NWLC's Weekly Roundup - October 15-21

Happy Friday! I’ve got a whole new batch of stories for you this week, including some on NOW’s campaign to love your body, more on Anita Hill, some new abortion-related shenanigans, women and girls who are drawn to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields and more — all after the jump.

First off, if you haven’t yet checked out the blog posts from NOW’s Love Your Body Day blog carnival, what are you waiting for? They’ve brought together a number of great bloggers to celebrate the 14th Love Your Body Day, “a day when women of all sizes, colors, ages and abilities come together to celebrate self-acceptance and to promote positive body image.” Be sure to take some time out of your weekend to read them!

Speaking of reminders, I’ve got two more for you: today is National Mammography Day! Have you had your annual mammogram yet? If not, the American Cancer Society has a nice reminder tool to help you remember when to schedule your next mammogram. Early detection of breast cancer is critical, because this is when the disease is most treatable. You can learn a lot more about early detection of breast cancer, including mammograms, breast self-exams, and what women in their 20s, 30s, 40s, and beyond can do to help stay healthy, from the Cancer Society. Second, Fem2.0 will be hosting a tweetchat on Sunday to discuss Domestic Violence Awareness Month (DVAM), including how to recognize the signs of domestic violence and how to support friends and family in need. Info on the tweet chat — and various other DVAM events they’re participating in, like next Thursday’s Purple Thursday Pledge — can be found here.

Next up, did you see the outrageous report that says that women and girls are less likely to pursue education and careers in STEM fields because “women are naturally more interested in ‘people’ than ‘things’”? And that the women who do take interest in these fields were at some point exposed to a “male” hormone called androgen. Does “girls liking science isn’t girl-like and girls who do like science only like it because they were exposed to a boy hormone” sound ridiculous to you, too? Good. It did to Jennifer at the AAUW — and she took this on in her latest blog post.

Last week we told you a bit about the 20^th anniversary of the Anita Hill hearings. There are two new blog posts I’d like to share with you from women who were lucky enough to attend the “Sex, Power, and Speaking Truth: Anita Hill 20 Years Later” conference this past weekend in New York City. Jennifer Williams at Ms. Magazine Blog takes a look at how the Anita Hill hearings have affected sexual harassment over the past two decades, and how Hill’s testimony has had a lasting effect on a younger generation of feminists who have grown up realizing that sexual harassment, both inside the office and out, is a very real threat that they or someone they know may have to deal with one day. The next blog post, from Holly Kearl at the AAUW, talks about the speech Anita Hill gave at the conference as well as the discussion on sexual harassment in schools and on the streets she co-hosted during their lunch break.

Let’s talk health care news now. Not to be outdone by the Representative Pitts and 250 of his House colleagues, Senator Jim DeMint filed an amendment to an appropriations bill on agriculture, transportation, housing, and other programs this week that would ban women from being able to talk to their doctors about abortion via the Internet and video conferences. Yep, that’s right: “women would need a separate, segregated Internet just for talking about abortion care with their doctors” under this amendment. My response? This:

Moving on! On a different health care-related note, Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius issued a blog post late last week on the suspension of the Community Living Assistance and Support Services Program (CLASS), a provision of the Affordable Care Act. CLASS was a program intended to help provide affordable long-term health care to Americans who signed up to pay a monthly premium toward their future care for needs that went beyond those covered by Medicaid and Medicare. But Secretary Sebelius writes, a “financially sustainable model for CLASS” has not yet been identified. CLASS is only one provision within the health care law and its suspension does not affect the continued efforts to implement the new law.

Here’s an interesting article on the struggles women who run for office in Massachusetts face. You’re probably familiar with Massachusetts’ reputation as a liberal stronghold. And as you might have heard, Harvard law professor Elizabeth Warren recently threw her hat into the ring, hoping to win the Democratic Party’s nomination to run against Senator Scott Brown in 2012. (Brown, a Republican, won the seat in a special election in 2010, defeating Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley, following Senator Ted Kennedy’s death in August 2009.) But here’s something you may not know: voters in Massachusetts have never elected a woman to serve as their governor or U.S. senator. I repeat: never — as Linda Killian sadly points out in The Daily Beast.

Okay, full disclosure on this final story: I went to Syracuse. I love sports, and I have a ridiculous soft spot for Syracuse players who go on to play for Philadelphia teams at some point in their careers. All this makes me really excited to share with you the news that former Syracuse and Philadelphia quarterback Don McPherson was named the first “Man of the Week” over at Just The Tip Of Feminism. In their write up on McPherson, they say:

“He believes that men should be involved in feminism and identify as feminists, not because women need men to protect them, but because all people should be treated with equal respect and given equal opportunities. In an attempt to end patriarchy, Don has founded several outreach and mentoring programs, and regularly speaks at college campuses about the end of sexism and the problems that arise from sexism, like gendered violence and rape.”

I had the pleasure — twice! — while I was an undergrad to hear McPherson speak. The first was during my freshman orientation, and the second was during my training to become a peer facilitator in Syracuse’s Mentors in Violence Prevention (MVP) program. The MVP program was first started at Northeastern University's Center for the Study of Sport in Society in 1993. McPherson joined Northeaster’s Center for the Study of Sport in Society as a staff member upon his retirement from football in 1994.

That brings me to the close of another roundup. Have something you’d like to share — a blog you wrote or a piece of interesting news? Feel free to share it with us in the comments.