WMC News Brief: Magazines, Clinton, Mali

August 28, 2009

Plus-Size Model Lizzi Miller In Glamour Begs Question: Is It Time For Magazines To Show Real Women? 8/27/09 NY Daily News: The hollow-cheeked waifs sashaying through the latest fashion magazines may sport head-turning outfits, but they haven’t drawn nearly as much buzz as the 180-pound blonde beauty beaming out of the September issue of Glamour.

Clinton Ponders Action Against Honduras 08/27/09 AP via USA Today: Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is considering action against Honduras in the wake of the ouster of its former president, a move that could lead to suspension of millions in U.S. development aid, a senior State Department official said Thursday.

Mali's President Declines To Sign Legislation Expanding Women's Rights 08/27/09 Voice of America: Tens of thousands of Malians have been holding protests and expressing outrage since the National Assembly adopted the new family code that would have expanded women's rights in early August.

Kidnapped At 11, Woman Emerges After 18 Years 08/28/09 NY Times: A woman who was kidnapped as an 11-year-old in 1991 was reunited with her family on Thursday after the police here arrested two suspects in the case and discovered a hidden compound where she had apparently been kept for nearly two decades.

Health Fracas Slows Pro-Woman Changes By Obama 08/28/09 Women's eNews: The Obama administration and Democrat-led Congress quickly advanced numerous women-friendly initiatives in their first six months. But since mid-summer, the all-consuming battle over health care reform has put on the brakes.

Many Rural Women In Minnesota Lack Access To Basic Health Care 08/27/09 The Minnesota Independent: A lack of health insurance and clinics, along with factors like poverty, geographic isolation and even Minnesota’s extreme winters all impact the ability of rural women to access health care.

Shotgun Adoption 08/26/09 The Nation: Crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs), the nonprofit pregnancy-testing facilities set up by antiabortion groups to dissuade women from having abortions, have become fixtures of the antiabortion landscape, buttressed by an estimated $60 million in federal abstinence and marriage-promotion funds.

From Dollar-A-Day Malawi To Elite US Prep School 08/23/09 Christian Science Monitor: The star scholar of a program that sends girls to school in Malawi spent the summer at Phillips Exeter Academy. But as she returns home, challenges loom.

Do Women Make Better Riot Police? 08/27/09 Christian Science Monitor: After months of taking a beating over allegations of heavy-handedness, Britain's largest police force is trying a new tack: handing women commanders the reins.

Italian Women Rise Up 08/27/09 NY Times: MANY outside Italy seem to assume that Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi gets away with his sexist behavior because Italian men condone it and the women at least tolerate it. But this is no longer true.

Iranian Leader's Nod To Women Knocked 08/28/09 AP via Toronto Star: Women's rights activists say they are not fooled by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's nomination of the first female cabinet ministers since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, calling it a ploy to improve his popularity that will hurt the cause of women.

Finger-Wagging Won't Help Muslim Women 08/28/09 The Guardian, UK: Western feminism is not the only ideology exquisitely sensible of gender injustice. Nor are western feminists the only ones willing or able to speak up about it. Muslim women have been doing this themselves for decades, loudly and often effectively.

Child Bride's Nightmare After Divorce 08/28/09 The Malaysian Insider: The story was supposed to end with the divorce and an innocent but determined girl allowed to fully embrace the childhood she fought so hard to keep. Instead, there has been no fairytale ending for Nujood.

Black Hair, Still Tangled In Politics 08/27/09 NY Times: Getting “good hair” often means transforming one’s tightly coiled roots; but it is also more freighted, for many African-American women and some men, than simply a choice about grooming.

The Business Of Breastfeeding 08/27/09 Forbes: Ciagne, now a mother of two and the director of Breastfeeding and Consumer Relations at Lansinoh Laboratories, a leader in breastfeeding and pumping products, believes there is a continuing lack of corporate awareness and an overall apathy regarding breastfeeding at work.

Autonomous Contraception 08/24/09 Science Progress: A recent discovery might open the door to an effective male contraceptive drug, a technology that could have been developed decades ago, were it not for social factors that enable women but not men to effectively regulate their fertility outside of sexual activity and without their partner’s participation or knowledge.

Push Is On To Cover Prenatal Care In Health Plan 08/27/09 Women's eNews: Health advocates are rallying in New York on August 29 to push for broader health coverage. One goal: ending the practice of treating a woman's pregnancy as a pre-existing condition that bars obstetric insurance coverage.

Swine Flu Advice For Pregnant Women And New Moms 08/27/09 U.S. News: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that children were at greatest risk of being infected with H1N1 (14 times more likely than adults over age 60) and that babies and toddlers were most likely to be hospitalized with severe complications.

Ellie Greenwich Dies At 68; Co-Wrote 'Da Doo Ron Ron,' 'Chapel Of Love' And Other '60s Hits 08/27/09 LA Times: Ellie Greenwich, the New York songwriter behind a string of 1960s hits that gave effervescent voice to unbridled teen romance, died Wednesday of a heart attack, according to her niece, Jessica Weiner.

Oprah Winfrey Network Slow To Get Off The Ground 08/27/09 LA Times: More than 20 months after the announcement that she was teaming up with Discovery Communications to create a new cable channel, not much has happened -- except for a revolving door of executives.

She Is The Matador: Blood Sport, Sexism, And Steadfast Ambition 08/28/09 WIP: She Is the Matador is not so much a documentary about bullfighting as it is about women challenging a male-dominated tradition to follow their steadfast ambitions.