Barefoot, Pregnant, and Quiet by Nicole Duarte

"A new report from the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC) suggests that Senator Hillary Clinton can expect a fresh onslaught of sexuality- and gender-based attacks if she does indeed run for president in 2008.

The commission's report, entitled 'Written Out: How Sexuality is Used to Attack Women's Organizing,' says that Clinton 'continues to be baited as a public leader both because she is seen as strong, smart and opinionated, and therefore 'not a good traditional woman,' and also because of the controversy surrounding her husband's sexual 'transgressions.''"

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Lesbian- or feminist-baiting can turn threatening, even violent. Last month in Uganda, a coalition of women's organizations were eagerly preparing a staging of Eve Ensler's play The Vagina Monologues when the Ugandan government abruptly banned it.

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Not all victims of lesbian-baiting are lucky enough to escape injury. Last September, FannyAnn Eddy, the founder of the first-ever gay organization in Sierra Leone was murdered as the result of her work.

"Lesbian-baiting does not just happen to women doing organizing around sexuality," notes IGLHRC program director Susana Fried. "It is part of a well-developed political strategy, and when women are attacked in this way it is a human rights issue because it threatens women's basic freedoms to mobility, liberty and security."

Seriously, we need to get ready for this. I'd prefer to see Barbara Boxer get the nomination in 2008, but I'll get behind all-too-centrist Hillary if I must. Either way, the Lesbian Card has been far too effective in dividing the Women's Movement in the past. Our straight sisters are going to have to toughen up. If you wilt at being called a dyke, and then let them get you off topic by making you explain that you really, really don't hate men, instead of concentrating on the issue that we really really ought to be paid fairly, we're fucked.