Miss, Mrs., or Ms.— 'It's OK Not to Care'

So much for girl power, writes Ruth Marcus

(NEWSER) - Just when Ruth Marcus was feeling good about the women in the 2010 race, Carly Fiorina had to make that catty comment about Barbara Boxer’s hair. Fiorina tried to laugh it off—“It sort of goes with the territory,” she told Greta Van Susteren. “No no no no no!” writes Marcus in the Washington Post . Attacking your opponent’s appearance never “goes with the territory,” no matter your gender. More»

Believe it or not, baby boys used to wear pink, too

(NEWSER) - If ever there was a color that stereotypically symbolized the feminine, it’s pink. But the history of the girly shade hasn’t always been so ladylike. Slate takes a look back:

• Financial Times: Its salmon-pink pages have turned “salmon press” into British shorthand for any newspaper business section.
• Boys' rowing: Teams at Eton and Westminster competed for the right to claim pink as their school color in the 19th century.
• Nantucket Red: The shade, which looks a lot like pink, became popular for preppy men and women in 1945.

Next reincarnation of the Buddha ought to be a woman

(NEWSER) - The Dalai Lama’s work for peace has been so widely praised that it’s almost obscured his wonderful work as a feminist. He has worked tirelessly for women, seeking to raise their position in Tibetan society, writes Amy Yee for Double X. He even suggested, scandalously, that his next reincarnation ought to be female. “Woman is more compassionate,” he reasoned, “and has more power to understand and feel the needs of others.” More»

(NEWSER) - Sara Mosle “came of age betwixt and between,” she writes on DoubleX—after feminism had freed women from the need to learn “traditional female skills” but before “they had begun to make real inroads into traditional male pastimes and professions.” So that left her with an English major and a love for Auden—who, she notes, once wrote, “Poetry makes nothing happen”—but nothing to do with her hands. More»

Women uprooted by fighting gain new access to health care, education

(NEWSER) - Women's leaders in Pakistan have found an unexpected silver lining in the country's refugee crisis, the Globe & Mail reports. A million women have been forced from their homes by the fighting, upending the Pashtun code of honor that forces women to spend almost all their time secluded in family compounds. Many women are deeply disturbed by the displacement, aid workers say, but they are also deeply curious about the outside world. More»