Sarah Seltzer

By Sarah Seltzer

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  Life

  DNC Chair on Abortion: ‘This is Personal’

  Anyone who has spent time arguing about politics–particularly hot-button issues like abortion–is familiar with “glazed-eyes, nodding syndrome” which is what happens when listeners (who may even agree with us) grow uncomfortable with the topic and hope to goodness we move on, soon, and yes, yes, women’s rights blah blah blah. It’s just politics, these expressions…

  By Sarah Seltzer Aug 26, 2011 | 2 min read
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  Life

  Leave Hillary’s Wardrobe Alone

  Hillary Rodham Clinton, former First Lady, Senator, presidential candidate and current Secretary of State, is arguably one of the most powerful women in recent history, and yet she still comes under fire for her choice of clothing, from cleavage-gate to her pantsuits to her haircuts and figure and beyond. Her most recent critic is television…

  By Sarah Seltzer Aug 5, 2011 | < 1 min read
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  Life

  Criticizing ‘Slutwalks’ and Again Judging Women For What They Wear

  As a loud defender of Slutwalks, I’ve been disturbed by the recent turn the critique of the new grassroots movement has taken, from within the feminist movement and here on our own Sisterhood blog. I was actually pleasantly surprised, during the first wave of Slutwalks earlier this year, by how much the mainstream media seemed…

  By Sarah Seltzer Jul 29, 2011 | 2 min read
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  Life

  The Misogyny of Mass Murderers

  Last year, after the horrible mass murder targeting Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, I wrote about the misogyny and obsession with masculinity that underlies this and other such violent acts. Later, more information was revealed about shooter Jared Lee Loughner and his pervasive fear of women in power. The same sort of thing seems to have influenced…

  By Sarah Seltzer Jul 28, 2011 | 2 min read
• Life

  On Abortion and Contraception, a Different Kind of Logic

  I closely followed Debra Nussbaum Cohen’s piece about the inherent contradiction between anti-abortion and anti-contraception stances – stances which are often held by the same folks. Her logic is impeccable: Debra is 100% right that contraception is a rational middle ground, that opposition to family planning is absurd whatever your stance is on the morality…

  By Sarah Seltzer Jul 21, 2011 | 3 min read
• Life

  How Did We Get From Betty Ford to Marcus Bachmann?

  In Curtis Sittenfield’s novel “American Wife,” Laura Bush is re-imagined as Alice, a sympathetic and fairly liberal librarian, traumatized by accidentally causing the death of her high school crush in a car accident, suffering through a secret abortion and later swept off her feet by her cowboy politician husband. Throughout her loyal marriage to this…

  By Sarah Seltzer Jul 11, 2011 | 3 min read
• Life

  Making Work More Humane, Balance More Feasible

  Ah, women and ambition. If I could untie this knot, I’d be on national tour with my bestselling self-help book. Elissa, in this Sisterhood post, is right, of course, that the issues brought up by Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg in her recent speeches, as vital as they ar, (and as much as I felt personally touched…

  By Sarah Seltzer Jun 21, 2011 | 2 min read
• Life

  Why We Can’t Get Enough of ‘Teen Mom,’ Weinergate

  For the past few days, I’ve been planning to write about a young woman from the “Teen Mom” series on MTV and her apparent suicide attempt. I’ve been pondering this genre of “teen fertility reality TV” for a long time, particularly whether there’s a genuine educational benefit and how that benefit might weigh against the…

  By Sarah Seltzer Jun 20, 2011 | 2 min read