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Week of
March 22, 2012 | | WAR ON WOMEN In the wake of Rush Limbaugh’s controversial attack on Sandra Fluke, in which the right-wing radio host called the law student a “slut” for championing contraception coverage, the country’s first conservative women’s super PAC is on a mission to expose what it characterizes as “Democratic hypocrisy” in the war on women. She-PAC’s founders say liberals, including TV personality Bill Maher, are guilty of worse than what Limbaugh said about Fluke. Maher has repeatedly attacked Sarah Palin and other conservative women as “boobs” and “twats,” they point out, while liberals laughed along with him. Cofounder Suzanne Haik Terrell said, “The Democrats want you to think they are the party of women. When they come out and boycott Rush, it’s phony when you don’t do it when conservative women are attacked, too.” To learn more about combating negative stereotyping of women in media, visit the Geena Davis Institute on Gender and Media. AFGHAN MASSACRE Karilyn Bales was as shocked as anyone when news broke that her husband, Staff Sgt. Robert Bales, had allegedly gone on a shooting rampage that killed 17 Afghan civilians. Living on a Washington military base with the couple’s two young children, she now awaits explanation for her husband’s horrific alleged actions, mourning the past weeks’ events. But her story has touched the hearts of many “milspouses”—the “silent ranks” of military wives—who have been offering support in droves on blogs and social networks. One military wife said, “I don’t pretend to know what happened, but being a military member married to a staff sergeant, I’ve been there. Same rank, same duty station. It’s frightening. It hit home that it could be anybody.” EXITS The CEO of Komen’s powerful New York City affiliate, Dara Richardson-Heron, stepped down earlier this week, in a possible indication of further fallout from the cancer-fighting foundation’s recent decision to defund—and then refund—Planned Parenthood. Richardson-Heron’s resignation came amid news that the affiliate is postponing two spring fundraising events—an awards gala and a teen-focused event called Tickled Pink—due to concerns about efforts to raise funds in the near term, according to the group’s director of communications. Meanwhile, some are calling for further restructuring at the top. “When the CEO of one of the biggest and most successful affiliates resigns, I hope Nancy Brinker [Komen’s founder] takes note,” a former board member told The Daily Beast.quot; WOMAN OF IMPACT Israeli opposition leader Tzipi Livni sat down with Newsweek and The Daily Beast’s John Avlon to talk about everything from Iran’s nuclear threat to dealing with Syria to President Obama’s relationship with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Livni played down the recent tensions between Netanyahu and Obama, saying, “I don’t question any American president in terms of his commitment to the security of the state of Israel.“ But she did offer some criticism of the Obama administration’s approach to Israel. “Unfortunately, what we see today is a kind of American foreign diplomacy that leads to a situation in which instead of everybody talking about preventing Iran from having a nuclear weapon, now the discussion is about preventing Israel from doing something against Iran,” she explained. JUSTICE In March 2011 Samira Ibrahim was among 17 female activists arrested during Arab Spring protests in Tahrir Square. After being transferred to a military facility, seven women, including Ibrahim, were reportedly forced to strip off their clothes so that military physician Ahmed Adel could inspect their hymens. Last week, Abel was declared innocent in a Cairo military courtroom. “Egypt’s judiciary has let itself down, rather than me,” Ibrahim told The Daily Beast a week after a military tribunal cleared the doctor of all charges. The 25-year-old activist remains determined to battle the case on behalf of all Egyptians, saying, “The judiciary has betrayed the nation.” | | 
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