Today is International Workers’ Day, aka May Day, and over 80 countries are celebrating and honoring the history and progression of the international labor movement. Founded in 1886 in commemoration of the Chicago Haymarket Massacre and the May Day Riots, activists from all over the world will come together to celebrate the spirit of labor unions and make progress for the future. In the United States, the gender wage gap is better than it’s ever been, but women still get paid less than men in all...

Many women have a love/hate relationship with the media. We grow up with it, are practically raised by it in some cases, and come of age looking to the media for clues as to the type of people, the type of women, we should become. According to the current beauty standards, the type of woman we should aspire to be is thin, white, wealthy and able-bodied. The most pervasive of those expectations in fashion magazines, at least, is thinness--we see it everywhere. Fashion week tries--and...

File this under Reasons Why Rachel Maddow is the Dreamiest. On yesterday's Meet the Press, MSNBC's First Lady of political commentary sat down with Hilary Rosen, Alex Castellanos, and Cathy McMorris Rodgers to discuss the political climate and policy formation of the current administration while examining Romney's Republican campaign. This video is maybe the clearest example I've seen of the total breakdown of communication between the parties in this election. When exactly did Democrats and Republicans start speaking different languages? Rosen and Maddow outline the policies...

And Ann Romney continued to prove just how out of touch she is with the American public when she said at the Connecticut Republican Party’s Prescott Bush Awards Dinner, “I love the fact that there are also women out there that don’t have a choice and they must go to work and they still have to raise the kids.” Repeat: “I love the fact that there are also women out there that don’t have a choice” This is coming from the potential First Lady of the United...

Foreign Policy magazine’s “Sex Issue” has been under the spotlight for the past few days, and not for the reason you might expect. Magazines titled “The Sex Issue” usually celebrate having sex and active sexualities – but not this one. This sex issue aims to consider “how and why sex –in all the various meanings of the word – matters in shaping the world's politics.” Fair enough. But this seemingly noble attempt to discuss women and their role in international politics is immediately overshadowed by the...

Ads like the hilariously sleazy one above are sadly common in print advertising, which loves to position women in degrading scenarios that, 9 times out of 10, have absolutely nothing to do with the product being sold. In 2002, Scott A. Lukas, a college professor, created the Gender Ads Project, a website that analyzes women's roles in advertising, with nearly 4,000 examples. The project breaks down the ads into different categories, based on...

  Traveling the world for free sounds too good to be true. I've got a list of destinations I would give just about anything to see: the pyramids in Egypt, the Taj Mahal in India, the nightclubs of Berlin. And apparently there are people who would like to take me there...? New 'online dating' site Miss Travel seeks to pair 'generous travelers' with 'attractive travelers' and send them on the trip of a lifetime. The website boasts, "Miss Travel was built to solve the big travel dilemma,...

At a recent dinner hosted by publishing company Penguin Books and clothing brand Whistles, Whistles CEO Jane Shepherdson stated that it was time for the fashion industry to “reclaim feminism.” Her point is well taken: the fashion industry is one of the few that is dominated by women, yet it is rarely regarded as a feminist industry.This idea got me thinking about the nature of the fashion industry and women’s interest in clothing in general. Fashion is also one of the very few forms of...

  2012 has seen no shortage of invasive legislation that seeks to curtail women's rights. Arizona, Virginia, and Capitol Hill have all been battlegrounds in this year's fight for women's equality. It's easy to sit back, feeling overwhelmed by the political climate in this country, especially when legislators are trying to take away the basic rights feminists fought for decades ago. It's easy to think the odds are stacked against us. It's easy to talk smack without ever actually doing anything. It's more productive, though, to stand...

When the New York Times does a trend piece, it sometimes comes about 3 months too late. Remember their string of pieces about Brooklyn in 2010? Apparently it's a cool place to live! Young people like it there! Or their February 2012 article about living alone? We do crazy things! Like singing in the shower! And eating peanut butter from the jar! Yesterday though, the Times went for cool and hit it right on the head. In a piece about lady arm wrestlers in Brooklyn, the Times...