Maybe I'm a victim of seasonal affective disorder, but as we cruise toward the holidays, I'm finding myself blue and annoyed by humankind, rather than excited at the prospect of Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's Eve. Who can party with the world in its current state?

The right-wing brain trust that has President Bush's ear is also girding up for an anti-woman fight -- this time to deny a potentially life-saving vaccine to young girls out of fear that it could encourage wanton behavior. I was elated to hear recently that two different drug companies had discovered a vaccine that would prevent virtually 100 percent of human papilloma virus (HPV), the sexually transmitted disease responsible for most cases of cervical cancer, which kills 3,700 women every year.

Public health advocates are lobbying to give the vaccine to prepubescent girls, but social conservatives who preach abstinence are lobbying against it, saying it would send the wrong message. Presumably, "Sex is bad and you should not have it." But it seems pretty clear to me that the real message is: "This disease kills women, not men. What, we worry?" Let us not forget that now and in the future, women's bodies will be a virtual battleground.

But as bad as my mood was, it became blacker when I read a screed by one of my favorite columnists and (former) role models, Maureen Dowd. Her New York Times Magazine piece "What's a Modern Girl to Do?" ran on Oct. 30 and was forwarded to me by several friends. In case you somehow managed to miss the brouhaha, Dowd essentially announced the death of feminism.

This was her thesis and she whipped up a nice souffle of "facts" to back it up. Alas, her case was heinously flawed (dissected nicely for non-accuracy on various Web sites including womensenews.org) and depended on such sturdy research as Dowd asking one male colleague at the Times for his opinions. Her conclusions were written with typical brilliant style but had a lot of women shaking their heads.

In one typically sweeping statement, Dowd wrote: "Women moving up still strive to marry up. Men moving up still tend to marry down. The two sexes' going in opposite directions has led to an epidemic of professional women missing out on husbands and kids."

Wow, I could have sworn that unmarried women our age (she and I are the same) are often single by choice -- and that husbands are no longer a requirement to have kids. And this was just one baffling comment in a litany of them that all led to the same conclusion: Women can never hope to get a man if they are smart and capable and want to be an equal. It's time to start acting more deferential.

"Maybe we should have known that the story of women's progress would be more of a zigzag than a superhighway, that the triumph of feminism would last a nanosecond while the backlash lasted 40 years," she writes, heaving a virtual sigh.

Abercrombie & Fitch clothing company was at it again. After having to pull thousands of racist T-shirts from its shelves a couple years ago (for a fake Chinese laundry -- the slogan was Two Wongs Can Make it White), it was getting more publicity for the latest line of idiotic T-shirts -- this time sexist and anti-female. The shirts said things such as, "Who Needs Brains When You Have These?" (the words displayed prominently across the chest area), "No Money No Car No Chance" and "All Men Like Tig Old Bitties." Cute, eh?

There was the well-deserved and predictable angry reaction from women's groups, parent organizations and even some male politicians. But the story really started getting attention when a group of 23 girls (age 13 to 16) from Pennsylvania organized a national boycott. Make that, "girlcott," as they dubbed it. They were offended by the "Who Needs Brains" and "Tig Old Bitties" shirts -- as well as by those that pit girls against each other, such as "Do I Make You Look Fat?" and "Don't Be Jealous."

"We, as young women and girls, do not need to create extra competition between our ranks," 16-year-old Emma Blackman-Mathis of Pittsburgh told one reporter.

Before you knew it, the girls had interviews on "Today," CNN and Fox. And within days, Abercrombie & Fitch capitulated somewhat by removing two of the most grievous T-shirts from its stores.

The store released a statement: "In recognition that these T-shirts might be found to be objectionable to many young women, who are among our best customers, we contacted (the group) and offered to discuss the issue with them. We recognize that the shirts in question, while meant to be humorous, might be troubling to some."

This was a little story that probably slipped by most people, but it came along at just the right time for me. No one can ever write off feminism -- or women in general -- as long as we have young ones like these coming up through the ranks. This might be a happy Thanksgiving after all.

This is cache, read story here