The Snob Talks Syria's First Lady, Female Ambition on PBS' "To The Contrary"

This week on PBS' "To The Contrary" with Bonnie Erbe, The Snob returned to the roundtable to discuss a new video calling on Syria's First Lady, Asma al-Assad, to put pressure on her husband to stop the crackdown, murdering human rights protesters in Syria. I was joined on the panel by University of Texas fellow Victoria DeFrancesco Soto, conservative commentator Tara Setmayer, the Independent Women's Forum Senior Fellow Nicole Kurokawa Neily and NUMBERS USA's Rosemary Jenks. Also discussed: immigration and the government's E-verify system and how women are becoming more ambitious about their careers (while men are becoming less so), according to a new study.

Check out the video after the jump.

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Madame Noire: Breaking Down The Jerks

In my first ever post for Madame Noire, The Snob doesn't waste time blaming all "men" for all the problems in the world. Just a specific bunch of jerks who'd really like you to think it's all men. It's a nice way jerks can cover their tracks by saying their bad behavior is "normal" as opposed to pathological and dysfunctional. But lest you think these specific types of menfolks are only a burden to women, a ho ho ho ... these same douches are nothing but problems for their fellow brothers as well.

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Music Monday: M.I.A.'s "Bad Girls"

M.I.A. is my favorite radically hardcore, international hipster masquerading as a ruthless Southeast Asian revolutionary married formerly engaged to a billionaire heir trust fund baby rapper ever. EVER. And her filing her nails while riding on a car tilted on two wheels is by far the most bad assed looking thing I've seen done involving dangerous car stunts in some time. 

The song ain't too bad either.

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Clutch Magazine: Your Womb Might Be On A Different Timetable From Your Professional One

Hey! Yeah, you! The woman of child-bearing age! While some women have no problem pushing out babies well past their mid-30s, for many others they run into fertility issues. And psst. It's not just lady parts not working right. Dude parts are screwing up things too! So I wrote a post about it for Clutch. You know? So you could make sure to stay up on your gynocologist visits and you dudes could stop sitting your laptop directly on your lap if you plan to have kids someday.

Or so you can panic? Who feels like panicking!

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Michelle Obama Is So Over This Angry Black Woman Thing (Video)

Pushing back against what the White House has described as an over-dramatized portrayal in New York Times reporter Judi Kantor's new book "The Obamas," the First Lady told the CBS This Morning many have wrongly tried to paint her as an "Angry Black Woman."

In the book (which I'm patiently waiting to be delivered to my house from the publisher so I can see what all the hubbub is), Kantor highlights "incidents" where Michelle Obama appeared to be at loggerheads with her husband's staff. Mrs. Obama, who's dealt with lots of "she looks angry" and "she hates America" and "she has a fat ass" and "Marie Antoinette/Socialist Salad Eater" talk from right wingers, sat Kantor's book over in the "those things aren't me" corner, and poo-pooed on it to CBS's Gayle King.

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Gloria Allred Found Herself A Herman Cain Sexual Harassment Accuser

Past women's rights super lawyer Gloria Allred, who is now better known for her defense of any scandal-plagued woman attached to a TV camera, is holding a press conference today representing the fourth mystery woman to claim presidential candidate Herman Cain offered to play "hide the sausage" with her. Who will this woman be? What will she have to say? Will this make the scandal better or worse? Who knows! Or, maybe we'll know, come noon, when Allred and her mystery accuser take the microphone in New York City and make their sexual harassment claims known.

In other uncomfortable news: 48 percent of middle school through high school students are sexually harassed. That's 56 percent of girls and 40 percent of boys all in grades 7-12. Sexual harassment, folks, is not rare. But in junior high, just as in the workplace -- it's the doing anything about it that's rare. (H/T Gawker, Huffington Post)

Is Reality TV Turning Your Daughter Into A Mean Girl?

Kim KardashianIf your pre-teen daughter's heroes are MTV's Teen Moms, Gloria Govan, Snooki and Kim Kardashian you may be raising a little monster (or a little future leader -- it's kind of a toss-up). A new study by Girl Scouts of America's research institute has found a correlation between bad behavior and too much reality TV.

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Talkin' "Confidence Men" and Gov. Granholm on PBS' To The Contrary

The Snob returned to PBS' "To The Contrary" Friday where we discussed Ron Suskind's book "Confidence Men" and about his reporting that the White House may have fit the profile for a "hostile workplace" for women. We also chatted about former Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm political career. Sitting in for Bonnie Erbe (who will return to the show in two weeks) was guest host Irene Natividad of the Global Summit of Women; Siobhan "Sam" Bennett of the Women's Campaign Forum, Nicole Kurokawa Neily of the Independent Women's Forum and former EEOC Chair Cari Dominguez.

Check out video of the full show after the jump.

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The Snob Talks Gender Equality On 'To The Contrary' (Video)

The Snob is on PBS' To The Contrary with Bonnie Erbe this weekend! This week the topics were women's equality, women in politics (both here and in Europe) and a recent study showing what affect marriage and divorce has on a waistline. Yours truly was joined by Irene Natividad, who guest hosted, Sabrina Schaeffer of the Independent Women's Forum; progressive commentator Patricia Sosa and conservative commentator Dana White.

Video after the jump.

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