The cellphone video (posted below) of Geisy Arruda walking through the halls of Bandeirante University in São Paulo captures the kind of walk of shame that strikes fear into the heart of every woman who has stood in front of a dressing room mirror, trying to imagine what would be said about the hemline of a piece of clothing. ("Are you there, god? It's me, Julia. Is this H&M miniskirt too short?") Arruda was forced to leave the school escorted by police, her pink minidress covered by a borrowed lab coat, as an atrium of 700 students chanted "puta, puta, puta" with vigor. (That's "whore, whore, whore" for the uninitiated.) "I was humiliated not only in school, but all of Brazil saw my videos. They tried to put cell phones in between my legs, inside my dress. This can't happen to a woman, not with me or with anyone else," Arruda told a reporter from Globo TV.

Initially, the university expelled Arruda and suspended 10 people allegedly involved in the incident. According to one of her lawyers, Nehemias Melo, the university forced her to go through a three-hour deposition, where she was asked super-relevant questions about whether or not she was sexually active. "What kind of education is provided by a university that expels a student for the way she dresses yet grants impunity to 700 other students?" Melo questioned.

Brazil's Ministry of Education immediately opened an investigation into the expulsion and gave the university 10 business days to explain fully. Quoth the university's legal counsel: "It's not the clothes. It's the attitude that Geisy had, for example of going upstairs and stopping in the middle of the hall, lifting her skirt." University representatives were quoted on Sunday in their best legalese, stating that she "was on the premises wearing inadequate garments," and that "on the day of the event, the student took a longer route [around the school] and increased her visibility."

Monday, it seems the game changed so that Arruda and the minidressed masses can breathe a sigh of relief. Accompanied by four lawyers, Arruda gave a press conference: "I felt guilty, like trash. I felt this because the university put me in that situation, of thinking that I was guilty of all of the rioting. In truth, I was very scared. I was a victim of the situation." Likely in response to investigations opened by several federal and civil organizations, the university revoked its previously "irrevocable" decision to expel Arruda. She has said she will finish the year and take her exams in order to not lose money, but will attend a different university as of the end of the school year. On Monday, a wall at the university was found marked with the words "prejudice university." I'll say.

Stereotypes about Brazilian sexual exuberance aside, it's almost unfathomable to think that one minidress could have students storming the proverbial Bastille, and pulling themselves up to high windows for a peek. Now, how is this Brazilian girl supposed to squeeze into the ruffled black miniskirt I've owned for months and never worn? Proudly is how. Still, it's a surreal, medieval and scary world out there, and a miniskirt isn't going to change that.

(Fast-forward to 0:31 to see cellphone video footage of the riot.)

Meredith Shiner and Glenn Thrush spend two pages exploring "the GOP's women problem," which is twofold: The number of female Republican candidates for office keeps dropping, and women voters stubbornly keep favoring a party that at least pretends to care about our needs (not that they're doing a bang-up job on the follow through). "Democrats," Shiner and Thrush write, "have long maintained that the Republican Party is hostile to all but the most conservative women" -- and since I take that to be not a partisan opinion but a verifiable fact, I guess I just don't get how anyone could be confused about why the GOP alienates women who are neither ultra-right-wing nor self-loathing. But apparently, many Republicans are befuddled.

They just can't understand what's gone wrong, apparently, when they even try extra hard to "emphasize the contributions of their female members" -- like Virgina Foxx, whose remarks about the healthcare reform bill began, "I believe we have more to fear from the potential of that bill passing than we do from any terrorist right now in any country." And Michele Bachmann who, in a characteristically paranoid and nonsensical statement, recently called a teabagger protest against that bill "the Super Bowl of our freedom." And Sarah Palin, who... you get the picture.

But what about the more moderate Republican women, the ones less likely to favor "folksy" ignorance and tinfoil millinery? Well naturally, they get punished! Maine representative Olympia Snowe has been warned that she'd better bow to the hardcore conservative base instead of continuing to take a more balanced approach to serving her constituents. And Dede Scozzafava was shoved out of the race in New York's 23rd district last week because, unlike her more conservative opponent, Doug Hoffman, she believes in gay rights and reproductive freedom. (Democrat Bill Owens won the election -- with Scozzafava's support.) Says her moderate Republican friend Janet Duprey, "It has been very difficult to watch. You have to ask some of these men, why weren't they there with our Republican candidate when she could have really used our help?"

Write Shiner and Thrush:

Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.), one of the most outspoken feminists in the House, put it more bluntly: "This is a party that doesn't respect women, a party that doesn't believe women are equal to men," she told POLITICO. "I don't think they attract women to their party," added Wasserman Schultz. "I think they repulse women."

Ding ding ding! Treating women as baby factories repulses women. Comparing having a vagina to smoking cigarettes, in terms of health insurance penalties, repulses women. (TBogg at Firedoglake: "In all fairness, you are already well compensated by no-cover Ladies Nights and two-for-one drink specials, so let's just call this even-stevens.") Opposing equal pay for equal work repulses women. Supporting companies that cover up rape repulses women. Holding up women like Foxx, Bachmann and Palin as examples of feminine greatness repulses women -- as do claims that those of us who are repulsed are ugly, jealous spinsters who are just terrified of their success. (I admit that I find their success terrifying, but not for the reasons Bachmann thinks.) How hard is this to understand?

Answer: It's not. Which makes it difficult to take Republicans seriously when they say they're interested in recruiting more female politicians or appealing to female voters in any sense except the obvious "We would like to win more elections" one. Sure, they want our votes, but not if it means demonstrating respect for us. And in fact, instead of taking even a baby step toward respect for women, they're cracking down on female politicians who won't suck up to the most conservative, anti-woman voters out there. This is the kind of problem that could be explained to them by a lolcat, let alone a human being with an iota of political savvy.

In fairness to the GOP, they have watched Americans elect plenty of Democrats who are perfectly willing to throw women under the bus, so I can see how they might get confused. But still, if they're actually looking to improve their image in the eyes of female voters? Not repulsing us would be a good start.

Then I regained perspective: This has to be said.

Abbie E. Goldberg, an assistant psychology professor at Clark University, has done just that in her book, "Lesbian and Gay Parents and Their Children," which analyzes more than 100 studies on same-sex families. The Times' Lisa Belkin summarizes the book's finding like so: The children of gay and lesbian couples "show no increased incidence of psychiatric disorders, are just as popular at school and have just as many friends." Then there's this stereotype-shattering fact: "Neither sex is more likely to suffer from gender confusion nor to identify themselves as gay" as a result of being raised by same-sex parents. 

On the other hand, "These children tend to be less conventional and more flexible when it comes to gender roles and assumptions than those raised in more traditional families." They have more progressive and egalitarian attitudes toward sex roles. For girls, that translates into a less restricted sense of their own possibilities: Daughters of lesbians are far more likely to "aspire to professions that are traditionally considered male, like doctors or lawyers." Both sons and daughters of same-sex couples are more likely to end up working in social justice -- presumably because they witnessed first-hand some of the profound discrimination that is considered acceptable in this country.

The book's findings may seem glowingly positive to progressives -- in fact, it makes you wonder, as Belkin does, how it is that children are so rarely used as an argument in defense of gay marriage. Still, there is plenty for homophobic, strident traditionalists to interpret negatively. Some will inevitably argue that egalitarian households and other non-traditional influences pose a threat to the fabric of marriage (or something). 

Then there's this little gem, as explained by Belkin: "Girls raised by lesbian mothers seem slightly more likely to have more sexual partners, and boys slightly more likely to have fewer, than those raised by heterosexual mothers." Surely some will interpret this to mean that lesbian mothers invert the natural way of things, making daughters promiscuous and sons sexless. Of course, others like myself will be more inclined to assume that being raised in a more egalitarian household where sex roles are not rigidly enforced allows daughters to pursue sex without the usual shame imposed on girls and discourages sons from doggedly pursuing it as proof of their masculinity; in other words, it corrects for the sexual double-standards found in the world at large.

These findings are important and should be shouted from the mountaintops by supporters of non-traditional families and same-sex marriage. But statistics alone aren't likely to change political opinion when the results are so subjectively interpreted. For every person who looks at the data and concludes, as Goldberg does, that "these children do just fine," there is another who does the exact opposite -- or disregards the research altogether. Take, for example, this comment in response to the Times article: "Sons deserve and need a father AND a mother. Daughters deserve and need a mother AND a father. This is exactly what was originally modeled for us by God in the Bible."

I suspect the real reason children haven't been fully utilized as an argument in support of gay marriage isn't due to a lack of data up until now, but because so many opponents see this debate as having nothing to do with what's actually good for kids and everything to do with staunchly upholding tradition. It's perhaps a bit too generous to presume that children's well-being will actually change those minds.