http://www.nypost.com/seven/04122007/news/regionalnews/attack_of_the_killer_lesbians_regionalnews_laura_italiano.htm

Oh you THOUGHT she was 16? Oh, ok.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/wales/south_west/6527625.stm

As soon as I read the first paragraph of this story, I assumed the judge was a man.

Liam Edgecombe, from Haverfordwest, Pembrokeshire, was given a conditional discharge by the judge, saying he could see why he thought the girl was 16. (emphasis added)

And I was right.

Mr Justice Roderick Evans, at Swansea Crown Court, said the girl "was looking for a man and got what she wanted".

So let's see; 10 year old girl "wants it", has sex with a man twice her age, and because she was the one who initiated it, he get no jail time. What's wrong with this picture? How about that she's far too young to consent, and the entire newstory is written to make her sound like a complete slut, and rapist Edgecombe like the victim? As far as I'm concerned, this article is a huge step back in how the media treats young female rape victims.

New York Magazine has a piece this week dealing with a similar subject; the treatment of American prostitutes versus foreign girls (of the same age) working as sex slaves. Which brings me to this question: If the ten-year-old English girl had been a different ethnicity, would this story have been handled any differently?

Not-so-comforting response

http://english.chosun.com/w21data/html/news/200703/200703270032.html

If there's one thing I really hate, it's apologies that actually add insult to injury. Like when my boyfriend says "I'm sorry I didn't do a good job on Valentine's Day because you were really vague about what you wanted and it's a stupid holiday." Gee, thanks.
But after reading the "apology" from Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe about the sexual enslavement of "comfort women" during WWII, I feel like this obnoxious tactic has reached new heights-- or perhaps lows is the better word.

“I express my sympathy for the hardships they suffered and offer my apology for the situation they found themselves in.”

The one they found themselves in? Really? On that note, I also offer my apologies to the situation my relatives "found themselves in" during the Holocaust. I think it's pretty upsetting that the Japanese government cannot even fully acknowledge prior wrongdoing, and would rather blame individual women and their families:

“There were military nurses and embedded journalists but no ‘embedded’ comfort women. It is true that there were comfort women. I believe some parents may have sold their daughters. But it does not mean the Japanese Army was involved.”

Fantastic; not only is the government not responsible, but this comment seems to imply that sexual enslavement was imagined, and truly it was these nurses and journalists who just couldn't keep their hands to themselves. Let's just slap a big "she was asking for it" sticker on this one. Because I can only assume the slutty outfits those randy nurses and journalists were wearing.

IntELLEgentsia

Last Wednesday I went to a panel discussion held by Elle Magazine called "IntELLEgentsia", which was moderated by msnbc's Campbell Brown, and had Ann Lewis, Hillary Clinton's senior adviser among a female vice-president from Google and the author of Full Frontal Feminism. One of the things that Lewis brought up was how ridiculous it is how much attention Hillary (and other female candidates) gets regarding what she's wearing, or her family. "You never hear, 'Congressman John, a grandfather of three'" she quipped, before noting that "We only have so much airtime, and I'd rather talk about healthcare than the strategic decision behind the pink suit over the gray suit."
This got me thinking, and sent me on a Google-hunt for fashion critiques of Hillary:

"She has a bad figure. She's bottom heavy and her legs are short," reported CNN's style editor, Elsa Klensch.

But, "she's making the most of it," by "seeking high-end fashion advice which has really been helping," we learned from Claudia Cohen, the entertainment reporter for Live with Regis and Kathy Lee.

Well good thing she's doing something about it! My, can we imagine how awful it would be to have a president that was BOTTOM HEAVY?! In addition, just a couple months ago, Donatella Versace reported to German magazine that she thought Mrs. Clinton should try wearing some skirts to show off her feminine side. Ignore the fact that Donatella apparently did not get the memo about Hillary's legs, I'm quite hard pressed to find any quote from the head of any other fashion house giving "what-to-wear" advice to a male candidate. When will Ralph Lauren give an interview in which he advises Al Gore to tie a special knot in his tie to make his neck look slimmer?
At this point, I start to think about Hillary's competitor, Barack Obama, featured on the cover of September's Men's Vogue, and the wonderfully-written profile by Jacob Weisberg inside. In the entire piece, we get two bits about fashion:

"The senator's tie is loosened, and he keeps his pin-striped jacket on while inside his formal office."
"For the most part, Obama appears to wear the burden of others' dreams lightly. They hang loosely on his shoulders, like the dark suits that compliment his slender frame."

This enrages me more than slightly, when I flip through the feature on this month's Vogue covergirl Scarlet Johansson, with enough references to her style that it would be ridiculous to type. This leads me to two questions:
-Why is it that when trying to be taken seriously, women get pigeonholed into fashion plates (or anti-fashion plates, in Hillary's case)?
-And why, when being featured as a fashion plate, does a man get to be taken seriously?