American Women Greedily Win All the Gold Medals at the London Olympics [Olympics]

In case you haven't heard yet because you're one of those New York City tunnel dwellers or you're exclusively a Winter Olympics person, the U.S. women's teams at this summer's games have cleaned up, accounting for 56 percent of all Team USA's medals, and 66 percent of its golds. Their success is being touted as a big step towards even greater gender equality in sports, and, what's more, they've succeeded in sports traditionally dominated by men, such as boxing, an event the U.S. men, for the first time ever, failed to medal in.

Athletes and coaches credit the success of the American women to the Title IX, which, since its passage forty years ago, has dramatically expanded the pool of female athletic talent in the States. At the 1972 Munich Olympics, for instance, women accounted for less than 24 percent of of the U.S. team's total medals, but in 1992 at the Barcelona games, that figure had nearly doubled to 41 percent. With more young girls playing sports in high school, then later becoming college athletes, coaches and trainers have a larger group of athletes to work with.

Though women from other countries haven't experienced quite the same success as the U.S. women, the London Olympics have marked the first time ever that every country has sent a female contingent, thanks in part to the IOC putting pressure on holdouts like Qatar, Brunei and Saudi Arabia. China and Russia have also seen their medal counts boosted by the performances of their female athletes, a fact that helps foster more intense competition in women's sports among some of the larger Olympic nations.

Some athletes worry that there's still too much attention paid to how female athletes (especially the beach volleyball players) look, but Women's Sports Foundation CEO Kathryn Olson sees a whole generation of role models in our current litany of female medalists, something she thinks will inspire a whole new generation of budding female Olympians.

It's a golden age for American women at London Olympics [LA Times]

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Stressed Men Prefer Larger Women, Because You Were Wondering [Weighty Matters]

A study in England has found that men coping with stress more often prefer larger women than men who aren't stressed at all, an insight that builds on earlier findings about how experiencing stress affects body-size judgments, often leading people to be attracted to more "mature" body types.

Viren Swami from the University of Westminster in London along with Martin Tovee from Newcastle University cobbled together 81 white British men, randomly assigning them to be placed in either stressful or relaxing situations. The men who were to experience some stress in the name of science were subjected to a fake interview, while the men who were just going to chill out in the name of science were placed in a quiet room where they could just think about all the stupid things academics do with grant money.

After having their disparate sit-downs, the subjects were asked to look at rate the attractiveness of photographed women ranging from emaciated to obese. The men who'd been subjected to a stressful situation rated larger women more favorably than the men who weren't stressed, though the study authors didn't say whether the stressed men exclusively preferred larger women or were simply more amenable to body types deviating from a certain cultural "ideal."

Previous research into body-type preference has figured that people in stressful situations, i.e. times when money or other resources are scarce, prefer heavier partners because if someone's carrying around extra weight, it probably means that they have access to a steady supply of food and are consequently healthy. Similarly, when someone is dealing with emotional stress of the sort that subjects in this latest study experienced, a larger, more mature body may indicate that a prospective partner is better equipped to deal with tough times. In other words, from this very limited study, science has taught us that we're all just looking for that special person with shoulders broad enough and backs sturdy enough to help share the heavy burden of our overloaded stress knapsacks.

Stress Makes Men Appreciate Larger Women [LiveScience]

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Dudes, Relax: The Rise Of Women Does Not Mean the Fall of Men [End Of Men]

Attention, men: I know the world is scary and weird right now. I know things are changing a little bit. I know that some of the women are restless and we complain sometimes and sometimes they let us make TV shows and say our opinions real loud. Sometimes we tell you about things you're doing—things you weren't even aware of, maybe—that bother us, and that hurts you, because you like to think of yourselves as good, progressive, helpful dudes. But PLEASE CHILL OUT. Women becoming more vocal about our dissatisfaction does not mean that that dissatisfaction didn't exist before. It just means we're ready to tell you about it.

In an epically impenetrable panic-flop for September's Esquire, Stephen Marche writes about the new "female gaze of contempt" that he feels has permeated our current culture. Women, it seems, are being hella mean to the poor delicate man-flowers, who are just trying to enjoy their penises and corner offices in peace without the the distraction of incessant estrogen-soaked side-eye. Nevermind the fact that this "contempt" upon which Marche hangs his column appears to exist mainly within Marche's imagination.

I can't even make any big conceptual criticisms of the piece, because honestly I have no idea what his point is. Women are mean? Men are oppressed? Except when they're not? It's not fair that women don't have to work in coal mines? Homer Simpson is a feminist conspiracy? Stephen Marche is colicky and needs a nap? Beats me. Responding to this essay feels like fighting some sort of weird hydra except instead of heads it has poorly articulated ideas and instead of teeth it has frustratingly irrelevant facts. It's entirely within the realm of possibility that Stephen Marche and I are on the same side here. I don't know. But here's my point: Men shouldn't complain about women complaining until the playing field is fucking level. Women clawing ourselves 1% closer to equality does not signal the fall of man, nor does it justify 1000 words of flailing self-pity and accusations of "whining." I can't argue against this piece as a whole, not when the takeaway makes no sense and/or is possibly nonexistent, but I can take it line by line. Let's go!

The Contempt of Women
The rise of men. And the whining of girls.

Hoooo boy. Way to give your whiny article about whining the whiniest headline of all time! There's no such thing as "the rise of men" because something cannot rise when it's already at the top. Actually, no. Men aren't even "at" the top—they are the top. Men built the power structure, men control the power structure, and men benefit from the power structure. That's like if I wrote an article called "The Rise of Ice Cream" and was all, fuck, yeah! Ice cream is back! Oh man, finally, ice cream is getting some respect. Ice cream was really oppressed for five seconds there when people got all excited about frozen custard, but now ice cream is taking back the night. Ice cream is licking the competition. Justice is served, with nuts! (I would put lots of italicized dessert puns in my ice cream article.)

In the constantly progressing and deteriorating and rapidly revolving kaleidoscope of misunderstanding and disgust and hunger that constitutes gender relations in the twenty-first century, a new gesture has emerged to define us: the sneer, the female gaze of contempt.

Really? Sneering female contempt is what defines gender relations in the twenty-first century? That's weird, because I would have guessed, like, R. Kelly. Or sexting. Or men telling women they're crazy for wanting to be treated like adults.

Feminine contempt is suddenly everywhere, subtly and invidiously panoramic, in public life and in private life, in the bedroom and on television and in bookstores and on the campaign trail.

Just a thought: perhaps, if you're feeling overwhelming contempt from everyone you meet, it's because you're just a contemptible kind of guy.

The sexuality of the moment is all about contempt. In Lena Dunham's hit show Girls, which has succeeded so admirably in providing American critics with a moment of convenient generational definition, the men are pitiable and grotesque. Whether rough or tender or vanilla, they fail...In Girls, sex is to be endured, the subject of a shivering, melancholy fascination.

First of all, this is stupid. "Culture" is huge and slow. It doesn't just suddenly morph into a completely new animal because Girls has existed for one season. Life continues outside of Girls; way more people don't watch Girls than do watch Girls; the rest of the world is the same as it was before Girls. That's not to say that media doesn't influence culture, but to declare, "Oh no, Girls has undermined my entire being because Hannah is kind of a sourpuss!" is disingenuous and lazy.

And second of all, has Marche actually watched Girls past the first episode? I'd say that just as many male characters succeed as fail. The main romantic storyline is Lena Dunham trying to get her boyfriend to like her more. He's kind of a dick, but she likes him because he's also an interesting dude who does interesting stuff. It's complicated. You know, like ACTUAL REAL-LIFE PEOPLE. Their sex life is weird and unsatisfying—but that's an experience that, clearly, a lot of women relate to. Would Marche prefer that those women's experiences not be told? Should we just go back to a standard virgin/whore continuum? Would that be more comfortable?

In Sex and the City, the women commoditized men, often in the most banal way, but at least they liked what the men had to offer: cocks and money and status and sometimes even support.

Yes, okay. Clearly. Sex and the City has better gender dynamics because both virgins and whores appreciate boners more. Duly noted.

Fifty Shades of Grey—the best-selling book series of the year—is a letter from the country of sexual abjection. There have been a million books by a million writers about women who like to be slapped around, but Fifty Shades of Grey is new insofar as it interiorizes the sadomasochism and cleverly inverts it. Fifty Shades of Grey is a book devoted to the following thought: Jeez, can you believe how gross this guy is? Anastasia Steele, despite her classy name, is the kind of woman who says "jeez" in bed a lot. "Jeez" - the world's most potent boner-killer.

SIR. YOU ARE GOING TO HAVE TO BE MORE SPECIFIC. I do not know what "interiorizes the sadomasochism and cleverly inverts it" means, and I am, like, at least medium-smart. Respectfully, it is not my responsibility as a reader to figure it out—it is your responsibility as a writer to explain it. Anyway, kindly stop making generalizations about my feminine behavior and attitude based on Fifty Shades of FAHKING Grey. It's rude.

Contempt for men has become so widespread and acceptable that it's a commonplace for politicians' wives. Michelle Obama loves to describe her husband's morning breath and struggles with smoking and failure to put away his socks. Her pull quote: "He's a gifted man, but he's just a man." Got that, boys? You can be editor of the Harvard Law Review, first African-American president, director of the assassination of Osama bin Laden, loving husband and father, and an innovator of "absorption marijuana ingestion" to boot, but in the end "just a man."

Right. God forbid Michelle Obama refer to her husband—who is, literally, a human man—as anything less than a shining god-king. Also, do you know how Michelle Obama and Barack Obama met? She was his boss. She's arguably as professionally accomplished in every way as our magical Harvard Law Review first black prez, so maybe go ahead and treat her a little bit less like "just a woman"? Just a "politician's wife"? Just a thought.

This is what the political operatives call "humanizing the candidate": Contempt for men is what ordinary women understand.

So now you're using this premise you made up—that women looooooove "contempt"—to support this premise you made up. No fair.

The Glass Cellar: One of the real triumphs of American men over the past thirty years is that they've never taken to gender-based political activism.

Congrats. Congrats on never doing a thing that you've never fucking had a need to do. This whole bait-and-switch is such a scam—you give women just enough rope to begin speaking up for ourselves and calling out shitty microaggressions, then you immediately flip it around, triumphantly declare women to be "whiners," and use that as justification for a pouty "oh, poor men" backlash. Men. You do not get to have a backlash against a lash that hasn't actually lashed yet. CALL ME AFTER THE LASH.

The arguments have been there to make: There's a "glass cellar" in the American workforce (men work almost all of the dirtiest and most dangerous jobs), male life expectancy is much lower than female life expectancy, and so on. But a politics of male resentment is virtually nonexistent. Organized whining remains, for the overwhelming majority, unmanly.

"I know it's not FASHIONABLE for men to whine, but I'm hella brave, bros."

The violence of male sexuality? In parts of the United States, rapes have declined to such a low number that they can't be charted. Feminine compassion? Violent crime among women is spiking to an unprecedented degree.

What.

As women on television have become smarter and more powerful with every passing year, culminating in Liz Lemon of 30 Rock, the men on television become dumber and grosser and more useless. Homer Simpson becomes stupide [sic] every year. In one episode of Family Guy, Peter Griffin is actually declared "mentally retarded."

Oh god, this fucking thing again. For the dillionth time, men make television. Men created The Simpsons and Family Guy. Men write those characters for men. Men cannot be hurt by depictions in media, because men control media. Depictions of women in media, on the other hand, have been shitty, one-dimensional stereotypes since the invention of women, stereos, types, and shits. Those terrible, hurtful commercials wherein clueless schlubby dads make messes and buttoned-up wives roll their eyes and get to work with the Bounty? Those are still commercials in which women are just cleaning up after dudes like it's our full-time job. QUIT. CRYING.

The depiction of male/female dynamics on television is a huge problem—but can't we have an honest discussion about it instead of a made-up one? The problem is that, in general, women on television are not allowed to have flaws, and when someone's not flawed, they're not a person. Kevin James's character on King of Queens is actually a more nuanced character than Leah Remini's. That's why 30 Rock is such an amazing, important show—because it stars a female character who's extremely flawed. Can we talk about that? No? Just more man-feelings? Kay.

The American middle class, [writes Hanna Rosin in The End of Men and the Rise of Women], "is slowly turning into a matriarchy, with men increasingly absent from the workforce and from home, and as women make all the decisions."

You know what? Maybe that's true. But can we put the emphasis on "slowly" and "turning into" rather than "is" and "matriarchy"? Because whatever our society is, however many steps closer we've gotten to a "matriarchy," we've still had exactly zero female presidents. Almost zero female CEOs. We don't let women do shit.

Her numbers make a case: Women now have half the jobs in the American workforce. Three quarters of the 7.5 million jobs lost during the recession belonged to men. Of the top fifteen growth industries in America, twelve are almost exclusively the preserve of women.

Her numbers make a case? What case? That women have jobs now? What are the "top fifteen growth industries in America?" Vagina rentals? (I mean, it's a flash-in-the-pan industry—after a while you're going to want to own.) Come on dude, tell me SOMETHING SPECIFIC THAT SUPPORTS YOUR POINT. (And also please remind me what your point is.)

And how do men react to these statistics and the contempt that accompanies them?

Again, WHAT STATISTICS? WHAT CONTEMPT? Don't just tell me this thing exists—show me. Please. I'm literally begging you.

They ignore the statistics and laugh at the contempt - they are American men, after all.

OMG. You are seh. Brehv.

The best and most refined comedians of the moment all take it for granted that the masculine is inherently the stupid, the obese, the miserable, the lazy, the selfish. Take Louis C. K. - his hatred for his own hungers is his best material. Much of Daniel Tosh's material, both on his show and on tour, is about men's selfishness, irresponsibility, and general grossness...Can you believe how gross men are? Male comedians go to this safe material for the same reason they do anything: for the approval of women. Rather than resist the contemptuous gaze of women, they have learned to share it.

So men are falling back on jokes about their own "grossness." That's all well and good (wait, is it supposed to be good or bad?), but let's remember that women aren't even allowed to be gross. When women are gross, it's not funny—it's GROSS. I'm terribly sorry you're so oppressed (wait, or empowered?) by this phenomenon that only your gender is socially liberated enough to have access to.

This willful idiocy cannot help but change. No one aspires to be unemployed and living out of his car, and the message of Hanna Rosin's book is this: That's what will happen to these men. There are always going to be stupid men in the world, but the ignorant and insensitive, the uninterested and uncaring, will have no place in it. I suppose I should feel compassion, or some kind of weird gender loyalty, for the guys who can't figure this out. In all honesty, I don't. There is no masculinity crisis.

There's no…what? What now? What are we even talking about, then?

There's a crisis for idiots. The Tucker Maxes of the world are doomed. That's not the end of men. It's the beginning.

AGREED. Wait. Are we fighting or hugging?

Statistics showing the rise of women and fall of men are sobering...

What statistics, what rise of women, what fall of men, etc., cry, fart, repeat.

...but Rosin is really only pointing out trends - when and if and how they translate into real-world power is vague. And as she concedes, women account for only 3 percent of Fortune 500 CEOs, 17 percent of members of Congress, and 20 of the 180 heads of state. Matriarchy? Really? No. The world's leading exporter of absurdity has shown the way: Women in Saudi Arabia earn more than half of all undergraduate and doctoral degrees - then they have to be driven to their jobs.

END OF ARTICLE. So the conclusion to your article complaining about women complaining is…that women really do have something to complain about? What did I just read?

Only a small percentage of women even have the opportunity to be mean to men, because men only pay attention to a small percentage of women. This whole thing is like saying, "Oh, black men are always running around dominating white men and taking their jobs!" when the only thing you've ever seen is the NBA. Women don't need to apologize for complaining because 1) complaining is not getting women very far very fast, so don't sweat it; and 2) women should be complaining. Some ladies are making fun of you on the TV? Well, at least they're not legislating your genitals, and talking to you like you're a baby, and passing you over for promotions, and treating you like sexy livestock, and taking you less seriously by default without even thinking about it. Men have regarded women (uppity women, anyway) with contempt for generations. Dishing it out, meet taking it.

FAKE. PROBLEM. GOODNIGHT.

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Writer Goes on Stalker-y Mission to Track Down the Women in Twitter Bot Profile Pictures [Twitter]

There are a lot of personages floating around social media sites, a disconcertingly significant number of them with no more life or substance than a discarded shell whose hermit crab tenant abandoned it a long time ago. These "bots" are used to help athletes and celebrities bolster their Twitter accounts, or trick lonely people into thinking that the great grandniece of the long-lost Princess Anastasia wants to be friends with them on Facebook (8.7 percent of Facebook's entire user population, btw, is composed entirely of such bots). More often than not, these bots feature pictures of women, and though the bots themselves aren't real, the women in the profile pictures are, a fact that spurred Jason Feifer of Fast Company to try and figure out who these women are and how some marketing bot appropriated their likeness.

Feifer is painfully aware of how stalkerish his quest is even before the first phone call he makes to a bike shop owner and possible distant friend of a Twitter bot woman. He's not even sure what he's doing beyond just sleuthing around for a link between a bot and a real, live human, and he certainly doesn't know what will happen if he ever finds that link.

This is a mostly pointless exercise, I knew: The story behind every photo would be different. And what would one of these women say—that she's flattered to find her face spamming everyone on Twitter? Clearly, no.

Bots, though, are becoming a more common presence on sites like Twitter because they're cheap to both create and purchase. According to Feifer, companies like Buy Real Marketing sell bots in packages of 1,000 for $17 to 25,000 for $247. Nobody admits to it (obviously), but a publicist Feifer spoke to said that bots are really popular among athletes looking to raise their profile, and, in the case of large companies, purchasing bots is about as risk-free a marketing ploy as one can imagine. There isn't any way to figure out if someone purchased bots or if they just accumulated bots by accident, but bot profiles like those that Feifer was combing through are pretty easy to spot because they usually have "a long digital tail, having been posted on dozens of sketchy porn sites or blogs devoted to the barely legal."

Eventually, Feifer tracks down a woman named Amanda whose 2009 SUNshine Girls calendar photo was used on a bot profile. Feifer calls her boss (accidentally revealing Amanda's stint as a SUNshine Girl), and finally makes a connection with a real person. That's it, though. After admitting that having her SUNshine Girls photo — which, so far as Feifer could tell, had been used for at least a few different bot profiles — circulating the internet was pretty creepy, the best solution Feifer can offer her is to "report the bot as spam, and hope for the best."

In the meantime, Twitter will be playing hot potato with a picture of lingerie-clad Amanda, and there's not a whole lot she can do about it except think of the internet as a big, occasionally wonderful, occasionally horrifying amusement park, where personal information gets lost as easily as a sandal on an inverted roller coaster.

Who's That Woman In The Twitter Bot Profile? [Fast Company]

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If Women Want to Race Like Men, They Better Look Like Girls [Sports]

Thanks to a combination of Lady Gaga lyrics, deodorant strong enough for men but made just for us, and pole dancing classes, women are now more equal with men than ever. We're out-enrolling men in college, we're installing tampon machines in executive suite bathrooms, and we still enjoy a commanding lead in the overall "Who Has Made The Most Human Life Inside Their Bodies?" race. The gender gap is even narrowing in the arena of athletic achievement — if current trends continue, within the next century, female Olympians will be just as fast as their male counterparts. But as the gap narrows, women breaking barriers and challenging men will have to make sure they look like girls while doing it — or face a series of tests to make sure they're really, authentically ladies.

Since women were first allowed to compete in the Olympics in 1900, men have consistently been faster and stronger than their female counterparts. But, as The Atlantic charts, that gap has narrowed as women have had more opportunity to train, and as athletic participation among ladies has become more commonplace and less something to be avoided on the grounds that according to a popular school of thought, it would make a lady's uterus fall out. In the 1910's, it took the world's fastest woman almost 13 seconds to run 100 meters; men were doing it in around 10.5. By 1988, when Florence Griffith-Joyner set the women's 100 meter world record in 10.49 seconds, men had only improved to slightly under 10 seconds. Women breaking world records in swimming in 2012 are fast enough to challenge Mark Spitz's times in the late 1960's. And during these London Games, 16-year-old Chinese swimmer Ye Shiwen caused several bowties to rapidly spin around and royal monocles to pop out when she swam the last 50 meters of her split in the individual medley faster than Ryan Lochte.

As it stands now, the world's fastest women are about 90% as fast as the world's fastest men across a variety of sports and at a variety of distances; The Atlantic calls it the "golden ratio." But if current trends continue and women keep gaining on men, within the next century, the ladies will match the dudes in the water and on the track, according to a computerized projection.

Whether that will actually happen is up for debate, since game-changing sports innovations happen all the time and Olympians keep marrying each other and producing superbabies (marathon superstars Kara Goucher, Paula Radcliffe, and Deena Kastor have all recently given birth to future alpha runners, and 6 adorable married couples can boast that both parties are competing in this year's Olympics. And we can't forget about all of the professional athletes who keep impregnating Victoria's Secret models). But the concept of the world's fastest women approaching the world's fastest men presents new challenges to athletic officials, which they're handling about as poorly as possible.

It seems that as the gap between women and men's achievement narrows, IOC officials expect that women will do their best to look like what gender they're supposed to be, because women who race like men and look like men must be men, right? In order to prevent men from racing as women or women from doping themselves until their veins course with man-blood, a new gender testing procedure has been instituted — basically, if an official suspects that a female competitor may be a little too manly, that competitor will be subject to "gender testing" to make sure she's not packing too must testosterone. In other words, if a lady breaks a world record but looks too boyish, she can be singled out. Better get your nails done, ladies.

To play devil's advocate, it seems the genetic testing is designed to preserve the existence of women's sports; if anyone who identifies as female can compete regardless of their body's ability to produce performance-enhancing hormones, then why separate the genders at all? But gender testing that singles out individuals who dare not look girly enough is a pretty crappy way to do it. The Huffington Post's Maya Rupert points out that there's a crappy racial dimension to gender testing as well,

There is a widely held standard of beauty and femininity that is based on white racial characteristics. Because an assumption of whiteness has permeated gender norms, many features typically associated with white women are popularly mischaracterized as features of all women. Thus, women of color are often perceived as being less feminine. In a system where perception determines whether an athlete's gender will be tested, the inevitable result will be that women of color are more likely to be challenged.

This isn't alarmist hand-wringing; this has actually happened. South African runner Caster Semenya was basically turned into a side show and forced to undergo gender testing when officials doubted that she was really a girl. They later backpedaled, clarifying that they weren't testing her gender; they were simply testing to see if she had a "rare medical condition" that gave her a competitive advantage. Ah, yes. Because no elite athlete possesses any "rare" physical characteristics that may give them an advantage.

How athletic officials will navigate the ever-more-complicated waters of gender and athletic achievement remains to be seen. But as we as spectators are riveted by the razor thin distance between gold, silver, and bronze, in the future, we'll note the distance between what makes a man, what makes a woman, and what happens when they race.

[The Atlantic]

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Women Really Wish Cops Wouldn't Grope Them Unnecessarily [Nypd]

New York City police officers aren't taught how to "stop-and-frisk" women differently from men. They say gender is blind when it comes to street stops, but the women in question don't feel the same way.

Last year, the NYPD frisked around 16,000 of the 46,784 women they stopped; only 59 guns were found in total, but 3,993 women were ultimately arrested. The rate of guns found on women is almost equally as low as the rate found on men (0.12 percent and 0.13 percent, respectively), and unnecessary stop-and-frisks aren't pleasurable for anyone, but women say they feel additionally violated and embarrassed by undeserved searches in which cops may pull panties and tampons out of bags or engage in some light groping in the middle of broad daylight, all in the name of the law.

One 24-year-old who was frisked told the New York Times that she felt "powerless" during the procedure. "A male officer should not have a right to touch me in any sort of manner, even if it's on the outside of my clothing," she said. "We're girls. They are men. And they are cops. It feels like a way for them to exert power over you." Another woman said she and two female friends still don't understand why they were frisked by officers who said they were looking for a rapist. "They tapped the back pockets of my jeans, around my buttock," she said. "It was kind of disrespectful and degrading. It was uncalled-for. It made no sense. How are you going to stop three females when you are supposedly looking for a male rapist?"

The Times interviewed a number of people who said one reason women might feel particularly violated is because most incorrectly think that only female officers are allowed to stop-and-frisk women, just like when you go through airport security. But that's not true. Police Inspector Kim Y. Royster said it's unsafe for male officers to wait for female officers to arrive at the scene, especially because they'd often have to wait a very long time — more than 80 percent of the city's cops are men. NYPD cops do go through training which teaches them to "be sensitive to issues surrounding gender, race and ethnicity," but the course doesn't mention anything about stop-and-frisks for weapons.

Oddly, the article never mentions another huge reason why women might not trust the cops: the NYPD's long and grievous history of abusing their power to intimidate and sexually harass women — or worse. Remember last year's "rape cop" cases? Or the time the Associate Legal Director of the New York Civil Liberties Union told us that illegal strip searches by NYPD officers are "a longstanding problem" that "25 years of litigation" have done little to correct? Maybe that
has something to do with how wary the city's women are of the officers who are supposed to protect them. Just a thought.

For Women in Street Stops, Deeper Humiliation [NYT]

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Already Impressive Silicon Valley Women Are Dressing to Impress [Running In Heels]

Many of Silicon Valley's most powerful women are standing out amongst the area's schlumpy braniacs by dressing in expensive couture: Chanel cocktail shifts, Jimmy Choo heels, the works.

Of course, high-ranking men have donned fashion status symbols like cufflinks for ages, but it's a little different in Northern California, where most techies dress down à la hoodie-loving Mark Zuckerberg. But a number of notable women told the New York Times that "dressing well (and talking about it) could help erode the stereotypes that repel some women from the technology field."

"It's possible to hold your femininity and love of fashion," said Sukhinder Singh Cassidy, a former Google executive who now runs a video shopping site. "Now I feel not at all at risk that people would say, ‘How can she care about dressing well and run a billion-dollar company or be smart?'"

Marissa Mayer, who once paid $60,000 at an auction for lunch with Oscar de la Renta, said she didn't care what her employees thought of her proclivity for full skirts and bright colors. "My willingness to talk about it is because I believe the way we'll get more people into computer science and ultimately more women into computer science is by making it really clear that you can be yourself and don't need to give up parts of yourself to succeed," she said. "You can be into fashion and you don't have to be the pasty white programmer with a pocket protector staying up all night."

This is the first Times Styles trend piece about women and tech (or maybe, actually, Silicon Valley in general) I've read in ages that didn't make me groan. It's awesome that these women are wearing whatever they want, and even more awesome that so many of them are talking about it unabashedly, too.

Techies Break a Fashion Taboo [NYT]

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Kirsten Gillibrand Really Must Insist that More Women Run for Office [Politics]

On Tuesday, the Washington Post featured a profile on Democratic New York State Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, who is taking time out of her reelection bid (she's expected to win by a 2 to 1 margin, so it's nbd) to personally ensure that, after the next election cycle, she can look forward to seeing more women waiting patiently in the Capitol Hill cafeteria line for tater-tots.

There are are currently just 17 women serving in the Senate, and a mere 75 in the House of Representatives, glaring minorities that do not sit well with Gillibrand. If both the House and Senate were more evenly proportioned, she recently told a donor conference, "We would not be debating contraception. We would be debating the economy, small business, jobs, national security - everything but." Gillibrand has been helping to raise money for three different prospective female candidates, each of which would face a GOP incumbent. Former Iowa first lady Christie Vilsack will challenge Rep. Steve King (R.) in Iowa; Iraq veteran Tammy Duckworth will face Rep Joe Walsh (R.) in Illinois for control of the Chicago suburbs district; and former Orlando police chief Val Dennings will seek to unseat Rep. Daniel Webster from his unexpurgated dictionary throne.

The Monday fundraiser cobbled together over $100,000 for all three women and, despite prevailing Republican sentiment in all three contended districts, the challengers seem to be keeping pace with the incumbents, an underdog narrative, notes the WaPo, that should be familiar to Gillibrand considering she originally defeated a Republican incumbent from a conservative House district in New York State. Now, however, Gillibrand is quickly becoming a prominent face in the Democratic party, having notched the third-largest fundraising total ($14 million) in the whole party. Her opponent, Wendy Long, has raised a mere $113,000 by comparison.

It's this bursting political war chest that has allowed Gillibrand to focus more on helping other women break into a stubbornly male-dominated Capitol Hill, and to that end, Gillibrand has created a program and PAC, each of which are called "Off the Sidelines." The effort to help women secure positions of power extends beyond the political sphere — Gillibrand wants to see women ascend the corporate ladder as well. In a recent interview Gillibrand laid out her goals for "Off the Sidelines":

I want to make it a call to action - asking women first and foremost to vote; second, being an advocate on the issues they care about; third, holding their lawmakers accountable on their priorities; and then hoping to get a few more to run.

Though Gillibrand isn't the only female politician hoping to open up some more opportunities for women (Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Sen. Patty Murray are also engaged in the effort), some see Gillibrand as the next Hillary, viewing her work with "Off the Sidelines" as being more primarily concerned with strengthening her political future, with vaulting women into positions of power a fortunate (and necessary) side effect of that self-interested undertaking. Gillibrand insists, however, that she's doing all this work to help fill the House and Senate ranks with more women, to encourage women who are considering a political bid to simply go for it. That initial reluctance to run for political office, according to Gillibrand, might account for a the gender disparity in Congress:

Most men - I don't want to say that - many men will say, ‘Of course I can do it.' It's the first thing out of their mouths. But a woman will always doubt herself," she said. "It's more in our nature to be questioning. Can this be done? Will I make a difference? That's one of the things you have to address up front - yes, you can do it.

Hopefully, Gillibrand's profile continues to rise so that her work with Off the Sidelines garners more attention and helps make our representative government a little more, um, representative of the population it...represents. Dammit.

Gillibrand works to elect more women [WaPo]

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Doddering Republican Billionaire Announces that Women Are World's Third Most Beautiful Creatures [Politics]

Foster Friess just can't stop saying stupid shit. Earlier this year, the big Santorum backer told a horrified Andrea Mitchell that back in his day, women didn't need birth control pills because "the gals" kept an aspirin between their knees (in other news, Foster Friess has never had sex with a woman while her legs were together, which is both possible and hot, which makes me feel kind of bad for Foster Friess's wife — but I digress). But if you thought Friess would be a One Hit Wonder on the Can You Believe This Ridiculous Crap? charts, relax — he's announced that he thinks women are beautiful creatures — but not as beautiful as deer or swans.

The proclamation came as Friess was traipsing around an Aspen, Colorado convention for Republican governors and the super wealthy assholes who like to give money to them, and here's the entirety of the context in which it occurred, per NBC —

NBC News intersected Friess as he walked with other donors from the lobby of an Aspen hotel to a nearby restaurant.

He wore a white straw-style cowboy hat and paused to ask directions of locals.

A group of women pointed him in the right direction.

"Women are God's most beautiful creatures," he said as they walked away. "After the white-tailed deer and the swan."

So the context is: there is no context. Foster Friess really wanted to let NBC know that not only does he classify women as "creatures," he'd also really love to fuck a deer.

Guys like Foster Friess don't realize that they don't sound like a young Hugh Hefner or Timothy Dalton's cheesy interpretation of James Bond when they say stuff like that; they sound like dirty old men in long term care facilities trying to grab nurses' asses.

[NBC]

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Advertisers Still Can’t Figure Out How to Use Olympic Women as Spokespeople [Badvertising]

Researchers have finally figured out the reason why big, goofy Michael Phelps can score millions in endorsement deals while few companies even bother hiring female athletes to be their spokeswomen — sex appeal. Male athletes like Phelps that have a suitably disarming grins aren't heavily exploited for their sex appeal the way female athletes are. Advertising tactics right now (for anyone who doesn't ever see advertisements) revolve around youth and sex rather than athletic prowess, which means that, when advertisers use female athletes to sell things, they usually use them incorrectly.

According to two researchers from the University of Delaware, even on the rare occasions when companies make use of female athletes, the gambits often prove unsuccessful. Researcher John Antil explains that this advertising narrow-mindedness is closing all kinds of doors for athletes who only have a small window of time to capitalize on their marketing potential. "The way female athletes are being used as endorsers," he explains, "negatively impacts their effectiveness and reduces wider opportunities for other female athletes."

The researchers gathered their data through focus groups, asking participants to react to ads and discuss their insights. Ads that focused on an athlete's physical splendor were often viewed negatively because such ads emphasized the differences between the spokesperson and the viewer, rather than making that spokesperson relatable. For instance, study participants seemed to especially dislike a "Got Milk?" ad featuring Dara Torres in a bathing suit because, rather than highlight Torres' personal and athletic achievements as a 40-year-old world-class athlete and mother, the ad focused solely on her physique. Study co-author Matthew Robinson wrote,

Respondents suggested this was a poor image for an outstanding athlete who achieved so much while raising a family. Featuring Dara Torres as a middle-aged single mother, able to balance family with work commitments, might be more effective than highlighting her physical attractiveness at age 40.

The main problem is that advertisers made little effort to make female athletes relatable in the same way that companies have tripped over themselves to make male athletes like Peyton Manning America's Official Pitchman For Everything. Of course, advertising misuse isn't the only problem female athletes face — many of them simply aren't as well-known as their male counterparts. Since affability — or seeming affability — is the hallmark of advertising success, having a low-profile immediately puts female athletes at a disadvantage, especially once the glow of Olympic success fades at the end of the games. It's a shame, too, because I would definitely buy a swing set if Gabby Douglas told me to.

Why Female Athletes Usually Get Shafted In The Post-Olympics Hunt For Endorsers [Business Insider]

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Women Dislike Mitt Romney Because He's a Condescending Prick [Mitt Romney]

More disconcerting trouble for Mittens Romney this week, as a new poll shows that with less than 100 days to go before the election, Obama leads in three key swing states. To make matters worse, results of the poll clearly show that much of the President's lead is due to the fact that Romney is completely unpopular with the ladies. Some strategists say that Romney's woman problem is due to his seeming lack of empathy, or his stance on certain hot-button lady issues that rhyme with mirth control, fabortion, squeaquel pay, schmeducation, and baternity leave, and while that may be true, the real reason women are turned off by Romney is that he's incredibly, monumentally patronizing.

In Ohio and Pennsylvania, two relatively boring places that the media will be referring to as BATTLEGROUNDS for the next three months, female voters prefer President Obama by more than 20 points over his Republican rival. Among men, Romney leads, but since 53% of voters are women, Romney's going to have to stop coming across as utterly repugnant to them if he wants a snowball's chance in Moab of occupying the White House.

What's going on? Why do women hate Romney so much? Maybe because he reminds them of a guy they went out with one time, the guy who insisted on explaining how a souffle is made to a professional chef, the tax attorney who tries to go over the finer points of the Higgs boson with a female physics major, the football fan who assumes that all female football fans don't know that there are two different kinds of "safety." Maybe he reminds them of the bumbling Principal on a Disney Channel sitcom, the one that's always trying to ruin all the kids' fun, the hopelessly square one who doesn't get it but acts like he does. GQ's Marin Cogan surmises that Romney probably doesn't mean any harm with his head-scratchingly dumb insistence on things that are not true and offers a generous interpretation of Romney's gaffes as simply mansplainations gone awry,

Going even further back, there's something sort of mansplainy about "I like being able to fire people," and "Corporations are people, my friend!" isn't there? Attacking him on those comments worked because they sounded too facile; they made him seem too entitled. In a weird way, if you see Mitt Romney's gaffes as merely mansplaining, they're somehow more tolerable, because it implies that they come from a lack of self-awareness rather than malice.

But condescending people — men or women — oblivious to their own ignorance are more dangerous to an organization or government than people who know that what they're doing is wrong or evil. People who are aware that they don't know everything have the potential to grow and learn. Even ol' steampunk oil-pumping hearted Dick Cheney went from being a gay marriage skeptic to an advocate after he saw his daughter in a happy same sex partnership. If Mitt Romney's constant, confusing lying is a symptom of a chronic mansplainer run amok, his refusal to acknowledge that he was wrong about anything ever is a symptom that he believes he's fooled everyone — even himself.

Despite this, men still favor Romney, albeit by a small margin. Perhaps they're just not as used to being talked down to, or talked over, as women are, and don't recognize the signs — dismissiveness, unwillingness to answer questions, interpretation of any pushback as offensive. Maybe men aren't as fed up. Maybe they've fooled themselves into believing him.

[CBS]

The unfeeling developer thwarted by a team of ragtag kids

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These Three Court Rulings on Women's Health Will Give You a Rage Headache [War On Women]

Happy Day After No Copay Day! Everyone hug your now-likely-much-cheaper birth control and jump around screaming like you just randomly ran into it at a bar! Dance together in a circle! Get all of your celebrating out now, because I've got some pretty sobering, not-awesome news: in the past week, three separate, terribly depressing court rulings have ignored science and put both abortion rights and birth control access at risk. Again.

The New York Times nicely sums up the trio of giant bummers happening at about the same time that health care becomes more affordable to millions of women. And while all of them can be appealed, none of them should be ignored.

First, let's take an imaginary trip to Arizona (because no one should ever take a real trip there). On Monday, a district judge there ruled that the state's ban on all abortions after 20 weeks with no exceptions for rape, incest, the health of the mother, or fetal abnormality can go into effect, even though it directly defies the Supreme Court ruling that states can't ban abortion before viability (before the fetus can survive on its own outside of a woman's body), which doesn't occur until about 24 weeks' gestation. The law's especially cruel considering the fact that many fetal abnormalities and health risks to the mother can't be determined until beyond that point in a pregnancy, and, as others have mentioned, the new law will condemn some couples to give birth to nonviable fetuses and basically watch them die. It also requires women whose pregnancies are risks to their own health to either leave the state or deal with a debilitating pregnancy Arizona mandates they carry to term. Judge James Teilborg, a Bill Clinton appointee (!!!) characterized the ban not as a "ban," but as a "regulation," which is constitutional. Teilborg also acquiesced to flimsy, unaccepted scientific evidence that fetuses, at 20 weeks, can feel pain (most doctors who didn't get their medical degree from It Says Right There In The Bible! University agree that they can't). But what about women, you may ask, can they feel pain? The answer is no. No, women cannot feel pain. Shhh. Thankfully, yesterday a 9th Circuit judge showed some damn sense and issued an emergency injunction blocking the law.

The next stop on our Tour de Ugh lands us in South Dakota (which, unlike Arizona, is a terribly underrated state that everyone should visit, if only for the Mitchell Corn Palace), which currently has a law on the books requiring doctors to lie to women by telling them that having abortions puts them at higher risk of suicide than women who just go on ahead with 9 months of a pregnancy they do not want. Last Tuesday, the Eighth Circuit Court in St. Louis ruled that this is just fine; doctors don't have free speech rights that can be trampled upon, because it's totally within the purview of elected state legislators to use their positions to practice medicine on women they don't know and have never met. You read that right — it's just fine for states to require doctors to lie to patients. This could be read as bad news, or it could be read as excellent news, because I guess that means that now I can push for that law that requires doctors to tell dudes that if they hog, like, three seats on the subway by sitting with their lets too ridiculously wide open, it will cause their dicks to shrink. What's real is what is most comforting to my existing world view!

And, finally, let's not forget about a secular Colorado heating and air conditioning business (because — duh — there's no such thing as a churchy heating and air conditioning business, unless we're talking about that giant heating business located far below ground, the one that Satan uses to bake naughty people) that was granted the right to deny its female employees birth control coverage on the grounds that the owner of the business finds it icky. Religious freedom means freedom of oppression. It means the freedom to make other people's choices for them. In the Colorado case, thankfully, the judge specified that his injunction allows Hercules Industries to refuse to follow Obamacare's guidelines, but it doesn't stop the administration from enforcing them on anyone else. Like anyone adamantly against whore pills will listen to that.

So enjoy the free birth control while it lasts, and don't take it for granted. There are entire teams of jerks working feverishly to take it away from you, and they won't stop until everyone's either pregnant or chaste.

[NYT]

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More U.S. Women Are Choosing IUDs and Implants Over Condoms and Pills [Iud]

More U.S. women are getting IUDs and contraceptive implants, according to a national survey — and many more will likely jump on board this year thanks to the Affordable Care Act, which will cover both hormonal and copper IUDs as well as the implant. That's awesome, since the devices are vastly more effective than the Pill or condoms because they don't rely on perfect use. ("They are basically ‘set and forget' methods," according to one doctor.)

But the number of U.S. women with IUDs and implants still pale in comparison to those in other countries. The new study found that 8.5 percent of U.S. women chose an IUD or implant over other forms of birth control in 2009, as compared to under four percent in 2007. But in France and Norway, around one-quarter of women use IUDS or implants. In China, 41 percent do. Given that the devices have way lower unintended pregnancy rates than the Pill or condoms — only .2 to .8 percent of women with IUDS and around .05 percent of those with contraceptive implants get unintentionally pregnant, while those who stick with condoms have a frightening 18-21 percent chance — what's the deal?

The main reason why more U.S. women don't use IUDs and implants is probably due to a grievous, longstanding misconception that the devices can cause pelvic infection and infertility; the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that 30 percent of health providers are unconvinced that IUDs are safe for women who've never given birth, even though it's now known that's untrue. (My gynecologist, who is otherwise awesome, advised me against getting an IUD for those reasons.) The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists now heartily endorses IUDs and implants, going as far to say that the devices should be a "first-line" option for most women — but when's the last time you had a close, personal discussion with anyone from ACOG? Exactly.

Then there's the whole money issue; the devices are cost-effective in the long run, but cost hundreds of dollars up front. Now, that won't be a problem for most insured women. (Thanks, Obama!)

But most IUD-wary women I know are concerned less about infertility and expenses and more about painful side effects, like heavy irregular bleeding and cramps. "I'm really happy I got it, but when it was shitty I had to constantly remind myself that it was a 5 year investment," said one friend who got the Mirena IUD in February. "The insertion was probably the most pain I've ever felt in my life, and the week after I felt really down, which is apparently common from the hormones. Then for the next five months, I had constant spotting, which sucked — it was like always being on my period."

Jenna Sauers, who wrote about getting an all-copper non-hormonal IUD in 2010, says she loves her IUD because she doesn't "have to do anything to not get pregnant. It just sits there, silent but deadly to all sperm." She says the only drawback is that her periods are slightly heavier than before and that, "occasionally, I'll have a menstrual cramp where for a second I swear I can "feel" the IUD, like a fist closing around a sharp stone" — but says her cramps aren't that much worse overall.

Are any of you planning on getting IUDs or implants now that you don't have to shell out hundreds of dollars for them? Discuss!

More US women choosing IUDs for birth control [AP]

Image via AISPIX by Image SourceShutterstock.

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Men Too Busy Saving Their Own Asses to Let Women and Children Go First [Chivalry Is Dead]

When a gunman opened fire on an Aurora, Colorado movie theater earlier this month, three men died protecting their girlfriends, while another ran from the theater, got in his truck, and drove away, saying later that he "went to get help." The media (us included) heaped praise on the the dead men, extolling them as examples of how a guy should behave in the face of tragedy. But according to a new study, men who face disaster by taking care of the needs of others aren't the norm — in fact, throughout the last 160 years or so, it seems that many, many more men are in the "get in the truck and get the hell out of dodge" category than those who would take the bullet. Women and children first? More like looking out for number one.

A new study of shipwrecks dating back to 1850 has shown that not only has the "women and children first" mantra fallen out of favor, it probably was never in favor in the first place, or if it was in favor, it was in favor for, like, a second. A pair of Swedish economists examined the survival records of 18 disasters and found that women and children are actually less likely to survive disasters than men, and the people most likely to survive are the people who are, according to chivalrous rules, supposed to go down with the ship: the crew. While 61% of the crew and 37% of men typically survived shipwrecks, only 27% of women did, and only 17% of children made it.

According to the LA Times, the initial reasoning behind letting women and children access lifeboats before men was that men ostensibly had a "survival advantage;" they tend to be more physically hardy and stronger, and crew members should have a familiarity with the vessel and the water that would allow them a greater chance of survival without lifeboats. Therefore theoretically, men giving women and children access to help first would increase the overall survival rate in maritime disasters. In Role/Reboot today, Hugo Schwyzer points out that on a more philosophical level, handing one's survival advantage over to women is only fair, given that, until very recently, every time a woman has had sex with a man, she's put herself at risk of pregnancy, and, by extension at risk of dying during childbirth.

Not every seafaring disaster resulted in men scrambling to save their own asses at the expense of the younger and physically weaker. "Women and children first" was coined during an 1852 disaster involving the British ship the Birkenhead. When the boat hit a rock in shark-heavy waters, the men dutifully loaded women and children onto the lifeboats and stood on the deck as the vessel sank. During the Titanic disaster in 1912, crew members made sure that women were allowed the ship's limited lifeboats. Additionally, Leonardo DiCaprio floated there shivering to death in the water like a chivalrous idiot while Kate Winslet hogged an entire piece of floating jetsam that they totally could have shared.

But all human beings are wild-eyed, limb-chewing forest creatures when faced with the possibility of imminent death, and even though it's unpleasant to think about, it makes sense that when animal instincts take over, a guy may feel compelled to shove a kid down some stairs so he can get one of the last remaining life vests. The Swedish researchers behind the analysis call this "every man for himself." I call it a proto-Ayn Randian paradise. Ron Paul for President!

[LAT]

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New Egyptian TV Channel Run Exclusively by Veiled Women Actually a 'Gimmick' [Egypt]

Jul 31, 2012 3:00 PM  

In Cairo, there's a new TV channel called Maria, that is run exclusively by niqab-clad women. A first, according to CNN. The female volunteers of Maria share two studios with the staff of Al-Omma, Maria's mother channel — which is independent but very religious and "anti-Christianization."

Heba Seraq-Eddin, a recent college graduate who wears the niqab, says she couldn't find a job because of the veil. She was hired right away at Maria:

"I felt that we finally have a place in society after being marginalized. As women wearing niqab, we had no rights, and no one to talk about us. Through Maria, we'll find people like us talking about us, with no discrimination," Seraq-Eddin says.

It sounds so heart-warming, right? She's finally free to be herself! But only because it's a conservative, anti-democratic channel. Women have the "right" to wear the niqab because it's pro-Islam. The owner of Al-Omma believes that a society where women can "dress immodestly, work as dancers and even be members of Parliament" is "pandemonium." He's actually not into freedom at all.

As CNN's Sarah El Sirgany reports:

The network taps into the rhetoric of women's empowerment, says Adel Iskandar, media scholar at Georgetown University, but there is a "very strong case to be made that it's a gimmick."

[CNN]

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What Happens When You Remove All of the Women From a Small Town? [TV]

Jul 27, 2012 2:30 PM  

The Week The Women Went, a "social experiment" — in which all of the women are removed from a small town, and a camera crew films the results — has been done for CBC Television in Canada and for the BBC Three. Now, Americans can find out what happens when ladies leave, men stop being polite… and start getting real. Or something. According to the network, The Week The Women Went, which will air on Lifetime in August, will

explore modern gender roles and find out what happens when all of the women leave town, leaving the men behind to run their households, businesses and community on their own.

Interesting, but hopefully it's not just about how women are the best at taking care of kids and keeping things clean.

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Sexual Dissatisfaction Found to Be Common in Diabetic Women [Health]

Poor Paula Deen might be mourning more than just the loss of butter. :(((

A group of over 2,000 ethnically-diverse women between the ages of 40 and 20 were studied by the University of California at San Francisco's Women's Health Clinical Research Center, comprised by insulin-treated diabetics, non-insulin-treated diabetics and non-diabetics.

Researchers discovered that an outstanding number of the diabetics, particularly the 139 receiving insulin treatment, cited lubrication issues and were 80% more likely (FUUU) to report difficulty achieving orgasm during sex, culminating with a low overall satisfaction rate that's twice as high in insulin-treated women and 40% higher in non-insulin-treated diabetic women than the rate of non-diabetic women. The sexual desire rate, meanwhile, remained equal for all of the women.

Lead researcher Kelli Copeland released the data along with a statement:

Based on this research, clinicians may want to consider assessing diabetic women for sexual problems, particularly among those taking insulin, and counsel them that prevention of end-organ complications may be important in preserving sexual function.

The study didn't distinguish between Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes, but researchers say that the kind of insulin being taken by many of the subjects suggests that a fair amount of Type 2 women were in the fold.

'Diabetes May Cause Sexual Dissatisfaction in Women' [Medical Daily]

Photo via Arkady/Shutterstock

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'Black Women Who Look Like Me Aren't Lesbians' Politician Apologizes for Making Idiotic Generalization [Apologies]

Florida's now-infamous lieutenant governor, Jennifer Carroll, has apologized after suggesting last week that women who look the way she does, i.e. a conventionally attractive black woman who wears blazers and earrings, don't engage in lesbian relationships. More than a week after the ensuing internet cyclone of outrage, during which some commenters fairly criticized Carroll for equating sexuality with appearance while others unfairly criticized her for being less attractive than some of their own lesbian acquaintances, Carroll has deemed it necessary to rehabilitate her political persona. So, like a good repentant public figure, she wrote an apology to the Nadine Smith, the head of Equity Florida, a civil rights group that advocates for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Floridians. In her letter, Carroll she explained how wrong it was to hurt other people with words.

It is wrong and inexcusable to make a comment that hurts people, and that was not my intention. As a Christian, my faith guides me to love and respect all people. The false charges that have been lodged against me are no excuse for what I have said that may have been hurtful to members of your organization and to other Floridians. Please know that I am committed to treating every person with the utmost courtesy, respect and dignity and I hope you will accept my heartfelt apology.

Smith graciously accepted Carroll's apology and now, hopefully, the world can keep turning for a little while until it's time for Florida to again fill its monthly quota of strange/upsetting/fantastical news.

Lt. Gov. Jennifer Carroll apologizes for anti-gay remark [Miami-Herald]

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