A woman who had a family history of breast cancer described it as "a dark cloud hanging over my head." Yet she still struggled with the idea of having a prophylactic double mastectomy -- the removal of two healthy breasts. Today's news from the Journal of the American Medical Association should reassure her and others in her situation.

A new study finds that the pre-emptive removal of breasts and ovaries in women with two common breast cancer genes drastically reduces their risk of developing cancer and eventually dying from the disease. Read more...

Remember the old Saturday Night Live "Weekend Update" skit (circa 1977-78) with Dan Aykroyd baiting his co-anchor Jane Curtin with the catchphrase "Jane, you ignorant slut"?

Update it for our times, add a large serving of media misogyny, and you've got NameItChangeIt.org's YouTube video -- a satiric spoof of male-dominated network news shows. Granted, it's a bit over-the-top, but it emphasizes how news outlets frequently portray women in a toxic manner and give short shrift to female opinions.

Timed to highlight what will be a hot-button issue in the upcoming 2010 midterm elections, "Name It. Change It" (NICI) is a media accountability campaign that addresses sexism in the media against female political candidates. Read more...

Hollywood is not a place where they mess with the tried-and-true. Hence the number of film remakes in recent months. In a soft economy, backers don't want to plunk down dollars for a film that has questionable box office draw.

So it's a curious thing that women are growing stronger onscreen -- a trend that two media outlets have covered in the past two weeks, albeit from different angles.

In "Beauty meets brute force," Denver Post film critic Lisa Kennedy wonders if the rise of the tough screen heroine in movies and on TV is a good thing. Are they empowering or do they send a dangerous message? Read more...

For a nationally-recognized day of commemoration, Women's Equality Day (August 26th) gets very little fanfare or notice from the general public.

Marking the  proclamation of the 19th Amendment as the law of the land, today is the day in US history when the greatest number of US citizens (women) were granted the most essential tool of self-determinination (the right to vote) in any democratic society.

Women's Equality Day has been on the books since 1971 (thanks to Rep. Bella Abzug), but for years it's been overshadowed by National Toilet Paper Day -- no joke. In 2007, author and activist Gloria Feldt blogged about how greeting card companies virtually ignore Equality Day; she wrote, "I was, pardon me, wiped out at the thought that [the] AOL/American Greeting Cards [website] offers a card for every single day in the year but absolutely nothing to recognize Women's Equality Day." After a viral protest of emails to AOL, Equality Day cards soon appeared. Read more...