Correction: This section originally contained a quotation from the Associated Press, which asserted that nine out of 10 women worldwide will have an abortion before they turn 45. The quotation has been removed from this section, after readers observed that that interpretation of the study’s data appears to be incorrect. The Lancet frames the statistic this way: “The total abortion rate, which can be interpreted as the number of abortions a woman will have if current rates prevail throughout her reproductive lifetime, was 1.1 in 1995 and 0.9 in 2003… improvements in data availability and estimation methods might have contributed to the higher estimates in Africa for 2003 than for 1995. However, declines in abortion rates in some regions are substantial and likely real.” For more, visit The Lancet Web site (the full text of this article requires free registration).

Women’s mags hawk girly cigs. In a Washington Post editorial today, U.S. Rep. Lois Capps, D-CA, inveighs against Camel No. 9 smokes, which are aimed at young women. The brand’s current ad blitz includes lip-balm and mini-purse giveaways and ads offering fashion advice in magazines like Lucky and Marie Claire. Capps writes, “In June, 40 of my congressional colleagues joined me in writing to the publishers of 11 leading women’s magazines… Not one of the magazines bothered to formally respond. We wrote again on Aug. 1. Seven of the 11 magazines responded, but none has committed to dropping the ads.” Of course, the magazine business is competitive, and cigarette manufacturers will pay big bucks for advertising — they can afford it, and the toxicity of their product means they can’t afford not to target new customers. But at least one major women’s mag has managed not to sell out to big tobacco: Props to Self for taking the high road on this one.

Would you like that lipstick leaded, or unleaded? The Campaign for Safe Cosmetics is pushing for cosmetics companies to get the lead out of their lipsticks, because small amounts of lipstick are ingested with each wear. The group does independent cosmetics testing, and in a recent evaluation of 33 brands, 61 percent had detectable levels of lead, and a third of the products had more than 0.1 parts per million, the lead limit for candy. (Among the worst offenders: Christian Dior, Cover Girl and L’Oreal. Brand with no detectable lead: Revlon.) The companies with leaden lipsticks say their products meet FDA guidelines and pass toxicology tests. But Dr. Mark Mitchell, president of the Connecticut Coalition for Environmental Justice, tells Reuters, “The latest studies show there is no safe level of lead exposure.”

Update: The FDA has said it will investigate lipstick lead levels in response to the campaign’s claim, though it has been unable to verify similar claims made in the past.

Hillary Clinton enjoys a little male attention. “Countdown” host Keith Olbermann interviewed Sen. Clinton this week, and asked her what she thought of the fact that her name kept coming up during Tuesday’s Republican debate. HRC’s response: “Well, I guess if you don’t have anything positive to say about yourself or your record or your vision for America, that might be an alternative, but you know, I’m running my campaign. I can’t worry about what they’re doing. It is something, though, that a lot of my friends have noticed, and one of them I thought, rather funny, who said to me, you know, when you get to be our age, it’s kind of nice to have all these men obsessed with you. I guess I could put that spin on it.” In general, I sort of wish she wouldn’t go there, but Hillary’s current laugh-it-off strategy does have a way of making her opponents look silly.

Rape at gunpoint, or “theft of services”? A Philadelphia-area prostitute arranged to meet a guy and have sex with him for money. She showed up at the meeting place, they had sex, and the customer asked if she’d have sex with his friend, too. She agreed, saying the fee would be another $100. Instead of bringing money, the friend showed up with more guys and a gun. She had sex with three more guys at gunpoint; the fifth guy saw she was crying, declined to have sex with her, and helped her get out of there. So here’s the question: Does the fact that this woman negotiated sex-for-pay with two of these guys mean she wasn’t raped? Philadelphia judge Teresa Carr Deni thinks so — she dropped all sex and assault charges against the defendant at his preliminary hearing, saying, “She consented and she didn’t get paid… I thought it was a robbery.”

Thanks for all the reader tips today — have a good weekend.

Court papers attest that “systemic, top-down discrimination against female employees is fostered, condoned and perpetuated by the highest levels of management within Bloomberg and by ownership of Bloomberg,” including the big guy. The Associated Press reports, “Their complaint seeks at least $48 million in damages for each woman. Separately, the EEOC seeks unspecified damages and a change in policies at Bloomberg L.P., and it said it brought the suit only after it tried unsuccessfully to reach a settlement.”

Bloomberg himself isn’t named as a defendant in the current suit, and has tried to distance himself from the brouhaha. When he was asked what he knew about the suit the day it was filed, he said, “Nothing whatsoever. You’ll have to talk to Bloomberg L.P. I haven’t worked there, as you know, in an awful long time.” The plaintiffs hit back with a motion claiming that Bloomberg remains involved in company operations and had discussed the suit with the company’s current CEO; the following day, Bloomberg acknowledged that he does still talk to management about major decisions — but not personnel matters — and was aware that an allegation had been filed against the company.

Of course, this isn’t the first such suit; Bloomberg and Bloomberg L.P. battled several maternity discrimination and sexual harassment charges in the mid-’90s — in one widely publicized case, he allegedly told sales exec Sekiko Garrison to “kill it” when she informed him of her pregnancy, and also allegedly cracked, “Great! Number 16!” in reference to the scourge of pregnancies plaguing the company. He denied making the comments, and the cases were settled out of court. Writing about the controversy for New York magazine in 2001, Michael Wolff read the filings in the harassment cases, and observed,

“The documents create a picture of not just a hostile sexual environment but a truly weird one. This isn’t Clintonesque lunging on Bloomberg’s part, but rather, what is alleged here is a broader, more juvenile kind of control. Bloomberg’s company is a playground, or clubhouse, or frat house, with Bloomberg himself as the strangely removed but obviously volatile bully or grand master or BMOC. That Bloomberg is the boss may be much more the point than the sex — insults, and the power to get away with insults, are more important than gratification.

…

Perhaps most of all, these papers depict a sense of a remarkable lack of control on Bloomberg’s part, or a presumed absolute freedom to say whatever comes into his mind — it’s a kind of corporate-culture Tourette’s syndrome. “If you had to, would you rather do that or that?” Bloomberg questioned Garrison, she says, wanting her to choose between a newly hired older female employee or an overweight male employee. The portrait in the papers is of someone who just can’t seem to stifle himself.

There is, too, Bloomberg’s alleged tolerance of similar or worse behavior on the part of his male colleagues and the casual and systematic retaliations that resulted when the women in the company didn’t play their prescribed role.

So, obviously incredibly gross and not OK, if true. But, just as obviously, we can’t know if it’s true; we weren’t there, and the cases never went to trial. Bloomberg has intimated that the current suit will go to trial, so maybe a reliable picture of the company environment will emerge. Until then, we’ll just have to content ourselves with some of the clear-as-mud pronouncements culled from Bloomberg’s 10-year-old autobiography by New York Times’ City Blog yesterday afternoon. “Michael R. Bloomberg’s 1997 autobiography provides insights into the mayor’s attitudes toward women,” the Times’ front page proclaimed, but I’m not sure where the insight is lurking — he loves his daughters, sure, but other than that the most relevant Bloomberg pronouncement seems to be this one:

Having a business career and raising a family create inherent conflicts. Investment of time is the primary controllable determinant of success in both. The one constant in life, however, is the clock. You can only do so much.

Code for “mothers belong at home,” or a middling example of inconclusive management-speak? Search me. We’ll all just have to stay tuned.

Other performers have reacted differently. The Pussycat Dolls went ahead with their trademark tangle-of-limbs act in 2006; they were censured by the Malaysian government for “sexually suggestive” behavior, and the concert organizers were fined. In August, Gwen Stefani went the other way, making what she called a “major sacrifice” by adding extra jackets and leotards to her wardrobe to comply with the dress code.

The performers’ varied responses to Malaysian rules reveal the variance of opinion on this issue; for some, Stefani’s concession to local requirements was the appropriate response — after all, these are Malaysia’s rules, and no one is forcing her to visit the country. Others argued that Stefani should have resisted the rule on principle; right-wing blogger Michelle Malkin cracked, “So much for that independent, strong female image she has cultivated.” (Not that Malkin’s position on female flesh is entirely consistent; blogger TBogg pointed out that Malkin is normally all about covering up but appears to make an exception when exposed flesh is likely to offend conservative Muslims.)

Funnily enough, Salon published an article last year titled “Beyoncé Knowles, Freedom Fighter,” which argued that performers like Beyoncé, with their sexy outfits and dance moves, “will do to Islamic fundamentalism what rock ‘n’ roll did to Stalinism.” No amount of church or state repression can contain the spread of permissive Western culture, or so the argument goes; by booty-popping with abandon, then, Beyoncé is fighting fundamentalism.

It’s tough to know whether following or flouting the rules is the best way for a performer to make an impact in Malaysia — or whether American pop stars should obligate themselves to make any specific impact on other cultures at all. But it’s interesting to note that, as is so often the case, the female body is the field on which this argument is playing out. (The controversial rapper Akon performed in Malaysia earlier this year, and while he was fully clothed, it seems a little inconsistent that the gyrating and lyrics to “Smack That” weren’t accused of corrupting the country’s youth, as a female performer showing a flash of navel almost certainly would be.)

Debate aside, Beyoncé’s tour rolls on; she’ll perform on Malaysia’s tour date in Jakarta, Indonesia. And actually, looking at her other upcoming tour dates, in locations like Addis Ababa, Istanbul and Kluj, Romania, I’m a little surprised that Malaysia was the only country to take issue with her sexy garb. I’m still not sold on the notion of Beyoncé fighting for women’s rights and freedom of expression, one skimpy outfit at a time — but picturing audiences around the world singing along to “Irreplaceable” puts a smile on my face just the same.

Jeffs’ attorney, Tara Isaacson, made much of the fact that Wall’s family didn’t prevent the marriage between Wall and her cousin. Wall’s sisters testified that the threat of being exiled from the community kept the family from blocking the ceremony. (Wall testified that she acquiesced to the marriage “as much as someone can agree against their will.”) One sister, who is no longer an FLDS member, said:

“I gave her an option. To me it was she could just leave. But then to not get married, she would have to give up our mother, brothers and sisters. I told her you don’t have to do it, but that doesn’t mean there are really other options.”

Isaacson also emphasized the fact that Wall had sometimes consented to sex with her husband, as though saying yes once invalidates any number of times she may have said no (or changes the fact that she was 14 years old and unable to meaningfully consent). During cross-examination, Isaacson asked,

“Isn’t it true that at times you acted like sexual relations with [your husband] were fine with you? Didn’t you sugar it up, use sex, and if you wanted something you would agree to it?”

The Deseret News reports that “the woman admitted she agreed to participate in sex with her husband about three months following her marriage in order to ‘get money and other things, to go see my mother or sisters.’” Trading marital rape for the opportunity to sell sex to your husband — sounds like a peachy state of marital affairs to me.

Isaacson also hit on the fact that Doe didn’t refer to the sexual experiences she’d had with her husband as rape until after her marriage ended, suggesting that she’s exploiting the situation for monetary gain. (Wall has filed a civil suit against the financial arm of the FLDS, seeking $1 million and property in Colorado and Utah.) All I can say is I hope Wall gets a fat settlement, both because she’s obviously been through hell and because a painful payout might discourage the FLDS from abusing other young people this way.

Some questions about the case remain. Like: It’s clear that Jeffs was culpable in Wall’s nightmarish marriage situation. But if he’s guilty of rape as an accomplice, what about the more direct perpetrator? Wall’s former husband, Allen Steed, says he never forced Wall to have sex, and he has not been charged with a crime. I’m not arguing that he should be — he may have been as much a pawn in this as Wall was — but some spectators point to the discrepancy as evidence that Jeffs should have been acquitted. The New York Times reports another oddity: The jury announced on Monday that they’d hit a wall in their deliberations, “but earlier today, for reasons the court did not explain, an alternate juror was substituted for one of the original panel members. The unanimous verdict came a few hours later.” What gives? I’m hoping more information emerges now that a verdict has been reached. Meanwhile, Jeffs awaits sentencing, and may face further charges for performing underage or incestuous marriages in Arizona.

After the verdict was announced, Utah’s attorney general, Mark Shurtleff, implied that isolated sects may be getting more attention of this kind: “Today’s verdict is just the beginning of a long journey to seek justice for all. Everyone should now know that no one is above the law, religion is not an excuse for abuse and every victim has a right to be heard. Let this verdict be a warning.” Considering the clash between faith and fact currently playing out across the country, Shurtleff’s words couldn’t be more welcome.

Update, Sept. 26: The Associated Press reports that attorneys in the case have charged Wall’s ex-husband (and cousin), Allen Steed, with rape.