This year, the coveted commercial time during the (exciting and inspiring) Superbowl was filled with ads that made women, and male viewers, uncomfortable with their implied or overt misogyny. Twitter feeds and blog comments were filled with viewers marvelling at the unceasing, unvaried tone of the ads. While beer ads are traditionally less than friendly…
The Sisterhood Digest: • The recently released results of an Orthodox Union survey seem to indicate that Orthodox Jewish women have happier marriages than married women in the general U.S. population. Some 74% of women responding to the O.U.’s online poll characterized their marriages as “excellent/very good.” Compare that to the National Marriage Project 2009…
As the House and Senate hash out their versions of the sweeping healthcare reform bill in the coming weeks, several crucial women’s health issues hang in the balance. The most high-profile, and controversial, is abortion — the Stupak-Pitts amendment in the House and the Managers Amendment in the Senate would both severely restrict abortion coverage…
The Sisterhood Digest: • The number of legal abortions in Israel has declined 10% since 2000, the Jerusalem Post, citing Health Ministry statistics, reports — even as Ynet reports that abortions among ultra-Orthodox women in Israel have been on the rise since the beginning of the financial crisis. In Israel, abortions are permitted if they…
As the Forward, via JTA, noted last week, a number of prominent Jewish organizations, including the Union of Reform Judaism, the National Council of Jewish Women, the Joint Action Committee and the American Jewish Congress have signed onto an effort to stop stringent anti-abortion measures (the Stupak amendment in the House, and the Nelson amendment…
Confrontations between religious authority and electoral democracy continued to simmer on a number of sensitive fronts today (Sunday, November 22). Wherever you looked, no one was showing any sign of backing down. Item: In Rhode Island, the Providence Journal reported a claim by Representative Patrick Kennedy that he had been barred from receiving communion by…
Leah Berkenwald at Jewesses with Attitude has a great rundown of how devastating this weekend was for pro-choice Americans who watched the anti-abortion Stupak amendment pass and get tacked onto the House’s healthcare reform bill. On Saturday, one of two men who stood up along with a group of Democratic female lawmakers to argue against…
I’ve thought about ultrasounds a lot throughout my pregnancy. I had my first one at five weeks. The doctor showed me a tiny black circle inside a larger white circle and said it was my baby. At eight weeks, the black and white image morphed into a head and body. I cried when I heard…
