The Equal Rites Awards

So close and yet so far:

And now let us pause to celebrate Aug. 26, the anniversary of women's suffrage in the United States. It's been 85 years since Harry Burn, a young Tennessee legislator, followed the advice of his mom and cast the deciding vote ratifying the 19th Amendment.

In this spirit, our one-woman committee met again this year to dispense prizes to those who labored mightily throughout the past year to set back the cause of women. Without further ado, we present the Equal Rites Awards:

We begin, as we must, by going overseas, where so many vie for the International Ayatollah Prize. This year it goes to the Islamic clerics in northwest India who ruled that a woman raped by her father-in-law not only had to leave her husband but had to marry his rapist father. To those pro-family clerics we lend a fatwa: Don't just blame the victim, marry her.

While we are abroad, the Double Standard Bearer Prize goes to our allies, the Saudis, who still refuse to give women the keys to the kingdom. The latest petition opposing women drivers explained, 'Women are less decisive than men and less capable of dealing with difficult situations.' To the oil-rich and common sense-deprived Saudis, we send Indy Racing League sensation Danica Patrick to chauffeur them to the 21st century.

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Turning now to the court, we award John Roberts, President George W. Bush's nominee for the U.S. Supreme Court, the Let's Hope He Grew Out of It Prize. As a teenager, Roberts editorialized against admitting women to his parochial school because he didn't want to study Shakespeare's racy passages with "a blonde giggling and blushing behind me." Ruth Ginsburg, beware!

Finally, our Knight in Shining Armor Prize goes to George Bush himself for so many reasons, but especially this one. He didn't follow his wife's advice to nominate a woman to the Supreme Court, but he did let her appoint the first woman chef to rule the White House kitchen. Who said there wasn't progress?