Katha Pollitt's Blog, page 6

New Nation Column: "Dr. Kermit Gosnell's Horror Show"

"Blood-spattered floors. Cat feces. Broken equipment. A 15-year-old giving anesthesia. Two women dead, countless more maimed and injured. Third-trimester fetuses delivered alive whose spines were then severed by the doctor. This was the Women's Medical Society in West Philadelphia. This is what illegal abortion looks like...Only women who felt they had no better alternative would have accepted such dangerous, degrading and frightening treatment."

Read Pollitt's Nation column on Kermit Gosnell's atrocious Pennsylvania facilities and the misguided crackdown on abortion rights it has inspired.

Pollitt Talks about Obama's State of the Union Address at The Guardian UK

Pollitt reflects on last week's state of the union address at The Guardian. "Uplifting, a bit dull – but haunted by what was left out..." Read it online at The Guardian.

Katha Pollitt with Gloria Feldt, Rebecca Traister, and Nita Lowey at 92Y

Pollitt recently sat on the panel, "Women, Power, and Politics," at the 92nd Street Y in NYC. She talked about how women recognize sexism -- especially in regards to how a woman's attractiveness is always rated, even when it is completely irrelevant -- but wondered whether we reinforce standards of beauty and sexualization by constantly discussing and drawing attention to the unfairness. Check out a clip here:

Naomi Wolf: Wrong Again on Rape

Naomi Wolf wants rape complainants' names to be revealed when they press charges. In her Nation blog, Pollitt argues that lifting anonymity in rape trials is a terrible idea.

Read the blog online at The Nation's website.

New Nation Column: "Jared Loughner's Glock: Weapon of Mass Destruction"

In the aftermath of last week's Arizona shooting which left six dead and thirteen injured, there has been endless speculating about Jared Loughner's mental state and his motivation for the massacre. The Tea Party, the districts marked in crosshairs, the openly hostile and hate-filled political environment have all been indicted as enormous contributing factors. Something that cannot be dismissed, however, is the fact that the shooter, a troubled, possibly mentally ill young man, had access to a Glock 19, a gun that allowed him to shoot 33 people without reloading.

An excerpt from Pollitt's latest Nation column:

"...whatever Loughner's demons turn out to be, what let him kill six people and wound fourteen was that he had access to a gun—and a magazine that let him shoot thirty-three bullets without reloading. (Indeed, the Glock 19 was the same model gun Seung-Hui Cho used to kill thirty-two people at Virginia Tech.) It's a little pathetic—has it really come to this, that it will be a huge uphill battle to ban something that has no purpose except to kill up to thirty-three people before anyone can stop you?"

Read the entire column online here.

Pollitt Interviewed About Feminism's Future

Katha Pollitt talks intergenerational feminist debates and why she's holding out for the younger generation. Read her interview with Joanna Chiu -- "Young Feminists 'Rankling The Old Guard' and the Future of Feminism" -- on The Nation online.

New Nation Column: "The Case of Julian Assange"

Read Pollitt's latest Nation column here.

Pollitt on Shirley Sherrod in The Guardian

Read Pollitt's article on her hero of the year, Shirley Sherrod, in The Guardian online.

New Nation Column: "Spread the Joy"

Want to give a real gift this December? Check out Pollitt's annual list of 10 great organizations in need of donations. From The Nation online.

Pollitt Talks Condoms, Tea Party On Grit TV

Check out Katha Pollitt's interview with Laura Flanders on Grit TV. She talks about the Pope's changed stance on condoms, as well as the new flock of anti-choice Republicans about to join Congress. Watch the video on Grit TV's website; Katha is interviewed at the 14:23 mark.