In a groundbreaking study that will surprise very few people, researchers have found that military wives whose spouses experience long-term deployments are at a higher risk for mental-health problems than their counterparts whose husbands live and work near home. The study, published in the current issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, found that 36.6 percent of U.S. Army wives whose husbands had deployed had at least one mental-health diagnosis, compared with 30.5 percent of women whose husbands had not deployed. Among these diagnoses are elevated rates of depression, sleep disorders, and anxiety; researchers posit that "besides fear for the safety of their loved ones, spouses of deployed personnel often face challenges of maintaining a household, coping as a single parent, and experiencing marital strain due to a deployment-induced separation of an uncertain duration."

This research is provocative in part because it’s the largest study of its kind, examining electronic medical data for more than 250,000 of the nearly 300,000 women whose active-duty husbands were deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan from 2003-2006. As the lead researcher has commented, it’s an opportunity to quantify the stress of combat deployment on military families.

It’s particularly satisfying to me, as a military spouse experiencing a long deployment, that the accompanying NEJM editorial outlines why Americans should care. The mental health of military spouses is actually a public-health issue, since most military families will eventually move outside the sphere of military facilities, requiring civilian providers and services. Although happy spouses make happy troops—it’s widely acknowledged now that the attitude and satisfaction of military dependents can either boost or crush the morale of the servicemember and directly affect rates of retention—this is secondary to the concerns of the researchers.

And that’s exactly why this is landmark research. The study of the mental health of today’s military families, who experience longer and more frequent combat deployments, is in its infancy. Among the few studies that have been published, the well-deserved focus on the emotional travails of military children and the overarching concerns of servicemembers with PTSD have turned the mental health of military spouses into a footnote. In a recent RAND report on the experience of children from military families, for example, authors simply noted that "families in which caregivers face mental health issues may need more support for both caregiver and child."

NEJM’s in-depth look at today’s military wives acknowledges, for the first time, that these women’s mental health is worthy of examination not just because of how it impacts their children, their husbands, or America’s fighting force. And that’s cause for celebration.

Tags: afghanistan, deployment diary, Iraq, Military Wives

I am trying to decide what exactly is so disturbing about this Cindy McCain ad against Proposition 8. Is it those dead drug-addict eyes? The strategic placement of the tape to hide any frown lines? The sanitarium background? The anorexic fade into nothingness? In my mind I imagine the whole thing as a protest not against banning gay marriage but against her husband who, according to the dishy book Game Change, was known to yell "FUCK YOU! FUCK YOU! FUCK, FUCK, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!!!" at Cindy until she burst out in tears. Whatever it is, her third act is likely to be craaaazy, as one Slate colleague pointed out. "In ten years she’ll be touring gay bars doing her cabaret act."

Photograph of Cindy McCain via the No H8 campaign website.

Tags: Cindy McCain and Prop 8

Tracy Flick references have abounded lately, Meredith. The New York Observer has a piece in which the famously strident character is likened to Sen. Kristen Gillibrand (a common comparison Emily Bazelon referenced on DoubleX earlier this week). The article is trying to explain why helicopter-taking, pedicure-getting Harold Ford Jr. is considered a serious contender for Gillibrand's seat and why her poll numbers are so mediocre. But the piece ends up mostly as a dig at her voice, which the Observer gets a trained sociolinguist to describe as totally Valley Girl: "Ms. Gillibrand often employs a 'rising intonation pattern at the end of declarative clauses that lay people tend to associate with teenage girls, a tendency that gives way to a classic trigger of linguistic profiling.' ... 'In general, she speaks in a much less formal register than one expects from a senator.' " Ford, meanwhile, is relatively silver-tongued and gives an aura of having gravitas in person, apparently—at least far more than he does in print.

Gillibrand is 43, not 17, with a JD and an Ivy League degree. She also came of age in the ‘80s, when "upspeak" seemed to bubble its way into the American dialect. Can we really fault her for her voice?

Maybe! In response to the discussion on the DoubleX Facebook page about Clay Shirky’s argument that women need to become better at selling themselves, reader Gay Maxwell noted that while older women might have a problem with the very concept of self-promotion, younger women, despite being ready to put themselves forward, can unwittingly undercut themselves through poor presentation. They need self-promotion "training" because "they've all learned to place a question mark at the end of their sentences when they speak." It’s hard to declare that you’re the woman for the job when you’re asking us, um, if you’re the woman for the job? Riiight?

My dad gave me a hard time in my teens about upspeak, mostly because he was a little shocked in the '90s when he began encountering smart young female lawyers who talked like nervous teenagers. Upspeak didn’t play well in court, and I’m glad he pointed that out. Telling your teenage daughter to project confidence in all situations is feminist parenting, though it might come across as surface-level sexist to harp on the patterns of speech of "lady lawyers," (or "lady pols" or really, any situation in which "lady" is affixed before a profession). Maybe it's unfair that a distinctly female pattern of speech signals inexperience or a lack of gravitas. And it might seem shallow to emphasize presentation over substance, but that’s the way the world works, lots of the time.

So why can’t Gillibrand rid herself of the Valley Girl cadences? After the devastating Observer piece, I’ve no doubt her handlers will herd her off to a Henry Higgins. But I’ve got one theory as to why she never tried to train the ditz out of her voice before: It’s a defense mechanism against the accusations of pushiness. Talking like a teenage girl makes you seem a little softer, and for a hard-driving woman who knows she’ll be taken to task for aggression or arrogance, perhaps keeping the upspeak lets you dodge some of that criticism, even as it opens you up to a different kind.

Photograph of Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand by Hiroko Masuike/Getty Images.

Tags: kirsten gillibrand

The late night war is over. Conan’s packing his pride and leaving NBC with a nice settlement. Jay Leno has emerged with his old time slot, as well as so much ire aimed at him from the cultural elite, critics, and the comedic community, that when I tuned into his show last night I had a hard time imagining exactly who could be sitting there in the audience supplying polite laughter. My go-to gauge of whatever fantasy “middle” American sentiment we refer to when we bat around the phrase “television audience” or “American viewers” is my 87-year-old grandmother, stationed in St. Paul, Minn. She’s decidedly anti-Leno, pro-Letterman, and Conan-neutral. She thinks Leno is a “sell-out.”

Do a Twitter search of “Leno + sellout” and you’ll get an idea of how much that word has been hurled at the epically chinned comedian over the past few weeks. (Clue: It’s a lot.) Sure, by the essential definition of a sellout, Leno fits the bill. He violated some idealistic concept of industry support and took back the torch he handed Conan less than a year ago, probably for money, definitely for personal gain. But I’ve hardly read anything about Leno lately that didn’t take a jab at his gajillion cars or his 8-figure salary, which is strange considering Conan hasn’t come out of this ordeal a poor man. According to the WSJ this morning, Conan’s leaving NBC with a payout of 32.5 million.

Leno’s a sellout because he traded his talent for money. And he pisses us off not because he stole the show back, but because he’s not funny, and he doesn’t care to be anymore. Watch this grainy video of Leno on the Letterman show back in 1993. He had character. He used to be funny. (There's more evidence of this. Search: "Jay Leno 199_" on YouTube.) Now he’s an edgeless, middling host who plays to an imaginary concept of polite, family humor, when the truth is that even polite, family humor has gotten sharper and edgier over the years. Again, I point to my Midwestern grandmother, a lover of all Apatow movies—you know, the ones in which words and phrases like “dick,” “pussy,” and “Prepare to suck the cock of karma!” are thrown around more than “amen” in a Southern Baptist church. Our tastes have changed. The concept of polite humor is dying. And we’re pissed off that network TV won’t relinquish the old guard and please us, the American audience.

Tags: conan, leno, nbc late show, selling out

As Jessica mentioned earlier, John Edwards finally admitted what everyone else had already guessed: He fathered Rielle Hunter’s daughter, Frances Quinn. Coming on the heels of Mark McGwire’s announcement that he took steroids and given the superstition that things happen in threes, I can only expect that next week we will learn that Larry Craig really was looking for love in that airport bathroom.

What’s sticking in my craw about the whole story is the statement by Edwards’ friend Harrison Hickman that Edwards had to wait so long to 'fess up because “[t]here are a lot of adults involved, there are a number of families involved, and there are also a lot of kids involved.” Even now, his political career extinguished and his personal credibility at less than nil, Edwards has to hold up Elizabeth, Rielle, and his various children as shields. He's blaming the victims! He wanted to protect his kids? Then the right thing to do would have been to get this out of the way a long time ago. His younger children with Elizabeth are 11 and 9. They have been old enough to be aware of the rumors and the news coverage this whole time, and so have their peers, which means that these months—years—of speculation have probably subjected them to a lot of confusion and embarrassment and taunts from other kids. He needed this long to work out child-support payments? He’s a wealthy man. He can afford not only the support but also the lawyers to deal with it. No, I don’t believe for a second that John Edwards was protecting his famil(ies) with his denials and evasions. He was just being narcissistic.

Photograph of John Edwards here and in mantle by Matthew Hinton/AFP/Getty Images.

Tags: Edwards love child, Edwards sex scandal, Elizabeth Edwards, Frances Quinn, John Edwards, Rielle Hunter; elizabeth edwards; marriage and commitment

Just last year, I bemoaned the fact that no female character has had an abortion on network TV since Bea Arthur's Maude had one back in 1972, even though it is one of the most common surgical procedures in the country. That's about to change: A teen character has an abortion on Friday Night Lights, which is currently only on DirecTV, but will air on NBC again shortly. Warning: if you haven't seen last night's episode, spoilers ahead.

Becky, who is 15, finds out that she is pregnant. Her mom had her when she was a teenager. At first, she doesn't want to tell her mom, but "everymom" Tami Taylor convinces her that she should. Here's what New York magazine has to say about how Becky's decision plays out on screen:

What follows is the best and most honest portrayal of the heartrending decision to end a teenage pregnancy that we’ve ever seen. Other than Becky’s mom railing at the state-mandated pro-life speech that the doctor has to deliver, there’s not a single reference to the cultural war that still rages over this intensely personal issue. Instead, there is just Becky’s intensely personal journey: her sadness over her situation, her shame as she realizes that her mother once viewed her as a similar “mistake,” her overwhelming desire to be an adult, someone with responsibilities and love in her life, and, then, ultimately, her realization that she is not ready to be a parent.

There doesn't seem to be much public outrage over this episode, but I wonder if it's because Friday Night Lights is currently airing on a completely obscure channel. It will be interesting to see what happens in April when FNL returns to NBC in a 10 p.m. spot as one of the replacements for Jay Leno's show. Will there be boycotts?

Tags: abortion, bea arthur, friday night lights, maude

The transformation of rehab from a legitimate strategy for dealing with drug addiction to a 21st century form of religious-ish penance for the wealthy is complete: Tiger Woods is in rehab for "sex addiction." Addiction is the new sin, and fancy rehab centers have replaced monastic retreats for the American nobility, our celebrities. People who suffer from actual addictions who don't live in the rarefied world of celebrity get to go to prison or die. Or, if they're lucky, they manage to get a doctor who takes real addiction seriously as a disease and gets them into an effective treatment program. But in the popular culture, the word "addiction" is increasingly a trendy new way of looking at old-fashioned sin, and rehab is a rather expensive kind of repentance and for the wealthy, it's cushy enough that it borders on buying indulgences.

My already-present skepticism about the reality of "sex addiction"—one shared by the writers of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, who have declined to include it—is dramatically reinforced by definining Tiger Woods as a man with a disease, instead of a man with a fairly typical set of attitudes about women coupled with a lot of opportunities. I'd say a good 30 percent of American men share his notion that women aren't really for respecting and that cheating is only a problem if you got caught. If such men could get away with it like Woods could, they'd cheat just as much. Are they "addicts"? Or just pigs? My money's on the latter. Real addicts have trouble keeping it together enough to perform a job competently. Men who behave like Woods are the norm in professional sports, and they keep it together enough to be not just competent, but the very best at the job, even though they get laid a lot.

Claiming that men who like to have sex lives that hurt women's feelings or disrespect their wives have a disease is all fun and games ... until someone gets hurt. And this trendy new "diagnosis" of sex addiction is hurting a whole lot of people. Teenagers with normal sexual appetites are worried that they're addicts and aren't using protection because of it. The medicalization of normal sexual urges gives the religious right cover to pretend their prudery is merely medical science when they apply it to fornication, masturbation, and homosexuality. My fear is that if this trend gets any more popular, rapists are going to start pleading for sympathy because they're "addicts" who have a disease, instead of criminals who like to hurt women for fun.

If nothing else, the trendiness of sex addiction is keeping Dr. Drew's career alive. That's reason alone to be skeptical.

Photograph of Tiger Woods by William West/AFP/Getty Images.

Tags: dr. drew, sex addiction, tiger woods

Lauren and Meghan, I totally agree with you that a cultural double standard prevents women from getting away with the kind of self-promotion that men see as a natural right. And for evidence I turn to ... well, us.

Lauren, in your post on Clay Shirky's "Rant About Women," you seemed to lament the fact that an outspoken woman will draw charges of being "a bitch, a dyke, or other unsavory labels." Like "Tracy Flick," maybe? That's what you called Ayla Brown, a 20-year-old singer whose Web site is a little over-the-top, the day after you posted on women's reluctance to self-promote.

I'm sure you aren't the only woman in America who rolled her eyes when she checked out Ayla's site. I'm sure because I did, too. "The anthem girl"? Really? But wait, why is our reaction to a young singer with a Web site disparagement for enumerating her every accomplishment? She's an aspiring artist trying to make a name for herself—of course she has a Web site! It's exactly the sort of self-promotion that Clay Shirky would be proud of. But it's also exactly the sort of the self-promotion that's going to remain rare among women if every time they attempt it, we respond with taunts of "Tracy Flick."

Photograph of Ayla Brown by Ray Amati/NBAE/Getty Images.

Tags: american idol, ayla brown, clay shirky, Scott Brown

The Supreme Court just struck down campaign finance reform. No modesty or narrow remedy here: This negates the main limits on corporate and union spending in the 60 days before a general election that Congress passed in 2002. The court overruled its own previous decisions allowing that legislation to stand. It's a Kennedy opinion and a 5-4 split, conservatives vs. liberals, except for one minor part that lets stand the disclosure requirements Congress imposed. On that one, it's everyone except Justice Thomas. You'll be seeing a lot more attack ads, but at least you'll know where they're coming from.

The first part of the opinion is all about justifying why the court has to rule so broadly: "It is not judicial restraint to accept an unsound, narrow argument just so the Court can avoid another argument with broader implications." The court didn't go for the idea that the anti-Hillary movie isn't really an attack ad: "There is no reasonable interpretation of Hillary other than as an appeal to vote against Senator Clinton."

The heart of the analysis is that money is speech, Congress suppressed speech, and that is unconstitutional. The limits on spending 60 days before an election aren't a sensible effort to staunch the flow of money into elections, with all the influence-pedding that brings. They give rise to "classic examples of censorship." That censorship is "vast in its reach." Here are Kennedy's examples of what the law prohibits, and shouldn't:

The Sierra Club runs an ad, within the crucial phase of 60 days before the general election, that exhorts the public to disapprove of a Congressman who favors logging in national forests; the National Rifle Association publishes a book urging the public to vote for the challenger because the incumbent U. S. Senator supports a handgun ban; and the American Civil Liberties Union creates a Web site telling the public to vote for a Presidential candidate in light of that candidate’s defense of free speech.

The majority says it doesn't matter that the corporations can spend all the money they want through PACs, because they aren't the PACs and their PACS aren't them.

So there you have it: a knock-out blow to campaign finance reform. Just in time for the midterm elections.

Tags: campaign finance reform, citizens united, hillary movie, mccain-feingold

Almost two years after Frances Quinn was born to his mistress Rielle Hunter, John Edwards is finally admitting paternity exclusively to the Today Show. But it's not because the former presidential hopeful has had some sort of emotional revelation and now wishes to come clean—it's because his former aide, Andrew Young, was about to go on 20/20 and out Edwards as the dad anyway. The only person who comes off well in this situation is Elizabeth Edwards, who knew about the paternity since last summer and encouraged him to be honest about his love child for months, as Hanna pointed out in the DoubleX Gabfest last week. Oh, and I suppose the National Enquirer comes off well, too: They were right all along.

In the statement he released to Today, Edwards said that he is supporting Frances Quinn financially and emotionally, and his friend and advisor Harrison Hickman went on the morning show to do damage control on behalf of Edwards. When asked why Edwards waited so long to admit paternity, Hickman said something vague about how there are "a lot of adults involved who wanted to handle this the right way." The interviewer also pointed out that Edwards fathered the child after Elizabeth's cancer returned, even though he initially said the affair with Hunter occurred when her cancer was in remission. To that information, Hickman stuttered, and then replied, "You're right, he's been deceitful." What a sad, sordid situation.

Photograph of John and Elizabeth Edwards by Chris Hondros/Getty Images.

Tags: affairs, andrew young, Elizabeth Edwards, John Edwards love child, john edwards paternity, mistress, rielle hunter