I love this:

In truth, from the moment Michelle Obama stepped on to that podium at the Democrat convention what seems like, ooh, about three million years ago, we all secretly knew which way this race was going. Sure, he had big, sticky-out ears; sure, all those luvvies made that embarrassing YouTube song about him; but if Michelle thought that he was OK — if she chose him — then he just had to be a good man.

Cheers to America’s next First Lady.  I have no doubt she will make women everywhere very, very proud.  Read the rest of the profile here.

NYT’s Sunday Magazine has an interesting profile on Lauren Zalaznick, the high-powered female “affluencer” behind Bravo–the only channel I can watch for 12+ hours straight in a single sitting.  (I heart reality TV marathons.)

This interview with Courtney Cox (registration required) in Marie Claire magazine is one of the most depressing things I’ve read in a while.  Punchline: Gorgeous, talented, happily-married mother has it all and cannot enjoy it because she’s terrified of looking a day older than 25.

The guy at the bar, she thinks, wouldn’t want her.

The big A, you know. Aging. It gets to all of us. It really gets to Courteney. [...]

“Let me tell you, there’s a lot of pressure,” she continues. “Which is why I always think women should be totally open with other women about what they do to make themselves look better.”

A self-professed “product whore,” Courteney is involved with developing ideas for new products for Kinerase, the boutique skincare line she’s been the face of for three years. “I’ll call them up and say, ‘You know what’s missing in this line? We need a neck cream.’ Or as I age, I realize, Wow, I’m getting dryer. I want a thicker under-eye cream. So, they made a thicker under-eye cream, which is one of my favorite products of theirs.”

Without being terribly high-maintenance in her soul, Courteney’s outer carapace is very well cared for. There are the weekly chiropractor appointments, the massage, the hair, the therapist, the facialist, the trainer. (Cardio five times a week, tennis on the weekends: “I’d feel better about myself if I did stomach crunches, but I don’t.”)

These articles are usually total puff pieces, designed to make absolutely anyone sound like the most totally awesome, coolest person on earth.  But, despite all the remarks about how beautiful Cox (still) is, this unflattering piece just made me really glad I’m not her.

Amy Sullivan reports on an all-female focus group’s reaction in Colorado:

“I’d like to have lunch with Sarah,” said one married woman, “but have Joe running my country.” Another agreed: “I think Sarah Palin is cute as a button and is good in sound bytes, but she just is not ready.” Before the debate, only 10 of the women believed Palin was not ready to be vice-president or president; by the end of the evening more than half of them (21) shared that concern. The economy has been the number-one issue for women voters—particularly unmarried women—throughout the campaign season, and that held true for this focus group as well. And on that point, they were much more impressed by Biden’s ability to talk about the economy and relate to the concerns of middle-class voters. Before the debate, 14 women preferred Biden over Palin on the economy, but that number climbed to 23 afterward. A similar shift took place on the question of which candidate they trusted to handle health care—9 women initially preferred Biden, but that number more than doubled to 20 over the course of the evening.

This New Yorker podcast–an interview with Ariel Levy, who wrote an article on Cindy McCain for the September 15th issue of that magazine–is pretty fascinating.  Mostly because Levy managed to articulate many of my gut feelings about Cindy. (I’m going to refer to her by her first name because otherwise I’ll start thinking I’m talking about John.)

Whenever I see Cindy on TV, I can’t help but feel a little bit sad and a little bit sorry for her.  She seems to be the embodiment of what society tells women they need to be: thin, pretty, agreeable, inoffensive and completely pleasing in every respect.  Every woman has, to varying extents over the course of her life, tried to live up to this ideal, and so every woman knows how utterly exhausting it is.  And each time I see Cindy on TV I wonder what a woman who is clearly as smart and determined as she is, with the myriad opportunities that she has had, could have achieved if she had invested even a fraction of the time and energy that it takes to suppress yourself like that, into something else–something more meaningful.

Levy describes Cindy’s smile as “the smile of someone who doesn’t talk.”  Doesn’t that just nail it?  I find myself more and more wanting to know what she would say, if she felt the freedom to occasionally be disagreeable and maybe even a little offensive to boot.

I’ve always thought that you can tell a lot about a man by who he marries.  Weak men need someone who won’t challenge them, and strong women won’t tolerate being disregarded.  And I can’t figure out what to make of this couple.  Cindy adopted a child and learned to fly without telling her husband.  But she goes out of her way to avoid any intellectual or political discussions.  She appears to adopt her husband’s positions on all the big issues, at least publicly.  And above all, despite the truly gutsy and inspiring things she does, she still chooses to masquerade as this fragile, seen-but-not-heard figure.

It’s as if she’s struck a bargain with herself:  You can dodge landmines in Cambodia and drive race cars as fast as you want, but you’ll have to be a size zero to reassure everyone that you’re not threatening.  Do your own thing, be independent, but be a good girl and smile politely while you’re doing it.

I think a lot of women do that.  It’s frustrating and heartbreaking that they do.  It’s even moreso that doing so is still apparently the best (and only?) way to become First Lady.

Katha Pollitt’s latest, on (what else?) Sarah Palin:

John McCain chose the supremely under-qualified Sarah Palin as his running mate partly because she is a woman. If you have a problem with that, you’re a sexist. She talks incessantly about being a mother of five and uses her newborn, Trig, who has Down syndrome, as a campaign prop. If you wonder how she’ll handle all those kids and the Veep job too, you’re a super-sexist. “When do they ever ask a man that question?” charges that fiery feminist Rudy Giuliani. Indeed, Palin, who went back to work when Trig was three days old, gets nothing but praise from Phyllis Schlafly, James Dobson and the folks at National Review, who usually blame all the ills of modern America on those neurotic, harried, selfish, frustrated, child-neglecting, husband-castrating working mothers. Even stranger, her five-months-pregnant 17-year-old, Bristol, gets nothing but compassion and respect from Bill O’Reilly, Rush Limbaugh and others who have spent their careers slut-shaming teens for having sex–and blaming their parents for letting it happen. [...]

The Republicans bashed Barack Obama as a “celebrity,” but now they’ve got a star of their own, so naturally the rules have changed. Nothing would suit them better than for the media to spend the next two months spellbound by the wacky carnival on ice that is the Palin family….  Fretting over the work/family issue alone should take up enough column inches to employ all the female journalists in America from now to next Mother’s Day. And don’t forget that op-ed staple, What Does This Mean for Feminism?

Well, I’m not playing. I don’t care about Sarah Palin’s family. I don’t care if she’s a good mother. I don’t care if she’s happily married, or who shops and who vacuums, or who takes care of the kids while both parents are at work. I don’t want her recipe for caribou hot dogs, either. Life chez Sarah and Todd might make an adorable sitcom (Leave It to Jesus?) or a scathing tell-all a decade or so down the road (Governor Dearest?). Either way, so what? This is an election, not The View. As for feminism’s meaning, what can you say after you’ve said that her career shows that even right-wing fundamentalist women have taken in feminism’s message of empowerment and that’s good, but that Palin’s example suggests women can do it all without support from society and that’s bad?

She closes with a few questions any reasonable journalist covering, you know, a presidential election campaign should ask.  Speaking of which, Diane Rehm offered Palin the opportunity to come on her very civilized, very smart NPR call-in show, on the air the other day.  I wish there was even the slightest chance the governor would take her up on it.

Sarah Palin and Hillary Clinton, denouncing sexism on Saturday Night Live:

(Update: Sorry, the earlier clip must have been taken down from YouTube. This new one should work.)

The National Women’s Law Center is alerting supporters to the new HHS proposal that could further limit women’s access to health care.

The Bush Administration’s Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) recently released a proposed rule that would undermine patient’s access to vital health services and information by greatly expanding existing laws intended to govern the right to refuse to provide abortion care.

By failing to provide a definition of abortion consistent with accepted medical standards, the proposed rule leaves the door open for doctors, nurses, insurance plans, hospitals, and nearly any other employee in a health care setting to deny access to most forms of birth control. In addition, the proposed rule reaches even further than birth control and abortion: it expands the scope and reach of existing law to limit information on and access to the entire range of health care services — including treatment of infertility, depression, drug addiction, HIV/AIDS, and more.

Their suggested “protest” email:

I am writing in opposition to the regulations that the Department of Health and Human Services proposed on August 26, 2008, that allows patients to be denied health services and information based on the moral beliefs of their provider.

This rule creates problems where none now exist.  It disregards the needs of patients, even in medical emergencies, and causes confusion about laws already on the books that protect the religious beliefs of all employees, including health care providers, while allowing employers to ensure that patients get access to vital health care services and information.  I seriously urge you to reconsider this dangerous regulation.

And in the meantime, keep rules like this in mind when you’re shopping for a doctor.  A simple question like “does he/she prescribe the morning after pill?” before you make your first appointment could save you LOTS of trouble down the road.