What’s it like to be a woman?

Dustin Hoffman becoming Dorothy Michaels in Tootsie (1985) [Kookstation.com]

Dustin Hoffman is profoundly moved as he remembers and tells what he learned when he played the lead role in “Tootsie.” The video, recently surfaced and now gone viral, reveals how little men understood what it meant to be a woman 30 years ago. Playing a woman was of course challenging to Hoffman as an actor, but the experience also challenged his assumptions and attitudes that he had never questioned.

Playing Dorothy Michaels, Hoffman had an epiphany when he realized that his character wasn’t beautiful, and there was nothing he and his makeup artists could do about it. He would never have given Dorothy, his character, a second look, because he would have judged her exclusively by her looks. Hoffman is moved to tears when he thinks of how many fascinating women he never met or learned from or laughed with, because he was “brainwashed.” Watch the video after the break: 

Election Day: The U.S. wins

Update: With Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota there will be 20 women in the Senate.

We will move forward. Obamacare will be improved, not repealed. Women will continue to have an ally in the White House who supports equal pay and the right of women to control their bodies. The economy will stay on course and continue to improve. Gay rights will be affirmed.  The automotive industry will thrive. The longest war in our history will finally draw to a close.

Obama’s victory is the referendum that Romney wanted– except that Obama won. And so we all won.

Women won. There will be 19 in the Senate, the largest number ever. In one state, New Hampshire, the governor, both senators and both representatives are all women. Democrats, fearful of losing control of the Senate, actually gained one more seat. 

Clinton, Rice, Power: Three Women Swing U.S. Policy on Libya

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton

The key players who brought about the sharp shift in policy were women. For a veteran of the feminist battles of the 1960s and ’70s, that disclosure was stunning. My take is here; the New York Times story is here.

Susan Rice, US Ambassador to the UN

Samantha Power, Senior Adviser, National Security Council

The Church and the Scandal: Some Thoughts

Let me be clear. Had I not been asked by WVFC to reflect on the pedophilia conflagration consuming the Catholic Church, I never would have written about it. Not because I don’t care, but because I do. It makes me so angry that I get, if not tongue-tied, then pen-tied. Let’s just say that as a parent, a woman, and in every other aspect of my humanity, I am outraged.

Why have so many priests betrayed the most vulnerable members of their flock? As one of my colleagues put it, why couldn’t priests fornicate with each other instead of betraying their charges? Apart from preserving the children’s innocence, safety and well-being, the cover-up would have been so much easier and less pernicious. The only offense would have been doctrinal, because two consenting adults harm no other person.

The Church has resisted mightily the social and cultural movements of the 20th century that have by now become mainstream. By remaining adamantly opposed to contraception, divorce, abortion for any reason whatsoever, female clergy and stem-cell research, it is increasingly out of touch with the thinking—and practice—of a growing number of its members. (Note that all but one of these prohibitions directly impinge on women.)