I can understand the logic, to a point. ABC News reports that "86 percent of cosmetic surgery patients are working women between the ages of 35 and 50, with an average income of $55,000 a year." There's no question that this is essentially a tax on women, some of whom feel that plastic surgery is necessary to keep them competitive in the job market -- not just on rich, superficial stereotypes. Writes Warner, "The economy is terrible. Middle-aged women, many of whom reduced their working hours, limiting their earning power and ambition, when they had kids or, later, found themselves having to care for their parents, are in a particularly vulnerable spot these days, as they're increasingly called upon to supplement or take over the lion's share of family money-making. And any number of studies have shown that people with better (read: younger) looks have a better chance of getting a good job. Particularly women." Thus, both O'Neill and Gloria Steinem told Warner that this would amount to an unfair tax on women who are only doing what they need to do to survive in a sexist, ageist workforce.

A few things about that. First, having cosmetic surgery does not necessarily make you look younger; often enough, it just makes you look like you've had cosmetic surgery. So, not only are studies showing younger-looking people have an advantage on the job market a red herring here -- unless there are studies showing that eyelifts, facelifts, Botox, etc., improve women's ability to get hired, we still have no idea which procedures, if any, could cynically be considered a smart investment and which would only be a further financial drain on an unemployed woman -- but given society's general disdain for cosmetic procedures, they might actually sabotage a woman's chances. If she shows up to an interview with half her face frozen from Botox or a permanently surprised expression, for instance, a (sexist, ageist) interviewer might be dazzled by the glow of youth, or might just write her off as vain and ridiculous. There's no way of knowing in advance which way it will go.

Second, let's be clear: We're not talking about women as a class here, we're talking about white women. In 2007, "Hispanics had 9 percent of the procedures, followed by African-Americans (6 percent), Asians (5 percent) and other non-Caucasians (2 percent)." White people, then? Seventy-eight percent. Women who aren't white don't have the option of paying a doctor to minimize their chances of employment discrimination; racism will still exist no matter how young-looking and symmetrical they are, just as sexism and ageism still exist even if 55-year-old women manage to pass for 40. And while capitulation to bigoted standards (where possible) might be a useful short-term survival strategy for some -- as a bottle-blond who rarely leaves the house without mascara, I am certainly not judging individuals who choose that route -- there is a big difference between acknowledging that reality and promoting such capitulation as a feminist cause. Rallying behind women who feel forced into cosmetic surgery only reinforces the standards that drive them to that point; Botox and eyelifts may help some of our struggling sisters get jobs, but what of those who can't afford such interventions, those who will still be discriminated against because of their skin color or disabilities or sexual orientation? Helping white women maybe improve their economic circumstances by becoming a bit more conventionally attractive is really not the kind of goal I want to see feminist leaders fighting for.

Besides which, once again, we have no idea if it actually will improve the economic circumstances even of a select group of privileged women. As Laurie Essig recently wrote in True/Slant, "cosmetic surgery is now primarily consumed not by the rich, but by the working and lower-middle classes, sometimes even by the poor. According to the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery (ASAPS), about 1/3 of cosmetic surgery is consumed by people who make less than $30,000 a year. About 70% of it is consumed by people who make less than $60,000 a year." So the tax would indeed add an even greater burden to struggling women who choose plastic surgery as an investment in their careers, but I'm still not convinced that means I should be bothered by it. Essig goes on to say, "What these women don't understand -- what few of us understand -- is debt. You sign on the dotted line for your boob job at $8000 but you don't realize you'll end up paying almost twice that much if you can't put any money down. Easy for Hollywood starlets to plunk their cash down for new boobs, but for the rest of us, taking on debt for a better body is risky business." How long will it take a woman to work off all that debt at the new job she got with her new face? And will a tax on cosmetic procedures necessarily mean that the same people are saddled with more of a financial burden, or might it mean that fewer women decide it's in their economic best interest to take on a pile of credit card debt in the hope of finding a job that will lead to greater long-term security? Because if it's the latter, I'm really not sure this tax is a bad thing.

That doesn't necessarily mean it's a good thing, either, mind you. Essig offers a number of solutions I like better: "If the government wants to control cosmetic surgery, then the answer is to re-regulate the banking industry so these medical credit loans don't exist. And the other answer is to tax the obscene amounts of wealth being made by the likes of GE, who is selling medical credit to people who cannot afford it. Or the cosmetic surgeons income as part of an overall progressive income tax on the top earners." But I think it's safe to say we shouldn't hold our breath for any of those plans -- which is related to yet another reason why I can't see access to affordable plastic surgery as a feminist issue.

If you can be judged by the company you keep, then it's worth noting that Terry O'Neill and Gloria Steinem have thrown their lot in with the likes of Allergan Inc. and Medicis Pharmaceutical Corp., whom the Wall Street Journal reports "are mounting lobbying and public-relations campaigns against the proposed levy." Allergan owns Botox, among other things, and Medicis produces competing products like Restalayne. Representatives from The American Academy of Cosmetic Surgery and The American Society of Plastic Surgeons are also all over the news, trying to spin this as an assault on women's rights rather than their own wallets. "You're taxing a disorganized group that has no one of its own representing it," one doctor told The New York Times. "There's no American Society of Plastic Surgery Patients... You're not going to have a million-man Botox march." But fortunately for the poor, unheard masses, you really don't need on-the-ground activism when you've already got Big Pharma in your corner. Women who hope to maintain access to plastic surgery will do just fine without any organized leadership or the support of prominent feminists, as long as the people who profit most from sexist beauty standards are leading the charge against this tax. Heaven knows they have more political power than middle-aged women do. In fact, it's almost like that's the core fucking problem here or something!

And then there's this: Women die from the pursuit of youth and beauty through surgery. This week, an Argentine model. In 2007, Donda West. In 2004, Olivia Goldsmith. In 1996, Adrienne Brown. Two months ago in Miami, and who knows how many other times, a woman who had no public profile. Statistically, the risk of death may be minimal, but it can't be ignored in a conversation about feminism and cosmetic surgery. Is the ability to potentially maim and kill ourselves to look younger and prettier really something we want to fight for?

Look, I have no beef with any woman, up to and including Gloria Steinem, choosing to have work done for her own reasons; as a feminist, I believe in bodily autonomy without exception. And I can absolutely understand choosing to maximize whatever privilege you have in an effort to secure your own future; it's not pretty, so to speak, but I'm neither naive nor noble enough to demand that people quit doing that. And I don't have high hopes that this tax will make a dent in the cost of more urgent healthcare concerns, so I really don't care if it stays in or not. But it's still galling to see feminist leaders spewing the exact same lines as far more powerful people and organizations who depend on sexist, ageist, racist beauty standards for their very livelihoods, essentially to defend the right of white women who can afford it (even if they really can't) to make themselves appear more acceptable to sexist, ageist, racist employers. I like a good contrarian argument as much as the next overanalytical feminist, but no. Just no. Access to affordable cosmetic surgery is not a feminist issue. What drives women to risk not only their financial stability but their lives, because being seen as plain or old or ugly in this society can be just that devastating to their self-esteem and career prospects, is the feminist issue here. 

"Rrowl! Beware the Cheetah!" is a piece of such cynical, calculated offensiveness that my initial response was to ignore it entirely. But hey, I'm just a predatory female, and when that rodenty aroma of bad writing hits my nostrils, I can't help myself. In it, Morgan -- who pointedly excuses himself from the pack of prey by mentioning his wife -- alerts us to the growing menace of "the cougar's young niece," a woman who gets men wasted, takes them home, and then doesn't even have the decency to get up and leave. "The cheetah stays the night," he warns. (Yes, it's true, fellas, older Liz Phair-era riot grrls totally have a lock on the fuck and run.)

I'm all for mockery and making light of romantic foibles. But next time it might be helpful to add some wit, because the only insight here is how a story about female insecurity reveals so much about the male variety. Since we're all dumb animals, I'll speak slowly and break down why the story is so lame:

1.) The feline metaphor again? Really? Yet Morgan crams not just cheetahs and "self described cougars" into his story, but pumas and even the hoariest of all beasts, the dreaded saber-tooth. That shit is more played than "I Gotta Feeling."  If you're a woman over 35, you've probably already heard it so much that you find yourself copping to it.  Yes, I am a big scary animal. Now excuse me, I have to go take a nap in a gazelle carcass.

2.) While I'm loath to argue that a joke wouldn't be funny if the roles were reversed (in a good joke, it's the reversal that makes it work), I'm none too keen on Morgan's fantasy of desperate women sexually preying on drunken men. But good luck wringing comedy out of a city full of lady rapists.

3. The author's clear discomfort with females regardless of what neat species classifications they occupy. He grudgingly affords "Auntie Cougar and Cousin Puma … a certain dignity ... They’re out there shakin’ it up, slaying dudes and taking names." Ummmm, thanks? But as he channels Caitlin Flanagan, he reserves his greatest shudders for poor, lonely, spinster-to-be cheetahs. They're already "past the first flush of youth" and yet still "wanting to date or at least fuck 'above their station.'"

I'm not even sure how this whole aspirational screwing thing works, but gentlemen, you've been warned. The cheetah is out there looking for "potential mates," hoping, as Morgan's cougar pal explains, "her pussy’s still good enough to keep him." Why the insecurity? Because as another of Morgan's charming compatriots explains, "Getting laid is not as easy as it once was.”

4. The story's scolding reminder, via Morgan's cougar friend Angela, that "men like to chase." Ah, now we're getting somewhere. Congratulations, New York Observer, you're a Rules Girl! A woman who does not placidly wait around to be picked off by a wildebeest -- or maybe it's a crocodile -- is so unnatural, so terrifying, she threatens to throw the whole ecosystem into chaos. And who's the only man weak enough to be ensnared by her wiles? "A pussy."

5. Pop rhetorical quiz time! Why is it that gay men can classify themselves as bears and otters and all other manner of creatures and it seems cute and sexy, but female sexual animals are somehow just pathetic?

6. Final question: Is it possible to write about women and their dating habits and not sound like a nosy busybody, clutching at your pearls and fanning your scandalized brow at the garden gate? Answer: No.

Because the funny thing -- funny strange, not funny ha-ha -- in each eager new spin on the women-as-cougars-and-cheetahs-and-pumas-and-kittens-and-ocelots story is the same old criticism of us for our sexual choices and erotic initiative. Whatever species you name it, it's all just catty. Mrrrreeer!

In summation, there are three weeks left in this decade, and then I am personally shutting these BS trend stories down, rejecting all attempts to brand me as any feline predator.  You will hence refer to my ilk and me as naked mole rats. We like darkness, multiple sex partners, and starchy food. See you in the tunnel.

Never mind that Dr. Susan Love, author of what the New York Times dubbed "the bible for women with breast cancer," endorses the new guidelines along with leading women’s health groups like Breast Cancer Action, the National Breast Cancer Coalition, and the National Women’s Health Network (NWHN). For years, these groups have been warning about the excessive use of screening mammography in the U.S., which carries its own dangers and leads to no detectible lowering of breast cancer mortality relative to less mammogram-happy nations.

Nonetheless, on CNN last week, we had the unsettling spectacle of NWHN director and noted women’s health advocate Cindy Pearson speaking out for the new guidelines, while ordinary women lined up to attribute their survival from the disease to mammography. Once upon a time, grassroots women challenged the establishment by figuratively burning their bras. Now, in some masochistic perversion of feminism, they are raising their voices to yell, "Squeeze our tits!"

When the Stupak anti-choice amendment passed, and so entered the health reform bill, no congressional representative stood up on the floor of the House to recount how access to abortion had saved her life or her family’s well-being. And where were the tea-baggers when we needed them? If anything represents the true danger of "government involvement" in healthcare, it’s a health reform bill that -- if the Senate enacts something similar -- will snatch away all but the wealthiest women’s right to choose.

It’s not just that abortion is deemed a morally trickier issue than mammography. To some extent, pink-ribbon culture has replaced feminism as a focus of female identity and solidarity. When a corporation wants to signal that it’s "woman friendly," what does it do? It stamps a pink ribbon on its widget and proclaims that some miniscule portion of the profits will go to breast cancer research. I’ve even seen a bottle of Shiraz called "Hope" with a pink ribbon on its label, but no information, alas, on how much you have to drink to achieve the promised effect. When Laura Bush traveled to Saudi Arabia in 2007, what grave issue did she take up with the locals? Not women’s rights (to drive, to go outside without a man, etc.), but "breast cancer awareness." In the post-feminist United States, issues like rape, domestic violence, and unwanted pregnancy seem to be too edgy for much public discussion, but breast cancer is all apple pie.

So welcome to the Women’s Movement 2.0: Instead of the proud female symbol -- a circle on top of a cross -- we have a droopy ribbon. Instead of embracing the full spectrum of human colors -- black, brown, red, yellow, and white -- we stick to princess pink. While we used to march in protest against sexist laws and practices, now we race or walk "for the cure." And while we once sought full "consciousness" of all that oppresses us, now we’re content to achieve "awareness," which has come to mean one thing -- dutifully baring our breasts for the annual mammogram.

Look, the issue here isn’t healthcare costs. If the current levels of screening mammography demonstrably saved lives, I would say go for it, and damn the expense. But the numbers are increasingly insistent: Routine mammographic screening of women under 50 does not reduce breast cancer mortality in that group, nor do older women necessarily need an annual mammogram. In fact, the whole dogma about "early detection" is shaky, as Susan Love reminds us: the idea has been to catch cancers early, when they’re still small, but some tiny cancers are viciously aggressive, and some large ones aren’t going anywhere.

One response to the new guidelines has been that numbers don’t matter -- only individuals do -- and if just one life is saved, that’s good enough. So OK, let me cite my own individual experience. In 2000, at the age of 59, I was diagnosed with Stage II breast cancer on the basis of one dubious mammogram followed by a really bad one, followed by a biopsy. Maybe I should be grateful that the cancer was detected in time, but the truth is, I’m not sure whether these mammograms detected the tumor or, along with many earlier ones, contributed to it: One known environmental cause of breast cancer is radiation, in amounts easily accumulated through regular mammography.

And why was I bothering with this mammogram in the first place? I had long ago made the decision not to spend my golden years undergoing cancer surveillance, but I wanted to get my Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) prescription renewed, and the nurse practitioner wouldn’t do that without a fresh mammogram.

As for the HRT, I was taking it because I had been convinced, by the prevailing medical propaganda, that HRT helps prevent heart disease and Alzheimer’s. In 2002, we found out that HRT is itself a risk factor for breast cancer (as well as being ineffective at warding off heart disease and Alzheimer’s), but we didn’t know that in 2000. So did I get breast cancer because of the HRT -- and possibly because of the mammograms themselves -- or did HRT lead to the detection of a cancer I would have gotten anyway?

I don’t know, but I do know that that biopsy was followed by the worst six months of my life, spent bald and barfing my way through chemotherapy. This is what’s at stake here: Not only the possibility that some women may die because their cancers go undetected, but that many others will lose months or years of their lives to debilitating and possibly unnecessary treatments.

You don’t have to be suffering from "chemobrain" (chemotherapy-induced cognitive decline) to discern evil, iatrogenic, profit-driven forces at work here. In a recent column on the new guidelines, patient-advocate Naomi Freundlich raises the possibility that "entrenched interests -- in screening, surgery, chemotherapy and other treatments associated with diagnosing more and more cancers -- are impeding scientific evidence." I am particularly suspicious of the oncologists, who saw their incomes soar starting in the late 80s when they began administering and selling chemotherapy drugs themselves in their ghastly, pink-themed, "chemotherapy suites." Mammograms recruit women into chemotherapy, and of course, the pink-ribbon cult recruits women into mammography.

What we really need is a new women’s health movement, one that’s sharp and skeptical enough to ask all the hard questions: What are the environmental (or possibly life-style) causes of the breast cancer epidemic? Why are existing treatments like chemotherapy so toxic and heavy-handed? And, if the old narrative of cancer’s progression from "early" to "late" stages no longer holds, what is the course of this disease (or diseases)? What we don’t need, no matter how pretty and pink, is a ladies’ auxiliary to the cancer-industrial complex.

Within hours a host of gay or liberal activists endorsed the move -- Daily Kos, Jane Hamsher of FireDogLake, Dan Savage, Michelangelo Signorile, David Mixner, Andy Towle and Michael Goff of Towleroad, Paul Sousa of Boston's Equal Rep, Pam Spaulding, Robin Tyler of the Equality Campaign, Bil Browning of the Bilerico Project. Even the more conservative forces among gay politicos, like the establishment Human Rights Campaign, responded not by distancing itself from the activists' effort but by saying that donors should always think carefully when spending scarce resources.

Right around the time the gays took their hands out of their wallets, 64 Democratic representatives amended the House healthcare bill to ban women from obtaining abortion coverage in the new health insurance market, a provision known as the Stupak amendment. Women are supposedly "furious" about what the House Democrats did. But no one with money is on record as striking back. Can you imagine the response from gay political activists if the House voted to strip all money for AIDS treatment from the healthcare bill? Maybe rich women Democratic donors are reconsidering their giving strategies. But they're being awfully quiet about it.

We do not hear that Nancy Pelosi's best pals, Gap clothing heiress Elizabeth Fisher and Getty oil billionaire Ann Getty Earhart, paused their largess. In 2008 Getty gave more than $100,000 to various Democratic campaigns, $20,000 to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. Similarly, Fisher gave generously to various Democrats and $26,000 to the DCCC. In the alphabetical listing of the donors who maxed out at the DCCC's legal limit of $28,500 in the 2008 cycle, almost exactly half had female names. Sixty-four of the Congress members they funded voted for the Stupak Amendment. Yet we do not hear that Denise Abrams, Anne Abramson, Elizabeth Alter or Amy Stan -- just to take the first names on the list -- have threatened to withhold further $28,500 maximum contributions until the representatives stop the barefoot-and-pregnant campaign. The well-heeled Women Donor's Fund started a reproductive rights action circle and spent around $2 million to "create a values-based, affirmative way for progressive candidates to talk about their views that galvanizes support." The WDN's Web site says it "briefed thousands at both the national and state levels, including ... the leadership staff of the ... Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee." As the Web site Open Left points out, the DCCC spent $1 out of every $12 it collected from its substantially female donor base electing the 23 Democrats who both voted for the abortion restriction and against healthcare; they must have missed that reproductive rights action circle briefing.

Why won't women take a lesson from the bold voices of the gay movement? It cannot be that women think their contributions aren't large enough to pose a credible threat. Not only did women number heavily among the max givers to the DCCC, but they also accounted for 42 percent of the donations to the presidential campaign, a whopping $145 million. By contrast (although statistics for the heterosexuality of donors are not kept and strategic gay donors are clearly giving in ways that do not show up on surveys) we do know that during the primary, Barack Obama raised about $1.7 million, or about 3 percent of his contributions to date, from the gayest ZIP codes in the country. But that didn't stop the gay activists from raising the ante on him when they thought he was screwing them over.

Maybe women think the Stupak amendment is just one of those awful things that ultimately won't come to pass. Just be good girls and don't make a fuss and we'll water it down in the final bill. Word is that some such story kept organized pro-choice lobbyists mum during the months while the Catholic bishops and anti-choice activists successfully organized. Women's activism: the audacity of swallowing.

Women have been swallowing since 1973. In 1976, an overwhelmingly Democratic Congress passed the Hyde Amendment, pulling abortion out of coverage by Medicaid, and women did nothing to make the Democrats pay. Knowing that women were weak, the Democrats did not filibuster the Republicans' transparently anti-choice Supreme Court nominees, culminating last year in the court's decision in the late-term abortion case, describing women as incapable of making their own abortion choices. Seeing that women were weaker still, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and its Senate counterpart asked pro-choice women to gag down the host of anti-choice candidates the Dems had found in order to create a Democratic majority in Congress. Now the Democratic majority the women enabled is about to make the Hyde Amendment worse, and women are negotiating only about how much worse it's going to get. Anyone who knows anything about bargaining recognizes the dynamic: give in the first time, and you're weakened in the next round. And so it goes until you finally stop going along.

All histories of the gay movement record how much the founders took from the racial civil rights movement and the feminist movement that came before. It's time for women to return the favor. Gay leaders can threaten the Democratic Party with a few paltry million-dollar donations. To paraphrase the lady at the diner in "When Harry Met Sally," I'll have what they're having.