According to the New York Times, the District of Columbia has the lowest pay gap between male and female workers in the country, compared to the 50 states. From NYT: "in the District of Columbia, the median weekly wage of full-time women workers is 96.5 percent of that for their male counterparts, far and away the most parity in the country." The U.S. average is 80.2 percent; Louisiana women are trailing the rest of the country, making only 65 percent of men's wages. Some other local stats: Virginia women make 80.4 percent of what Virginia men do; Maryland women make 87.3 percent. Of course, in this contest, we're a tiny urban area competing with states filled with urban, suburban, and rural areas—so this is likely more a triumph for cities than it is for the District.

Photo via George Eastman House

Depressing Feminist Graph #1:

According to the Economist, safe abortions worldwide decreased markedly between 1995 and 2003. Unsafe abortions, though—holding strong as ever! The good—and totally obvious—news is that banning and restricting abortion does not decrease abortions, so you might as well just make them legal and safe. In fact, in places where abortions are legal and safe, women have fewer safe abortions, too, probably because the contraception is flowin' freely there as well. [Depressing Feminist Graph hat tip to Pukeimmediately].

Depressing Feminist Graph #2:

Unfortunately, when that contraception flows all the way into the strip club, it can have some negative economic effects for exotic dancers. The second depressing feminist graph comes courtesy of Julie Sunday, who notes a recent study which found that "women on the pill are attracted to more 'boyish' features in men." The feminist blogs are all over the study's more widely reported findings. But Sunday read, like, the whole fucking thing, and mined this interesting economic tidbit:

Strippers who are not taking the pill report an increase in lapdance revenue around ovulation whereas pill-taking strippers (who are thus not ovulating) do not see a spike in their revenue and earn less throughout the cycle. No, really.

Dotted line: strippers on the pill; solid line: strippers not on the pill.

Damn, girl. That's a 50-dollar-per-shift difference during the menstrual cycle, and a full 200-dollar-per-shift-difference at the stripper's most fertile. Somebody should do this study on women in other professions and see what they can shell up. Julie Sunday suggests that strippers looking for safety in the bedroom and success in the workplace ought to just go hormone-free, but not every type of contraception works for every woman. Would you change your method of contraception to get more tips?

Commenters on the Times' Web site offered celebration, concern, and schoolyard commentary:

"Great …they can pay for dinner, vacation, etc," wrote one commenter, writing under the name "$".

"Careful lest people think you not only want gains for women, but losses for men. As long as women are ahead, it’s all good!" snarked another.

And the inevitable: "Is it just a coincidence that the first chart looks like a horizontal phallic symbol?"

Sigh. Of COURSE the "mancession" yields clearly phallic statistical data! If there's any silver lining to men losing, it's that they'll have a lot more time on their hands to uncover all the secret penis line drawings hidden in everyday objects. Too bad only I get paid to do shit like that!

Today, Bloomberg's William Pesek applauds Malaysia for finally making international headlines based on its economic strength—and not on its gay sex scandals.

"Malaysia is in the global financial pages, and for a change it has little to do with sodomy," Pesek reports.

Pesek, unfortunately, leads his own examination of Malaysian economics with a recap of the nation's most infamous gay sex scandal—former Deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim's alleged (and illegal) tryst with a man.

So, thanks to Pesek, even when Malaysia is making financial news unrelated to gay sex, "Gay Sex" still make up the first two words in the story's headline. Congratulations to Malaysia, and to William "Gay Sex" Pesek for really working the search engines on this one!