plan b

Happy Tuesday! Here's some feminist news to start off your day.

• After her death yesterday, Margaret Thatcher’s life as a pop culture inspiration and feminist have been widely discussed and debated. [Salon]

• In case you missed it, last Friday a federal judge overturned a law that required those under the age of 16 to have a prescription in order to purchase the emergency contraceptive pill. [Mother Jones, Ms. Magazine]

• Brad Paisley might be an accidental racist, or he at least sings a song about being one. [Jezebel]

• A bill in Kansas that defines life as the "moment of fertilization" passed in both the state House and Senate and has been sent to the Governor of Kansas to be signed into law. [Ms. Magazine]

• This article from The Feminist Wire re-examines the subject of black women’s hair. [The Feminist Wire]

• JCPenney CEO and gay advocate Ron Johnson was fired and is to be replaced by his predecessor. Johnson supported Ellen DeGeneres as the spokesperson for the company and used gay couples in advertisements. [Advocate]

• Michigan Governor Rick Snyder refused to get involved when a member of the state’s Republican National Committee made offensive comments about gay people on Facebook. Instead, he made vague statements condemning discrimination and bullying. [Think Progress]

• Although more women may be entering the construction workforce, construction sites tend to be unpleasant work environments for this new population of employees. [Womanisms]  

• Today is Equal Pay Day—the day four months into the year when women have finally earned as much as men did in 2012. [Pay-Equity.org]

As per usual, add whatever you're reading in the comments!

By now you've probably heard the bad news:

In what can only be called an astounding move by an Administration that pledged on inauguration day that medical and health decisions would be based on fact not ideology and for which women are a major constituency, today Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) overruled a much-awaited decision by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to make emergency contraception (EC) available over-the-counter (OTC) to women of all ages.

The emergency contraceptive pill is now mandatorily available at US military bases worldwide. I would think there are a lot of us out there who assumed - as government employees in a situation detrimental to their health in a whole range of ways - that all US soldiers would have access to the best of health care and any prescription drugs they wanted.