Update: Planned Parenthood's Budget

Luckily the Senate voted down the ridiculous bill passed by the House of Representatives that would have cut all federal funding for Planned Parenthood. But women's health advocates can't celebrate just yet.

"As the negotiations for the spending bill continue, it's clear that social conservatives want to ban funding for Planned Parenthood in future spending (negotiations)," said Planned Parenthood Federation of America spokesperson Tait Sye.

The organization also faces a longer-term funding threat in H.R.3, the "Stupak on Steroids" bill, for which congressional subcommittee hearings are set for March 16.

That bill blocks private insurance plans from covering abortion care in the new health care system and imposes tax penalties on small business owners and many other individuals who purchase private insurance plans that cover abortion care. The legislation now has 219 co-sponsors, enough votes to pass the House.

Daniel Craig in Drag for International Women's Day

Yesterday was International Women's Day. In honor of that fact, Daniel Craig stood up both in drag and in his James Bond attire while statistics were read by Judi Dench about how the life of men and women in the UK are different. I know that these statistics are UK based, but unfortunately they apply very well to the U.S. as well.



Anyway, I am not a big James Bond fan so I was not on the Daniel Craig bandwagon until my friend showed me this video. Now I totally get it. Those legs! That feminist advocacy! *drool*

ESPN Discusses Title IX

This makes me really happy:

To celebrate Women’s History Month, ESPN is discussing Title IX in a three-part video series. The series features female sports writers and coaches talking about the impact of Title IX, the pros and cons that have developed from it, its influence on their own careers, and its impact on gender notions.

For more information and a link to the site where you can watch the videos, click here.

Make Love Not Porn

My best friend just directed me to the site "Make Love, Not Porn" which is an initiative I am really excited about. The site primarily consists of information about porn norms and how they don't match up to real life. Here is what the author, Cindy Gallop, says her site is all about:

•MakeLoveNotPorn is not about judgement, or what is good vs what is bad. Sex is the area of human experience that embraces the widest possible range of tastes. Everyone should be free to make up their own mind about what they do and don't like.
•MakeLoveNotPorn is not anti-porn. I like porn and watch it regularly myself.
•MakeLoveNotPorn is simply intended to help inspire and stimulate open, healthy conversations about sex and pornography, in order to help inspire and stimulate more open, healthy and thoroughly enjoyable sexual relationships.

Cindy does a good job of not demonizing what we see in pornography, but of emphasizing that it is not necessarily how sex is for everyone. Some of my favorite tidbits of information readers can find while scrolling through the homepage compares the norms regarding pubic hair and gagging while performing oral sex in pornography and real world.