Tuesdays Are the New Friday: Back Up Your Birth Control Day, Project Girl and a Day Without Feminism

A late Double Dose …

National Back Up Your Birth Control Day: Today! Feministing has the details. “I just started working at the Institute for Reproductive Health Access and NARAL Pro-Choice New York and have been doing the online outreach of the campaign (it’s a project of the Institute) to remind peeps about the significance of EC and that just because we — as in adults, not minors (except in certain states) — now have OTC (over-the-counter) status doesn’t mean our work around EC is finished. Not by a long shot,” writes Vanessa.

Over at RH Reality Check, Andrea Lynch posted 10 ways to celebrate. Number 1 on her list: “Contact your Senator and ask her/him to support the Prevention First Act, which would ensure that survivors of sexual assault receive factually accurate information about EC (they often don’t).”

Funding Restored: The FDA finally decided to fully fund the agency’s Office of Women’s Health. The Washington Post last month reported that agency insiders said more than one-quarter of the $4 million operating budget had been removed.

From the Post: “‘It is disappointing that on the important issue of women’s health, FDA had to be persuaded to simply maintain the funding level that was requested by the administration and provided by Congress,’ said Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), chairman of the House appropriations committee that funds the FDA. At the same time, she said, ‘It is very gratifying that the FDA reversed course.'”

A Day Without Feminism: University of Wisconsin Oshkosh imagined what it would be like. Check out what the school website might have included in the early 1900s.

Another Blast from the Past: “The Making of a Militant,” from The Nation: “This article originally appeared in the December 1, 1926, issue, inaugurating a feature called ‘These Modern Women,’ ‘a series of anonymous articles giving the personal backgrounds of women active in professional and public life.’ The editors explained, ‘Our object is to discover the origin of their modern point of view toward men, marriage, children, and jobs. Do spirited ancestors explain their rebellion? Or is it due to thwarted ambition or distaste for domestic drudgery? The next article is by a woman who, though willing to fit into the conventional picture, found herself unable to do so.'”

Despite ‘Mommy Guilt,’ Time With Kids Increasing: Back to the present, The Washington Post reports on a new University of Maryland study: “In 1965, mothers spent 10.2 hours a week tending primarily to their children — feeding them, reading with them or playing games, for example — according to the study’s analysis of detailed time diaries kept by thousands of Americans. That number dipped in the 1970s and 1980s, rose in the 1990s and now is higher than ever, at nearly 14.1 hours a week.” Also see the related story on fathers.

The Girls Are All Right: Mike Males, a senior researcher for the Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice, sees a lot of good in health and crime statistics and education and employment reports concerning teenage girls, despite the fact the media “reverberates with fears that teenage girls are more violent, disordered, miserable, mean, promiscuous; in short, worse every day in every way.” Plus: Also see Gina Piccalo’s review of “Unhooked,” by Laura Sessions Stepp.

Project Girl: Males also writes, “[Every] new study (check the latest by UCSC’s and other researchers) claims popular-culture images — underdressed starlets, violent heroines, skimpy fashion models, misogynist ads, music and games — are vastly more women-objectifying, preteen-pornographying, drug-glorifying, fashion-mongering and anorexia-inducing than any previous generation faced.”

Enter Project Girl, a Madison, Wisc.-based arts initiative that helps girls become active media critics and informed consumers. The Capital Times recently ran a good story about Project Girl and the organization’s first multimedia art show, which is on exhibit at the Sonderegger Science Center at Edgewood College through April 22.

Plus: The art show opening celebration included a talk by Lyn Mikel Brown, author of “Packaging Girlhood: Rescuing Our Daughters from Marketers’ Schemes.” I was excited to see that Brown is presenting at the WAM! conference in Cambridge on March 31. OBOS’ panel, “Our 21st Century Bodies, Our Multimedia Selves” is scheduled for Saturday, at 11 a.m.