Friday Femme Fatale: Barbie, Octuplets & Abortion

This week's Friday Femme Fatale traverses a lot of different things - from the UN to the octuplets to Barbie bans. But first, I want to point out the powerful photo above - that is Erica Williams from Center for American Progress who is engaging in a rally during Power Shift 2009 where over12,000 college students took over the Washington DC Convention Center - kicking out CPAC attendees - to organize and lobby for clean energy solutions. Way to get the youth generation engaged with important issues, Power Shift! (Now, if only we could do this with the feminist movement).

In other news, Marcia Yerman expands upon the important work by GEMS, an organization for female prostitutes run by Rachel Lloyd, in Huffington Post piece, Very Young Girls Looks at Sexual Trafficking in NYC:

GEMS stands for Girls Educational and Mentoring Services, but also references through its acronym, the intrinsic worth of each individual girl that has been impacted by sexual servitude. Existing as the sole New York state non-profit that is working with domestically trafficked and sexually exploited girls and young women, it was founded by Lloyd in 1999. They target the 12-21 year age demographic. The organization states its task as helping victims of sexual exploitation "to exit the commercial sex industry and develop to their full potential. They provide counseling, job training, crisis housing, and health to 250 clients. Their outreach has touched over 1500 people. Not bad, considering that a study in 2007 concluded that New York City had more than 2000 sexually exploited children under the age of 18.

Nergui Manalsuren interviews Stephen Lewis, an AIDS and gender expert, in the piece Q&A: "Time Has Come for a New U.N. Women's Agency" Lewis said that after being blind for years to the needs and rights of women, the United Nations is finally well on its way to create a "fully-resourced" women's agency.

Womanist Musings interviews Melissa McEwan in the piece, Melissa Of Shakesville Shares Some Truthand Tina Brown at the Daily Beast writes about the octuplets in The Mother of All Disasters saying:

Oh, no! Look what Demi Moore hath wrought. I never believed back in 1990 when I published Annie Leibovitz's famed Vanity Fair cover picture celebrating the fecundity of a naked pregnant Demi Moore that it would spawn 19 years of star knock-off pictures that culminated in today's epic moment of pop-cultural collapse-the sight of octuplet mom Nadya Suleman on TMZ bearing her ballooning 16-legged implants to the world. 

The worst thing about the Suleman story is the way the freak-hungry media has rewarded her delinquency every step of the way. The sit-down star interview with NBC's Ann Curry, the magazine covers, the hype for her PayPal web site, the impending book deal. Suleman's duvet lips are in themselves an homage to all the photo spreads she has seen of Angelina Jolie whom she so closely resembles.

Additionally, there is a lot of news in the fem-o-sphere this week related to the White House, Congress and state legislators as related to women's interests.

First, Media Bistro points out the gender gap in the broadcast media in the compelling story, Male To The Chief: Where Are TV's Women Chief White House Correspondents? Women's eNews encourages more women to try running for elected positions in the piece, Gender Gap in Politics Is Invite for More to Run.

Then, RH Reality Check writes The Bottom Line on Sebelius who was formally announced as nominee for Secretary of Health and Human Services by President Obama this week saying:

This is the bottom line: Does the Governor support legal reproductive health care services for women and their families? Yes. Does the Governor also have a broader health care agenda, one that will serve a wide spectrum of citizens, including pregnant women who wish to have children? Yes. The Governor's consistent actions throughout the years clearly indicate that she has a balanced and thoughtful approach to health care.

What the anti-choice leaders fail to see is that their absolutism and so-called purity on this one issue - women's rights - is one of extremism. Their absolutist, fanatical approach has led them nowhere but to the fringes. Unfortunately, when the debate or discussion moves so far from the center, it leaves little room for meaningful dialogue about how to more realistically enhance the quality of life for all citizens across the United States.

Additionally, hypocrisy on the Hill continues with this piece - Hypocrisy Has No Term Limit: Vitter Attacks Title X and Planned Parenthood in Omnibus.

Meanwhile, in other encouraging news [insert sarcasm] the Kansas House passes two bills that would impose new restrictions on abortion providers.

The Daily Mail reports how one legislator in West Virginia has introduced a bill that would make it unlawful to sell Barbie or similar dolls. House Bill 2918, which was introduced Tuesday, would make it unlawful to sell dolls "that promote or influence girls to place an undue importance on physical beauty to the detriment of their intellectual and emotional development."

Finally, new media continues to catch on as Senator Claire McCaskill encourages individuals to participate in Democracy through YouTube this week.