You Know You’re Not in the U.S. Anymore When …: BirthActivist.com posted an incredible video of a Barcelona couple’s at-home birth — a video made all the more amazing because it’s a commercial for a Spanish mattress company. The tagline: “Your bed, the most important place in the world.” Swoon.

Snow White, She’s Not: Almost three quarters of a century after the debut of Snow White, Disney is about to release a film starring its first black princess, Tiana. Neely Tucker writes in the Washington Post:

Her appearance this holiday season, coming on the heels of Michelle Obama’s emergence as the nation’s first lady, the Obama girls in the White House and the first line of Barbie dolls modeled on black women (“So in Style” debuts this summer), will crown an extraordinary year of visibility for African American women.

But fairy tales and folklore are the stories that cultures tell their children about the world around them, and considering Disney’s pervasive influence with (and marketing to) young girls, Princess Tiana might well become the symbol of a culture-changing standard of feminine beauty.

“If this figure takes off, you’re looking at 30 or 40 years of repetition and resonance,” says Tricia Rose, a Brown University professor who teaches both popular culture and African American studies, citing the enduring popularity of Disney princesses at the company’s theme parks, on Web sites and in videos.

Not only that, but Tiana learns that she needs love and a career to find happiness. Finally, my wish has come true.

Fan Club for Non First Lady Fans: “A first lady whose entire bearing says, “Here I am!” and who by all appearances is living comfortably in her own body is a compelling symbol of female agency,” writes Rhea Hirshman in the New Haven Register. “Even as she is being made into a fashion icon, Michelle Obama is subverting the status quo, thus pulling off the neatest trick of all.”

Plus: More on Michelle Obama from Patricia Williams.

Deadly Silicone: A 43-year-old woman died a day after receiving silicone injections from an unlicensed practitioner. The New York City Health Department is concerned that illegal use of silicone as an alternative to cosmetic surgery is on the rise, reports The New York Times.

Drugmakers Spend Less on Advertising in 2008: “Drug makers cut their spending on consumer advertising of prescription drugs by 8% in 2008 to $4.4 billion, the first pullback since at least the late 1990s,” reports the Wall Street Journal.

Pharmaceutical-ad experts blame last year’s spendng decline on fewer new-drug introductions and heightened congressional scrutiny of drug marketing. Critics say the ads, which are permitted in few other countries, inflate health-care costs by prompting patients to request brand-name medicines, rather than cheaper generic alternatives. The industry’s trade group, however, cites a 2003 statement from the Federal Trade Commission that argues that the ads educate consumers about drug options and haven’t been shown to lead to higher prices.

In the U.S., ads aimed at consumers typically account for only about 40% of the total marketing budget for prescription drugs, according to the pharmaceutical industry. The majority of manufacturers’ promotional efforts are directed at doctors.

Spending on drug ads peaked in 2007 at $4.8 billion, according to IMS Health. The market researcher last month reported that annual U.S. prescription sales grew 1.3 percent in 2008, to $291 billion.

Plus: FDA rules designed to clarify pharmaceutical companies’ online ads — such as paid Google ads — and provide more consumer information are causing more confusion than before, say industry officials. How do you list side effects in 95 words or less?

Plus 2: The AP reports that drug makers “spent more than $2.9 million on Vermont’s doctors, hospitals and universities to market their products in the last fiscal year, according to a report issued Wednesday by the state attorney general’s office.” The reports’ findings note that 25 doctors and nurses each got more than $20,000 in cash or benefits from the companies; 10 got more than $50,000; and one psychiatrist received $112,000.

$10 Million if You CanTransform Health Care: The X Prize Foundation is offering $10 million to the winner of a contest that aims to transform healthcare in a small U.S. community:

The Grand Challenge for the Healthcare X PRIZE is to create an optimal health paradigm that empowers and engages individuals and communities in a way that dramatically improves health value. The proposed prize is designed to improve health value by more than 50 percent in a 10,000 person community during a three year trial. In order to effectively compete for this prize, teams will need to fundamentally change health financing, care delivery, and create new incentives that will result in achieving the required improvements in health value for both individuals and communities.

Reuters has more.

“Be Fruitful and Multiply”: NPR’s “Morning Edition” reports on the small but growing Quiverfull movement. These conservative Christians shun birth control and advocate for large families. The agenda is political as well as religious.

“They speak about, ‘If everyone starts having eight children or 12 children, imagine in three generations what we’ll be able to do,’” said Kathryn Joyce, author of the new book “Quiverfull: Inside The Christian Patriarchy Movement. “”We’ll be able to take over both halls of Congress, we’ll be able to reclaim sinful cities like San Francisco for the faithful, and we’ll be able to wage very effective massive boycotts against companies that are going against God’s will.’”

Eight-Year-Old Denied Divorce: From Akimbo: “Earlier this week, a judge in Saudi Arabia refused for the second time to annul the marriage between an eight year-old girl and a 47 year-old man. The girl’s father promised her hand in marriage to a friend as payment for financial debts. The girl’s mother brought the case in an attempt to free her daughter from the forced marriage. While this disturbing case has made headlines, it is not uncommon.”

Read the full post for steps advocates and governments should take to eliminate early and forced marriage.

A “Too-Tall” Medical Tale: Christine Cosgrove, co-author with Susan Cohen of the new book “Normal at Any Cost: Tall Girls, Short Boys, and the Medical Industry’s Quest to Manipulate Height,” wrote a great piece in the L.A. Times about the history of doctors prescribing DES, a synthetic drug that acts like estrogen, to girls to stunt their growth.

Why? Because decades ago, “if a girl were heading toward 5 feet 8 inches, or, horrors, 5 feet 10 inches, not only would she have trouble finding clothes that fit, she’d have a hard time finding a husband. And in the days when there were few options besides marriage and children for women, well, that left an old maid.”

Thousands of girls, including Cosgrove, took the pills. Some have experienced myriad health problems, and an Australian study found a significant decrease in fertility among those who were treated.

Check out more about the book. Here’s an interview with the authors.

America’s Back — Now What?: Linda Hirshman and Gloria Feldt wrote a commentary on the significance of the U.N Cairo + 15 meeting:

On March 31, State Department Acting Assistant Secretary for Population, Refugees, and Migration, Margaret Pollack, told delegates to the United Nations Commission on Population and Development, meeting in New York, that America was back.

Marking a 180 degree turnaround from Bush administration policies that fought international efforts to enable people to control their own reproductive fate, the U.S. will once again defend the “human rights and fundamental freedoms of women” and support “universal access to sexual and reproductive health.” [...]

The global sigh of relief was palpable. For with all its money and diplomatic resources, the U.S. is the 10,000 gorilla in international reproductive policy. Now the question is, while this is certainly change we can believe in, is it all the change we need?

Film Critics Write Off Rape: Tiger Beatdown has a great analysis of the new Seth Rogen film, “Observe & Report,” and the reviews that give a pass to the rape scene. At least New York Times film critic Manohla Dargis will restore your faith. Rachel points to more links.

Why Women Stay: Hilzoy at Obsidian Wings has written the must-read post of all must-read posts about why women stay in abusive relationships. As one commenter put it, “If I always had a hilzoy around to explain it, I think I could understand every human phenomenon in the world.”

Johns Hopkins Bans Free Drug Samples, Gifts to Doctors: “Johns Hopkins is the latest big name in health care to try to restrict doctors’ ties to the drug and device industries,” reports the Wall Street Journal. “Its new policy ‘on interaction with industry’ bans free drug samples and says doctors can’t participate in consulting gigs in which they’re essentially paid for not doing anything.”

Plus: Iowa Republican Sen. Charles Grassley asked a nonprofit mental health organization about its funding as part of his investigation into drug company influence, reports Bloomberg.

Everybody Hurts Sometimes: “Long lines come up frequently in the American healthcare discussion, the symbol of all that is to be feared about a government-run system,” writes Ezra Klein on the L.A. Times op-ed page.

And it’s true that in Canada and Britain, the two countries most often cited in discussions of what nationalized healthcare might mean, some patients report having to wait months for some elective treatments. Sometimes.

But we’ve got waiting lines too — along with 50 million uninsured and a system that costs more than twice as much per person as that of any other country. We’ve just managed to hide our lines through clever statistical gimmickry.

Debate Over Digital Health Records: The Obama administration maintains health information technology is as an essential, cost-savings component of health care reform and has set a goal for every American to have an electronic health record by 2014. But critics fear the money to implement the system will be wasted if doctors and hospitals can’t share information, reports USA Today.

“We could head for a techno-Katrina,” said Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md. “I do not want to do that, where we do a dollar dump, and at the end of the day, we have a lot of microchips floating around.”

Plus: Writing in the New England Journal of Medicine, National Coordinator for Health Information Technology David Blumenthal discusses the health IT provisions of the federal economic stimulus package — collectively called HITECH in the law. Read “Stimulating the Adoption of Health Information Technology.”

Vitamin Sales Up as Economy Falters: “Sales of vitamins and nutritional supplements, which have grown consistently for years, have surged in recent months, rising as the stock market has fallen,” writes Alex Williams in The New York Times. “People are clearly cutting back on many items, from bread and milk to designer jeans and flat-screen televisions, but they are stocking up on pills that they think can spare them expensive doctor visits.”

My Peeps: We end on a colorful note — Tis the season of the peeps. The Washington Post displays its 40 finalists here; don’t miss Peep/Tuck and Thelma and Louise: Peeps on the Run.

Here, first place winner Melissa Harvey discusses her gorgeous interpretation of Edward Hopper’s “Nighthawks” painting.

The winner of the Chicago Tribune contest created an imaginative Wizard of Peeps. And for political junkies, check out this portrayal, at TwinCities.com, of the Minnesota U.S. Senate Trial between Al Franken and Norm Coleman.

The 15-year run of  “ER” ended last week, sparking a number of reflections and retrospectives.

Since I cover health, I especially appreciated this analysis of the NBC series’ influence on the representation of health care in television programming.

It was back in 1996 when The New England Journal of Medicine first took “ER” and other medical shows to task for performing CPR much more frequently — and with much greater success — than doctors do off-screen.

Within a year, the show’s writers, which then included an emergency room physician and a pediatrician who was the show’s co-producer, crafted a scene in which Dr. John Carter (Noah Wyle) broke an elderly man’s rib while performing CPR.

Two great female characters, Dr. Kerry Weaver and Dr. Susan Lewis, on the "ER" finale

How off were the numbers? A 2006 New Yorker article noted that in reality one in 100 patients undergo CPR or some other resuscitation procedure. Just 15 percent, at most, are successful. On television shows, the success rate is closer to two-thirds.

“ER” has also been the medium for messages about HIV transmission, breast cancer, adoption, domestic violence, elder abuse and drug use. One of the final episode story lines revolved around a teenager who drank too much vodka at a friends’ home, providing Dr. Tony Gates (John Stamos) the opportunity to lecture that only 6 ounces of alcohol can be dangerous.

Adding another layer of real-life complication, the drinking was sanctioned by the friends’ parents. That now translates to “call the police.”

Writing in the Times, Pam Belluck describes the show’s powerful legacy as “a give-and-take between the world of entertainment and the world of medicine that has become stronger and more deeply intertwined with each year that ‘ER’ has been on the air, carrying over to other medical shows.”

One of the first hospital dramas to take its medicine seriously — as the engine rather than the backdrop for its scripts — “ER” caught the attention of the medical establishment as a source of health information for millions of Americans. A 2002 study by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that viewers’ knowledge of emergency contraception and the human papilloma virus increased after watching episodes that mentioned those subjects; a third of them said the show helped them make health care choices. One in five doctors in a 2001 survey said patients asked about diseases or treatments they saw on shows like “ER.”

Today, a small industry has grown up to influence writers and producers. A program called Hollywood, Health and Society gets money from health organizations and federal agencies like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to arrange meetings where doctors urge medical-show writers to highlight certain diseases or issues.

“We coach our experts in telling writers real stories of real people,” said Sandra de Castro Buffington, director of the program, part of the Norman Lear Center at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School of Communication.

Interestingly, the Gates Foundation, best known for funding global health projects, has also helped shape story lines on “ER,” among other shows. Issues include HIV prevention, surgical safety and the spread of infectious diseases.

Look, ma! Fake blood!

What I also find interesting about the “ER” postmortem is the shift in attitudes toward doctors. During the days of “Marcus Welby, M.D.,” physicians were revered for their medical skill and bedside manner. The American Medical Association even gave its approval to some shows, but the approval had less to do with medical accuracy and more with how the doctors were portrayed.

[A side note: For a terrific discussion about how "Marcus Welby, M.D." reflected its time period, read this article by Joseph Turow at the Museum of Broadcast Communications. Turow recounts how it addressed medical topics, such as sexually transmitted infections, that up until then TV censors didn't allow. The show was memorable in other ways: Gay rights activists, in one of their first organized protests against a TV show, criticized an episode about about the rape of a teenager by a male teacher. And women's rights activists complained that "Marcus Welby's control over the lives of his patients (many of whom were women) represented the worst aspects of male physician' paternalistic attitudes."]

“These were sort of adoring doctor dramas,” John D. Lantos, a bioethicist at the University of Chicago, told the Times. “My sense is that the medicine was irrelevant and unsophisticated — someone’s lying in a room that looks like your living room and there’s an IV running, the universal symbol that something medical is going on.”

That certainly wouldn’t fly today, when story lines can be fact-checked instantly and the accuracy of medical jargon and physical details is as important as character development.

Speaking of character development, “ER” was one of the few shows that featured strong, complex female characters almost every season. Most everyone I know stopped watching “ER” years ago, but I faithfully TiVo’d each week. I’ll miss the familiar characters, as well as the  newer ones, including Dr. Cate Banfield (Angela Bassett, who deserved more air time), and the ones we’ll never get to know, like Dr. Julia Wise (Alexis Bledel); I know, I know — I can’t believe either actress didn’t join sooner.

In recent years my favorite was Dr. Neela Rasgotra (Parminder Nagra). Least favorite: Nurse Samantha Taggart (Linda Cardellini — who had much better scenes as highschooler Lindsay Weir).

But mostly I’ll miss a show that indulged my health curiosity (and anxieties) and made the often arcane and intimidating world of medicine accessible, chiefly by showing that in the end, the characters that compose that world are as human as we are.

Plus: If you’re suffering from “ER” withdrawal, you may want to check out “Doctor’s Diaries.” The NOVA program, which broadcasts on PBS, has been following seven former Harvard medical school students for more than two decades. Pauline Chen has more. (Or you can try to convince me to watch “Grey’s Anatomy.”)

cross-posted at PopPolitics.com

Reading List: Anna Clark interviews Michelle Goldberg, author of “The Means of Reproduction: Sex, Power, and the Future of the World,” at Bitch magazine (and happy birthday to Anna’s blog, Isak!).

Kathryn Joyce, author of “Quiverfull: Inside the Christian Patriarchy Movement,”  talks with Religion Dispatches. An excerpt of her book can be read here.

Planting a Future: Melissa Harris Lacewell digs through the meaning of Michelle Obama planting the new White House vegetable garden. More historians, authors and gardeners weigh in at the Washington Post.

Plus: Sharkfu on nutrition, cost and Alice Waters; Mark Bittman on eating healthy, organic or not.

Dealing with the Recession: Over at Writes Like She Talks, Jill Miller Zimon put together a list of articles that provide perspective on the recession, job loss and the economic impact on women. At Women’s eNews, Mimi Abramovitz explains three new rules about jobless benefits in the stimulus package that will help women and correct a major gender bias.

Pregnant? Here’s a Pink Slip: “Last year the number of pregnancy-based discrimination charges filed with the E.E.O.C. was up nearly 50 percent from a decade earlier, to a total of 6,285. That number seems likely to rise even higher this year,” writes Lesley Alerman in The New York Times.

“Some employers are using the economy as a pretense for laying off just one person,” said Elizabeth Grossman, a lawyer for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. “And very often that person is pregnant or the oldest employee on staff. The economy may be the legitimate cause — or there may be discrimination.”

Tenn. Senate Passes Abortion Amendment: The Tennessee Senate passed a constitutional amendment that states in part, “nothing in Constitution of Tennessee secures or protects right to abortion or requires the funding of an abortion.”

Rachel writes: “Supporters keep insisting that the bill does not make abortion illegal, while not addressing the fact that if this ultimately succeeds (there are several more steps for this Constitutional amendment), it makes room for the numerous restrictions often supported by anti-choice folks — such as waiting periods, forced ultrasounds, required ‘informed consent’ scripts that are not medically accurate, and so on. It also makes room for an abortion ban in the event that national protections vanish.”

Meanwhile, “Illinois could be on the verge of passing one of the most progressive reproductive health bills, the Reproductive Health and Access Act, any state has seen in a long time,” writes Veronica Arreoloa. Here are the groups supporting  the bill. If you’re a resident of Illinois, contact your legislator and voice your support.

Cost of Domestic Abuse: Women who are abused by their partners spent 42 percent more on healthcare per year than non-abused women, according to a long-term study of more than 3,000 women published online in the journal Health Services Research.  The study, summarized in this press release, also found that the increased costs don’t end when the abuse does. Women who suffered physical abuse five or more years earlier still spent 19 percent more per year on health care than women who were never abused.

Recognition for the Rights of Persons with Disabilities: “We are living in a new era for persons with disabilities,’ writes Myra Kovary at On the Issues Magazine. The story details the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which was adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations and has been signed by 50 nations so far.  The U.S. has yet to sign it, but President Barack Obama has said he will do so.

Facts of Life: Sarah Seltzer praises “the sex talk” on one of my favorite television shows, “Friday Night Lights,” and compares it to a conversation from over a decade ago on “My So-Called Life.”

Dr. Suzanne Poppema ran an abortion clinic near Seattle in the 1990s. She writes at RH Reality Check this week that while her job was rewarding, she often worried she was a member of an endangered species: “Like the spotted owl, our habitats were being invaded and destroyed — not by loggers but by anti-choice protestors.”

At the same time, fewer medical schools and residencies were educating students about abortion and were limiting training opportunities at outside clinics. “Many doctors continued working past retirement age so their patients wouldn’t have to travel hundreds of miles to get an abortion,” adds Poppema.

Her story is familiar among abortion providers. The New York Times last week reported on the increasing age of doctors and other abortion clinic staff — many of whom came of age before the Supreme Court legalized abortion in 1973 and who saw providing care and counsel to women as their calling. They now fear that their roles will go unfilled.

“We worry about that a lot,” said Sally Burgess, executive director of the Hope clinic and chairwoman of the National Abortion Federation, the main professional association of abortion providers. “Younger women have always had access to abortion care, they don’t fully appreciate the battle that was fought to have it available to them. And more important, I don’t think they know how precarious the option is at this point, even with Obama’s election.”

Anne Baker started counseling women in 1976 at the Hope Clinic for Women in Granite City, Ill., and never left. She estimates she has counseled 25,000 women and a few girls during that time, ranging in age from 11 to 53.

“It’s been my dream job,” she told the Times. “I wanted to be standing by the side of someone who was making a decision that others would condemn her for, and support her and link arms and say, You’re a good person making a hard decision, and that’s what I’ve done for 33 years.”

The Anne Baker’s of the world deserve major props for being on the frontline. Women’s health clinics generally pay less than other medical offices and the jobs carry a special stigma and added stress. The NYT’s Michael Winerip writes:

“People running these clinics,” Ms. Arick said, “have brains wired for social work and social justice even though they’re in the medical business.” Studies show the typical woman having an abortion is a poor, single parent in her 20s. Many don’t have insurance, or the insurance won’t cover abortion. Ms. Burgess said half who come to her clinic need financial help, and she employs a staff member to search for charitable grants.

Working at an abortion clinic intrudes into a person’s private life. “I never wanted to be political,” Ms. Welsh said, “but for the clinic to survive, I had to know all the legislators from our area. They can make or break you.”

“You work in abortion,” Ms. Burgess said, “it will affect who you will date, the parties you will be invited to.” Every day when she comes to work, she’s picketed. On the weekday I visited, 15 protestors carried signs comparing abortion to Hitler’s Holocaust.

A decade ago, after an Atlanta clinic was bombed, Ms. Welsh had to take terrorism prevention classes. “I’m a director of a nonprofit, and I’m sitting there thinking, Why am I learning about letter bombs?” she recalled. “My board decided after that, only I could open the clinic mail — I was the only one they insured, to save money on the premium.”

On July 11, 2008, protestors picketed Ms. Welsh’s retirement party.

Poppema, the doctor from Seattle, writes that the violent atmosphere of the 1990s prompted “the provider community to preserve this endangered — but highly valued — species of physicians. We formed new organizations, like Physicians for Reproductive Choice and Health and Medical Students for Choice, that were dedicated to training the next generation of providers and reducing the stigma around abortion.”

And in 1996, March 10 was declared a National Day of Appreciation for Abortion Providers.

This week, take a moment to follow through on Poppema’s suggestions to save the endangered abortion provider:

If you know a doctor who provides abortions, thank them for what they do. Call or write to your elected officials and ask them to consult with an abortion provider before voting on any abortion-related legislation. Too often, bills are passed without input from the very people they affect most. Finally, if you’ve had an abortion, tell someone about it. One in three women will have an abortion by age 45, yet it remains a taboo topic. The more we can talk openly and honestly about women’s abortion experiences, the more we can reduce the stigma around this procedure.

Plus: Backline, which runs a toll-free national talk line for women to discuss pregnancy, parenting, adoption and abortion, offers 10 Reasons We Love Our Local Abortion Providers.

Backline is the distributor for the documentary film “Abortion Diaries.” If like me you hae an interest in how popular culture represents women who are pregnant and considering abortion (or who have abortions), check out this timeline of U.S. and Canadian TV shows and popular movies at the “Abortion Diaries” website.

“Flight of the Conchords” is an HBO series about a folk duo from New Zealand seeking fame in New York City. Here they perform a jingle for a toothpaste aimed at women, because, you know, our teeth have needs of their own. My head has been colonized by a sinus infection, so I apologize for not offering more today, but hope you enjoy …

Today we’re pleased to present an interview with two outstanding contributors to “Yes Means Yes: Visions of Female Sexual Power & A World Without Rape,” a collection of essays recently published by Seal Press.

Lisa Jervis, the founding editor and publisher of Bitch magazine, and Brad Perry, sexual violence prevention coordinator at the Virginia Sexual and Domestic Violence Action Alliance, take on popular perceptions of rape and what needs to be done to transform regressive attitudes toward sexual violence — in both the media and among young men.

In “An Old Enemy in a New Outfit: How Date Rape Became Gray Rape and Why it Matters,” Jervis deconstructs the latest blame-the-victim terminology. Perry’s essay, “Hooking Up With Healthy Sexuality: The Lessons Boys Learn (and Don’t Learn) About Sexuality, and Why a Sex-Positive Rape Prevention Program Can Benefit Everyone Involved,” revisits advice Perry received as a teenager and the more enlightened strategies he has encountered in his work.

Ultimately, they grapple with how to create an atmosphere for a healthy and empowering sexual experience for both women and men.

Please add your thoughts on the discussion, or your questions for Lisa or Brad, in the comments. And don’t miss the next stop on the “Yes Means Yes” virtual book tour: a live chat on Feb. 9 at Shakesville with co-editor Jaclyn Friedman.

Our Bodies, Our Blog: What is the allure of so-called “gray rape” for anti-feminists? How does it help serve a conservative agenda?

Lisa Jervis: The construct of gray rape does two things: it minimizes rape, seeks to make it seem like less of a big deal — if it was a “gray area,” can it really be that bad? — and it also justifies victim-blaming and its close friend, slut-shaming. This actually serves anti-feminists in two really different ways, though they’re both pretty much classics of sexism and misogyny.

The minimizing encourages an attitude of, “What are all those angry women complaining about now?”; and almost every feminist issue has been minimized at some point over the history of the struggle for gender equality.

The victim-blaming part is even more disturbing, as it updates and revitalizes one of the biggest obstacles to transforming rape culture. And it’s particularly insidious because of how it cultivates self-doubt and self-blame even more than previous victim-blaming discourses have. And, especially when paired with slut-shaming — which makes women and girls feel bad about the existence of a strong sex drive and any entitlement they might feel to (gasp!) satisfy their desires — it serves as an attempt to keep a tight cultural lid on women’s sexuality. It’s an updated and vastly more complex version of “good girls don’t.”

OBOB: Brad, how has the notion of “gray rape” complicated your teachings?

Brad Perry: In my experience, the attitude about acquaintance rape (which is what the term “gray rape” is usually referring to) amongst most policy makers, many students, and a good chunk of the general public has not changed drastically since it first entered the public’s awareness 20 years ago. There has been some progress in getting people to understand that usurping another person’s sexual autonomy is rape under any circumstances, but old mindsets die hard.

In that context, the gray rape thing just seems like more of the same but with a new name — as Lisa eloquently discusses in her essay. The only way my work has been complicated by the notion of “gray rape” is that now people have a convenient label. I don’t think it’s necessarily changed many people’s minds on whether or not to take acquaintance rape seriously — the people who are going to deny it are usually going to find a reason to do so until something happens to change their mind — but it has given those folks some hip new contemporary language to dismiss acquaintance rape.

We’re a country found by patriarchal religious fanatics who were (among other things) obsessed with denying human sexuality, so it’s not at all surprising to me that we keep revisiting the issue of social control over women’s sexualities. That’s not too say I think we should throw our hands up and say, “Oh, well” — in order to remember how much history we have to overcome so that we don’t lose our minds trying to make progress.

Read the rest of this entry »

Amy Sedaris appeared on “Chelsea Lately” to discuss her book “I Like You: Hospitality Under the Influence,” but the conversation quickly turns to other life lessons.

“Our Bodies, Ourselves” comes in around 1:50. Priceless.

Just in time for the third season of “Friday Night Lights,” BuzzSugar looks at the five most essential episodes, including the one where Landry tries to impress with a copy of “Our Bodies, Ourselves.”

*Swoon.*

I’ve already watched the third season on DirecTV, and it’s a triumphant return to the themes of season one (season two was overly melodramatic; it was a bad call, to use the appropriate sports metaphor).

The cast of “FNL” includes a number of young women with agency and the best working mother — school principal Tami Taylor (Connie Britton) — on TV.

I recommend adding it to your viewing schedule this year (NBC, Fridays at 9 p.m. EST; the first episode aired last night, Jan. 16). You can also view episodes online.

Plus: “The L Word,” a true guilty pleasure, begins its sixth and final season Sunday on Showtime. Ginia Bellafante has more.

Well, it Wasn’t All Bad: “Although the number of uninsured and the cost of coverage have ballooned under his watch, President Bush leaves office with a health care legacy in bricks and mortar: he has doubled federal financing for community health centers, enabling the creation or expansion of 1,297 clinics in medically underserved areas,” reports The New York Times. Kevin Sack writes:

For those in poor urban neighborhoods and isolated rural areas, including Indian reservations, the clinics are often the only dependable providers of basic services like prenatal care, childhood immunizations, asthma treatments, cancer screenings and tests for sexually transmitted diseases.

As a crucial component of the health safety net, they are lauded as a cost-effective alternative to hospital emergency rooms, where the uninsured and underinsured often seek care.

Despite the clinics’ unprecedented growth, wide swaths of the country remain without access to affordable primary care. The recession has only magnified the need as hundreds of thousands of Americans have lost their employer-sponsored health insurance along with their jobs.

In response, Democrats on Capitol Hill are proposing even more significant increases, making the centers a likely feature of any health care deal struck by Congress and the Obama administration.

(Another) Survey Says: Abstinence Pledges Ineffective: “The new analysis of data from a large federal survey found that more than half of youths became sexually active before marriage regardless of whether they had taken a ‘virginity pledge,’ but that the percentage who took precautions against pregnancy or sexually transmitted diseases was 10 points lower for pledgers than for non-pledgers,” reports the Washington Post.

“Taking a pledge doesn’t seem to make any difference at all in any sexual behavior,” Janet E. Rosenbaum of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, whose report appears in the January issue of the journal Pediatrics, told WaPo. “But it does seem to make a difference in condom use and other forms of birth control that is quite striking.”

Abortion Battle Brewing in South Carolina: “Abortion foes in the Legislature have sown the seeds of what could develop into another battle over regulating abortion in South Carolina,” reports The State. “Seven S.C. House lawmakers have prefiled a bill that would require women seeking abortions to be given a list of clinics and other facilities that provide free ultrasounds. That list could include pregnancy crisis centers — many run by antiabortion groups — that actively discourage abortion and encourage women to choose other alternatives.”

Genetic Testing and Ambiguity: “‘Information is power,’ has become a common mantra. But for many people seeking answers through genetic testing, all the DNA probing ends in this twist: Less certainty, not more,” begins this NPR report. The story focuses on Nashville novelist Susan Gregg Gilmore, who sought testing for mutations in the genes BRCA 1 and BRCA 2, which are associated with an increased risk of breast and ovarian cancers.

Cut Costs, Not Care: The L.A. Times has published the first installment of an ongoing feature on reducing health care costs. Part one covers drugs, doctor visits, surgery, flexible spending accounts, preventive care and insurance. Scroll down for links to online resources.

The Year in Medicine A-Z: Time magazine offers its annual alphabetical roundup of health stories and breakthroughs that made the news. (Ed. note – reading through it all requires clicking through 37 pages. “Single page” feature, anyone?)

Don’t Blink: Via Feminist Peace Network: “As we come to the final stretch of 2008, plagued as we are with the usual collection of horrors–Gaza burning, Tennessee buried in toxic ash, women and children being raped and killed in the Congo, and on and on, I’m sure y’all were just as relieved as I was to know that the FDA is considering approval of a glaucoma drug for eyelash enhancement, an idiocy I would have previously thought would be confined to the cable shopping networks.”

Missing on TV: GLBTQ Women: “Though 2008 comes to a close with word of possible new queer female characters on the horizon in the coming year, the prospects for lesbians and bisexual women on television over the last twelve months have been somewhat grim,” writes Karman Kregloe at AfterEllen.com. “This has been particularly true for lesbians, whose numbers on scripted network television have now dwindled to zero.”

Deep Thoughts for the New Year: “As the country plunges into recession, will financial hardship demote the pursuit of physical perfection?” asks The New York Times. A classic response:

“There comes a point when you are putting too much time and money into your vanity,” said Peri Basel, a practice consultant in Chappaqua, N.Y., who advises cosmetic doctors on marketing strategies. “For me, the vanity issue is: Where does it stop? If you are going for buttock implants, do you really need that?”

Allison Janney, Neil Patrick Harris, John C. Reilly, Maya Rudolph, Kathy Najimy and many more actors you know star in this send-up of religious objections to same-sex marriage. Did we mention Jack Black is Jesus?

“After being so angry and confused about this horrible and unconstitutional public shaming, it was amazing to go out there and do what we do best in protest: sing and dance,” said Adam Shankman, who staged and produced the video. The music and lyrics were written by Marc Shaiman, who won a Tony Award for “Hairspray” and who also wrote the score for “Southpark,” among other films.

The video ends with a message to visit Join the Impact for more information. Join the Impact coordinated the Nov. 15 National Day of Protest to repeal Proposition 8 and is now working toward becoming a clearinghouse for grassroots events related to gay rights.

Plus: From Pam’s House Blend, GLAAD/Harris post-election survey: Americans favor adoption and partner rights for same-sex couples

Stephen Colbert has it in for “Our Bodies, Ourselves.”

During an interview with Diane Sawyer on “Good Morning America” this week to promote his upcoming TV special, “A Colbert Christmas: The Greatest Gift of All!” (Sunday, Nov. 23, 10 p.m. EST), the talk-show host announced he was burning our flagship book, often considered the bible of the women’s health movement.

“Is it true what I’ve heard, that you have a yule log with some books you’re burning?” Sawyer asked.

“Well, I had some books laying around,” replied Colbert, “and on the DVD we have an 18-minute video yule log of burning ‘Our Bodies Ourselves’ — you know, kindling.”

Despite the image of pages going up in flames in the cozy hearth, my heart still swoons.

Maybe it’s because Colbert’s medical analysis is so spot-on. Take his recent “Cheating Death with Dr. Stephen T. Colbert, DFA.” Naturally we appreciate the skeleton clutching “Our Bodies, Ourselves,” but we also admire Colbert’s incisive analysis of pharmaceutical industry’s push to prescribe drugs to people who don’t need them.

The “Cheating Death” segment was inspired by the well-publicized JUPITER trial, which suggested that the cholesterol-lowering drug Crestor could prevent heart attacks in people with normal cholesterol levels who exhibit high levels of C-reactive protein.

(Scientific American has a concise summary of the New England Journal of Medicine article, and the accompanying editorial by Mark Hlatky, a Stanford University health-policy professor who criticizes the scope of the study and questions the cost of expanding the use of statins. Dr. Nortin Hadler, professor of medicine and microbiology/immunology at UNC-Chapel Hill and author of “Worried Sick: A Prescription for Health in an Overtreated America,” is also skeptical of the benefits of statins.)

Colbert identifies the study’s most notable success: “This is a great breakthrough in the battle to find things to prescribe to people who don’t need them.”

That and other comments led Ivan Oransky to make a few suggestions concerning Colbert’s future that we here at OBOS enthusiastically support:

This is the kind of intellectual rigor that is — and I’ve removed my tongue from my cheek only somewhat — too frequently missing from news reporting on medical studies.

So I’d like to suggest that Colbert launch The Colbert Journal of Medicine. We might have some disagreements about the kind of scientists who would be his peers, to make the journal peer-reviewed. (We hear he has a bit of an ego.)

Dr. Colbert would have to disclose his own conflicts of interest. We’d need to know more, for example, about his relationship with Prescott Pharmaceuticals, which sponsors “Cheating Death.” After all, Prescott makes VaxaCrest, which increases cholesterol until “your heart is pumping liquid nacho cheese,” as Colbert informed us last night. But at least he’s comfortable disclosing potential side effects of his sponsor’s fare — in this case “fallopian tapeworm.”

He did have some trouble pronouncing “hormones” at one point. It came out “homones” (Ho-mones). So he may need some help presenting at meetings.

Or maybe we should just put his name forward for U.S. Food and Drug Administration commissioner.

If Colbert somehow gets the appointment, perhaps he’ll put his vendetta against my employer aside long enough to allow Judy Norsigian, OBOS co-founder and executive director, to take over the Office of Women’s Health.

Heck, we’d settle for the opportunity to go head-to-head with Colbert on “The Colbert Report.” There are plenty of topics concerning women’s health and politics Norsigian could discuss. And maybe she’d stop him from throwing more feminist titles on the yule log this season …

Click to watch Stephen Colbert discuss book burning on "Good Morning America"

Plus: Check out these related articles from “Our Bodies, Ourselves”: “Can We Trust the Evidence in Evidence-Based Medicine?” and “Women and Heart Disease: Selling Statins.”

“Our Bodies, Ourselves” was featured in the beginning of Dr. Stephen Colbert’s “Cheating Death” segment — a biting look at the overuse of costly pharmaceuticals and the medical relevance of the Bee Gees. Oh yes, Colbert covers it all. 

Just look at what the skeleton is holding up when Colbert mentions “women health” (without air quotes!).

This is as good (or better?) as when OBOS was featured in an episode of the first seaon of “Friday Night Lights.” Predictions on whose show we’ll end up on next? 

The New Health Insurance Model: In the first of a three-part series, the L.A. Times looks at the changing insurance scenario — where once working Americans could rely on employer-based benefits, now more people are being forced into the individual market, where coverage is costly, bare-bones and precarious.

Part two looks at the business side of managing health savings accounts, and part three covers the battle between doctors and insurers. Meanwhile, health care costs continue to rise.

Plus: Read more about how the individual health insurance market fails women. It’s a great report from the National Women’s Law Center.

No Candy or Condoms: Divine Mercy Care Pharmacy in Chantilly, Va., drew attention this week for becoming at least the seventh pharmacy in the United States to refuse to sell contraceptives of any kind, even if a person has a prescription. The decision, say owners, is guided by Roman Catholic teachings, though the pharmacy is not affiliated with the Catholic church. Still, it did receive a blessing from Arlington Bishop Paul S. Loverde. From the AP:

“This pharmacy is a vibrant example of our Holy Father’s charge to all of us to wear our faith in the public square,” said Loverde, who sprinkled holy water on the shelves stocked with painkillers and acne treatments. “It will allow families to shop in an environment where their faith is not compromised.”

Too bad everyone can’t shop in an environment where their health is not compromised. In Virginia, pharmacists can turn away any prescription — for any reason.

Prop What?: Heather at Scarleteen gives a good overview of several important ballot measures that will be up for vote Nov. 4 in states from Arkansas to South Dakota, “such as parental notification laws for minors who want an abortion, age of consent laws, same-sex marriage, civil rights, stem cell research, education issues, even a proposal to lower the voting age for primaries in one state (whoohoo!) and another to ban abortion outright (grrrr).”

Plus: Look up ballot measures for your state here.

2009 Sheroes: Next year’s Sheroes Womyn Warriors calendar is now available for sale (check out the beautiful cover art by Ekua Holmes!). The calendar honors change agents, rebels, radicals and revolutionaries of different times and places around the globe.

“This is definitely not a ‘great women of history’ celebrity calendar,” reads the back cover. Instead, this is a calendar “of womyn who have challenged their societies and who have advanced the struggle of the oppressed and exploited.”

Proceeds support the Gustavus Myers Center for the Study of Bigotry and Human Rights at Simmons College.

Plus: Send in suggestions for who should be included in the 2010 calendar.

Seen But Not Heard: Jeannine Stein at the L.A. Times writes: “Researchers at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center in Lubbock interviewed eight overweight women ages 20 to 61 to learn about their experiences with the healthcare system, then published their findings in this month’s Journal of Advanced Nursing. During interviews about their experiences, four themes became apparent: struggling to fit in, feeling not quite human, being dismissed, and refusing to give up.”

Scary Sexy Costumes for Kids: “Halloween costumes are reflecting an increasingly sexualized childhood. They often reflect the stars and starlets and popular culture role models that girls have, starting with Disney princesses or Hannah Montana when girls are young. But even traditional favorites, like witches and pirates are sexier every year. And French maids are quite the thing for tweens and teens,” said Diane E. Levin in a Q&A about Halloween costumes and gender roles.

Levin is co-author with Jean Kilbourne of “So Sexy So Soon: The New Sexualized Childhood and What Parents Can Do to Protect Their Kids.”

Life’s Lessons: On the other side of what’s good for kids, “Free to Be You and Me,” which has never gone out of print since its 1973 debut, was reissued this month with a new, expanded edition, reports USA Today.

Jessica Reaves of the Chicago Tribune, who also made her debut in 1973, writes about the book’s appeal and the lessons that have remained incredibly relevant for more than three decades:

Some critics of “Free to Be” accused Thomas of advancing a radical feminist agenda. They pointed to the book’s co-producer (the Ms. Foundation for Women) and Thomas’ role on “That Girl,” the first television program to shamelessly promote the career girl lifestyle. (I mean, really: Ann Marie strung that poor Don along for four years before she finally agreed to marry him!)

As a feminist born into a family of feminists, I’m biased: I happen to think adopting a feminist agenda is the best thing that could ever happen to this country. (Trust me, it hasn’t happened yet.) But those long-ago critics were right about one thing. The witty, wise lessons of “Free to Be” do underscore feminism’s fundamental tenet: namely, that everyone — male, female, black, white, brown, young, old and in between — should be treated equally and empathetically. Yes, even the jerks.

You only need to glance at the headlines to know we’re not quite ready to cross that particular item off our collective to-do list. Which isn’t to say we haven’t learned a lot in the 35 years since “Free to Be” was published. It’s just that we may need another 35 years for it all to sink in.

It’s been years since I’ve seen playwright and actress Anna Deavere Smith perform live (her recurring role on “West Wing” was also incredibly satisfying), and I was glad to come across a story about her play “Let Me Down Easy,” which recently concluded a one-month run at the American Repertory Theatre in Cambridge, Mass.

The fact that the story appeared in the health section of The New York Times might come as a surprise, but it makes perfect sense considering that a portion of the play is about health care and the relationships between doctors and patients.

In all of her works, Smith exposes the nuanced lives of the characters she assumes. The stories are based on extensive interviews, and the results are honest, compelling and complex. Such intimacy invites intense discussion and engagement, long after the final curtain. Describing some of Smith’s roles in “Let Me Down Easy,” Pauline W. Chen, M.D., writes:

Ms. Smith plays a young doctor who stayed behind at Charity Hospital in New Orleans during Katrina, in awe of the dignity of her African-American patients but angry that their predictions of being rescued last would indeed come true.

Later she’s a patient who at first seems cantankerous in refusing dialysis, only to reveal she remains haunted by memories of the undignified way in which her daughter, suffering from AIDS, was discharged from the hospital, wrapped in her own blood-soaked sheets.

Then she transforms into a physician who laments a U.S. health care system that cannot offer even basic preventive care, and who as a medical school dean somehow feels responsible.

I recently asked Ms. Smith about listening, about what all of us, as patients and doctors, might learn from her experiences interviewing and listening over the last 30 years. [...]

Sitting in the audience that night, I had thought I was listening. But I wasn’t getting out of the way of what I was hearing. I couldn’t help but hear my own internal voice, sifting the stories Ms. Smith told: Do I agree with what that character is saying? Do I know this character? What’s up with that character’s hands?

But then Ms. Smith became Ingrid Inema, a Stanford pre-med student from Rwanda. The character, a young woman, looked lost on stage, sitting next to a great pile of books, her face partly obscured by a baseball cap. But her voice was clear. She talked about living through the genocide in her country, about not being able to forgive because the perpetrators have never come to ask for forgiveness. And about how she decided to let go.

“I release you,” I can still hear Ingrid saying, her voice resonating out from the darkness of the stage. “I am not holding you in my heart anymore.”

Chen goes on to discuss audience responses to the question posed in the theater lobby: What does grace mean to you? She offers examples from her medical profession of moments of grace between doctors and patients; readers can do the same at this related blog post. You can also listen to Chen’s conversation with Smith about listening.

Smith’s next work looks to be equally compelling. It’s called “The Arizona Project,” and it debuts Nov. 5 in Phoenix. Here’s a summary:

The Arizona Project presents the stories of Justice O’Connor, as well as those of more than 30 women with relationships to the American judicial system, including prison system employees,incarcerated women, female lawyers, activists and others. The Arizona Project touches upon several contemporary issues through these diverse personal stories, including immigration, domestic violence, and the challenges faced by women living on Native American reservations.