vitriol around Spider Man: Turn Off the Dark and actor Harry Lennix's piece asking why only Julie Taymor is trashed for a show many hands put together.
• In the same vein, 90s Woman looks at the pop phenomenon "Friday" and wonders "WTF is so scary about an ambitious thirteen-year-old girl?" (via feministified)
• Chloe at Feministing speaks out about last week's Slutwalk and the victim-blaming such events protest.
• Greenier at RH Reality Check talks about "Why Insurance Coverage for Abortion Matters;" the piece was then picked up for AlterNet.
• Bad news: Canadian blog Gender Focus is shutting down. At least we'll have Jarrah's upcoming board game projects to follow!
• Liz at Our Turn comments on documentaries about masculinity.
• At Racialicious and Muslimah Media Watch, Diana shares her feelings on the CNN special Unwelcome: The Muslims Next Door.
• On HuffPo, Payne explores how derogatory language feeds classism.
• Miss the queer teen drama South of Nowhere? Heaven knows I do! AfterEllen interviews star Mandy Musgrave about playing lesbians and her new webseries, Cowgirl Up.
• In the <3 files: "Family Dog Keeps Missing Baby Alive Overnight," from Jezebel.

Your turn to share!

This just in! Career antifeminists Phyllis Schlafly and Suzanne Venker blame feminism for the nation's divorce rate (among other things)! In their upcoming book The Flipside of Feminism: What Conservative Women Know—and Men Can't Say, Schlafly and Venker posit that feminists, with our love of divorce, our hatred of men, our general negativity, and our blatant duplicitousness, have fostered a culture where splitting up a marriage is as easy and breezy as splitting the check at a restaurant.

If Alice Paul had gotten her way, the United States Constitution would read:

Men and women shall have equal rights throughout the United States and every place subject to its jurisdiction.

Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

This, her proposed text of the Equal Rights Amendment, has never come to pass. Drafted by Paul and introduced by two Republicans in 1923—one of whom was Susan B. Anthony's nephew—the ERA was introduced in every congressional session thereafter, until 1980. Nearly 60 years of finding a sponsor, and for all but three of those years, ERA died in committee. In those other three years, it either failed on a close vote in the Senate, or it passed, but with a rider that none of its supporters could stomach.