by Meg Young
Our Bodies Ourselves intern

The Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States (SEICUS) would like you to get REAL about sex education.

SEICUS has declared October “Sex Ed Month of Action,” and the organization is encouraging young people to raise awareness for the need for comprehensive sex ed — and specifically the Responsible Education About Life (REAL) Act [pdf].

Introduced by Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) and Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), the legislation (S.611, HR.1551) calls for a dedicated federal funding stream ($50 million) that would cover state grants for developing comprehensive sexuality education programs. A petition in support of the REAL Act is online at AmplifyYourVoice.org.

Reviewing these quick facts about the need for comprehensive sex education, I was reminded of my own “real” sex education.

Picture this: It’s Sunday morning, and I’m competing in a condom-stretching contest in the basement of a pre-school. Other kids are trying to blow up the largest condom-balloon, shoot a condom the farthest (rubber-band style), or beat my record of 24-inches for the condom-stretch (all the way from the floor to my hip). Four adults are recording scores and announcing winners. In the center of the room, next to a few condom-clad bananas, sits a box of donuts, a subtle bribe to get us out of bed so early on a weekend.

I was in eighth grade, and I was a reluctant student in Our Whole Lives.

Our Whole Lives (OWL), a sexuality education curriculum developed jointly by the Unitarian Universalist Association and the United Church of Christ, was first published in 1999, and subsequently updated in 2005. The class provides a comprehensive, interactive, unabashed look at sexuality, offering six sets of curricula for age groups spanning kindergarten to adulthood.

The “big curriculum” for seventh-to-ninth graders is predominantly offered outside of schools (I took OWL as part of Sunday school at my local UU church), and tends to take a more personal angle than classroom based sex-ed classes, offering time for discussion, games and unlimited questions.

The first sessions of the curriculum focus on building rapport between the instructors and the students, as well as creating a high level of comfort between the students themselves. One of my OWL classmates recently said: “Because of the intimate environment of OWL, it felt really awkward at times, but in the end was really effective in achieving its purpose… There was room for open discussion, and questions arose that never would have when surrounded by 22 random kids from school.”

This “intimate environment,” as well as the fact that, by virtue of being taught outside of the school system, OWL does not need to conform to any state or federally-imposed limitations, means that OWL can address sexuality education more broadly. Topics include everything from anatomy and physiology (I clearly remember being ejaculated on by a working model of a penis built by a class-mate), to gender roles in dating (we had a long argument about who should pay for dinner and a movie).

There was a whole session devoted to “love making,” and another devoted to masturbation. Trading colored m&ms taught us about the terrifying ease of spreading sexually transmitted diseases. We played with condoms, diaphragms, female condoms and spermicidal gels. We discussed our feelings about abortion at length. We spent three weeks discussing sexual orientation and gender identity. At an all-class sleepover, as part of our unit on responsible sexual behavior, we watched “American Pie.”

When I took OWL at age 14, issues like herpes, emergency contraception and “responsible sexual decisions” often seemed remote to the point of irrelevance, and I can’t deny that my high school health class served as somewhat of a necessary refresher. However, what I really absorbed from OWL at the time, and what I have carried with me ever since, is an outlook on sexuality that was strikingly absent from my sex-ed unit in health class: OWL taught me that sexuality is not something to be ashamed of, to be hidden or feared. It is something to be questioned and explored, respected and protected. It is nuanced and complex, and sometimes infuriatingly confusing.

Most of all, it is an essential part of the human experience that last from birth until death – Our Whole Lives.

So, am I bitter that I had to be up by 9 a.m. every Sunday for a year? Yes. I’m I glad my parent made me do it? Absolutely.

Meg Young recently graduated from high school in Middlebury, Vt., and will enroll at Tufts University in the fall of 2010 after taking a gap year.

A second vaccine designed to protect against cervical cancer may soon be available in the United States.

A Food and Drug Administration panel last week gave its approval to GlaxoSmithKline PLC’s Cervarix vaccine, essentially recommending that the FDA approve the vaccine for use in females 10 to 25 years old. The recommendation is not binding; the FDA can reject the decision, but it generally accepts the opinions made by an outside panel of experts.

The vaccine protects against two strains of human papilloma virus (HPV) that are associated with 70 percent of cervical cancers.

Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Jennifer Corbett Dooren summarized the safety concerns the FDA raised about Cervarix, including “a higher rate of miscarriages among females who received Cervarix.” The FDA also “couldn’t rule out a ‘small effect’ on pregnancies.” (The vaccine is not approved for use in pregnant women.)

GlaxoSmithKline first sought approval in 2007, but the FDA asked for more information after reports suggested a higher miscarriage rate in pregnant women. Dooren writes:

The agency said it would require a post-marketing safety study to monitor the outcome of pregnancies in women who might receive Cervarix along with other potential safety concerns including the development of autoimmune diseases like rheumatoid arthritis and multiple sclerosis. In its 2007 review of Cervarix, the FDA said that it was concerned about an “imbalance” of possible autoimmune disorders seen in clinical trials. However, the agency said an additional review of the data by its own staff and an outside rheumatologist concluded the differences weren’t statistically significant.

Officials from Glaxo said they were planning a post-marketing study that would involve 100,000 women in the U.S., which would include a pregnancy registry. The company is also conducting another large post-marketing study in Finland.

Gardasil, the popular HPV vaccine manufactured by Merck & Co., was approved in 2006. One of the lead researchers for the drug recently started speaking out with concerns about its risks, benefits and aggressive marketing — namely that the protection may not last beyond five years, so girls who are vaccinated at an early age may still be at risk.

Last month, Rachel pointed to a Journal of the American Medical Association editorial on the risks and benefits of HPV vaccination and discussed a commentary in the same JAMA issue (abstract only) about  the marketing of Gardasil. Describing the authors’ findings, Rachel wrote: “The company’s tactic was to encourage all girls within a certain age group to be vaccinated as a cancer avoidance measure, rather than to work with public health officials to target those girls at the highest risk.”

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends the vaccine for 11- and 12-year-old girls, and girls and women age 13 through 26 who have not yet been vaccinated. That recommendation becomes a mandate, however, for  female immigrants between the ages of 11 and 26 seeking U.S. citizenship. Gardasil was added to the list of required vaccines in 2008.

Simone Davis, a 17-year-old girl in Florida who was born in Britain is seeking citizenship but she refuses to get the vaccine. ABC News has a comprehensive story about her refusal. A devout Christian who says she has no intention of having sex anytime soon (she mentions her virginity pledge as proof), Davis is seeking a waiver for moral and religious reasons. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has rejected her claim.

“The decision to include HPV as a required vaccine was made by the CDC,” Citizenship and Immigration Services spokeswoman Chris Rhatigan told ABC News. ”We follow the law … The objection to a waiver would have to be to all vaccines, not just Gardasil.”

A CDC spokesperson said the CDC is expected to publish new criteria to determine which vaccines should be recommended for U.S. immigrants in about a month.

Clinton Prioritizes Women’s Rights: “Clinton intends to press governments on abuses of women’s rights and make women more central in U.S. aid programs,” writes Mary Beth Sheridan at the Washington Post. “But her efforts go beyond the marble halls of government and show how she is redefining the role of secretary of state. Her trips are packed with town-hall meetings and visits to micro-credit projects and women’s dinners. Ever the politician, Clinton is using her star power to boost women who could be her allies.”

“It’s just a constant effort to elevate people who, in their societies, may not even be known by their own leaders,” Clinton told WaPo. “My coming gives them a platform, which then gives us the chance to try and change the priorities of the governments.”

Whole Foods Fight: I’ll be posting a more studious healthcare round-up, but for the moment: The New York Times Opinionator blog did a nice job pulling together comments from around the web about the anti-government healthcare reform op-ed written by Whole Foods CEO John Mackey that has some shoppers calling for a boycott.

One commenter recalls a food boycott from years ago that was more win-win: “I *loved* the Domino’s boycott way back when. Pro-choice cred PLUS I don’t have to eat cardboard pizza!”

Our Genders, Our Rights: The summer edition of On The Issues Magazine discusses a topic that the editors describe as “both utterly fundamental and wildly revolutionary: gender norms and gender identity.”

Among the many offerings: “How a Feminist Found Her Sexism,” by Helen Boyd (with image at left by Gavin Rouille); “Trans Health Care Is A Life and Death Matter,” by Eleanor J. Bader; and “Virtual Switching, or Playing Games?” by Georgia Kral.

The Gender Politics of “Mad Men”: Cheers to Feministing for making Mondays that much better with a weekly feminist analysis of the popular AMC series “Mad Men,” and to RH Reality Check for hosting an ongoing “Mad Men” salon. And don’t miss Crystal Merritt’s insider perspective, as an ad woman and feminist.

New Column, Great Advice: Jaclyn Friedman is one of our favorite people for many reasons. She runs the annual Women, Action & Media conference as part of her role at Center for New Words; she co-edited, with Jessica Valenti, “Yes Means Yes: Visions of Female Sexual Power and a World Without Rape“; and now she’s writing a weekly column for Amplify Your Voice, a project of Advocates for Youth.

Read Friedman’s “Open Letter to Miley Cyrus,” which should be shared with all 16-year-olds.

Ovarian Cancer Surgery and Fertility: According to a new study published in the journal Cancer, five-year survival rates for stage 1 ovarian cancer patients were the same for patients who had both ovaries removed and women who had only the cancerous ovary removed, reports the L.A. Times. Though ovarian cancer occurs most often in postmenopausal women, up to 17% of ovarian cancers occur in women 40 or younger and that rate is believed to be rising.

Plus: Chicago Tribune health columnist Julie Deardoff writes: ”One of every 1,000 pregnant women in the U.S. has cancer, a relatively rare but stark convergence of life and death. For these women, treatment is possible. But it comes with a host of terrifying decisions for the family.”  The story focuses on Sarah Joanis, who was diagnosed with ovarian cancer at age 26.

“Menopause, the Musical”: “This isn’t retro; it’s just old,” Anita Gates writes in The New York Times of the eight-year-old musical that, despite corny songs and stereotypes, has been produced in 14 countries and in more than 200 American cities. “Who calls menopause the change of life? Edith Bunker, maybe, on the 1970s sitcom ‘All in the Family.’ And she would have been in her 80s by now. Women who read ‘Our Bodies, Ourselves’ in their youth don’t use euphemisms.”

The musical is underway at the South Orange Performing Arts Center, and while Gates is clearly not enamored with the premise, she is a fan of the current staging and cast: ”And thanks to a shift from self-deprecation to self-actualization (and a few nice costume changes), by the end, against all odds, the show is actually exhilarating.”

Back in April, the Washington Post reported on a Fairfax, Va., high school honor student who received a two-week suspension and was recommended for expulsion for — wait for it — taking her birth control pill.

In the era of zero-tolerance, many schools have rules prohibiting students from possessing over-the-counter and prescription drugs. In Fairfax, the penalties are stiff:

In Virginia, school systems must comply with state code regarding prescription medications and illegal drugs on campus. Students face expulsion if they bring to school any “controlled substance” or addictive drug regulated by the federal government. “Imitation controlled substances,” which could include virtually any prescription pill, are subject to the same hefty repercussions. Local school boards can give a lighter punishment after a review.

A small portion of school health clinics across the country distribute birth-control pills to teens. But in Fairfax, even carrying the pills in a backpack is counted among the most serious offenses in the Student Responsibilities and Rights handbook.

In a 2008 survey, a little more than a quarter of Fairfax teenagers, and 44 percent of 12th-graders, reported being sexually active, according to the Post. And 10 percent of those who said they were sexually active reported not using contraception the last time they had sex.

Deb Hauser of Advocates for Youth, a Washington, D.C.-based organization that focuses on adolescent sexual health, put it best when she said: “To put birth control in the same category as illegal drugs or handguns stigmatizes responsible behavior.”

But leave it to Stephen Colbert to fully contextualize the punishment alongside America’s war on drugs. The student, Freesia Jackson, 17, is a terrific sport in this segment, which aired last week. Fallopian dopers, beware …

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has released a new report on the sexual and reproductive health of people ages 10-24 in the United States. The agency compiled data from its various surveillance and survey systems for the period of 2002-2007 in an attempt to answer questions about how many young people engage in “sexual risk behaviors” and the related health outcomes, and to compare the findings with historical data.

While the report includes a number of details on rates of sexual intercourse, sexual violence, use of contraception, pregnancy, births, abortion, sexually transmitted infections, and HIV/AIDS (all of which are freely available for viewing online), perhaps most interesting are the information on health disparities and changes over time.

In a press release on the report, the CDC notes signs that progress in sexual and reproductive health of young people may have slowed over the report period. They explain:

Among the signs that progress has halted in some areas:

• Teen birth rates increased in 2006 and 2007, following large declines from 1991-2005.
• Rates of AIDS cases among males aged 15-24 years increased during 1997-2006 (AIDS data reflects people with HIV who have already progressed to AIDS.)
• Syphilis cases among teens and young adults aged 15-19 and 20-24 years have increased in both males and females in recent years.

Additionally, a lack of change in the rates of some items isn’t necessarily a positive outcome. For example, the prevalence of dating violence was “stable overall” and did not decrease, as was the prevalence of ever having been physically forced to have sexual intercourse (except among 10th grade males, whose rates declined). Rates of “nonfatal sexual assault injuries” were also “relatively stable.”

The authors also note that “noticeable disparities exist in the sexual and reproductive health of young persons in the United States.” For example:

• Pregnancy rates for female Hispanic and non-Hispanic black adolescents aged 15–19 years are much higher (132.8 and 128.0 per 1,000 population) than their non-Hispanic white peers (45.2 per 1,000 population).
• Non-Hispanic black young persons are more likely to be affected by AIDS.
• In 2006, among young persons aged 10–24 years, rates for chlamydia, gonorrhea, and syphilis were highest among non-Hispanic blacks for all age groups.
• The southern states tend to have the highest rates of negative sexual and reproductive health outcomes, including early pregnancy and STDs.

For more resources on adolescent and young women’s health, see our collection of web links on this topic.

Do boys and girls need to be taught different lessons, particularly about sex? Pediatrician Perri Klass talks to other doctors about the lessons they share with their patients about sex and respect for their partners.

Her conclusion:

As a pediatrician with two sons and a daughter, I acknowledge the need to emphasize manners and respect as boys maneuver into adolescence and adulthood, and to help them understand the implications and obligations of their increasing size and strength. And I acknowledge that for their own protection, boys need to understand that there are people — male and female — who will see them as potential predators, and judge them automatically at fault in any ambiguous situation.

But I am enough of an old-fashioned feminist to want to teach daughters the same fundamental lessons I teach sons: err on the side of respect and good manners; understand that confusion, doubt and ambiguity abound, especially when you are young; never take advantage of someone else’s uncertainty; and, just as important, remember that adolescence should be a time of fun, affection, growth and discovery.

It’s too bad that one side of teaching our children about sex and relationships means reminding them that there are bad people in the world; stay away from them, stay safe, speak up if someone hurts you or pushes you. But everyone needs that information, and that promise of adult support. We have to get that message across without defining some of our children as obvious perpetrators and others as obvious victims, because that insults everyone.

Searching for Common Ground: Robert Pear of The New York Times reports on an apparent consensus emerging among key players in the health care debate:

Many of the parties, from big insurance companies to lobbyists for consumers, doctors, hospitals and pharmaceutical companies, are embracing the idea that comprehensive health care legislation should include a requirement that every American carry insurance.

While not all industry groups are in complete agreement, there is enough of a consensus, according to people who have attended the meetings, that they have begun to tackle the next steps: how to enforce the requirement for everyone to have health insurance; how to make insurance affordable to the uninsured; and whether to require employers to help buy coverage for their employees.

Health Care “Reform” is Not Enough: “Most current health care reform initiatives, including those of Barack Obama, focus on providing wider access to health insurance. They do little to address the underlying problems with our health care system,” writes Susan Yanow in On The Issues magazine. Yanow identifies the top five problem areas for women with our insurance-driven health system.

Plus: This list of 10 ways to spend less on health care during a recession is well-meaning, but the list assumes a level of privilege that leaves out millions. I keep thinking of this story from last week.

“Is Your Daughter Safe at Work?”: The PBS program NOW has collaborated with the Schuster Institute for Investigative Journalism at Brandeis University on an unprecedented broadcast investigation of teen sexual harassment in the workplace. Check your local PBS station schedule for air dates.

The NOW website has a terrific collection of useful links and resources, as does the Schuster Institute, including an interactive map with links to information about specific teen sexual harassment cases gone to court. Keep in mind the map reflects a tiny proportion of probable cases. Kudos to EJ Graff for kicking off this project with her article, “Is Your Daughter Safe at Work?,” published in Good Housekeeping in June 2007.

The Trouble With Repeat Cesareans: “Much ado has been made recently of women who choose to have cesareans, but little attention has been paid to the vast number of moms who are forced to have them,” writes Pamela Paul at Time magazine. “More than 9 out of 10 births following a C-section are now surgical deliveries, proving that ‘once a cesarean, always a cesarean’ — an axiom thought to be outmoded in the 1990s — is alive and kicking.” A good look at the VBAC-lash.

North Dakota House Passes Egg-as-Person Bill: “On Tuesday, one body of North Dakota’s state legislature voted, 51-41, not only to ban abortion, but to define life as beginning at conception. Such a measure, considered extreme even by pro-life standards, would have far-reaching consequences on women’s health,” writes Kay Steiger at RH Reality Check.

Understandably, Rachel Has Some Concerns …: About a proposed Tennessee bill that calls for testing some pregnant for alcohol and drugs.

Gone Daddy Gone: I couldn’t agree more with Creativity magazine editor Teressa Lezzi, who writes at AdAge.com:

After this year’s Super Bowl, I just couldn’t do it anymore. As it was, any time I had to log on to Go Daddy I felt some combination of embarrassment and annoyance at the registrar’s approach to women and marketing. But after its execrable ad efforts around this year’s game, I found that I just couldn’t stomach contributing anything to this organization any longer. I’m transferring my domains and my insignificant little piece of business elsewhere.

GoDaddy turned me off years ago because of its super lame ads, though I sometimes have to deal with the company for other clients. If sexist advertising isn’t reason enough to stay away, GoDaddy’s user interface sucks.

Cervical Cancer Vaccine Usage in California: A study by UCLA’s Center for Health Policy Research found that one in four teenage girls in California  — about 378,000 out of 1.5 million — received at least one dose of the Gardasil vaccine in 2007, its first full year of distribution, reports the L.A. Times.

Truth Catches Up: Remember the eye-catching “truth” anti-smoking ads? Researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and the American Legacy Foundation estimate that the nations’ largest youth smoking prevention campaign saved $1.9 billion or more in health care costs associated with tobacco use. The findings appear in the Feb. 12 online edition of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine. The American Legacy Foundation, which launched the ads in 2000, spent $324 million to implement and evaluate the truth campaign.

Plus: Cigarette-maker Philip Morris was ordered to pay $8 million in damages to the widow of a smoker who died of lung cancer in a case that could set the standard for 8,000 similar Florida lawsuits, reports NPR.

Those of us beyond our teenage and young adult years can only wish that Scarleteen.com — a website that delivers progressive, inclusive and accurate information about sex and sexuality — existed when we were growing up.

But we can do something to help ensure today’s teens have access to this information — and more — at no cost.

A donor to Scarleteen has agreed to match donations made through March 15. And now that Scarleteen is affiliated with the Center for Sex and Culture in San Francisco, it has nonprofit 501c(3) status, which means donations are tax-deductible. Read all about it here and make a donation.

Heather Corrina launched Scarleteen back in 1998. It currently has about 20 active volunteers and is one of the top-ranked sites for young adult sexuality education. Despite its popularity, Scarleteen averages just one donation per every 500,000 users. That’s because most of the website’s visitors either do not have their own income or do not have access or permission to use credit cards or checks to make donations. So it’s up to us older folks to step up.

With more funding, writes Corrina, Scarleteen could do so much more:

Creating and distributing outreach print materials for schools, clinics and community groups, based on content like our popular Sex Readiness Checklist, our anatomy articles, and our pieces on abuse, gender identity and sexual orientation.

Providing our volunteer staff extra training. In the next year, we’d like to get a few of our staff trained or certified in either or both pregnancy options counseling and/or basic sex education.

Stipends for some of our volunteer writers and columnists, which will both sustain a quality of content and allow us to keep up with the frequency of updates we have had in the last year. Paying writers also can nurture a greater diversity of voice and content.

Maintaining a part-time freelance developer to help us best manage and maintain the site for optimum useability.

A part-time, in-person assistant for myself as director.

Plus: There is a way for young people to make a difference through Scarleteen’s new campaign, Do You Give a Buck About Sex Education? Yep. Just a buck or two, sent by mail, would be most appreciated.

Either way you can help out, this is a sex education campaign that we happily support.

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 »

What I Learned From Breast Cancer Memoirs: “Breast cancer memoirs have become such staples — reliably displayed during Let’s Wave Pink Ribbons for Breast Cancer month — that it’s hard to remember a time when women didn’t document their journey from onset through the catalog of treatments to restored health, stabilization, or imminent death. But it wasn’t always thus,” writes S.L. Wisenberg in the Chicago Reader.

She continues:

True, British author Fanny Burney wrote to her family about the agonizing mastectomy she underwent — without anesthetic — in 1811. And Katharine Lee Bates (whose poem “America the Beautiful” became the famous hymn) wrote to friends in 1915 about her partner’s breast cancer and death. But neither of these works was published in the author’s lifetime. It was only after World War II that prominent American women went public with their tumors. Marion Flexner, wife of a well-known doctor, wrote “Cancer — I’ve Had It” for Ladies’ Home Journal in May 1947, breaking a taboo by refusing to euphemize her condition — and even inserting a little slapstick with a passage describing “roving boozies”: prosthetic breasts that escaped the confines of a bra and fell to the floor.

It’s a terrific essay, and it makes this reader eager to read Wisenberg’s own story, “The Adventures of Cancer Bitch,” due out in March from University of Iowa Press. In the meantime, visit her blog.

Healthcare Overhaul: “Mindful of how delays sapped the political will to overhaul healthcare during the Clinton administration, health advocates hoped to get a major bill during the new administration’s first 100 days,” reports the Boston Globe. “Now, it looks like it will take longer, and some observers fear that a historic opportunity could be missed.”

Family Planning Nursing Program Saved in Washington: “A campaign by Planned Parenthood to save a program that provides family-planning services in welfare offices has apparently worked, for now,” reports the Yakima Herald. “The Community Service Office (CSO) Family Planning Nurse program, which houses 70 nurses statewide at 58 Department of Social and Health Services offices, will stay open through June. Previously, DSHS planned to shut down the service Jan. 30.”

Split Over Abortion-Reduction Tactics: “The election of a pro-choice administration and a Democratic Congress has divided the pro-life movement, between those who are preparing for the fight of their lives and those who see an opportunity to redefine what it means to be pro-life,” reports Newsweek.

Plus: Red Sex, Blue Sex: Back in November, The New Yorker looked at another type of divide:

During the campaign, the media has largely respected calls to treat Bristol Palin’s pregnancy as a private matter. But the reactions to it have exposed a cultural rift that mirrors America’s dominant political divide. Social liberals in the country’s “blue states” tend to support sex education and are not particularly troubled by the idea that many teen-agers have sex before marriage, but would regard a teen-age daughter’s pregnancy as devastating news. And the social conservatives in “red states” generally advocate abstinence-only education and denounce sex before marriage, but are relatively unruffled if a teen-ager becomes pregnant, as long as she doesn’t choose to have an abortion. A handful of social scientists and family-law scholars have recently begun looking closely at this split.

What About …: The delivery of octuplets in Los Angeles this week raised many questions, including: Can a woman breastfeed eight children?

Lawsuit Takes on Higher Insurance Rates for Women: “California insurers are discriminating against women, charging them more for individual health insurance than men, the city of San Francisco maintained in a lawsuit filed Tuesday against the state regulators who govern them,” reports the L.A. Times.

Gender rating is health insurance is also the focus of two bills have been introduced in the California state Legislature to address the issue. If either of the bills is signed into law, the suit may be dropped.

Study Says Common Chemicals May Affect Fertility: HealthDay News reports on a study that suggests chemicals known as perfluorinated chemicals, which are pervasive in food packaging, pesticides, clothing, upholstery, carpets and personal care products, may delay pregnancy. The study appears in the Jan. 29 edition of Human Reproduction and is available online.

These chemicals are being phased out in the United States because of their toxic effects, and are expected to be completely gone by 2010. However, they remain in the environment and in the body for decades, and have been linked to developmental problems.

“These widespread chemicals apparently lower the fertility in couples trying to get pregnant,” said lead researcher Dr. Jorn Olsen, chairman of the Department of Epidemiology at UCLA’s School of Public Health.

Danish women in the study who had with high levels of perfluorooctanoate (PFOA) and perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) took longer to get pregnant, Olsen said.

The first daughters have hit the market.

For just $9.99, you can own your own set of “Sweet Sasha” and “Marvelous Malia” dolls.

“They’re such adorable girls,” Ty Inc. spokeswoman Tania Lundeen said Wednesday of the Obama sisters — Sasha, 7, and Malia, 10. “How can we resist?”

But by the end of the week, Ty Inc. — the company that created Beanie Babies — announced the names were chosen because “they are beautiful names,” not because they resemble the first daughters.

Whatever. Sadly, these dolls lack agency in their own world. Malia doesn’t even have her own camera.

Instead, they “come with a password to an online ‘virtual world’ where real girls can decorate their dolls’ room, change their clothes or go shopping,” reports the Chicago Sun Times.

Michelle Obama is not impressed with the 12-inch pseduo-replicas.

“We believe it is inappropriate to use young private citizens for marketing purposes,” Obama’s press secretary, Katie McCormick Lelyveld, said in a statement today.

Also this week, Mattel announced it will launch its first complete line of African-American Barbie dolls.

Plus: There’s a new blog on girls as media producers. Mary Celeste Kearney writes that she created Girls Make Media “because I’ve been researching girls’ media production for over a decade now, and wanted to pull together in one place information about girl media producers, as well as programs for and research about girls’ media-making.”

Kearney — an associate professor of radio, television and film, and women and gender studies at the University of Texas at Austin — is looking to link to other programs (in and outside of the United States), so let her know if you doing something interesting in this field.

cross-posted from PopPolitics

Nurse Pulls IUD Out of Patient; Says IUD Are a Type of Abortion: Trying to understand the logic of why someone against abortion would remove a contraceptive device will hurt your head — trust me. But do read the court story nicely summarized by Tracy Clark-Flory. Understandably, the patient is suing nurse practitioner Sylvia Olona and Presbyterian Medical Services Rio Rancho Family Health Center (Albuquerque, N.M.).

Heroes of the Week: Writing at Women’s eNews, Kristin Bender reports on Teens for Safe Cosmetics, which last year endorsed a small body care product line that promises to keep suspicious chemicals off adolescents’ skin. Sales figures through the end of December totaled $150,000, and the group, which has active chapters in the San Francisco Bay area and New York, plans to add more products this year.

The New, Improved Whitehouse.gov: The new White House website is worth a visit. In addition to the information you’d expect to find on President Obama’s cabinet and White House history, this is the first administration to feature a blog. And the agenda includes a women’s section that addresses healthcare, economic security and gender equity.

Medical Debt a Growing Worry: The problem of medical debt is “climbing the income scale, affecting not just the poor or the uninsured,” writes Sandra G. Boodman of Kaiser Health News. These are the latest numbers:

Experts define the underinsured as those forced to spend at least 10 percent of their income on health care, excluding premiums. But the nonprofit Center for Studying Health System Change found recently that financial pressures on families increase sharply when out-of-pocket spending on medical bills exceeds 2.5 percent of family income. New York’s Commonwealth Fund has reported that 72 million adults under age 65 had problems paying medical bills or were paying off medical debt in 2007, up from 58 million in 2005. Many had insurance, and 39 percent said they had exhausted their savings paying for health care.

Additional stories on healthcare costs are available here, here and here — along with tips and resources for managing medical debt.

Plus: The New York Times reports that Medicaid roles are surging due to the recession and employees losing their health coverage along with their jobs. For many states it’s become an unmanageable burden.

Senate Passes Wage Discrimination Bill: The Senate passed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act this week by a vote of 61-36 (here’s the vote breakdown). When the Senate voted on similar legislation in April, it failed by two votes.

“We’ve had an enormous victory,” said Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski (D-Md.), a main sponsor. All 16 female senators voted in favor. The legislation now goes back to the House for reconciliation before being sent to President Obama, who is expected to sign the bill.

Biblical Battered Wife Syndrome: “In the face of prominent leaders who claim helplessness in the face of biblical tradition, [Christian domestic violence survivor and advocate Jocelyn] Andersen and a small but growing cadre of like-minded abuse survivors are fighting this established conservative wisdom on domestic violence not with secular or feminist domestic violence tactics, but with new theological arguments arguing for abused wives’ rights within a biblically literalist, and in some cases even complementarian, framework,” writes Kathryn Joyce in this piece at Religion Dispatches.

Joyce has a book coming out next month titled “Quiverfull: Inside the Christian Patriarchy Movement.”

What Do Women Want?: The New York Times Sunday Magazine tackles the question via this cover story, summed up as: “A new generation of postfeminist sexologists is trying to discover what ignites female desire.” I haven’t read the piece yet, but I skimmed the comments. This response prompted a “hell, yeah.”

Wouldn’t you love to sit down, one-on-one, and talk about writing with Elizabeth Alexander, the nationally-renowned African American poet, essayist, playwright, teacher — and, as the world now knows, President Obama’s poet-of-choice?

Wilza Merzeus, 18, feature editor of Teen Voices magazine, had the opportunity to do just that. The text of their conversation has been posted online.

In addition to discussing poetry and feminism during the spring 2008 interview, Alexander offers sound, healthy advice for young poets:

Read all the time; always have a book [with you]. Read widely and diversely; read more than you ever imagined you could. Keep learning and keep taking in examples of what good writing is. It’s very important to keep healthy, to attend to the health of your body. It’s difficult to listen to your distinct and magical voices if your body is not as it should be. That means fresh unpackaged foods, moving [your body] every day, and spending some time in a quiet space. [...]

I was at the inauguration, though so far back (as in: Lincoln-Memorial-far) that I enjoyed watching it all again. Here’s Alexander, reading what I though was an exquisite poem (text):

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.

New Moon, the terrific magazine for girls age 8-12, is seeking nominations for its annual 25 beautiful girls issue. Maybe you know someone you’d like to recommend.

The deadline is midnight (CST) on Monday, Jan. 19, so get going now. Here’s the lowdown from New Moon founder Nancy Gruver:

Each girl has her own inner beauty: the beauty of action, caring, creativity, passion. Tell us about the inner beauty of your daughter, granddaughter, niece, neighbor or student and help us to inspire girls everywhere with their own unique inner beauty.

Every year since 2000, the May/June issue of New Moon Girls magazine features 25 girls ages 8-12 who are beautiful inside. Our Girls Editorial Board selects 25 girls (from those who are nominated) who represent many different aspects of inner beauty. Those girls are featured in the magazine. All the other girls who are nominated receive special recognition and are honored at NewMoonGirls.com

Anyone can nominate a girl – her family, someone in the community, another girl. And girls can also nominate themselves! I encourage you to nominate one or more girls by downloading the short form. Then complete the form and email it as an attached document to submissions@newmoon.com.