Photo: Michael Ruiz (flickr)

This week, blogs flirted with off-season fashion, urged activism on gender violence and the Equal Rights Amendment, and honored bravery, from the Egyptian elections to Stockard Channing’s stage injuries.

• Fashion Week is long gone, but there’s a surprising amount of fashion coverage about.   Lauren Indvik at Mashable tells us how designer Tory Burch has become such a sensation so quickly: digital marketing, especially social media. “We’re currently on Facebook, Twitter, Flipboard, Tumblr, Foursquare,  and Weibo, which is run by our team in Shanghai, in partnership with our editorial team in NYC. [Tory has] always embraced social media, and if it feels right for our brand, we’ll launch it, test our way into it, learn quickly and make adjustments as appropriate.”   That probably includes one of Burch’s biggest fans,  WVFC’style maven Stacey Bewkes, who herself gives us another fashion flash: a visit, at her site Quintessence, to Monika Chang’s new preview store.

• At least three people have asked lately, “Whatever happened to the Equal Rights Amendment?” We’ve been asking the same, as you know (here, WVFC’s Carla Baranauckas makes a particularly cogent case). This week  at Huffington Post 50 Plus, Hannah Gruderman charges us all to lead a new movement to push for ratification–or, as she fashionably calls it, the Occupy ERA Movement.  “There are some who may believe the ERA is an outdated concept put forth by the original vanguard of the women’s movement in the 1960s, and one that is no longer relevant,” she writes. “The truth, in fact, is quite the opposite. It has never been more important, essential and urgent than it is now. Women continue to be undervalued, underemployed, and underpaid–across all sectors–compared with their male counterparts. This must be changed.” She has a very specific action plan, including those social-media tools Burch deploys. Click over, and do your part if you’re so moved.

• In addition to Thanksgiving, last week marked the beginning of 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence. While it’s too late to organize an event, we can still participate. “Over 250 events are planned worldwide to call for an end to militarism and violence against women, including: A Silent No More! march through Yerevan, Armenia, focusing on violence against women; Across Alice Springs, Australia, a series of arts events focused on women’s resilience is organized, including a quilt exhibition; In Lagos, Nigeria, student trainings and dialogues with media outlets will be held to sensitize communities about gender-based violence; The Center for Women’s Global Leadership will co-host a Java n’ Justice Coffeehouse, featuring a military fashion show, at Rutgers University in New Jersey, USA.” The Rutgers center has full details, including a calendar.

• Speaking of women around the world, this week’s elections in Egypt are still being bravely covered by the women journos we profiled this spring,  often at great risk. Women’s Media Center reports the harsh news some of us heard on Twitter over the weekend, that Mona Eltahawy  had been picked up by intelligence and Ministry of Interior agents near Tahrir Square, assaulted and released; the WMC blog has photos of Eltahawy in her casts from two broken wrists, as well as other women who’ve risked a lot to keep women’s story part of this revolution.

• We’ve always loved Stockard Channing, from Grease to The West Wing. Now, Brett Smiley at New York Magazine tells us that not even surgery will keep her down: Channing is “heading back to the stage of Other Desert Cities less than a week after undergoing arthroscopic surgery. She went under the knife to repair a knee that collapsed backstage after a November 18 show. The surgery kept her out of seven shows, but no more. ‘This is may be stupid. I don’t know,’ Channing said. ‘But if it doesn’t blow up or get painful, I’m doing the right thing. ‘” We agree with Smiley that Channing is amazing whatever happens, and watching the Playbill video below makes us wonder if there are still tickets available.