"This is the age of taking action," says the announcer in the Viagra commercial I caught on TV this week. And really, is there anything more awkward and poignant, more can't-win-for-losing, than showing these winky male actor-types preparing for a little "action" in a Viagra ad?

Ever since the presidential election of 2012, when female voters brought the win home for Barack Obama, Republicans have acknowledged that they might need help on the female sensitivity/language front. (Binders full of women joke goes here.) This week, in preparation for the 2016 election, there was another series of unfortunate incidents concerning language and women.

A film noir for the digital age: a prostitute (a.k.a. "sex worker") was arrested in connection with the death of a Google executive from a heroin overdose after a late-night assignation on his yacht.

While the oldish gray men of the Supreme Court delivered a decision in favor of Hobby Lobby this week that rattled, enraged and felt stifling to millions of independent grown-up women, by contrast, the current marketing zeitgeist for tween and teen girls is full of you-go-girl messages about building confidence and power.