Photograph of earthquake victim by Nicholas Kamm/AFP/Getty Images.

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Among the many dead after the earthquake in Haiti are the three women who basically constituted the fledgling women’s movement in Haiti. Myriam Merlet, Anne Marie Coriolan, and Magalie Marcelin had just begun the work of reforming a judiciary that never took rape seriously and creating an infrastructure to protect girls and women against domestic violence and trafficking. They were killed at a time when they were most needed, since post-earthquake chaos tends to leave women especially vulnerable.

Photograph of Bristol Palin by Bryan Bedder/Getty Images.

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Last February, Bristol Palin told Fox News’ Greta Van Susteren that abstinence was “not realistic at all” for teens. Then this month in an interview with the tabloid In Touch, Bristol said that although she is obviously no longer a virgin, since she has a baby and all, she is now going to be abstinent until she is married. “I can guarantee it,” she said.

Photo by Darren McCollester/Getty Images

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Martha Coakley’s unexpected struggle in the Massachusetts Senate race has been chalked up to disenchantment with President Obama and her initial laissez-faire approach to campaigning. But something else could be at work, too: Masschusetts’ proclivity for male candidates. The state may have a progressive reputation, but only one member of its congressional delegation is female, and for most of the ‘80s and all of the 1990s, Massachusetts didn’t send any women to Washington.

Photograph of Hillary Clinton by Mandel Ngan/Staff/Getty Images.

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A new book about the 2008 campaign rehashes the feminist insults of 2008: Hillary Clinton as nutcracker and bitch. Rush Limbaugh’s crack about whether Americans "want to watch a woman get older before their eyes on a daily basis." Sarah Palin as "slutty flight attendant," she-devil, and pit bull with lipstick.

Screenshot from video by Ayesha Nasir

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I met Nargis, the prostitute whose tells her story in this video, a couple of months ago. I was leaving a well-known restaurant in the red-light area in Lahore and caught sight of a slim woman clad in a snug-fitting shalwar kameez, standing under a street-lamp. I was caught off guard by the pride in her gaze. From the way she stood—hips protruding outward, lips arranged in a pout—I could tell she was out there to sell herself. But unlike the other women I had seen in the area, Nargis had a dignity about her.

Photograph of Bristol Palin and Levi Johnston by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images.

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Bristol Palin wants sole custody of her 1-year-old son, Tripp, we learned when a judge refused her request to keep the proceedings closed. Judge Kari C. Kristiansen made the court filings public after Tripp's father, Levi Johnston, opposed closure, saying that Bristol's mother, who is of course Sarah Palin, "has a reputation for being extremely vindictive." ("Not that Bristol would ever be that way, nor that I would," he demurely added.)

Photo of Condoleezza Rice by Kevin Winter/Getty Images. Photo of Katie Couric by Larry Busacca/Getty Images. Photo of Bhutto mourners by ASIF HASSAN/AFP/Getty Images. Photo of Hillary Clinton by OLIVIER MORIN/AFP/Getty Images.

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This decade has brought us many memorable moments for feminists, starting with Britney Spears’ rise and ending with Jenny Sanford’s exit. Here are the ones that have lingered with our DoubleX contributors. Think of this less as a definitive timeline than a kind of wiki list, with a slightly haphazard, whimsical feel. It is long on journalism and books and short on international events, for example.

Photograph of pregant woman by Getty Images.

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Ever since the term crack baby came into vogue, state courts have been hearing arguments about whether mothers can be prosecuted for creating them. The Maryland Supreme Court answered no in 2006, overturning the convictions of two cocaine-addicted mothers. If these women could be charged with child endangerment, the judges wrote, then so could any mother for so-called reckless activity, even “exercising too much or too little.”

Photograph by Getty Creative Images.

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In her 14 years as a pastoral associate at St. Thomas the Apostle parish in Beloit, Wis., Ruth Kolpack kept quiet whenever her opinion on gay rights or women’s ordination veered away from official Catholic Church teaching. Parishioners, she said, didn’t know that she sometimes personally disagreed with the church’s stance until March, when the local bishop fired her.